The Culture War - Tim Pool - The Culture War #36 - This May be THE LAST ELECTION w⧸Stephen Marche & Phil Labonte

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00:00:57.060 2024. This may be the last election. Everybody knows the meme.

00:01:03.300 Tim Pool, and it's the guy with the butterfly, and he says, is this civil war?

00:01:07.920 Because that's me. We talk about it quite a bit.

00:01:10.120 But I do think, while funny as it is, and I love to roll with the punches, it's not entirely fair.

00:01:14.940 I didn't just one day come up with this concept.

00:01:16.760 There have been many much smarter individuals than I who have argued we may be facing another civil war,

00:01:21.900 especially with what we're seeing now politically with legal disputes, legal challenges, and this bifurcated culture in the United States.

00:01:29.320 Yeah, maybe. And this may be the last election.

00:01:32.820 Don't take my word for it. Ask Roseanne Barr.

00:01:34.540 Because she came on the show and she said, she doesn't think there's, she said, there will not be another election.

00:01:39.560 The argument made was, are you saying that they'll quite literally just have no ballots, no voting?

00:01:44.560 No, not necessarily.

00:01:45.680 It could be that we get a North Korea-style election where no one just believes it's actually happening.

00:01:50.580 But, I wonder.

00:01:52.400 So joining us this morning on The Culture War is the author of two books.

00:01:56.380 We have Stephen Marsh.

00:01:57.200 He's recently written, I think with Andrew Yang, The Last Election, as well as, your other book was The Next Civil War.

00:02:03.500 That's right, yeah.

00:02:04.120 And then Phil Labonte is joining as well.

00:02:05.760 Hello, everyone.

00:02:06.460 To help us have a fresh perspective on this, you know, because I'm the Civil War guy.

00:02:10.900 I'm always talking about it.

00:02:12.160 We have talked before.

00:02:13.100 Me too.

00:02:13.600 Right, yeah.

00:02:14.460 So, do you want to introduce yourself?

00:02:15.980 Well, I mean, I'm Stephen Marsh.

00:02:17.740 I'm a Canadian writer who wrote a couple of books about what I saw as the crisis facing American politics.

00:02:27.200 And, yeah, I'm really happy to be here.

00:02:31.220 I am Phil Labonte, lead singer of All That Remains, very failed musician, anti-communist, and counter-revolutionary.

00:02:36.320 Let's go.

00:02:36.800 That's a better title than mine.

00:02:38.300 He's got records.

00:02:39.240 For sure.

00:02:39.640 Yeah, he knows how to do this.

00:02:40.720 So, we talked a long time ago, actually, about your previous book, The Next Civil War.

00:02:46.760 I thought it was a really great conversation.

00:02:48.260 I think we disagree on a wide range of things.

00:02:51.080 But, I think we agree on, like, basically everything in your book.

00:02:54.160 Like, what's causing this?

00:02:55.900 Where it might end up?

00:02:57.200 And then I saw that you and Andrew Yang put out another book, The Last Election.

00:03:02.100 Right.

00:03:02.660 And we got to talk about it.

00:03:04.000 So, are you saying that 2024 may be our last election in the United States?

00:03:08.620 Yeah.

00:03:09.040 I mean, Andrew came to me and wanted to talk about this because he's extremely worried about the electoral system, right?

00:03:16.880 And its vulnerabilities, the particular vulnerabilities of the American electoral system and its constitution.

00:03:22.960 And along with all the other stuff that we talked about, you know, when I wrote The Next Civil War, like, I was very consciously trying to write stuff that I only felt certain of, which is very hard to do in the American context because everything gets caught up in, you know, flame wars and so on.

00:03:36.560 And I only wanted to write about things that I know.

00:03:39.280 And that's why I never ended up writing a chapter on electoral politics, right?

00:03:43.600 Because everyone you talk to, you're just trying to triangulate opinions.

00:03:48.660 Yeah.

00:03:48.820 And everyone has an agenda and you don't actually know how things work.

00:03:51.940 And Andrew came along and said, like, why don't I explain to you how this, how American politics actually works and we'll put it in a thriller.

00:04:02.080 And, you know, to his credit, he, you know, I asked him for two things.

00:04:05.840 I said, you know, if I call, you have to return my call.

00:04:09.100 Like, yeah, I know you're important and you're out fundraising and stuff like that, but I, you know, I need, I need the information quickly.

00:04:14.860 And also I want you and your whole staff and everyone, you know, to tell me the actual truth.

00:04:19.900 And that way I figured, you know, whatever happened, I would at least know how American politics works.

00:04:24.660 So, so the previous book, The Next Civil War, this is more of like an essay, a description of what's going on and things you've seen.

00:04:30.840 And the last election, the book now is actually more, it's a novel, but it's kind of predictive.

00:04:35.480 Is that it?

00:04:35.880 Well, I would describe it as a paranoid political thriller, but accurate, right?

00:04:40.780 Where the, like what, what we wanted to write was the most accurate political thriller that's ever been written.

00:04:44.920 So we get, like, we just got the absolute sort of core, like even boring details about the mechanics of how an election works, how, and, and, and these systems that, you know, people are always shocked when things fall apart.

00:04:58.460 But there's like, if you know why things work and how they work, it comes as no surprise, right?

00:05:04.200 So you've got, so, so again, this is a fictional depiction based on all of these things you've seen and what's currently going on and what you, like, it's kind of like what you feel could, could happen.

00:05:14.900 Yeah.

00:05:15.160 I mean, there's two, there's kind of two aspects to it.

00:05:17.040 So one is like the campaign stuff.

00:05:18.840 So that was like, you know, like I asked Andrew, like, what are the three most important dates in a political campaign?

00:05:24.520 Like where I'm trying to plot a novel here, like, what are the dates?

00:05:26.980 And he was like, first campaign fundraising report, second campaign fundraising report, third campaign fundraising report, right?

00:05:32.780 And you realize talking to him, like, you know, so like, you know, like one guy I talked to was a humanization coach who is an expert.

00:05:40.060 This is a literal human being who is an ex-Broadway actor who goes around the country teaching politicians how to talk like a human being, right?

00:05:50.000 Like, and he does some things like, he does things like, he does things like say something and then put a piece of Lego on another piece of Lego.

00:05:57.060 Or I'll ask you a question and then I'll throw you a wiffle ball and you catch the wiffle ball.

00:06:00.900 And they do all these, and this man does not lack for work.

00:06:05.020 No, the reason is that because their job is fundraising.

00:06:08.380 So what they do is they go into rooms and they give the same spiel 70,000 times.

00:06:13.620 And by the time they've given it the 35,000th time that they're asked the same question and they give an answer, they naturally, like, it's not really their fault, right?

00:06:23.000 It's just that they tune out, right?

00:06:24.960 And so it was him and, like, you know, I talked to a real live opposition researcher.

00:06:29.160 And, I mean, you talk to one of these guys for five minutes, you realize, like, everything I wrote in the next Civil War, not an optimistic book.

00:06:36.700 But, like, five minutes talking to this guy, I was like, oh, it's way worse than I thought.

00:06:40.600 I mean, it's way worse.

00:06:41.420 Like, talking to the oppo researcher, they kept saying, like, you know, I'm trying to plot a book.

00:06:44.980 So it's like, okay, when do you release the scandals on this guy?

00:06:48.380 And they kept saying, well, like, we unload the book here.

00:06:51.940 And then it's like, well, you wait for their fundraising report to come out and then you unload the book on the man.

00:06:56.760 And then after a while, I was like, hold on a minute.

00:06:58.840 When you say unload the book, is there a book?

00:07:01.760 And he's like, oh, yeah.

00:07:02.920 There's a book written on every American politician.

00:07:04.880 And I was like, can I see one?

00:07:07.060 And he's like, well, they're illegal to own, but I'll put one up on Google Docs and you can pull it down.

00:07:11.920 They're illegal to own?

00:07:13.220 Yeah.

00:07:13.520 Well, they're all, it's liable, right?

00:07:15.020 Like, it's, you know, I mean.

00:07:16.000 So it's civil tort.

00:07:17.380 They're all defamatory.

00:07:19.220 It's defamatory, right?

00:07:20.400 So I see one, like, of this random politician.

00:07:24.700 And it's everyone they've ever sat down next to a party that said something horrible.

00:07:29.480 Wow.

00:07:29.980 It's everyone.

00:07:30.920 It's every financial transaction they've ever been involved in.

00:07:32.880 It's every tweet that could be construed a certain way.

00:07:35.700 It's also, there was a part where it was like, this guy dated a female bodybuilder in high school.

00:07:41.960 Can we do anything with that?

00:07:43.140 Wow.

00:07:43.780 Right?

00:07:43.980 Like, everything that they could smear a guy with.

00:07:46.140 And I was like, who in their right, what sensible, decent human being?

00:07:50.920 Like, what would the book look like on me?

00:07:53.520 Yeah.

00:07:53.900 Right?

00:07:54.200 Like, on anyone, on all of us here in this room, right?

00:07:57.280 Like, you know, I mean, who in their right mind would do it?

00:08:00.540 And it's not just that.

00:08:01.320 It's really easy to take things out of their contemporary context.

00:08:06.080 Oh, being a human being.

00:08:07.780 Right.

00:08:08.100 Doing flawed things.

00:08:09.520 Making errors.

00:08:10.540 I'll give you an example of, in 2016, there was a story in the New York Times.

00:08:15.920 And it was considered to be highly dubious.

00:08:18.460 And Dave Rubin gave his thoughts on the story.

00:08:21.360 I can't remember exactly what it was.

00:08:22.540 There's a video of me where I said, look, if you give me the New York Times or Dave Rubin,

00:08:26.580 I'm going to trust Dave Rubin.

00:08:27.740 Okay?

00:08:27.940 And then what happens now is people will take that clip and be like, Tim Pool thinks Dave

00:08:32.060 Rubin is more credible than the New York Times when I was making a specific reference to

00:08:35.160 a single story.

00:08:36.460 That's the kind of thing that can appear in books like this.

00:08:39.040 Oh, that would be one.

00:08:40.620 The opposition research.

00:08:41.300 Yeah, it would be like that, except it would be 7,000 of them.

00:08:44.780 And 7,000 times worse.

00:08:46.360 Yeah.

00:08:46.760 And, well, also much more dubious.

00:08:49.080 Right.

00:08:49.200 Like, much more like, well, this is, like, you know, it probably is meaningless, but

00:08:53.560 we could do this.

00:08:54.440 So when I talk to, and the opposition researchers are like the most boring human beings you

00:08:58.440 ever met in your life.

00:08:59.420 Like bank managers.

00:09:00.420 Yeah.

00:09:00.780 Right?

00:09:01.020 And it's like, this is their job.

00:09:02.340 This is what they do.

00:09:03.180 Have you ever seen Sherlock Holmes?

00:09:05.500 What is it?

00:09:05.960 Game of Shadows with Robert Downey Jr.?

00:09:07.660 I tried 15 minutes and I was like.

00:09:10.540 Oh, you didn't like it?

00:09:11.020 As a Sherlock Holmes fan, I was like, this is the lowest form of Sherlock Holmes that's ever

00:09:15.480 existed.

00:09:15.920 Um, however, there's a, I do like in the story where, uh, to use my pop culture references,

00:09:22.280 they refer it that he finds the semi-automatic pistols.

00:09:25.280 It's like turn of the century, 1900s.

00:09:26.920 Right.

00:09:27.400 And the, uh, it's, it's Moriarty basically saying war on an industrial level is coming

00:09:32.520 and I'm going to own it.

00:09:33.800 Right.

00:09:34.140 And it was this interesting idea that the idea they're giving you is that for, for all

00:09:38.220 of us right now, we understand industrialized warfare with machine guns and air raids, but

00:09:44.000 before the, the, the industrial revolution, it was much more difficult to make weapons.

00:09:48.600 For instance, in, I was reading about researching about civil war weaponry and the, the, the advances

00:09:54.640 in, in, uh, rifle technology are, they're like 50 years apart.

00:09:59.460 It's like they, they, they use smooth bore muskets for hundreds of years.

00:10:03.800 Right.

00:10:04.100 And then once we got to the industrial level, it's just all of a sudden, everyone's got a

00:10:07.780 semi-auto.

00:10:08.540 It's crazy.

00:10:09.400 What you're describing with opposition research today seems like the industrialization of

00:10:13.960 politics, industrial, like of political lawfare, where it used to be that there was a scandal

00:10:19.460 on somebody that'd bring it up.

00:10:20.380 Now it's every politician has a book.

00:10:22.300 Yeah.

00:10:23.000 They're, they're going to, they're going to make up anything they have to.

00:10:25.040 And everyone is in a heightened sense of like rabbit level, you know, exhilaration and fear.

00:10:31.260 Well, I would say it's, it's partly that, but also the thing that I was amazed by, it's

00:10:35.520 funny, you know, because of course, when you say it out loud, it's totally obvious.

00:10:38.280 It's like politics is about money.

00:10:40.360 Like I knew that we all knew that.

00:10:42.320 I just had no idea that it was 12 hours of a politician's day.

00:10:46.560 Right.

00:10:46.980 Like it's, that's, that is the job.

00:10:49.080 It is gaining attention in order to get money in order to gain attention.

00:10:53.740 Right.

00:10:54.220 Like, so it's partly the celebrification of this stuff and the memetic warfare aspects

00:10:58.120 of it.

00:10:58.540 But like what they do all day is fundraise.

00:11:01.820 That's what they are.

00:11:02.460 Do you think that's why Trump, Trump was such a unique political figure?

00:11:06.220 And that's not trying to, to have a positive or negative cast on it, but he, do you think

00:11:11.240 that he was different and in a way that, or a different type of politician because of the

00:11:16.920 fact that he, not, not that I know that he did or did not have a book, but do you think

00:11:20.780 that like they were scrambling?

00:11:21.840 We got to come up with this, with the oppo research now, when he came down the elevator

00:11:25.220 because it, he, people would, he had, he'd teased it for so long.

00:11:29.800 There's so much oppo research.

00:11:31.140 I'm not saying that there's, I'm not saying that it's not, but it's not correlated together.

00:11:34.580 So when you talk to an oppo researcher, when you talk to an oppo researcher, I brought this

00:11:38.220 up.

00:11:38.480 I was like, what's the point of scandal anymore?

00:11:40.840 Like, you know, like there was a time I remember, I'm old enough to remember it where George

00:11:44.540 Bush chest, George HW Bush, checking his watch dominated a news cycle for three, four days.

00:11:51.380 Same thing happened with Biden.

00:11:52.380 When, when the Obama wearing a tan suit that can, that was like a, that was like a news

00:11:58.320 cycle.

00:11:58.900 So, you know, it wasn't a news cycle when Obama killed that kid, Abdul Rahman al-Awlaki.

00:12:02.380 That was not.

00:12:04.220 So Trump, scandal free.

00:12:05.600 So like opposition research very clearly, and they speak of it just this way, is like,

00:12:11.020 you are not looking for the bad things that they did.

00:12:13.720 What you were looking for is the good parts of them that you then sour.

00:12:17.940 Right.

00:12:18.080 So like what you, like, what is it?

00:12:20.240 It's, there's a, gosh, I can't remember it, but they like, you're not looking for bad

00:12:24.380 things.

00:12:24.960 You're looking for the best part of people to, and suddenly to make it seem garbage.

00:12:30.340 So it's, it's partly swift boating, but actually what you're doing is you're going into

00:12:34.600 their base and just skewing it.

00:12:36.520 For people that don't know what swift boating is, it was, it was looking at something that

00:12:39.740 John Kerry had done.

00:12:40.760 He was talking about something for, uh, in, for Vietnam vets, I believe.

00:12:44.240 And they, which was a general, ostensibly a good thing.

00:12:47.020 And they, they turned it around and made it seem like he was against vets, against everybody.

00:12:51.540 Yeah.

00:12:51.680 He was, he was a Vietnam vet.

00:12:53.540 George W.

00:12:54.320 Bush was a desert, you know, not a deserter, but like got out of it.

00:12:57.560 Like a, and, um, they managed to turn that, that is opposition research.

00:13:02.140 So with the case of Trump, there's nothing.

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00:14:03.600 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

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00:14:13.280 that we really care about you.

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00:14:29.360 Did I mention that we care?

00:14:32.580 To sour.

00:14:34.180 Right?

00:14:34.660 There's no point where like, what they actually should have done from an opposition research

00:14:39.240 point of view is made fun of his hair, made fun of his virility, and made fun of his money.

00:14:46.020 Like the fakeness of the money, right?

00:14:49.060 Like that, but they couldn't quite bring themselves to do it.

00:14:53.420 But that's, like, Trump is invulnerable to the kind of opposition research that other

00:14:59.140 politicians are absolutely vulnerable to.

00:15:00.580 So you need innovations then?

00:15:02.200 Well, he's totally innovative.

00:15:03.580 I mean, you know, like in so many, he, I mean, it's kind of funny because it's like,

00:15:09.240 is he an innovator or did he just react to a changing world?

00:15:13.780 Right?

00:15:14.280 Like, I mean, you could say it either way.

00:15:16.680 Like, I think I would be fine with either way, but basically he understood that politics

00:15:20.440 had become celebrity before anyone else.

00:15:22.840 He's WWE.

00:15:24.020 Yeah.

00:15:24.560 You, you, like he's, he's in the WWE hall of fame.

00:15:26.940 Yeah.

00:15:27.200 You do, you want to get in the ring with this guy who knows how to hit someone in the back

00:15:29.900 with a, with a folding chair and you've never experienced that.

00:15:32.460 He's going to, he's going to roast you.

00:15:33.740 He literally is the heel turn.

00:15:35.260 Yeah.

00:15:35.720 Right.

00:15:36.080 From WWE.

00:15:37.080 Like that.

00:15:37.620 I mean, that is what that is.

00:15:38.880 That is the basis of his politics.

00:15:40.540 Right.

00:15:40.920 It's amazing.

00:15:41.300 And, and, um, I mean, it's hugely, it's hugely effective.

00:15:44.880 I mean, it was one of the really depressing things talking to Andrew was like, we're figuring

00:15:48.900 out like who, who could run.

00:15:50.580 And Andrew was just like, look, they have to be celebrities and billionaires.

00:15:54.680 That is, those are the only people who have a chance.

00:15:58.600 It's like, and they just skip so many levels.

00:16:01.640 Right.

00:16:01.960 The, the, uh, skipping fundraising.

00:16:04.520 If, if you are wealthy and you do not need to make phone calls and make promises, you've,

00:16:09.400 you've, you've jumped the game.

00:16:10.480 Yeah.

00:16:10.740 And you still would have to do it, but cause the fundraising thing I learned is like, it's

00:16:14.440 not necessarily even the money.

00:16:15.800 It's that when people give you money, they fight for you.

00:16:18.680 Right.

00:16:19.140 Right.

00:16:19.420 So it's like, it, like it's, it's, it's, it's that when somebody, when you get somebody

00:16:23.620 to give you money, they are invested in you literally.

00:16:26.360 Right.

00:16:26.800 And so that's, that's more part of the political process.

00:16:29.780 It's more psychological than actually about the money then.

00:16:32.040 Well, it's also that you're, um, you're definitely going to vote.

00:16:34.840 I mean, if you gave 250 bucks to somebody, like you're definitely going to go and vote.

00:16:39.120 So it's, it's, but it's the same, it's the same, it's the same cycle of money and attention.

00:16:43.940 Right.

00:16:44.460 Like, so I don't, without spoiling the books, I know it's a novel.

00:16:47.660 Let's, let's, let's walk through the fact-based points of like, what's going to happen next

00:16:52.580 year that could result in this being the last election.

00:16:55.740 Well, here's the, the, the premise of it.

00:16:58.220 Like the, the, the thing that it moves towards is the process in the constitution called the

00:17:03.300 contingent election.

00:17:04.500 Right.

00:17:04.940 So what, what, what happens, this is, this has happened twice before 1824 and then in

00:17:11.940 a vice presidential candidate in 1828, um, if no one hits the threshold of 270 electoral

00:17:19.360 college votes, what then happens is that it goes to, and for, by January 6th, right.

00:17:25.600 For whatever reason, um, whoever, uh, what happens is it goes to the house and each house

00:17:33.160 has a state delegation that gives, gets one vote for president.

00:17:37.040 So the Republicans would win every time.

00:17:39.140 Right.

00:17:39.700 Like, because they just, you know, Wyoming, they, they, they have, they have more house.

00:17:44.100 It hasn't been.

00:17:45.640 Yeah.

00:17:46.100 There's, there's different numbers on it, but I mean, it's overwhelmingly in favor of the

00:17:50.060 Republicans.

00:17:50.520 Um, so this means that by this method, there's also a separate method for picking the vice

00:17:57.240 president through the Senate, which would, you could have a Republican president and a

00:18:01.340 Democrat vice president, which would be, I mean, hilarious, but, um, but you would have,

00:18:07.080 uh, like you would have, so it would goes to the house Republican, it goes to the house

00:18:11.140 delegates.

00:18:11.900 They each get a vote.

00:18:13.240 And so you have an election, which is constitutional, but which does not reflect either the popular

00:18:18.860 vote or the electoral college vote.

00:18:21.060 Right.

00:18:21.320 And so what you need for that to happen is a third party candidate with, who takes a

00:18:27.580 significant amount away RFK.

00:18:30.740 I mean, some of the numbers they're showing are pretty like what's in here.

00:18:35.300 Right.

00:18:36.180 Um, and if that happens, it's quite possible that no one at all would reach 270.

00:18:42.040 If you throw into that election denial and you, and faithless electors, which has happened

00:18:47.560 in American history, um, you get an election where the point is that no, it would be constitutional,

00:18:54.720 but illegitimate, IE exactly like elections that you mentioned in North Korea or East Germany

00:19:00.260 or whatever.

00:19:01.060 There's been a big conversation around, uh, you know, last, last night, a podcast comes

00:19:04.580 out.

00:19:04.840 Tucker Carlson says he thinks RFK junior pulls votes from Trump.

00:19:07.500 However, I think that's, that's probably not correct based on the conversations we've

00:19:11.360 had.

00:19:11.840 And I think there's, you know, like 10 polls and seven of them show the inverse actually

00:19:16.060 with, with RFK junior Biden actually sinks a little bit more than Trump, but regardless,

00:19:20.820 it doesn't matter.

00:19:21.880 Exactly.

00:19:22.360 My point is this, when we talk about that, the one thing left out is all that really matters

00:19:26.720 is RFK junior wins, maybe one small state or something.

00:19:30.740 Or, or, you know, even gets like, if he's in Maine and he gets some of the, the electoral

00:19:35.720 college votes there that could tip splits at splits, like, you know, this is a fine

00:19:39.940 game, right.

00:19:40.920 That you guys have been playing with your elections since 2000, right.

00:19:44.180 Like all it takes is like a tiny little flick to really prevent that from happening.

00:19:49.100 I think Nebraska famously has the split with like the urban and the rural area.

00:19:53.580 Yes.

00:19:53.900 So I actually myself can't keep track of them.

00:19:55.900 Like I tried for the book.

00:19:57.000 I was like, I'll have a map.

00:19:57.960 And I was like, it's insane.

00:19:59.980 It's this patchwork 18th century system, like keeping track of it, even for someone who's

00:20:07.020 like, I'm going to keep track of it for three months.

00:20:09.200 Very hard.

00:20:10.200 I think most states are winner take all.

00:20:12.580 Yes.

00:20:12.820 Almost all.

00:20:13.480 Almost all of them.

00:20:14.000 Yeah.

00:20:14.300 But if RFK wins even a handful of electors and then neither Trump nor Biden or whoever,

00:20:19.480 I don't think it's going to be Biden.

00:20:20.360 It's got to be somebody else.

00:20:21.280 But if they don't reach 270, then it goes to the delegations like you explained.

00:20:25.660 Yeah.

00:20:25.840 I couldn't find the number, but there are more Republican states than Democrat states,

00:20:29.400 which, which would result in the Republican candidate winning.

00:20:32.880 It goes back and forth, but there's just an overwhelming like preponderance.

00:20:37.560 The likelihood of it being Republican is, is much higher.

00:20:40.360 And so we had Jen Kueger on last week and I believe he's incorrect in his broader view

00:20:46.420 of this, but the, the general idea he said was the plan for 2020 was to with January 6th

00:20:52.680 was to disrupt the electoral vote count, which would, and, and Mike Pence first, Mike Pence

00:20:57.680 would say, I'm not going to accept these.

00:20:59.280 They got to go back to the state legislatures.

00:21:00.480 Right.

00:21:00.940 That would result in a contingent election.

00:21:03.280 If that doesn't happen, he believed that January 6th, his purpose was to disrupt the

00:21:07.280 count entirely so that they would then say, well, it's got to go to a contingent election.

00:21:10.900 Right.

00:21:11.040 I don't, I don't think there was a plan, uh, at, at least any high level.

00:21:15.140 So I don't agree with Jen Kueger on that.

00:21:16.260 I don't think they knew what a contingent election was.

00:21:18.560 I got it.

00:21:19.000 Right.

00:21:19.200 Not at all.

00:21:19.700 I mean, it's, it's, it's right.

00:21:21.480 I think a lot of these people were just, I mean, if you look at it, they were winging

00:21:24.220 it, like on a wing and some insane demand that they were like, what the hell are we

00:21:29.220 supposed to do?

00:21:29.840 I mean, that it was, you know, there, there's one guy who's going to jail now for, uh, like

00:21:33.160 two years or whatever.

00:21:33.940 And he's on video being like, we did it.

00:21:35.380 We're in the building.

00:21:36.080 Ha ha.

00:21:36.380 And it's like, what, what does that mean?

00:21:37.800 What is, what is, we did it in the 1600s, perhaps occupying a building meant you are now in

00:21:43.480 charge, but that doesn't mean anything today.

00:21:44.960 Um, but if Mike Pence did say, I think, I think it was like even one state, if he said

00:21:52.580 the state legislature of this state has disputed their election and it is currently in litigation,

00:21:58.520 I will not count these votes.

00:22:00.340 Trump would have won.

00:22:01.400 Well, I think it might've been two states.

00:22:02.840 Well, technically I think it'd be a little harder because the contingent election has

00:22:05.700 to take place on the sixth.

00:22:08.040 Right.

00:22:08.440 Like the, the electoral, the college vote has already, had already happened.

00:22:12.480 Right.

00:22:13.040 It's like, if they're, if, so like, the January 6th is just the certification, right?

00:22:18.220 Like they disrupted the certification.

00:22:19.640 He would have had to have done it prior.

00:22:20.960 Exactly.

00:22:21.620 So like on January 6th, if he had done that, it wouldn't have made any difference because

00:22:24.680 the certificate legally, because the certification has already happened.

00:22:27.740 So if the decertification does not arrive for any reason by January 6th, then it goes into

00:22:34.860 a contingent election, but it has to take place on that date.

00:22:37.340 Yeah.

00:22:37.700 Right.

00:22:37.820 The U S electoral system is, is both chaotic and incredibly specific.

00:22:43.920 Right.

00:22:44.240 Right.

00:22:44.480 Right.

00:22:44.800 Like, so it's, you know, it's not like they can in Canada, if something happens like this,

00:22:48.460 you just have another election in four weeks and that's it.

00:22:51.560 Right.

00:22:52.020 I mean, but you can't, you, you have no mechanism for doing that.

00:22:55.620 I, an interesting point was brought up.

00:22:56.820 I think it was Ian last night in Timcast IRL said, we don't need to rush elections.

00:22:59.960 And it's like, he's, he's right.

00:23:02.220 Like if there's an issue, I don't see a problem with being like, okay, hold on guys.

00:23:06.500 This one's going to take a little bit longer to figure out.

00:23:08.420 Let's just chill.

00:23:09.240 And then we'll, we'll, we'll litigate.

00:23:10.600 Everything here is like, no, it must be this day.

00:23:12.280 It must be done or else.

00:23:13.380 Particularly national elections.

00:23:15.000 The U S constitution is a seriously problematic document.

00:23:19.420 Right.

00:23:19.780 The constitution of course it is intentionally.

00:23:21.700 Well, right.

00:23:23.540 Well, I mean, look, it's a work of great genius, but it's a work of 18th century genius and we're

00:23:28.640 living in the 21st century and it doesn't, and like, like this part of this part of this

00:23:33.840 problem is the edge of it.

00:23:36.460 The resistance.

00:23:37.180 Just to be clear, like U S constitution is a work of genius.

00:23:40.840 Like I'm not, I think you're completely right, but it's just, it's just an antiquity.

00:23:44.320 The pushback that you, that you are going to get from people that are, that believe in

00:23:49.460 the constitution or that are, that favor the constitutional system is not so much that there

00:23:54.120 are not things that could be better in the constitution.

00:23:57.280 It's that if you allow someone to try to change it, they're going to change it in a way that

00:24:02.860 takes power away from the States and centralizes it.

00:24:06.200 And that the whole point of the constitution is not to centralize power.

00:24:09.220 But the constant, I would say the issue is the constitution can be amended.

00:24:13.960 And so Jefferson said, if you, if a constitution lasts longer than 19 years, it's a contract

00:24:19.480 with the dead.

00:24:20.440 Wow.

00:24:21.180 Right.

00:24:21.460 He said like, if you need to change it every 20 years, like Canadian constitution was written

00:24:25.680 in 1982.

00:24:26.560 We could all read it in this room and know exactly what it means.

00:24:30.060 The argument, the argument was because the people that signed the constitution have passed

00:24:34.200 away.

00:24:34.540 They're no longer in power.

00:24:35.440 So that means that the people that exist now didn't have any say in it.

00:24:40.120 So you can't say that it's a contract with the people because the people that exist today

00:24:45.740 had never had a say in the constitution.

00:24:48.120 And there's, there's validity to that argument.

00:24:50.460 You're, you're, you're in the, you're living with ghosts now.

00:24:54.280 Great ghosts, right?

00:24:56.020 Like, like some of the greatest geniuses that have ever lived, but it's still ghosts.

00:25:00.660 Yeah.

00:25:00.980 Right.

00:25:01.200 And like, I, I, and this, this extremely, this jalopy of an electoral system, like this

00:25:09.100 like patched together, like it is very vulnerable.

00:25:12.980 It could, I mean, it could break down.

00:25:15.120 Like, I don't know if it's 2024, but I mean, all signs point to like a lot of weakness.

00:25:19.920 It's, it's coming.

00:25:21.020 I got bad news for you.

00:25:22.040 Yeah.

00:25:22.880 Your book, the last election.

00:25:24.520 Yeah.

00:25:25.080 You got it wrong.

00:25:26.080 The last election was, was 2020 or 2000 or exactly.

00:25:30.340 And that was the point I was going to make.

00:25:31.700 We've had this, we've had this discussion and it's, is the last election 2024 or are

00:25:37.020 we already at the point where with 2020, the dispute, well, hold on.

00:25:39.920 There was also challenges to the 2016 election.

00:25:42.200 Well, hold on.

00:25:43.240 2000 was determined by the Supreme court.

00:25:46.720 And I, I'm a little kid for that, but the point is at, at a certain point, I mean, to

00:25:52.020 be fair, you could argue since 1876.

00:25:55.720 Yes.

00:25:56.260 A council determined who was going to be president because there was a dispute.

00:25:59.360 But yeah, we, we've, we've long had these disputes and then the machine gets mechanized.

00:26:03.500 But I think in, in, in, in fairness to what we're actually trying to argue, the contemporary

00:26:07.220 issue in 2016, uh, Hillary Clinton lost.

00:26:11.520 Yeah.

00:26:12.080 Donald Trump wins.

00:26:12.960 And for the next several years, they accused Trump of being a Russian spy or a Russian agent

00:26:17.200 or having colluded in some way with Russia.

00:26:18.980 Not my president.

00:26:19.900 Not my president.

00:26:20.600 Uh, and it resulted in hobbling the Trump administration in certain ways.

00:26:25.940 He couldn't fire certain.

00:26:26.520 Well, they hobbled themselves fair.

00:26:28.740 Well, I did.

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00:27:28.740 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

00:27:33.180 So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients

00:27:38.460 that we really care about you.

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00:27:54.380 Did I mention that we care?

00:27:57.780 I think it's fair to say two things can be true at the same time.

00:28:01.640 Yeah, that's true.

00:28:02.000 Exactly.

00:28:02.380 Two things can be true at the same time.

00:28:02.800 Like, I'm not going to disagree with that, but he was hobbled by, could he fire Comey

00:28:07.520 and could he change things that a president should normally change?

00:28:10.020 He wasn't able to do it.

00:28:11.320 There were a bunch of other issues too.

00:28:12.480 He was hobbled in a lot of crazy ways.

00:28:14.240 When he tried withdrawing troops from Syria, his advisors, the commanders lied about the

00:28:19.480 troop presence, lied to the American people, kept, that's insane to me.

00:28:23.460 And so if we're talking about the last election or whether or not we're in a civil war, we

00:28:28.100 need to consider the context from 2016 onward and probably before, like you mentioned 2000.

00:28:33.520 Well, I think the context from like elite institutional forms, like every, see, it's

00:28:39.980 so funny coming from another country because like in every other country in the world, there's

00:28:44.280 a civil service that is, has, has the power, right?

00:28:49.160 And the politicians, they run the country, the politicians come in, they can change the

00:28:53.420 civil service, but it's like steering a massive ship, right?

00:28:57.280 And in a, you know, I remember the reason I wrote the next civil war, honestly, is because

00:29:01.500 I was in Washington for the 2016 inauguration and a journalist calls me at like two in the

00:29:06.120 morning and says like, Hey, come to this party in Georgetown.

00:29:08.360 And I, you know, I was like, okay.

00:29:10.900 So like I go out to this guy's house and it was some like low level bureaucrat from FDA

00:29:16.440 or department of agriculture.

00:29:18.160 Like, you know, the kind of guy who's like responsible for the price of wheat in 2080.

00:29:22.040 Do you know what I mean?

00:29:22.780 Like, like, like, like plan, like analysis, annoying type of bureaucrat, like the most innocuous.

00:29:28.160 Well, yeah.

00:29:29.120 And keep us alive, like very annoying, but keep us alive.

00:29:32.040 And he taken his chair and he had all the presidential pictures, like the big presidential

00:29:36.820 thing.

00:29:37.060 And I said, what happened?

00:29:38.260 He said, no one came to replace us at the FDA.

00:29:41.680 Like they turned out the lights at the FDA.

00:29:44.100 That's when I knew like all the other stuff, like the American carnage speech, all that

00:29:47.840 stuff.

00:29:48.220 That's when I knew America's in trouble.

00:29:50.420 Like, let's start to think about this deep structures of this, because like you can get

00:29:55.540 go without politicians, but without a bureaucracy, without a civil service, you're like things

00:30:01.760 fall apart very quickly.

00:30:02.960 Right.

00:30:03.520 But my point is with the electoral stuff, the problem is that no one believes that a legitimate

00:30:10.300 election has happened.

00:30:11.200 So from 2016, probably, I think 2016 is really the marker where it's like, they don't actually

00:30:17.640 like 2020, 2000.

00:30:19.660 It's like, well, there was some plan.

00:30:22.260 It didn't like, but on the other hand, it's like, you know, this, like we, we understand

00:30:27.000 that sometimes mistakes happen, popular vote, but 2016 people were like, this was illegitimate.

00:30:32.340 I think 2020, the right, I mean, still, they still believe it's illegitimate.

00:30:35.880 Considering, considering Barack Obama was clearly the winner in 2008 and 2012, like clearly America

00:30:41.380 was generally like this, the center and, and the left were very unified, very, very pro-Obama.

00:30:48.880 So I think that, that because of that, 2016 is probably the most, it's, it's, it's probably

00:30:54.200 more accurate to say 2016 was when, when it really fell apart.

00:30:57.520 Here's the point I wanted to make 2016 election in dispute.

00:31:01.380 Donald Trump as the commander in chief of the armed force of the United States wants

00:31:06.640 our presence in Syria reduced.

00:31:08.840 Yeah.

00:31:09.800 The, his hit, the people beneath him who are, who are instructed as per our constitution

00:31:14.260 and the laws of this land lied to him to keep troops in a foreign country and lied to

00:31:19.540 the American public.

00:31:20.120 But that's some kind of coup.

00:31:23.160 Well, when, when, when.

00:31:25.020 To me, there's, it's perfectly natural that there'd be a tension between an executive and

00:31:31.240 the people following it out.

00:31:32.860 I mean, that just, to me is like, that's life.

00:31:34.840 Like, certainly, certainly that like people, like whoever is the leader of Germany, what

00:31:39.600 he thinks about all day is why won't these people do what I'm telling them to do.

00:31:43.660 But the president of the United States is elected by the people to be the commander in

00:31:47.240 chief of the armed forces.

00:31:48.180 And we never declared war in Syria.

00:31:50.700 Listen, I just think you're, when you're dealing with large scale institutions, there's

00:31:54.780 just all like, you can call that a coup, but actually what that is, is just a natural

00:31:59.400 tension between an executive and a bureaucracy.

00:32:02.360 When, when Trump, as the commander in chief says, American forces out and they say, you

00:32:07.120 got it, boss, don't do it.

00:32:08.420 They have defied the direct order of the duly elected president.

00:32:11.740 Now I'm not saying that's a hard coup where the military storms and seizes power.

00:32:15.420 That is, that is coup-ish where elements of the military have begun to defy the civilian

00:32:20.700 government.

00:32:21.440 The military doesn't, the military doesn't have the leeway.

00:32:24.520 No one in the military has the leeway by the book to say, we're not going to do what

00:32:30.260 my superior officer said.

00:32:31.800 And the president is the commander in chief.

00:32:33.640 So like, but this is also the premise of the book.

00:32:36.020 Like that there's a military, like it's not necessarily a coup.

00:32:39.340 It's just that like what happens with the military in, this happens all the time in

00:32:43.300 countries falling apart in countries in civil war.

00:32:46.100 Is it, is it the, um, the only institution that everyone approves of is the military.

00:32:52.840 Right.

00:32:53.340 And I mean, in America, that's just extreme now.

00:32:55.700 Yeah.

00:32:55.900 I mean, like no one, no one has any respect for the Supreme court.

00:32:58.880 Nobody, nevermind Congress.

00:33:00.320 Military is going down.

00:33:01.680 Well, they're the last one standing in this, in this decline of, uh, faith in institutions,

00:33:06.920 decline of faith in the media, decline of faith in the church, right.

00:33:10.400 Decline of faith in local government decline.

00:33:12.660 Like, you know, that is the mega trend from, from, you know, from the, you're born in what?

00:33:17.520 1980?

00:33:18.160 No.

00:33:18.680 86.

00:33:19.400 You're almost exactly the point where the decline of faith in institutions begins.

00:33:23.540 Like your whole life has been a decline of faith in institutions.

00:33:27.180 Yep.

00:33:27.620 Right.

00:33:28.160 And explains me, I guess.

00:33:29.200 Yeah, it does actually.

00:33:30.740 Like it explains a lot, but the, um, I mean, I was, uh, I was 13.

00:33:35.400 I think I, no, I was 14 at the 2000 election.

00:33:37.960 Right.

00:33:38.840 Right.

00:33:39.140 And then you would have been, how you would have been 20, uh, 22 in, uh, in the 2008 crash.

00:33:46.400 Yeah.

00:33:46.700 Right.

00:33:46.940 Where suddenly the financial system is a rave game.

00:33:49.860 Right.

00:33:50.380 Like, uh, like this, these, these, these.

00:33:52.560 Well, I voted for Obama and regretted almost immediately.

00:33:54.640 These, these are the effects that these collapses have.

00:33:57.000 Right.

00:33:57.640 Um, but you know, what we're, so you're right that it's sort of take it slower, but the,

00:34:02.380 when the military, I mean, I feel for them.

00:34:05.220 They're in a very, very difficult position and I don't, I, and you know, they swore an

00:34:09.520 oath to the constitution.

00:34:10.340 I think they take it with absolute massive seriousness.

00:34:14.720 I got one for you.

00:34:15.840 Yeah, go ahead.

00:34:16.460 All right.

00:34:16.640 Are you familiar with the coup attempt in Turkey several years ago?

00:34:20.260 Yeah, sure.

00:34:20.820 So, uh, I, I, I, that was an interesting one.

00:34:24.600 Right.

00:34:24.780 So this, this may be at the time outdated because I've not followed up on it, but the general

00:34:29.680 idea is, I remember I'm, uh, I was in some city, I'm doing some interview and we get word

00:34:33.780 that the Bosphorus bridge has been occupied by a, by a coup force under certain leaders.

00:34:39.180 A story that emerged, uh, was that these young men who served, served in the Turkish armed

00:34:45.480 forces were given a lawful order to defend the Bosphorus bridge from a terror attack.

00:34:50.280 Right.

00:34:50.760 They showed up, no idea what's going on.

00:34:54.000 Then they were mercilessly beaten and dragged to the street by civilians because it was reported

00:34:58.640 these people were attempting to stage a military coup against Erdogan.

00:35:02.520 Huh?

00:35:02.720 So the argument is in the United States, what may happen?

00:35:06.020 And a lot of people are like, you really think that the armed forces are going to go and round

00:35:09.580 people up or do X or do Y what will happen?

00:35:12.080 Or what could happen is that there will be a simple lawful order that does not raise alarm

00:35:17.020 bells for any like lower, lower ranking enlisted guy.

00:35:20.200 And they say, we're getting reports of a potential riots to the national guard.

00:35:24.120 We're going to have you guys deployed to the streets.

00:35:25.580 And then a bunch of national guardsmen come out, surround a building.

00:35:28.720 Cause they're like, I guess we're here to defend it.

00:35:30.320 And then the news reports national guard stages coup attempt.

00:35:33.680 And these guys are all, everyone points the finger at them and it could be a mistake.

00:35:37.460 It could be intentional, but the idea is you don't need national guardsmen or military

00:35:42.960 servicemen to decide to stage a coup.

00:35:45.280 They won't know what they're doing is the coup when they're given a lawful order.

00:35:49.000 Well, I mean the first chapter of the next civil war, I talked to the Colonel responsible

00:35:53.960 for drawing, drawing up, they call it full spectrum operations in the homeland.

00:35:57.500 Right.

00:35:57.980 So that's when, you know, they are, they absolutely have, I mean, they have a plan for everything,

00:36:03.760 right?

00:36:04.040 They're the U S military.

00:36:05.140 They have a plan for conquering Canada.

00:36:06.680 They have a plan for, yes, you know, they have a plan.

00:36:09.240 There's no contingency plan that they don't have.

00:36:11.800 Right.

00:36:12.060 Like they just sit around.

00:36:13.120 Well, Canada's rightfully ours.

00:36:14.180 I mean, when you need the water, you probably will come, but the, uh, but the, uh, but you

00:36:20.320 know, we almost got Quebec.

00:36:21.840 We almost did.

00:36:23.720 Well, when 12, I think, Oh no, you never had a chance.

00:36:27.180 Well, that wasn't us.

00:36:28.120 That was just the British.

00:36:28.980 Right.

00:36:29.320 And burn the white house to the ground.

00:36:31.280 Trying to try to do it.

00:36:33.140 I think we took Montreal for a little bit, but you burned Toronto, Toronto in 1814.

00:36:37.240 Yeah.

00:36:37.560 You burned, you burned Toronto to the ground.

00:36:38.880 We were so close.

00:36:39.420 Yeah.

00:36:39.740 You were so close.

00:36:40.740 Uh, well in this, in, I mean, in the first civil war, um, the Lincoln's, uh, department

00:36:46.900 of war had, you know, they said, well, we have this army.

00:36:49.860 Why don't we march North and take Canada first?

00:36:52.400 That's why Canada was on the side of the South, the whole of the civil war.

00:36:56.600 Really?

00:36:57.080 Right.

00:36:57.300 Because it was like, they, they made a casual remark and that, that, that event is why we

00:37:03.380 became a country, right?

00:37:04.980 Abraham Lincoln's like, Canada, you're next.

00:37:06.780 We were a bunch of colonies, like sprinkled across the Northern part of North America.

00:37:11.380 And then Lincoln's minister of war was like, should we go take Montreal?

00:37:15.900 And we were like, we better get our ducks in a row.

00:37:18.880 Like it's time to actually get this shit together.

00:37:21.060 That's why we confederated.

00:37:22.400 That's why we became a country.

00:37:24.160 Wow.

00:37:24.220 But the Canada sided with the South.

00:37:26.220 Yeah.

00:37:26.540 A hundred percent.

00:37:27.420 Really?

00:37:27.800 Yeah.

00:37:28.000 So did the British.

00:37:29.360 Yeah.

00:37:30.120 Like, yeah, they were, I mean, it was just national interest, right?

00:37:33.980 Economically, it made more sense for the British side of the South.

00:37:36.060 Yeah.

00:37:36.260 They, the, the cotton from was absolutely necessary to the, the mills in, in, so.

00:37:42.120 I didn't know about Canada.

00:37:42.920 How many times does America have to kick England's butt?

00:37:46.740 Yeah.

00:37:47.600 Yeah.

00:37:48.060 Well.

00:37:48.560 I also think it makes sense.

00:37:49.680 They're not worth it anymore.

00:37:50.720 All right.

00:37:51.060 Yeah.

00:37:51.360 I mean.

00:37:51.940 It makes sense for the British side of the South because it splits the United States.

00:37:55.160 Exactly.

00:37:55.660 Yeah.

00:37:56.140 Well, I mean, I don't think they were thinking it was true.

00:37:57.940 I mean, they weren't anywhere near that sophisticated.

00:37:59.720 It was just like, we need stuff for our mills.

00:38:01.740 Yeah.

00:38:02.060 But the, but the point is like in these scenarios where the military is the last holder of value.

00:38:09.020 I mean, that's where you get really nightmare scenarios for the, for the military, right?

00:38:14.400 Like they're faced with choices that are extremely bad.

00:38:17.820 I mean, that's the, that's the point of this book and the point of, of, of the next civil war is

00:38:23.480 like, it's not to think about this as like good guys, bad guys.

00:38:26.440 It's like, actually what you're dealing are people who are faced with terrible choices

00:38:29.920 and terrible incentives.

00:38:31.400 Do you, uh, did you, did you ever read about what happened in Egypt with the first and second

00:38:35.240 revolutions 10 years ago?

00:38:36.520 No, I didn't.

00:38:37.360 The, uh, scary thing is, and again, well, I read some of it, but I don't know what.

00:38:41.120 It's been a very long time since I've been involved.

00:38:43.100 Uh, uh, everybody knows, I bring it up quite a bit that I was there.

00:38:45.880 Uh, second revolution.

00:38:47.540 Oh yeah.

00:38:47.860 Yeah.

00:38:48.120 I think it was like July 4th even, which is kind of crazy, but, um, like Tahrir Square,

00:38:52.060 that's Tahrir.

00:38:52.900 Yeah.

00:38:53.040 I was, uh, I was over, I was actually watching the revolution take place, the Apaches flying

00:38:57.020 over and the APCs.

00:38:59.380 So what happens is you have a country ruled by the military for a very long time.

00:39:04.820 People eventually say it's time for elections.

00:39:06.640 We want change.

00:39:07.720 Majority of the country is secular and they do not want Islamic rule or theocracy.

00:39:12.580 Right.

00:39:12.940 What happens then is they say, let's have an election.

00:39:15.920 There are like 10 different parties, nine of which are secular.

00:39:18.920 And one is the Muslim brotherhood.

00:39:20.520 Well, guess what?

00:39:21.220 In a first past the post voting system, whoever gets the most votes wins, the Muslim brotherhood

00:39:25.780 gets 20%.

00:39:26.660 Everyone else gets nine and then the Muslim brotherhood wins.

00:39:29.820 Right.

00:39:30.120 So they, a year later, another revolution take place, takes place against the Muslim brotherhood.

00:39:35.200 Once again, it looks like the Muslim brotherhood is going to win the elections.

00:39:39.100 Even ousting the president is not going to change the fact the largest voting bloc is Muslim.

00:39:43.820 So the military goes and starts executing and massacring Muslims.

00:39:46.840 Right.

00:39:46.880 They start going to where these protests are happening and just gunning people down.

00:39:50.660 Yeah.

00:39:50.960 Because the military's thought was this country will never stabilize so long as this group

00:39:55.520 exists.

00:39:56.180 Right.

00:39:56.860 So they decide for the sake of the 80%, we're going to shut down violently and oppressively

00:40:02.400 the 20%.

00:40:03.180 It's a way more complicated than that.

00:40:04.800 And this is probably outdated.

00:40:05.880 Just be clear.

00:40:06.480 Yeah.

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00:41:22.340 our clients that we really care about you.

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00:41:38.260 Did I mention that we care?

00:41:42.220 I had one before, right?

00:41:44.140 Like, and the more that you have them, the more that you're likely to have them.

00:41:47.700 Because people see it.

00:41:48.520 Because people see it and they understand it as a political choice, right?

00:41:51.720 But so that's not, that's not really what's, that's not on the cards for the United States,

00:41:56.000 right?

00:41:56.520 Like that's not something like civil war is, but civil war is.

00:41:59.760 We've had one of those.

00:42:00.300 We've had two, right?

00:42:02.040 The first one was the revolution, right?

00:42:03.760 And so it is absolutely built into the DNA of the country to have, to have these kinds

00:42:10.120 of civil wars.

00:42:11.440 And, but you know, the role of the military won't be, you know, taking the other side

00:42:16.500 and executing them.

00:42:17.320 That's not, that's not the, that's, I just don't see, you know, as pessimistic as some

00:42:22.960 of this stuff is, that's just very, on the extreme edge of unlikelihood.

00:42:27.680 What is much more likely is that they're in a constant struggle to impose order on a country

00:42:32.600 that is in political and hyper-partisan chaos.

00:42:35.280 Similar to Syria, right?

00:42:36.440 So like the actual.

00:42:37.140 Yeah, that would be the worst, or between Ireland and Syria, right?

00:42:40.280 I'm not sure what you're talking about with Ireland.

00:42:42.000 The troubles and stuff.

00:42:42.700 Yeah, like where, I mean, you know, Syria would be the ultra worst where, you know, you're

00:42:47.480 dealing with death squads.

00:42:48.440 So wait, our best case scenario is the troubles.

00:42:50.660 Well, you're already past the troubles.

00:42:52.620 You're already.

00:42:53.260 We don't have actual combat in the street though.

00:42:54.860 Pardon me?

00:42:55.200 We don't have gunfights in the street over politics.

00:42:57.540 Yes, we do.

00:42:57.980 Nah, I'm talking about like, I'm talking about high level gunfights.

00:43:01.360 And I understand there have been fights where people, you know, people are throwing

00:43:04.340 Molotovs and stuff, but I'm talking about dudes actually like setting up L-shaped ambushes

00:43:09.580 on opposing forces.

00:43:10.720 White power people go into black churches and kill everybody in the name of, in the

00:43:14.960 name of a political cause.

00:43:17.600 Like, I'm sorry.

00:43:18.540 That's like that.

00:43:19.620 And real quick for the people screaming partisanship, I think we'll just also bring up the trans

00:43:24.600 shooter who went to the Christian school.

00:43:26.780 Or, or the, or the riots in 2020.

00:43:29.020 Yeah.

00:43:29.220 Right.

00:43:29.480 Like there's still, I understand.

00:43:31.000 But what, the point that I'm making is that's still different between like militarized

00:43:35.500 units making actual attacks on like a police station to kill everybody and take the, the

00:43:42.760 location.

00:43:43.320 It's just a different type of terror.

00:43:44.340 It's true.

00:43:44.520 There's a few questions.

00:43:45.860 Is the difference due to, we are not there yet?

00:43:48.760 Is it due to this country is much larger?

00:43:50.740 Or is it due to a shift in tactics and warfare?

00:43:53.000 So we've had police stations boarded up like in the, the, the Chaz shop.

00:43:57.440 Yeah.

00:43:57.660 They, they, they shut that police station down and they opened fire and killed, like they,

00:44:01.460 they unloaded rifles on, on, on an SUV killing, I believe killing two teenagers may have been

00:44:06.460 one.

00:44:07.160 So.

00:44:07.760 And then you also have police people not wearing badges going out to fight.

00:44:11.400 Like these are like, you're right that it's not the IRA versus the, the, um, the English

00:44:17.600 army.

00:44:17.960 Yeah.

00:44:18.140 Right.

00:44:18.480 Like that's, that's not what you have here, but like you have, it's called stochastic

00:44:23.600 terrorism and it's just, it's just a shit.

00:44:25.760 It's fundamentally just a shift in the whole culture.

00:44:27.880 And I want to clarify real quick too, with the troubles, you have occupation, you have

00:44:32.620 the British are in Northern Ireland in Seattle.

00:44:35.760 It is dominated by a left, left-wing worldview in Miami, for instance, clearly dominated by a

00:44:42.980 more right-wing worldview.

00:44:44.040 There's no reason I got to make this point.

00:44:46.400 Cause this one really bugs me.

00:44:47.360 People will say things like civil war, Tim, why don't you go outside and talk to someone?

00:44:51.440 Do you think a civil war is going to happen?

00:44:52.660 And I'm like, go and talk to them.

00:44:54.340 I did, but hold on, do you think during the civil war, right before the civil war started

00:44:59.800 a guy who walked out of his door in Atlanta and talk to his neighbor would conclude a civil

00:45:05.120 war was going to happen.

00:45:05.740 He'd go to his neighbor and be like, Hey, what do you think about all this?

00:45:08.080 I completely agree with you.

00:45:09.380 Everything's fine.

00:45:09.920 What are you talking about?

00:45:10.540 The issue is Seattle and Miami are worlds apart from each other physically and ideologically.

00:45:17.400 So you're not going to get the troubles because Miami is not occupying Seattle, but you are

00:45:22.200 going to see an increase in violence.

00:45:23.860 We did see that with the, with protests.

00:45:25.440 Yeah.

00:45:25.620 And what I think people misunderstand about a potential civil war, they think state, state

00:45:30.620 versus state doesn't need to be.

00:45:32.580 No, no, no, no, no.

00:45:33.200 That's not, that's certainly not anything that I, like the experts that I talked to, that's

00:45:37.060 not what we're, that's not what we're talking about.

00:45:39.440 Right.

00:45:39.660 Like we're, we're talking about like the delegitimization of the political process, the rise of violence

00:45:44.200 as a solution.

00:45:44.880 The classic method of like trying to tamp down violence by over overarching state control,

00:45:52.860 which then leads to more violence.

00:45:54.840 And which, and that is a process that's been played out, you know, literally dozens and

00:46:00.620 dozens of times over history.

00:46:02.560 And it, it never goes well.

00:46:04.060 Here's my fear.

00:46:05.140 A few, a few scenarios.

00:46:06.240 We, we, uh, we've known for a while that there are militias on the Southern border.

00:46:09.380 They've been around for a long time, but now a video just came out and it gave me that

00:46:13.540 sinking feeling the, just one, I get like five videos a day that could be a sinking.

00:46:18.240 No, fair point.

00:46:18.920 But this one in particular, uh, I think it's Texas set up razor wire barriers to stop illegal

00:46:26.040 immigration.

00:46:26.460 The federal government came in and got a, a, uh, uh, uh, uh, a backloader to lift the razor

00:46:34.340 wire up and to allow hundreds of people to illegally enter the country.

00:46:38.580 This is there, there, there is no way it doesn't matter what your perspective is on.

00:46:43.540 Is on immigration or otherwise, if the state law in the state is saying, we say, no, it's

00:46:49.360 illegal and we buy a barrier.

00:46:50.780 And the federal government says, we don't care what you're doing.

00:46:53.280 We're subverting your, your state sovereignty violation of the federal laws too.

00:46:57.060 Absolutely.

00:46:57.680 You know, well, you know, this is something that's, it's happening slower.

00:47:00.920 Like, I don't know about this particular example, but like one of the things that's happening,

00:47:05.420 it truly is bipartisan is that states are using their resistance to the federal authority

00:47:11.140 as a vote winner in their own state.

00:47:14.180 Yup.

00:47:14.300 Yeah.

00:47:14.480 Right.

00:47:14.760 And that's, that's equally true in California as it is for Texas, as it is for Florida, um,

00:47:20.280 where they are.

00:47:21.260 And that is just playing with fire.

00:47:24.160 I mean, that is like, that is, I mean, for everyone, like you were, you were dealing with,

00:47:29.140 um, where you have this, you know, and you have things like who was the attorney general

00:47:33.760 under Trump.

00:47:34.320 What was his name?

00:47:35.500 He had more than a bar.

00:47:37.100 No, no.

00:47:37.700 I'm thinking about the old guy.

00:47:38.900 Right.

00:47:39.480 Uh, I forget his name, but he, like, he had to go to California and say to them, you know,

00:47:43.960 you are in violation of federal authority.

00:47:46.720 Like we are like, and they did change it, but like, it is, it is one of those things where

00:47:51.520 it's like, where do you, it's so shallow, this thinking, like it's so shallow, this thinking.

00:47:57.280 It's like you, you, you have to, if you don't have a basic solidarity, you're not going

00:48:02.500 to survive as a country.

00:48:03.360 And this is a really good example of the, the various sanctuary ideas that are popping

00:48:07.080 up.

00:48:07.320 But the point I wanted to make, uh, with the militias, when you have the state of Texas

00:48:11.740 saying by our laws and our borders, be it so, and the federal government in violation

00:48:16.300 of its own laws and the state uses the border patrol to act as the inverse.

00:48:21.000 It's almost like Fahrenheit 451.

00:48:22.680 The firemen don't put the fires out.

00:48:24.120 They make the fires.

00:48:24.840 My fear is it only takes five guys with weapons to go down there and say, if you won't do

00:48:32.640 it, we will, we have the law on our side.

00:48:35.060 Oh, well, what happened when you have a situation where you don't know what the law is, but

00:48:41.580 there is no, well, there's no, like when you don't have a legitimate Supreme court, this

00:48:47.260 is, this is how countries fall apart.

00:48:48.860 Yeah.

00:48:49.020 This is what happens in, this is what happens in Brazil and Argentina and these places like

00:48:53.120 this is not, you're not immune to this, right?

00:48:55.500 Just cause you're super rich.

00:48:56.860 I definitely want to talk about the courts too, but real quick on this point, uh, we

00:49:01.840 know what the laws are.

00:49:02.800 You, you, if you want to come to this country, you file the paperwork, you go through a process.

00:49:06.780 If Texas is trying to uphold the law and the federal government is actively subverting

00:49:11.100 the law, you are going to get people in Texas saying outright, the state is illegitimate.

00:49:15.840 It's breaking the law intentionally.

00:49:17.480 And that's when you get people who, what happens is you get the effect, the political equivalent

00:49:22.360 of God is on my side, the people you're, you, you, wasn't it Abbott who had the, uh, what

00:49:27.080 was the, what was the thing where they called in the militia against, um, uh, military exercises

00:49:32.700 in Texas.

00:49:34.260 It was like in 2014, was it called really the conspiracy theory?

00:49:38.640 I don't know.

00:49:39.260 We're like, they called in the national, the Texas national guard against military activities

00:49:44.280 by the U S by U S forces, just exercises.

00:49:47.780 What was it called?

00:49:48.400 Um, but it was like, you know, the idea was, but the, the Texas governor was saying, this

00:49:54.720 is a, this is the federal government coming to take away Texas sovereignty in a massive

00:49:58.420 push.

00:49:59.160 Right.

00:49:59.580 And it was like, this was before this was, I mean, this was before I did it.

00:50:03.160 What was it called?

00:50:03.800 I think it started with a J J Helm.

00:50:05.960 Yes.

00:50:06.700 That's it.

00:50:08.040 Hysteria over Jade Helm exercise in Texas was fueled by Russians.

00:50:11.120 Former CIA director said, right?

00:50:12.560 Like this is a, this was a, this was a misinformation, um, like, and then when you, you know, pour

00:50:18.480 that on, then you just get that, you just get this unbelievable tension, right?

00:50:23.360 Which is, um, which is, you know, just not sustainable.

00:50:26.020 Let's go ham.

00:50:27.100 Uh, I, I think we are, we are nearing the point where all courts are basically illegitimate

00:50:32.100 in this country.

00:50:32.940 Well, no one respects them.

00:50:34.680 Well, but, but the first thing people didn't understand is people really need to watch civil

00:50:41.320 trials.

00:50:42.020 Yeah.

00:50:42.460 It really is supposed to be a judge as a neutral arbiter hearing arguments and then deciding

00:50:48.220 which argument makes the most sense.

00:50:50.260 It really is as simple as that.

00:50:52.380 You watch a trial and the judge is like, what do you, what do you mean by a 5%?

00:50:57.460 Like are you, you're talking about on the revenue and the guy goes, yeah, yeah.

00:50:59.960 I'm saying when he agreed to this contract and the judge goes, well, how do you respond

00:51:03.580 to that?

00:51:03.760 And the judge goes, interesting.

00:51:04.680 I actually think he's right.

00:51:05.620 That's really how simple it is.

00:51:06.700 But now what's happening is with the hyper-partisan split, you are getting judges who are saying,

00:51:12.580 my worldview is clearly on one side or the other, and they're going to issue their ruling

00:51:17.180 on one side or the other.

00:51:18.180 And the other side is going to be like, how could you possibly think that?

00:51:21.260 Yeah.

00:51:21.600 They're clearly corrupt.

00:51:23.240 And when this begins to happen, that's the, that's the, like when you look at something

00:51:29.680 like the history of Chile, like that is what happened, right?

00:51:33.900 Like it's like slowly, and then people start to lose faith in other systems.

00:51:37.560 And then it just becomes, it just becomes like my family versus your family, right?

00:51:42.640 Like, I mean, it, it becomes, it becomes really on that basis.

00:51:46.780 Yep.

00:51:47.040 And, you know, I remember having a friend who came back from living in Saudi Arabia for like,

00:51:51.660 he was making money there for something.

00:51:54.000 And I said, what did you miss most about living in Canada?

00:51:57.320 And he, and like, I expecting like, you know, maple syrup or some shit, right?

00:52:01.760 Or something, you know, like I missed a hockey or something, right?

00:52:04.900 And he said, equality under the law, right?

00:52:08.740 He said, you know, if you're driving and you hit the wrong person in Saudi Arabia, even

00:52:12.420 if it's not your fault, like you're, you're done.

00:52:15.480 If you're a woman and you get raped, you go to jail for having sex out of marriage.

00:52:19.660 And when you like the ultimate luxury, the ultimate heritage that we have been passed

00:52:25.220 down by our forefathers and foremothers is equality under the law.

00:52:29.760 When that is gone, you are, you are just in anarchy.

00:52:34.100 So 2020, uh, isn't the first, but I believe it was a gigantic spike through the heart of

00:52:41.320 this nation in terms of how the courts handled the election.

00:52:44.140 The, uh, so, well, I mean, there was a many, many spikes for sure, but that was one of

00:52:50.040 them, I guess, not one of them.

00:52:51.380 So you have all of the lawsuits filed by the, by the Trump campaign and Trump campaign allies.

00:52:57.880 You get the media lying about what happened and many of the courts ruling on standing,

00:53:03.120 not merit.

00:53:03.980 It doesn't matter if you think Trump is right or wrong.

00:53:06.200 The rulings need to be on merit, not standing.

00:53:08.280 And the standing argument is a cop-out.

00:53:10.180 So the courts don't have to take responsibility.

00:53:12.040 This was a big problem with the case of Texas v.

00:53:15.140 Pennsylvania.

00:53:15.600 Are you familiar with this one?

00:53:17.040 Which one is that one?

00:53:17.800 I can't be, uh, 48.

00:53:19.740 Oh yeah.

00:53:19.960 Right.

00:53:20.240 Okay.

00:53:20.540 Suing over whether or not states were in violation of the constitution and how they handled their

00:53:25.100 elections because their own constitution, their own constitutions.

00:53:28.540 Oh yes.

00:53:29.160 The argument being courts and executive branches altered the rules of an election in this state

00:53:34.400 where the constitution says only the state legislature can do this.

00:53:37.780 Yeah.

00:53:38.000 The argument from Texas being if Pennsylvania's election is not sound, then their votes should

00:53:42.980 not count against ours.

00:53:43.960 There's a dispute here that needs to be answered.

00:53:45.420 I mean, this is the end of the Supreme court said, we don't care and refused to hear a,

00:53:51.740 what's called original jurisdiction state versus state saying, answer this constitutional question.

00:53:56.960 So we know.

00:53:57.560 And the Supreme court said no.

00:53:59.500 And the reason they didn't is because they were afraid of having to, to find in Donald

00:54:05.840 Trump's favor or against him or against, they, they did not want to, they didn't want to

00:54:10.040 answer the question at all.

00:54:11.000 They could have taken the case and said, Trump's wrong, but only Thomas and Alito said, we have

00:54:16.980 to hear this.

00:54:17.680 It's like, this is the rules of this country.

00:54:19.940 And everyone else said, we don't want to be involved in this.

00:54:22.120 But I mean, I think the problem here is that those rules are just being eroded, right?

00:54:27.500 And the faith in those rules is just being eroded.

00:54:30.160 I just like, it's not like it's being lawyered to the grand, the most digital, but it's not

00:54:35.500 just a question of like, lawyering is not the problem.

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00:55:36.780 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

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00:56:02.820 Did I mention that we care?

00:56:07.780 You know, 18th century.

00:56:10.020 Like, and it's not, and it's like, it's not, it's not like, this is the thing.

00:56:14.380 It's easy to get angry and it's easy to get like, you did this and you did that.

00:56:19.060 But like, actually the problem here is that these systems mean that no one feels like their

00:56:25.740 voice is heard politically.

00:56:27.460 Like, conservatives keep sending Republicans to Washington to change it and it doesn't

00:56:33.760 ever change.

00:56:35.300 And then they go, and then they go, and then they get really angry and they blame, but

00:56:39.440 it's like, the lesson here is that no one is getting, no one is actually having influence.

00:56:45.800 I mean, this is what, this is what, like Andrew explained, he betrayed his political class.

00:56:51.300 He told me the truth of how it works.

00:56:53.180 And when you look at the, and when you look at the influences, you look at the, the incentives

00:56:58.000 for people, there's just no incentive to actually listen to the public.

00:57:03.020 Right.

00:57:03.220 I want to clarify too, as to what, at least my view is, and then I don't know if you

00:57:07.300 agree or not, but the constitution, as you mentioned earlier, a work of genius, but 18th

00:57:11.780 century genius.

00:57:12.320 And I think that's correct.

00:57:13.420 The core ideas of why we did it and the ideas behind it are correct, but we have way more

00:57:19.940 people now.

00:57:20.520 We have tremendously different systems of, of communication.

00:57:23.940 And so let me ask you a question.

00:57:25.800 Just the final thought is, it doesn't mean, I'm not saying the constitution is wrong or

00:57:29.400 anything.

00:57:29.640 I'm just saying the perspective of it is rooted in with, it doesn't take into consideration

00:57:34.020 a lot of things that are different today.

00:57:35.560 And I don't know how you, you rectify that.

00:57:37.680 Well, this is my question perhaps.

00:57:39.300 What America is starting again.

00:57:42.080 America has a constitutional convention.

00:57:43.620 They get together.

00:57:45.140 What is the constitution that they make look like to you?

00:57:48.460 So what is the, what are the principles that actually unify the United States today, right

00:57:54.060 now?

00:57:56.000 Honestly, think about the fact that you're stunned by that question.

00:58:00.520 Anti-war is probably, uh, no foreign intervention is probably going to pull the highest.

00:58:05.500 You can keep freedom of speech, right?

00:58:06.980 Like I think everyone in America, you don't think so.

00:58:08.960 No, I know that you can't even agree on the first amendment.

00:58:15.380 You can't even agree on rule number one of the bill of rights.

00:58:18.040 So for the, for the past 10 years, the, the cult, the, the start of the culture war in

00:58:21.920 this country was social media platforms.

00:58:24.260 I'll give you the Twitter example, because this is the one I was involved in with Jack

00:58:27.360 Dorsey, Joe Rogan.

00:58:29.020 Twitter says, if you misgender someone, we will ban you from this platform permanently.

00:58:32.760 Right.

00:58:33.260 And I said, what does misgendering mean?

00:58:35.000 Because conservatives, if you go to someone who's biologically male and say, she, you've

00:58:39.600 misgendered them to liberals.

00:58:41.060 If you go to someone who says, call me she, but you don't, you've misgendered them to distinct

00:58:45.820 worldviews.

00:58:46.460 And you've chosen to enforce one, right?

00:58:48.500 Free speech would argue you guys decide, just keep it respectful.

00:58:52.780 No, you look at Twitter and what do you get?

00:58:55.240 You got people on the left would post pictures of wood chippers for the Covington kids and people

00:59:01.340 on the right would get banned for saying, hashtag learn to code.

00:59:03.520 The left perspective in this country was, if it is hurtful, it's not free speech.

00:59:09.360 At the same time, we're allowed to be hurtful.

00:59:11.580 It's one of the things that's fascinating to me about watching American politics.

00:59:14.760 I mean, it does bleed into Canada, but it's not anywhere near as intense as how the left

00:59:19.800 comes up with ideas and then the right takes them on and just take like book banning in

00:59:25.820 libraries.

00:59:26.200 Like that was started by left-wing groups.

00:59:28.540 Right.

00:59:28.980 And then the right took it on and was like, let's do this for real.

00:59:32.760 Like let's, let's start to ban all these books.

00:59:34.980 But what do you, what?

00:59:35.480 So let's clarify that.

00:59:36.900 Well, I, there, there, I, my point.

00:59:39.000 There are real examples like to kill a mockingbird.

00:59:40.820 I actually want to like, let's get back to like, because I actually want to, I'm fascinated

00:59:44.740 by this question.

00:59:45.580 This is now the question that I think might follow this one.

00:59:48.220 Yeah.

00:59:48.580 It's like what unifies this country.

00:59:50.420 What?

00:59:50.940 Okay.

00:59:51.200 We all understand that it's broken, right?

00:59:53.100 We all understand that like this system is just not functioning.

00:59:55.700 And like, you know, you can have your pride in the constitution.

00:59:58.060 I get it.

00:59:58.580 It's a beautiful document.

00:59:59.560 Like I, I get why you would want to stand behind it, but it just doesn't work.

01:00:03.080 Right.

01:00:04.200 What is the document that would work?

01:00:05.880 And if you're telling me that you can't even agree on freedom of speech, how are you

01:00:10.940 going to get to?

01:00:12.080 It's a, hold on.

01:00:13.100 Uh, it, the, the, what is commonly referred to as the right in the United States is pro

01:00:18.360 free speech, even for people who they don't like or, and don't agree with the left is opposed

01:00:23.420 to free speech explicitly.

01:00:25.320 You're that's it's some and some, listen, I've met these people, but actually there's

01:00:30.340 a huge majority right in the middle who actually believes exactly what you said before disagreements

01:00:36.160 are fine.

01:00:36.840 Be respectful.

01:00:37.540 Like it'd be a decent human being, but you're allowed to say whatever the hell you want.

01:00:40.340 And that's the, that is 80% of the United States.

01:00:43.460 There's 10% on either side who, who, who think I think those people should be annihilated.

01:00:49.240 I think that, but look, look, look, there are extremists on both sides.

01:00:52.060 Fact, but it is the dominant left-wing view of suppression and the dominant right-wing view

01:00:56.480 of open speech.

01:00:57.280 No, no, no.

01:00:58.260 That's, I mean, I just, I think if you look, I think if you look at the government actions,

01:01:02.220 if you look at government, if you look at like Florida's take on, on, on book, I mean,

01:01:06.560 there are many, only in libraries.

01:01:10.720 It's only, it's only curation.

01:01:12.380 What you're talking about is curation.

01:01:14.040 You're not talking about banning.

01:01:15.040 You're talking about selecting what will and will not go into a library.

01:01:18.540 This is not whether or not you can get it.

01:01:20.380 Curation is not banning.

01:01:21.660 Okay.

01:01:21.840 Okay.

01:01:22.080 Okay.

01:01:22.360 Things, but this is why I was getting into the granular element of what is book banning

01:01:26.760 because what you were saying is children should have access to access to adult content.

01:01:31.140 Well, what I would say, I mean, what I genuinely believe is, um, I mean, I believe in letting

01:01:37.440 people read whatever the hell they want.

01:01:38.780 I don't think 12 year olds should learn about blowjobs.

01:01:40.660 I totally disagree.

01:01:42.060 You think you should, you think they should have a book.

01:01:44.660 You see, this is the problem.

01:01:45.740 No, no, no.

01:01:46.200 I, I mean, I, well, just like someone as a, like as a parent, like, I mean, I think hiding

01:01:51.200 information from children, like we're, let me tell you something.

01:01:54.680 Adults are not smart enough to know what children need to know.

01:01:58.360 And also if you hide information from them, they find it, they just find it in a different

01:02:02.700 way.

01:02:03.060 Well, so this is a big, this is a practical question.

01:02:05.480 It's not a question of like morality or anything like that.

01:02:08.340 No, it is.

01:02:09.160 Well, I mean, morality is a very little interest to me.

01:02:12.080 So, so the, the issue is it's not about, oh, the right, the right has decided to ban

01:02:16.880 books.

01:02:17.420 The right is upholding a very basic moral standard that's been in this country for a long time.

01:02:21.860 You can call it traditional.

01:02:22.900 For instance, in, uh, I mean, I have no interest in morality, left or right.

01:02:26.920 Like morality is nothing more blinding than moral clarity.

01:02:31.260 I'm not saying you have to, I'm saying this is a, this is a core component in what's ripping

01:02:35.300 this country apart.

01:02:36.180 Yeah.

01:02:36.680 People on the right.

01:02:37.360 So we have a book over here called this book is gay, right?

01:02:39.920 A teacher had the police called on her because the book explains how to use grinder.

01:02:45.920 And she was instructing 10 to 12 year olds on how to use a gay adult dating app.

01:02:49.600 Well, if children were to use that app, they'd be not only in violation of the terms of the

01:02:53.200 yet, but they would be engaging in not themselves, but illegal activity with those adults.

01:02:58.080 You don't have kids, right?

01:02:59.120 No, dude.

01:03:00.780 Every kid who has a phone has access to the sum total of all grossness of information.

01:03:07.080 But hold on, my point is like an actual book is probably better for them than if they go

01:03:12.080 on their phone and say, what is a blowjob?

01:03:13.580 But my point is not what the kids should be doing.

01:03:15.740 My point is the distinction between the left and the right.

01:03:17.400 In this country, up until the advent of the internet, if a child walked into an adult

01:03:22.160 bookstore and the person who ran the store, let them in, they would be criminally charged

01:03:25.660 for it.

01:03:26.300 When the internet comes out, we see the emergence of what we would describe as the modern left

01:03:31.060 saying, yeah, well, you got a phone.

01:03:32.580 The kids can see it anyway.

01:03:34.100 The traditional American position has for hunt for the past, you know, a hundred years

01:03:37.880 has been do not give kids access to contraband because they're not ready for it or for whatever

01:03:42.420 reason.

01:03:42.800 And the left is, well, it's there.

01:03:44.180 So be it.

01:03:44.600 See, listen, I think it's the same to me now, you know, I, I am somewhat of an outsider

01:03:50.840 here, but like the same thing is happening where it's like, um, you know, where they,

01:03:55.900 they're banning, like they're taking out, uh, all the offensive references in Roald Dahl.

01:04:00.220 Like that's what the left does.

01:04:01.500 Right.

01:04:01.860 I hate it.

01:04:02.940 I hate it.

01:04:03.920 Like, it's totally unacceptable to me.

01:04:05.800 Like the books are supposed to be left in their raw state for children to come and understand

01:04:10.960 them and make their own minds up and deal with reality.

01:04:13.580 And it's the same thing to me with, with these other examples you have, like there,

01:04:18.880 first of all, this is not about what's the benefit for the children because nobody knows

01:04:23.240 what a book does to a child.

01:04:25.060 Right.

01:04:25.360 Like that's part of the power of reading, right?

01:04:28.260 If the book is, is, is, is, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:04:30.260 Hold on.

01:04:30.540 If the book says, here's how you use grinder, then the effect is a child learns how to use

01:04:34.100 grinder.

01:04:34.440 No, that's what could easily happen is they would go, that is the most disgusting thing I've

01:04:38.480 ever seen in my life.

01:04:39.040 No, no, no.

01:04:39.260 I know.

01:04:39.560 But it's still not how to use it.

01:04:40.360 It's, I'm talking about fact-based one, two, three, four, as opposed to.

01:04:43.240 We are in information aid.

01:04:44.840 I mean, information, the idea that you're going to keep information from children is

01:04:49.600 just ludicrous.

01:04:51.360 Listen, I don't, listen, I don't want to, my point here is only that these debates that

01:04:58.080 happen are removed from the actual life of experience doing this stuff.

01:05:05.700 Now, I mean.

01:05:06.040 What do you mean?

01:05:07.180 Well, because when you're parenting, you're dealing with a world where your children are

01:05:10.700 exposed to everything.

01:05:11.660 That's the actual plight of a parent, right?

01:05:14.360 Like, the actual plight of a parent is, like, my children can go and look up on YouTube and

01:05:20.000 see a woman having sex with an icicle, right?

01:05:22.860 Like, that is a, like, so all these debates around these books, that's nothing, right?

01:05:27.000 Like, like.

01:05:27.820 Well, it's an attempt by the right to stop this.

01:05:29.680 I still want to point.

01:05:30.420 I want to.

01:05:30.640 They certainly are not trying to attempt to stop that stuff.

01:05:33.020 They absolutely are.

01:05:34.400 These are inter-nicing debates among themselves for, like, point scoring.

01:05:38.480 It has nothing to do with actual, actual policy.

01:05:41.560 It has nothing to do with actual, like, what, how are we educating our children?

01:05:44.480 It's literally about the curation of a library, of school libraries.

01:05:48.740 There is no ban on the content of these books.

01:05:53.240 In my city, in Mississauga.

01:05:55.500 That's Canada, not Florida.

01:05:57.120 The school board pulled every book in a, in a left-wing fury, pulled every book written

01:06:04.360 before 2008.

01:06:05.440 Did Amazon?

01:06:07.220 No, but listen, that's so.

01:06:08.760 That's the point.

01:06:09.260 It's so wrong to me.

01:06:10.180 Amazon has banned books.

01:06:11.380 Amazon has absolutely banned books.

01:06:12.320 Fine, but that's.

01:06:13.240 They're also a market.

01:06:14.420 But, like, my point is, like, that's, I hate that.

01:06:17.820 But my point.

01:06:18.300 Like, I hate that so much.

01:06:19.600 My point is, the argument that you're making about curation is not an argument about banning.

01:06:25.740 And we're talking about this as if it is about banning.

01:06:30.120 This is not about banning.

01:06:31.480 This is about what goes into schools.

01:06:33.320 This particular topic is about what goes into school libraries.

01:06:36.740 And that makes a difference.

01:06:38.540 Because there has to be curation.

01:06:40.660 Because there's no way you can have every book in a school library.

01:06:43.860 And they're going to decide which ones are acceptable and which are not.

01:06:47.640 And to classify it as banning or call it censorship is to deceive what people are talking about.

01:06:53.760 It's not censorship.

01:06:54.340 Censorship does not mean, like, we censor a lot.

01:06:59.240 We censor a lot of things like child abuse videos on the internet.

01:07:02.580 Yes, for sure.

01:07:03.000 We have people that we decide some things cross a moral line and we don't want that publicly available.

01:07:07.440 That's a fact.

01:07:07.960 But it's not that publicly.

01:07:09.060 It's only in public schools.

01:07:10.700 The curation is what I'm talking about.

01:07:13.080 Censorship is just an authority deciding what should or should not be available and what should be removed.

01:07:18.640 And that's my point.

01:07:20.600 That's my exact point.

01:07:21.680 My point here is this debate.

01:07:25.700 You're saying I say this.

01:07:26.820 He says this.

01:07:27.700 I don't care right now for the sake of Congress.

01:07:29.900 Obviously, if you watch Tim Castile, you're going to get my heavy opinions.

01:07:32.200 These were my point here is look at the distinction and how we see the world.

01:07:36.400 There is no rectifying that.

01:07:39.280 So when we go back to the original question of what document unifies this country.

01:07:42.960 Ah, no, let's return to that because that is actually the more interesting question.

01:07:46.200 My final point is when Cenk Uygur came on this show, I think we had a great conversation.

01:07:53.380 And I tried to be explained to me so we can have a conversation and literally try to find where we're going to win together.

01:07:59.220 Right.

01:07:59.420 We can argue about the other stuff after.

01:08:00.600 Yeah, right.

01:08:01.100 And when it came to the question of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, Cenk said, I don't care what it's about.

01:08:06.700 It's racist.

01:08:07.560 Therefore, it's done.

01:08:09.180 Don't defend him.

01:08:09.980 Don't explain.

01:08:10.940 Period.

01:08:11.520 Wow.

01:08:11.860 My worldview is, you know, what's the truth?

01:08:15.680 How did this happen and how do we stop it from happening?

01:08:17.640 Well, it's just not a system, right?

01:08:18.980 You need an actual system.

01:08:20.560 His view was a black man died.

01:08:23.140 Therefore, it's racist.

01:08:24.020 And there's no excuse.

01:08:25.700 Right.

01:08:25.980 So there's two very distinct worldviews.

01:08:28.680 Those are cases.

01:08:30.940 Like, no one is ever going to be satisfied with the actual working out of the world, right?

01:08:35.500 Right.

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01:09:34.260 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

01:09:38.680 So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level

01:09:42.940 to tell our clients that we really care about you.

01:09:45.840 Home and auto insurance personalized to your needs.

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01:09:59.820 Did I mention that we care?

01:10:03.500 Like, it's not like, it's not like, like, I mean, we have a huge housing problem.

01:10:07.060 We have got all these problems.

01:10:08.340 Like, we got, we got, we got a lot of problems of our own.

01:10:10.540 On the other hand, I feel like we have a system for working them out.

01:10:13.720 What I feel in the United States is, I mean, one thing, you know, when you're a Canadian

01:10:17.120 is like, Americans are, they're great.

01:10:19.980 There's nothing wrong with, there's nothing wrong with Americans, right?

01:10:24.080 Like, Americans are great.

01:10:25.960 And if you have conversations with them, they, they absolutely are sensible, reasonable people.

01:10:31.820 It's just that the system in which they operate their politics is so defunct and, and collapsing

01:10:38.940 that, that no, it doesn't matter.

01:10:42.220 Like everyone in this book on either side is a good person, right?

01:10:46.800 That is one thing we wanted to do in the book because it's like politics is not made up of bad people.

01:10:52.660 It's made up of actually good people with incentives that are so poor that it, it annihilates them.

01:10:58.820 I do think we have a lot of evil people in government.

01:11:01.360 I, I actually don't.

01:11:03.300 I mean, like, I think we have, there are idiots and there are players and there are people of

01:11:07.420 this nature and there are people who are, who become corrupt, but like there are like

01:11:12.360 a good person in a system with evil incentives cannot work.

01:11:17.660 Any is much worse than an evil person in a system with good incentives.

01:11:21.360 I see what you're saying.

01:11:23.180 It is, it is the system, right?

01:11:25.640 That, that, that creates these, these monsters.

01:11:29.000 I make a similar point that, um, and he has, Ian has made that in Crossland has made this point

01:11:32.920 that you can do good with evil people.

01:11:35.400 So there can be a very, very evil person who's smiling and being like, I just found out the fastest

01:11:41.480 way to make a ton of money.

01:11:43.400 Right.

01:11:43.780 People love dogs and I'm going to convince them to give me money.

01:11:47.060 And all I got to do is save dogs and their intention is personal gain, profit and power.

01:11:51.360 But the path to doing it is saving homeless dogs and creating dog shelters.

01:11:55.480 Like the, the, the best path for an evil person to gain power and do their, their awful things

01:12:00.800 could be something we actually have no problem with.

01:12:03.480 Then there could be good people who are like, I want to save a million people, but I would

01:12:09.080 have to change this policy, which is going to negatively impact a ton of people in a bad

01:12:14.200 way.

01:12:14.760 Oh, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

01:12:16.520 Exactly.

01:12:17.060 So I mean, it's possible, but that being said, I'm just going to come out and say it.

01:12:21.620 I think Adam Schiff is evil.

01:12:22.940 Listen, I don't really believe there are evil people.

01:12:25.300 Oh dude.

01:12:25.780 I think there are people in situations like the reason you write a novel, like the reason

01:12:29.760 we did this as a novel rather than a nonfiction book is because what the novel is about, what

01:12:35.780 the novel does better than anything is people in situations where like, how do people respond

01:12:40.480 to the environments they're in?

01:12:42.040 Like people are not.

01:12:43.720 Oh, but there's the banality of evil, right?

01:12:45.440 Oh, a hundred percent.

01:12:47.120 And so you can be an evil person while bumbling about people.

01:12:50.000 Well, that's exactly it.

01:12:51.200 That's why it's so important to know that if you were put in the situation that an evil

01:12:57.760 person wasn't, you could easily end up like them.

01:13:01.180 That is, that is the basis of humanism, right?

01:13:04.060 It's like some people, most people, it is a reaction between yourself and, and, and this,

01:13:10.300 and the situation you find yourself in that's life, right?

01:13:13.220 Like that's the actual substance of life.

01:13:15.040 It's not like he's evil.

01:13:16.480 He's good.

01:13:17.020 He came out of some kind of shining night out of the womb.

01:13:19.940 She came out as some kind of monster.

01:13:21.800 Like that's not the reality.

01:13:24.600 Well, the reality is true good and true evil are very rare, but they do exist.

01:13:28.640 And the average person, as you mentioned, it is, is a victim.

01:13:31.040 I've never met it.

01:13:32.580 I've never, I like, I, and I, I put that in for everyone.

01:13:36.280 You've never met an evil person.

01:13:38.320 No, I've met psychopaths and I've met some, and I've met people and I've met sociopaths.

01:13:42.820 I suppose it's a question of how do you define evil?

01:13:45.800 Yeah.

01:13:46.260 I mean, I think I, to me, the farther I go, like in life, I just think to comprendre,

01:13:52.280 to pardon, right?

01:13:53.180 Like to understand is to pardon, right?

01:13:55.540 Like if you, if you understand where people find themselves in the situations they find

01:13:59.720 themselves in, like these people, these people end America, the good guys.

01:14:04.280 So, right.

01:14:04.940 Like that's the, but it's, it's not because of them.

01:14:07.560 It's because of their, it's not because of their hearts.

01:14:10.460 I'll give you an example of what, uh, of one component I view to view to be evil.

01:14:13.440 I talk about this guy's super philosophical, super fast.

01:14:16.260 Everything is metaphysical.

01:14:17.460 We're going to be talking about like St. Augustine or something.

01:14:20.440 Before we go, let me, I want to address that real quick.

01:14:23.360 The reason that we have such differing opinions in the, in the, and, and problems coming down

01:14:30.100 on whether or not the, the first amendment is worth saving is because people are now fighting

01:14:36.220 about whether or not they believe in enlightenment principles or if they believe in, in postmodern

01:14:42.000 principles.

01:14:42.440 And it's a metaphysical philosophical difference.

01:14:46.200 It's not because, because when the, when the constitution was written, it was kind of

01:14:50.980 a given that the enlightenment was the way to the enlightenment principles or what you

01:14:56.320 should base your society on because you could come in contact with reality since the, since

01:15:01.580 then there's been a lot there.

01:15:03.220 We've had Nietzsche, we've had, uh, Hegel, we've had Marx.

01:15:06.000 We've had a lot of, uh, philosophers that have really kind of turned that upside down.

01:15:10.420 And now we're living in postmodern times where, where, where people are, are more, more

01:15:15.760 affect.

01:15:18.180 Well, it's identity based.

01:15:19.340 It's, it's not, well, it's identity based because of postmodernism because there is no

01:15:23.480 truth.

01:15:24.060 There is no right.

01:15:25.080 There is no correct.

01:15:25.920 So the things that we're talking about boil down to metaphysical.

01:15:29.580 I would just tell you.

01:15:30.260 But correction, correction.

01:15:31.740 They don't say there's no truth.

01:15:32.680 They say there is no truth, but power.

01:15:34.400 Yes.

01:15:34.680 Postmodernism.

01:15:35.320 Yes, absolutely.

01:15:36.060 But I want to make a point.

01:15:36.600 The power comes out of the barrel of a gun.

01:15:37.680 I'll explain to you.

01:15:38.660 Power is words to them.

01:15:39.740 But you know, dominance, influence, control, uh, an example of, of, uh, evil in my opinion

01:15:44.140 that I experienced is during occupy wall street.

01:15:45.860 Yeah.

01:15:46.400 These people are protesting.

01:15:47.360 They're protesting for a reason.

01:15:48.240 Many of these people want a better life.

01:15:49.660 And I met a prominent journalist who worked for a large publication who we had a, we had

01:15:55.020 a conversation.

01:15:55.680 This is a prominent activist at occupy wall street and journalist.

01:15:59.300 And, uh, I, I said, I said, look, you know, like I, I agree.

01:16:03.240 I'm fairly nihilistic.

01:16:04.500 Honestly, I don't know what matters or why, why we do the things we do, what the end result

01:16:09.000 is going to be.

01:16:09.840 So the only thing I can do is try to maximize the things that we think are good creation,

01:16:15.180 preservation, and, and the positive things in life.

01:16:18.000 And the response I got from this person was, but don't you just want to make it all burn?

01:16:21.840 Like if you don't care that nothing matters, let's just shake it up and burn it to the

01:16:25.260 ground.

01:16:25.560 This is a prominent writer for a major publication who told me that their motivations behind

01:16:31.040 everything they do was the destruction of, of the stable society of success and to watch

01:16:37.280 people struggle and burn because nothing matters anyway.

01:16:39.760 Let me tell you a story.

01:16:40.620 That's evil.

01:16:41.200 Let me tell you a story.

01:16:42.180 Like, I remember talking to this researcher when I was doing this podcast on child rearing,

01:16:47.000 right?

01:16:47.420 And we were doing this episode on spanking and shouting, right?

01:16:50.440 And like, whether you should spank or shout at your kids.

01:16:52.400 And I talked to the leading expert on the world on, uh, discipline on, on childhood discipline

01:16:58.300 who believed, and I came to agree with him that not only is spanking ineffective, but

01:17:02.820 also shouting at your children is ineffective.

01:17:04.740 Like you shouldn't, you shouldn't actually do this.

01:17:06.460 It doesn't, it's not necessarily that it's bad parenting.

01:17:08.540 It's just, it doesn't work.

01:17:09.740 Right.

01:17:10.140 And he told me a story once about how he was working in a lab with a guy who beat his

01:17:14.720 kid every day.

01:17:15.540 And he was trying and he was analyzing him and trying to figure out what he did.

01:17:20.540 Right.

01:17:21.020 And part of me was like, why didn't you just arrest this guy?

01:17:26.000 Right.

01:17:26.380 Like surely a man who beats his son every day should just be in jail.

01:17:30.740 But he was this researcher by studying this person, by removing himself from the question

01:17:36.640 of good and evil, by analyzing it had come to the most powerful insights about child rearing

01:17:43.080 that had ever existed.

01:17:44.820 Right.

01:17:45.380 So to me, like, yeah, there's, and he talked this guy out of doing that, by the way, right?

01:17:50.340 Like he, with the, I mean, the man obviously wanted to improve and was trying to get the

01:17:54.500 violence out of him.

01:17:55.860 And, um, and like he, he talked him out of that.

01:17:59.600 And I always thought, I don't know how I feel about it.

01:18:02.720 Right.

01:18:03.140 But like, I'm not sure what the correct response here is, but I would say that what I feel

01:18:08.100 my role is in this world is to try to understand so that we can get to better things rather

01:18:13.440 than just saying you beat your kid every day.

01:18:15.360 You're a monster.

01:18:16.420 It's like, okay, well, how do we, how do we understand this and how do we, and how do

01:18:21.240 we make it better?

01:18:22.260 And so there's, there's, uh, uh, certain things that I see, uh, certain questions, right?

01:18:26.540 Um, is it a bad thing when someone cries over the death of a child?

01:18:30.980 What I mean to say is, is it bad their child died and they're suffering now because of it?

01:18:34.760 Yeah.

01:18:34.920 The answer is obviously yes.

01:18:36.460 Yeah.

01:18:36.780 We do not want as human beings, someone to experience the death of their child and then

01:18:40.720 to cry over that.

01:18:42.000 We want to figure out how to prevent that from happening.

01:18:44.580 You end up with various degrees of good and evil when it comes to these things.

01:18:48.640 And what I mean by that is people who are trying to help other people experience love and joy,

01:18:53.420 preserve the things that make them happy and help make the world a better place.

01:18:56.800 And there are people who are trying to extract from a system to benefit themselves either

01:19:00.320 emotionally or through resource.

01:19:02.480 So there are people in government.

01:19:04.740 And there are people like the one you described who just pure rage.

01:19:06.900 Let's all burn it down.

01:19:07.740 Absolutely.

01:19:08.240 Yeah.

01:19:08.420 This is the, the, the, the Batman, uh, dark night.

01:19:10.920 We said Joker stuff.

01:19:12.100 Yeah.

01:19:12.380 He's, he's, you know, uh, uh, Alfred is explaining to Bruce Wayne, this guy thought it was good

01:19:17.060 sport.

01:19:17.560 Right.

01:19:17.900 He was, he was destroying, stealing these gems and throw them in the river.

01:19:20.700 He just didn't care.

01:19:21.180 It was funny.

01:19:21.720 So that's, you know, and then it's like,

01:19:23.400 and there's the, I guess the Johnny Appleseed.

01:19:25.700 I'm going to go and just grow trees for no reason.

01:19:26.980 Cause it helps everybody.

01:19:27.860 Yeah.

01:19:28.640 So these things exist.

01:19:29.760 Johnny Appleseed.

01:19:30.560 God, I haven't heard that name in a long time.

01:19:31.720 I'm just like, we need another Johnny Appleseed.

01:19:33.700 Where are the Johnny Appleseeds of today?

01:19:35.460 Just to decide to go walk, throw an Appleseed.

01:19:37.240 You should have a Johnny Appleseed prize where you go and find the Johnny Appleseeds in America.

01:19:42.020 That's what philosophers are though.

01:19:43.800 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:19:45.200 They're selfish people who are extracting from the system for sure.

01:19:49.220 But it is a good idea to find someone who's just been doing good selfless things.

01:19:52.800 Oh my God, that would be a hit.

01:19:55.300 Yeah.

01:19:55.840 Well, let's do this instead of just drifting off into the philosophy.

01:19:58.560 Let's bring it back to earth.

01:19:59.540 And we'll talk, let's talk about the 14th amendment and Donald Trump's trials right now.

01:20:03.640 Cause we were talking about courts and legitimacy.

01:20:05.560 So, uh, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan are currently in the legal process of determining whether or not Trump can even be president.

01:20:13.280 Yes.

01:20:13.940 So, uh, the point I made was that if the Democrats succeed in having, uh, I should even say this right now.

01:20:22.580 The fact that eligibility is even a question is already destroying what is left of our electoral system.

01:20:30.340 And the Supreme court needs to come down immediately bang the gavel within the next month, even today and say states cannot determine eligibility.

01:20:39.080 And the reason for this is, but that's not, that's not the legal system you have.

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01:22:14.360 An argument made in Minnesota by I believe it was Trump's lawyer is that the federal constitution determines eligibility, not the states.

01:22:21.780 Yes, it is not a question of the states determine who can or can't be on the ballot or who is who is eligible to present.

01:22:27.060 I'm sorry.

01:22:27.400 They do determine ballot access, which then creates an interesting question.

01:22:30.660 If the states are going to make the bouts for their own elections to determine who's going to be on it, there is a question of eligibility.

01:22:35.000 But if the states have the ultimate right to say who is eligible or not, what will happen is in 2028, you will not have an election.

01:22:47.120 All that will matter is the eligibility hearing.

01:22:49.240 Yeah.

01:22:49.520 And the question of what's the most important day in a president in a political campaign, it's going to be eligibility day.

01:22:54.540 And the lawyers for the politician will say it's a it's one year before the election.

01:22:58.920 Let's gear up our eligibility arguments to get this guy disqualified.

01:23:01.800 That way, when the election happens, we're the only one on the ballot.

01:23:04.120 Well, even worse, it won't even be that because what they'll do is they'll just that the eligibility stuff will just be prep prep work for non certification.

01:23:12.800 Yep.

01:23:13.380 Right.

01:23:13.700 And that's like, so like, so like, because the non certification is like if non certification happens, it just goes to a contingent election.

01:23:21.260 Right.

01:23:22.060 So like it, that is an automatic mechanism.

01:23:24.740 So all this other like, is it the state's right?

01:23:27.960 Is it this?

01:23:28.500 These are very complex legal arguments that there's multiple facets to multiple sides.

01:23:32.960 But the certification needs to be solved one day.

01:23:36.080 You just you made an excellent point.

01:23:37.960 Like real quick.

01:23:39.140 Yeah, we I talked about I've been talking about this since the Trump thing started that especially big yesterday.

01:23:44.580 If the states go to eligibility arguments instead.

01:23:47.600 Yeah.

01:23:48.040 Then Trump's not on the ballot in California.

01:23:50.220 Then Biden's on the ballot in Texas.

01:23:51.840 But then what happens is, as you just pointed out, if they don't remove any names, come certification time, 10,000 lawsuits are filed saying you can't certify this person is not eligible.

01:24:05.840 Yeah.

01:24:05.960 And you have an election denier is Speaker of the House like currently.

01:24:10.180 Right.

01:24:10.340 Like they're all election deniers.

01:24:12.080 Let's just I mean, let's just Democrats and Republicans have all denied it.

01:24:15.520 But honest to God, like what you just mentioned, that's one of about 50 things like in the book.

01:24:20.720 Like there's like like that's that's part of the problem.

01:24:24.960 But honestly, there's like 80 other things that could go wrong and increasingly look like they just will go wrong.

01:24:31.500 And there's only one real question.

01:24:33.680 Yeah.

01:24:34.020 Who believes?

01:24:34.960 Who does the military side with?

01:24:37.320 It's in the book.

01:24:38.740 I mean, that's because the book is like it's not a question of who the military has to is going to be put in a position where they have to pick a side.

01:24:47.580 Yep.

01:24:48.140 And that's they don't want to pick a side at all.

01:24:51.320 Not at all.

01:24:51.640 None of them.

01:24:52.380 Like, don't get me wrong.

01:24:53.700 Like they take their oath to the Constitution.

01:24:55.300 I mean, it's the last thing holding this country together is the military's faith in their in their oath.

01:25:00.820 Right.

01:25:01.380 So everybody enlist.

01:25:02.940 You know, get your commissions now.

01:25:04.860 I want to point like just one thing you said struck me.

01:25:07.780 The military's faith in their oath to the Constitution.

01:25:12.300 Yeah.

01:25:12.500 Is the thing that you say that is keeping the country together or one of the few things?

01:25:17.280 I would say it's the only thing that I genuinely feel is stable.

01:25:20.740 The federal government has demonized people that would keep their oath to the Constitution.

01:25:27.360 If you're a member of the quote unquote oath keepers, you're considered a you're considered you're considered a bad guy.

01:25:33.520 And it doesn't matter.

01:25:34.580 This is the new.

01:25:35.560 I know what you're going to say.

01:25:36.180 You're going to talk about nuance.

01:25:37.060 The nuance does not matter.

01:25:39.100 The nuance does not matter are a militia.

01:25:42.440 The nuance does not matter because they're demonizing the Betsy Ross flag.

01:25:46.420 They're demonizing anything that is connected to our founding.

01:25:49.800 Oath keepers don't even matter.

01:25:51.640 The they don't matter.

01:25:53.180 The government came out and said members of the military who post the Gadsden flag on their Facebook are extremists.

01:25:59.060 Yes.

01:25:59.240 And that is quite literally the license plate of Virginia.

01:26:01.820 Yes.

01:26:02.160 Right.

01:26:02.960 Well, yeah.

01:26:03.900 I mean, you know, it's interesting.

01:26:05.020 The same thing sort of happened in Algeria where because it was a revolutionary constitution, like because it was formed by militiamen fundamentally, they put the Constitution of Algeria has very similar problems and reflections of its militia past as the US Constitution.

01:26:25.000 And it's the same thing because it's like you're a country founded by rebels.

01:26:29.840 Yep.

01:26:30.520 Right.

01:26:30.800 You're a country founded by people who defy authority.

01:26:34.720 I'm in Canada.

01:26:35.980 We're the obedient ones.

01:26:37.340 We're the ones who said to the crown.

01:26:38.940 We begged you.

01:26:39.960 We begged.

01:26:41.280 We were like everyone.

01:26:42.580 Everyone talks about the 13 colonies.

01:26:44.140 They don't understand.

01:26:44.660 There were way more colonies.

01:26:45.700 Yeah.

01:26:45.920 And we were like, no, thanks.

01:26:47.280 Yeah.

01:26:47.460 Enjoy your enjoy your war.

01:26:49.680 Right.

01:26:49.900 Enjoy your war.

01:26:51.400 And, you know, like the people who came are loyalists.

01:26:53.960 Right.

01:26:54.280 Like that's what that's what they were.

01:26:56.460 And so that rebellious structure built into the foundation of the country.

01:27:01.520 I mean, it's always been intention.

01:27:04.680 Right.

01:27:04.860 Like I don't think that tension has ever gone away.

01:27:06.640 I mean, think of the elections we've mentioned.

01:27:08.480 1828, 1824, 1876.

01:27:11.860 We haven't even brought up the 60s.

01:27:13.720 Right.

01:27:14.220 Like we haven't even brought up like, you know, the civil unrest in the 60s, which until four years ago, everyone was like, oh, this isn't as bad as the 60s.

01:27:22.620 I mean, can you imagine?

01:27:23.500 It's still not.

01:27:24.220 How little they, how little.

01:27:25.240 I disagree.

01:27:25.820 It's still not as bad as the 60s.

01:27:27.280 I disagree.

01:27:27.740 You think it's worse than the 60s?

01:27:28.720 Oh, it's way worse.

01:27:29.780 The bombings were shock and awe.

01:27:31.360 They like the weather underground, for instance, was not trying to kill people, though.

01:27:34.660 I think there was like one instance with the bank robbery.

01:27:36.880 The weather underground were a thousand people like they were not a they weren't compared to the oath keepers compared to the three percent.

01:27:44.100 I mean, how many?

01:27:44.780 How many oath keepers are there?

01:27:45.700 Well, they don't know.

01:27:46.700 But I mean, it's like, but it's certainly in the tens of thousands.

01:27:49.160 But again, the list had the list that got leaked was 60,000, wasn't it?

01:27:53.320 I have no idea.

01:27:53.880 And that was just that was just.

01:27:55.540 But that was just people in power.

01:27:56.900 The point of me bringing up the oath keepers was because you talked about the oath.

01:27:59.780 It's not it's not specifically about the oath keepers.

01:28:02.240 It's about the demonization of anyone that looks to the the revolutionary war period as a a core principle for the American people.

01:28:13.200 They're trying not just the oath keepers or the three or whatever.

01:28:16.700 It's about, oh, if you believe in the things that the founders believed in, you're a threat to the government.

01:28:22.240 They want a threat to America.

01:28:23.240 They want to excise that rebellious.

01:28:25.240 Well, remember, George Washington did it, right?

01:28:28.040 Whiskey Rebellion.

01:28:29.240 I mean, he put down a tax revolt.

01:28:31.640 Yeah.

01:28:32.060 You know, like you can't live in a state of constant rebellion.

01:28:35.000 Was that was that when they pardoned?

01:28:36.920 Which one was it where?

01:28:38.340 No, that was Jefferson.

01:28:39.180 Jefferson.

01:28:39.780 Jefferson pardoned the all the people who are in revolt over.

01:28:43.700 Yeah.

01:28:43.720 And there's a famous.

01:28:44.560 Yeah.

01:28:44.820 And then somebody wrote an amazing short story about it.

01:28:46.940 That's in the next Civil War, too.

01:28:48.480 But yeah, I mean, like there is a constant tension between like which, you know, has kind of made America great.

01:28:55.020 I mean, that's intended, though.

01:28:56.480 That's in the.

01:28:57.180 I am really like as the fact that you feel defeated by the First Amendment and the and the freedom of speech stuff.

01:29:02.920 I mean, to me, like when you come to America, like when you when you get off the plane at Reagan Airport or anywhere, anywhere in the United States, the openness with which people talk is.

01:29:15.220 I mean, that is what I love about the United States.

01:29:18.280 Like, and I do love the United States very much.

01:29:20.840 Right.

01:29:21.160 Like, it's not my it's not my country.

01:29:22.540 It's not my mother.

01:29:23.120 But like, I I have a great deal of affection for this country.

01:29:26.520 And the biggest reason for sure is that when you get off the plane, you feel like you can say what you want, which, you know, to be frank, even though, you know, we have the same laws and stuff like in Toronto.

01:29:36.960 You people whisper, people keep their thoughts to themselves.

01:29:40.360 There's a guy who went to jail because he wouldn't call his son by the right pronouns.

01:29:43.520 There is a guy who got fined for telling a joke about a handicapped person and went to the Supreme Court.

01:29:49.480 And I think I remember that.

01:29:50.280 And they find it.

01:29:51.080 All right.

01:29:51.420 Like, that's like, if you lose freedom of speech in America, like, I think you're losing a huge bit of your secret sauce.

01:29:58.300 Understand this.

01:29:59.140 One of the most difficult things is getting left in left perspective individuals, leftists or liberals to come on these kinds of shows.

01:30:09.560 Cenk Uygur mentioned this last week.

01:30:11.120 One of the biggest mistakes and weaknesses of the left is that they refuse to have these conversations.

01:30:14.780 Well, everyone's in a silo.

01:30:16.460 Everyone's in the that's why I go anywhere.

01:30:18.620 Yeah, but I mean, everyone is everyone is in a silo.

01:30:21.420 Like, it's and I mean.

01:30:22.660 But we're silo breakers.

01:30:24.120 We intentionally have an eclectic bunch on Tim Kast IRL every night.

01:30:28.540 One of the purposes of the points of the culture war is to try and get more people to come on the show.

01:30:31.840 But it is it is it is it is a fact left wing personalities tend not to do opposition media or what they would refer to or any any anything that could challenge them.

01:30:41.340 Yeah, it's funny.

01:30:43.040 Like, the last time I was on here, I got all these like you're platforming Tim Pool.

01:30:48.080 I'm like, I don't I'm not platforming anyone.

01:30:49.940 So I'm just going I'm here.

01:30:52.480 First of all, I'm promoting a book, but I'm also just like, I what is what can be the problem with talking?

01:30:59.320 I don't really I don't really get it.

01:31:01.600 So I'm not I'm not here.

01:31:02.980 It's the problem.

01:31:03.860 Talking with talking is it's a postmodern problem, because if you are if you are allowed to speak, that's where power comes from.

01:31:10.760 I guess again, this focuses on the this brings us back to and I'm not trying to drive the conversation to it, but it is a metaphysical philosophy problem.

01:31:19.800 Let me let me let me pull this video real quick.

01:31:21.760 This is a video where I called the left a cult that can only survive by using cult basic strategies of isolating.

01:31:28.000 I wonder why they don't want to come on your show.

01:31:29.900 But I mean, come on, man.

01:31:31.720 But telling tell you, like you say, they're cult based.

01:31:34.180 Why are they going to come on after that to to just be called to be called that they're that's not why they don't want to come on.

01:31:39.220 Right.

01:31:39.340 They don't want to come on because in this video, a man interviewing a pro Palestine activist is approached by facilitators who say only our press liaison can do interviews.

01:31:48.100 And they ask the Palestinian activist not to talk to the press.

01:31:51.680 It is an extremely common tactic.

01:31:53.560 It is the norm at left protests that they will not allow you to talk to anyone.

01:31:59.080 Only their official spokesperson can speak to anyone.

01:32:02.140 Even if you don't know him, you'll show up.

01:32:04.020 They will attack the journalist.

01:32:05.280 I'll tell you what, man.

01:32:05.860 I've known a lot of lefties and they'll talk to fucking anyone like God.

01:32:11.180 I mean, here's a video that disproves that notion.

01:32:12.940 I think.

01:32:13.260 Well, this is one video.

01:32:14.600 Yes, but this is an example of what happens all the time.

01:32:17.600 Every every political group in the world has a media strategy.

01:32:22.400 Some of the people doing media strategy are the stupidest people on Earth.

01:32:27.500 And the right like the right strategy is anyone talks to anyone and they come on show.

01:32:33.040 They have they have their own strategy.

01:32:35.860 Right.

01:32:36.240 Which are equally stupid.

01:32:37.420 It is like it is tendencies.

01:32:40.220 Oh, I mean, tendencies are.

01:32:42.560 But those are just generalizations.

01:32:44.840 I don't think they're very fruitful at all.

01:32:46.520 And so we try to bring people on the show who are anyone willing to come on show.

01:32:50.480 We'll invite them.

01:32:50.980 We invited Cenk Uygur for over a year.

01:32:53.420 He finally agreed to come on the show.

01:32:54.760 And he mentioned it is a mistake that the left doesn't come on more.

01:32:58.020 I just literally don't understand it.

01:32:59.960 I don't.

01:33:00.880 Yeah.

01:33:01.020 But this is my point.

01:33:02.400 The right has no unified fear or strategy around doing media.

01:33:07.860 They begged.

01:33:08.680 Are you joking?

01:33:10.180 Do you know how the general the right has made attacking the media, threatening the media?

01:33:15.860 That's not what I'm saying.

01:33:16.420 A major play.

01:33:18.240 That's not what I'm saying.

01:33:19.300 What I'm saying is they their hatred of the media has become so pronounced.

01:33:24.680 Yes.

01:33:24.920 That it has become one of their only political winners.

01:33:29.240 This is not what I'm saying.

01:33:30.040 What I'm saying is on the right, there is no fear or unified ideology around whether or

01:33:37.380 not you should or should not do interviews.

01:33:39.960 In fact, Donald Trump keeps doing interviews with media that hates him on the left.

01:33:44.980 Well, he understands.

01:33:46.180 On the left.

01:33:46.780 Attention is attention.

01:33:47.660 On the left, there is a fear that if you do the media, it will shatter your ideas and

01:33:53.800 you will get in trouble with other activists for it.

01:33:55.880 So here's how it works.

01:33:57.180 Yeah.

01:33:57.720 We get inundated with emails from people who are post-liberal to conservative begging to

01:34:03.680 come on the show and asking when and how do I get on the show?

01:34:06.340 On the left, they say, how dare you go on Timcast?

01:34:09.620 You're platforming hate.

01:34:10.860 But let me ask you something.

01:34:11.700 Don't you feel at least somewhat responsible for this state of affairs given that, not

01:34:16.480 to be personal, but the fusion of journalists and activists, which, see, I'm not that.

01:34:23.560 I'm just a guy reporting.

01:34:25.240 I don't really-

01:34:26.760 That's not true.

01:34:27.680 But my opinion is not particularly relevant.

01:34:31.240 But it is.

01:34:32.960 I mean, I think sometimes I write opinion pieces and sometimes I publish them.

01:34:37.320 But I honestly think my best work, like the things I'm proud of stuff and the things that

01:34:41.340 I think actually matter are things like this, where it's like, I got access to the machine

01:34:46.440 and I can tell you how the machine works.

01:34:48.820 If you want to learn, if you want to know how politics works, you can read it.

01:34:53.000 I gave that.

01:34:53.840 That's my gift.

01:34:54.660 And I feel proud of that.

01:34:56.040 Whereas my opinions are just my opinions, right?

01:34:58.920 The fusion of activists and journalists seems to me to be the, you know, the-

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01:36:01.020 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

01:36:06.060 So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell

01:36:10.660 our clients that we really care about you.

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01:36:26.960 Did I mention that we care?

01:36:28.400 The original sin here.

01:36:32.480 And it is right wing and it is left wing is both.

01:36:36.020 And I mean, I think it is a it is something that is just destructive in itself.

01:36:41.460 Agree and disagree.

01:36:42.380 Agree.

01:36:42.960 Like, I think a journalist should not be a lawyer.

01:36:44.520 They should be a judge.

01:36:45.600 So I agree.

01:36:48.040 And activist journalism is a huge, huge problem.

01:36:52.300 Yeah.

01:36:52.480 So, however, there's a moral question over what is the problem with it.

01:36:57.680 Here at Timcast, we have an eclectic bunch of people of varying different political opinions.

01:37:01.960 We have some employees absolutely hate Israel, some who absolutely love Israel.

01:37:05.080 Right.

01:37:05.220 And I'm not going to fire them for having very, very strong disagreements and posting things

01:37:09.560 on the Internet.

01:37:10.200 Did it get physical?

01:37:11.220 No, no, no.

01:37:12.660 Anybody who gets physical, we're not going to employ.

01:37:14.360 Right, sure.

01:37:14.900 Yeah, of course.

01:37:15.320 No, no.

01:37:15.700 But like going on Twitter and saying, ah, Israel, this or like, hey, Palestine, this.

01:37:19.040 I'm like, you're allowed to have those opinions.

01:37:21.020 Yes.

01:37:21.500 So the issue I take is.

01:37:24.060 The there are journalists who willfully lie because they're activists.

01:37:28.520 100 percent.

01:37:29.280 So that is truly nonpartisan.

01:37:31.000 I don't care.

01:37:32.080 So you you have political opinions and you have a worldview.

01:37:35.400 You will.

01:37:35.860 These are expressed in your thoughts and ideas as it pertains to how you write your books.

01:37:39.940 No, because when I write books, what I love to do is have my worldview dissolve.

01:37:45.340 That's the best thing.

01:37:46.780 When I write.

01:37:47.300 Let's do one.

01:37:48.060 When I when I when I research a piece and when I write a really good piece, what I know

01:37:53.040 is that my original ideas die.

01:37:55.640 So let's try this.

01:37:57.140 And this may be I don't I may be picking on you, but did a police officer die in January

01:38:01.440 6th in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol?

01:38:02.980 Well, he had a heart attack and he died.

01:38:04.420 So it would be felony murder.

01:38:05.480 Who was that?

01:38:06.720 I forget his name, but he did die on January 6th because of the riots.

01:38:11.840 Yeah.

01:38:12.300 Well, there is debate around whether it's because of the riots, but it would it doesn't

01:38:17.080 matter from a legal point of view because it's felony murder.

01:38:20.240 Let's try and figure out who who this was, how.

01:38:24.200 How is it felony murder if he has a heart attack?

01:38:27.460 If you're committing a crime and a person like if you if you rob a bank.

01:38:31.180 Yeah.

01:38:31.520 And the police guard has their gun up and the guy dies of a heart attack, you're going

01:38:35.700 to jail for murder.

01:38:36.660 He.

01:38:36.920 Hold on.

01:38:37.640 Hold on.

01:38:37.820 Hold on.

01:38:39.440 Like, it doesn't matter.

01:38:40.800 Like, if you're he didn't die, he did die.

01:38:43.080 He did not die.

01:38:44.760 Well, that.

01:38:48.260 At least the report from The Washington Post is that it was a mild heart attack.

01:38:52.300 And from the in the month since he has talked about it and he's not dead.

01:38:55.380 Let me have a look here.

01:38:56.600 Unless I've got the wrong one.

01:38:58.920 Well, I don't.

01:39:00.800 Certainly, that is the information.

01:39:02.720 Well, so here's my point.

01:39:03.860 Who do they have the memorial for then?

01:39:05.600 Brian Swetnick.

01:39:06.320 Who was that?

01:39:06.860 He was the guy who a few days later suffered a stroke and died.

01:39:10.020 Oh, I think it was.

01:39:11.220 Was it?

01:39:11.720 No, no.

01:39:12.200 Swetnick is.

01:39:12.780 I'm pretty sure Swetnick was his name.

01:39:14.620 No, I think.

01:39:15.460 Are you sure?

01:39:16.100 I'm not.

01:39:18.080 Why are we having this debate over?

01:39:19.680 No, no.

01:39:19.980 That's Julie Swetnick.

01:39:21.400 Who's the who's the.

01:39:25.480 I'll explain in a second, but let me make sure.

01:39:27.780 These are the five people who died in the Capitol riot.

01:39:32.440 Sicknick.

01:39:33.300 Sicknick.

01:39:33.760 Not Swetnick.

01:39:34.320 Brian Sicknick, Ashley Babbitt, Kevin Greese.

01:39:36.880 Sicknick did not die on January 6th.

01:39:39.380 Several days later, he suffered a stroke and the New York Times reported it was unrelated.

01:39:43.800 Well, so here's my point that the writings you have are informed by your worldview and

01:39:50.700 the articles you read.

01:39:51.440 And I have no issue with that whatsoever.

01:39:52.600 No, but here's the thing, like what I try to do when I write, genuinely, this is my

01:39:57.360 life's mission.

01:39:57.940 And I think it's why what I'm proud of as a writer is I go in with assumptions and I

01:40:03.780 investigate and I see what happens and then I watch those assumptions die.

01:40:07.980 See, to me.

01:40:08.700 And I agree.

01:40:09.160 To me, when I see activist journalist, what it means is I'm going to go in with an idea

01:40:14.400 and I'm going to prove it.

01:40:16.880 Exactly.

01:40:17.240 And that to me is not how life works, it's not how thinking works, it's not how people

01:40:23.820 should be.

01:40:24.440 So this is my point.

01:40:25.460 We are all in error all the time.

01:40:28.880 This is my point.

01:40:30.060 You say, you ask me if I feel culpable or...

01:40:33.540 Yeah, well, just because you didn't know how it was going to turn out, but you were an

01:40:36.700 early example of it.

01:40:37.620 That's what I mean.

01:40:38.380 Of activist journalist.

01:40:40.520 So I would make the argument that you and I are doing the same thing.

01:40:44.080 No, we're not.

01:40:45.040 We absolutely are.

01:40:45.760 Well, you make a lot more money than me.

01:40:47.660 Okay, that's different.

01:40:48.480 I mean, this is a lot better spread than where I am at.

01:40:51.260 It's different.

01:40:51.660 My point is when Covington kids, for example, I did not come out and say, look what this

01:40:57.780 kid did.

01:40:58.160 How dare he?

01:40:59.220 Despite the fact that my own subscribers were demanding, I denounce him.

01:41:02.460 I said, I need to know what happened first and then talk about it.

01:41:05.640 Yeah, fair enough.

01:41:06.400 And so I did.

01:41:06.880 Yeah.

01:41:07.240 So what we do on this show is typically, they call me a milquetoast fence sitter.

01:41:13.120 That's the meme.

01:41:13.760 And it's been the meme for a long time because that, what the hell am I?

01:41:17.220 My God.

01:41:17.540 But I would argue you're doing the same thing in a somewhat different way.

01:41:21.020 See, I feel myself to be completely politically homeless, right?

01:41:25.320 Especially right now.

01:41:26.560 That's what we are right at this moment.

01:41:27.880 I mean, I don't know, I don't know what, where the hell I stand on, I mean, so much.

01:41:34.800 Like these, there's these structures that I understand about how these things work, but

01:41:38.520 like the actual nature of my political views, I feel is, I mean, I am on unstable ground.

01:41:45.200 Like things are giving way all the time.

01:41:47.020 But this is what we basically do here.

01:41:49.380 And so the first thing is most of the people who watch Timcast IRL are not conservatives.

01:41:54.280 Right.

01:41:54.800 They're just young.

01:41:56.000 No, no, no.

01:41:56.580 I mean, they're, they're the same age as me.

01:41:58.880 They're millennials.

01:41:59.540 I think the average age is like early thirties now because they're aging with us.

01:42:03.300 Yes.

01:42:03.540 That to me is young, but.

01:42:05.160 Right.

01:42:05.740 But that's an example.

01:42:07.780 When Steve Bannon came on Timcast IRL for the first time, the majority of our audience

01:42:11.960 had never heard him speak before.

01:42:13.200 Right.

01:42:13.760 Marjorie Taylor Greene, never heard her speak before.

01:42:15.840 Wow.

01:42:16.040 Really?

01:42:16.400 Even her?

01:42:16.840 Even Marjorie Taylor Greene.

01:42:17.860 Because she's young too, right?

01:42:18.900 She's like 35.

01:42:20.160 Marjorie Taylor Greene?

01:42:21.020 No.

01:42:21.240 How old is she?

01:42:21.960 She's got, I don't know.

01:42:22.860 How old is she?

01:42:23.460 You know, we shouldn't just, it's probably not right.

01:42:25.200 Well, but my point is.

01:42:26.260 I think of her as a young politician.

01:42:26.960 What happens is we get people on the left, my favorite, Hassan Piker, the most prominent

01:42:33.100 left-wing live streamer called Ian Crossland a conservative.

01:42:37.000 Oh, I'm called a conservative all the time.

01:42:39.440 So we're politically homeless.

01:42:40.540 Yeah.

01:42:40.760 That's how we describe it.

01:42:41.360 Yeah, I was called a reactionary the other day.

01:42:44.020 Right.

01:42:44.360 Like, I mean, it's like, I mean, it's like.

01:42:45.880 This is because of how far left the left is now.

01:42:48.080 But it's the same.

01:42:48.780 But also, I've been called a communist.

01:42:51.220 Well, sure.

01:42:51.700 Absolutely.

01:42:51.900 Right.

01:42:52.200 I mean.

01:42:52.440 I've been called a communist.

01:42:53.600 Yeah.

01:42:53.840 Like, I mean, you know, like it's, it's just like, I do feel this.

01:42:59.200 And so in the end, I don't know what to call myself.

01:43:01.020 Well, because I'm called, people have called me a communist because I lean left on some things.

01:43:05.040 Right.

01:43:05.440 So the goal of what we do here absolutely has a component of activism, but I think it's

01:43:10.540 morally good in that when Kyle Rittenhouse happened, we don't immediately say what a

01:43:15.480 racist when George Floyd happens.

01:43:17.100 We don't immediately say what a racist when Ahmaud Arbery happens.

01:43:19.140 We don't immediately say what's a racist.

01:43:20.160 We say, wait, wait, wait.

01:43:21.280 What happened?

01:43:22.200 Right.

01:43:22.420 What's the desired outcome?

01:43:23.380 And, and, and, and, and what are, what are people fighting over the left?

01:43:27.400 For instance, Cenk Uygur comes on the culture war show.

01:43:30.380 And when I said, you know, with George Floyd, it's really interesting.

01:43:33.320 And he goes, how dare you defend that racist?

01:43:36.260 I can't believe you do this.

01:43:37.400 Oh.

01:43:37.840 And then he does this impersonation thing where he just mocks.

01:43:40.320 Oh, I'm so racist.

01:43:42.280 Shutting down conversation.

01:43:43.880 And that's the left.

01:43:45.480 That's not the left.

01:43:47.400 He's got the biggest left wing show in the world.

01:43:51.400 Listen, what we're talking about here, but this is the thing.

01:43:53.680 Left wing show, right?

01:43:55.420 Like we're in this moment where, I mean, I, I genuinely do not know what the left means

01:44:01.280 anymore.

01:44:01.780 I can tell you.

01:44:02.240 I do.

01:44:03.080 See, you guys do because you're not part of it.

01:44:05.660 Right.

01:44:05.960 And similarly, it's people who know what the right is are the people aren't part of it.

01:44:10.080 And we aren't.

01:44:10.680 You go and ask people, how does the right work?

01:44:13.160 They, people on the left, they know just how it works.

01:44:16.020 Anyone you meet who's in the right, it's all very complicated.

01:44:19.540 No, no.

01:44:20.080 People, people, people, people on the right.

01:44:22.200 There has to be nuance for everybody.

01:44:24.640 There have been, there have been a lot of.

01:44:25.580 You can't just say something like the left.

01:44:27.320 There have been a lot of studies.

01:44:28.180 Meaningless at this point.

01:44:28.920 People on the right and in the center know what the people on the left think and they

01:44:34.460 understand their arguments.

01:44:35.580 People on the left do not understand people on the right.

01:44:38.640 Like John Haidt wrote a book called The Righteous Mind and his.

01:44:41.620 Yes, that's an excellent, that's exactly what we're talking about.

01:44:44.040 Yeah, his, his, his analysis of people on the right and the left, the people on the

01:44:48.720 left use only a couple metrics for their, their opinions.

01:44:52.460 Whereas people on the right.

01:44:53.900 Care and fairness.

01:44:54.820 Yeah.

01:44:55.100 Care and fairness.

01:44:55.620 And I'm not, I don't want to, I didn't want to say, or I don't want to say because

01:44:58.560 I'll probably botch it.

01:44:59.420 But I know that the people on the left use only, only two dimensions, whereas people

01:45:05.060 on the right use all five dimensions, six dimensions.

01:45:07.860 And so, and, and libertarians are kind of off on their own, own thing, but this is,

01:45:12.500 this is real and it's testable.

01:45:15.320 It's absolutely real.

01:45:16.800 Another, another metric we use is people on the left consume.

01:45:21.900 Uh, they get their news from 95% left-wing sources, people in the middle get 60% from

01:45:28.500 the left and 30 to 40 from the right.

01:45:30.440 And people on the right get 60 to 70 from the right and 30 from the left.

01:45:33.620 This is, this is, this is like Pew and, and, uh, on Gallup research showing when they poll

01:45:38.460 people and ask them what your sources are, they find the people on the left almost only

01:45:41.980 exclusively go to left-wing activists, media outlets.

01:45:44.560 People in the middle have, have a mix and people on the right have a mix.

01:45:47.140 Listen, part, the reason I wrote the next civil war is because basically of a, of a one

01:45:51.980 single theory called complimentary radicalization, right?

01:45:55.320 Which is that as you, as you, as politics dissolves, right?

01:45:59.980 As like in Canada, there are left-wing people and right-wing people who have exactly the same

01:46:05.240 policy objectives and they, and they make them right.

01:46:08.860 They like enact policies.

01:46:10.600 That's what they do, right?

01:46:12.000 Like for example, I, I live in Ontario.

01:46:14.600 I probably will vote liberal next election.

01:46:17.360 My whole family's in Alberta.

01:46:18.780 They all vote, they will vote conservative forever.

01:46:23.180 There is no art.

01:46:24.640 We are absolutely fine with each other, right?

01:46:27.360 Like that would not even, it would never be brought up.

01:46:29.560 Like I, it would not even be considered as a subject of, I mean, maybe a joke, like maybe

01:46:35.260 as a little light joke, but it's doesn't really matter here.

01:46:38.500 This has become this huge dividing line.

01:46:40.280 And as like, what happens in complimentary radicalization is that as people, as the

01:46:45.240 right gets more, right, it makes the left go more left, which makes the right go more

01:46:48.660 right, which makes the left go more left.

01:46:50.540 And you get, and also as you separate from reality, right?

01:46:54.960 IE government, IE, what are we going to do with shared reality or policy?

01:47:00.940 Like, like we have politics in order to enact policies for our thing.

01:47:05.500 But as we were saying before, like conservatives have been sending this stream of people to

01:47:09.080 disrupt Washington.

01:47:10.320 Washington doesn't change.

01:47:11.640 Left has been sending to enact all these things.

01:47:14.340 Government doesn't change, right?

01:47:16.060 Like they link arms in the street.

01:47:17.760 Nothing happens.

01:47:18.160 Nothing happens.

01:47:18.920 You go in like one thing you can be sure of when you see a rally on the street, it will

01:47:22.660 have no effect.

01:47:23.740 It will have no effect on anything, right?

01:47:26.620 I actually, I do.

01:47:28.120 I disagree a little bit.

01:47:29.340 Yeah.

01:47:29.500 I think for the most part, it is true.

01:47:30.940 And we have a lot of data showing that, uh, DC only cares about the opinions of the ultra

01:47:35.200 wealthy.

01:47:35.580 Yeah.

01:47:36.140 However, well this, I mean, literally it's, it's not even the opinions of the ultra wealthy.

01:47:41.180 It is what money you have.

01:47:43.200 But I will give one example where the left at least has some, some in that, uh, despite

01:47:49.780 the fact that we are seeing people go around tearing down the flyers of the Israeli civilians

01:47:53.860 who are kidnapped.

01:47:54.980 Biden came out and said, we're going to combat Islamophobia.

01:47:58.000 Right.

01:47:58.440 And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, hold on the protests that we're seeing that are, are

01:48:02.100 defending and advocating for violence are left protests in support of Hamas.

01:48:06.000 Well, he's saying we're going to defend Islamophobia while we're sending a aircraft carrier to

01:48:11.280 Israel.

01:48:12.020 Two of them.

01:48:12.700 Two of them.

01:48:13.780 But what do we see?

01:48:14.920 We see in New York.

01:48:16.000 Well, you know, do you know the left died this month, right?

01:48:18.660 Oh, absolutely.

01:48:19.600 The left this month is, um, like it, the left is you're going to have to find a whole,

01:48:25.860 you're going to have to find a whole other subject.

01:48:27.440 Well, that's my, that's my point.

01:48:29.000 Like you're going to, like, you're going to, you're actually like the, the, the, um,

01:48:33.280 Amy Schumer is gone.

01:48:34.880 Like, like it's like the left as a unified progressive movements as a unified force

01:48:41.100 essentially ended in October, 2023.

01:48:44.300 However, it was rough because the, the, the first kind of volley was June with the, uh,

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01:49:49.040 When you really care about someone, you shout it from the mountaintops.

01:49:53.480 So on behalf of Desjardins Insurance, I'm standing 20,000 feet above sea level to tell our clients

01:49:58.720 that we really care about you.

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01:50:08.840 Visit Desjardins.com slash care and get insurance that's really big on care.

01:50:14.460 Did I mention that we care?

01:50:18.140 With the way that people reacted to Gay Pride Month and the LGBT stuff.

01:50:23.360 Oh yeah.

01:50:23.520 Target.

01:50:24.340 Yeah.

01:50:24.420 All that stuff.

01:50:24.980 And then with the additional response by the left.

01:50:29.020 Cheering for Hamas.

01:50:29.800 I am not saying every pro.

01:50:31.700 I'm not saying every pro-Palestinian cheered for Hamas.

01:50:34.080 I'm saying specifically in New York, there were several rallies where they have been consistently

01:50:38.540 to this day cheering for Hamas.

01:50:40.720 100%.

01:50:41.120 And you know, left-wing people are not idiots.

01:50:44.100 They look at that and they're like, that's not, is that what we're doing?

01:50:48.080 Is it?

01:50:48.340 Because that's not what I'm doing.

01:50:49.660 Yes, but hold on.

01:50:50.300 Right.

01:50:50.520 And like, and honestly, like, so what you're seeing is.

01:50:53.680 Let me, let me just say.

01:50:54.600 Yeah.

01:50:54.860 Hassan Piker, the biggest left-wing live streamer.

01:50:57.960 Yeah.

01:50:58.320 To Gen Z and some, and some younger millennials adamantly condemn, it criticizes Israel, supports

01:51:05.900 Palestine.

01:51:06.340 Palestine, that perspective is still dominant and prominent among many on the left and it's

01:51:10.660 not going to break.

01:51:11.380 No, I think you're right.

01:51:12.800 But what's, what's happening is that, um, any kind of, like, you know, I'll never forget

01:51:18.120 a conversation I had with an FBI agent where we were talking about extremists and we're

01:51:21.700 like, I was like, so, you know, left-wing has extremists.

01:51:24.640 Why do they never form themselves into these?

01:51:26.680 Like you're out there trying to stop these groups that are violently armed on the right.

01:51:32.080 Why does the left never have these, the same kind of like armed figures?

01:51:36.520 And he said, they do.

01:51:37.200 He said, they destroy themselves before they can get to that point.

01:51:40.740 They, they said they like, they, they annihilate their, they have so little solidarity that they

01:51:46.440 annihilate themselves before they can ever get to the point where they have, where they

01:51:49.960 form themselves into actual units.

01:51:52.300 This is a really good point because I completely agree.

01:51:54.320 Yeah.

01:51:54.640 There are antifa cells.

01:51:57.300 There are.

01:51:57.860 Yeah.

01:51:58.340 But there are, there are, they are the most powerless people on earth.

01:52:01.800 They are useless, but they are chaos.

01:52:04.440 Oh yeah.

01:52:04.860 They're, they're, well, they're intellectual chaos and they're the same thing that you

01:52:07.720 find of people who go and shoot up, uh, Walmart.

01:52:10.340 And so, right.

01:52:11.180 And so the issue is if the chaos builds too much, the system destabilizes and breaks.

01:52:16.100 Well, we're already seeing that.

01:52:16.840 That's what we're talking about.

01:52:18.100 Right.

01:52:18.380 So I do agree that with something like right-wing militias, they, they understand hierarchy and authority

01:52:23.520 and solidarity better than the left does, but the left has this bulk, low tier in large

01:52:29.380 numbers that.

01:52:30.720 Yes.

01:52:30.880 But it's also, you have to understand that they're institutions and they've been largely

01:52:34.320 based in institutions.

01:52:35.060 Like I went to the 2018, like, you know, a lot of these things happen on campuses and

01:52:38.880 someone in humanities departments and campuses are falling apart.

01:52:42.040 Like if that's your enemy, like, I don't think that's the, that's the, that's like the weakest

01:52:47.420 enemy that you can have.

01:52:48.660 And that's why I don't think it is.

01:52:49.560 I think big tech is the, is the issue.

01:52:51.300 Well, that's all our, that's for all of us.

01:52:54.280 Yeah.

01:52:54.520 I mean, that's just, that's the honest thing we could be united.

01:52:56.900 The big danger with the left is the destabilization that the left does causing the government to

01:53:02.680 react by coming down on the whole population.

01:53:05.280 Oh no, but that's everyone.

01:53:06.400 I mean that, like, you know, that's, you know, you got people firing at the FBI from

01:53:10.000 the right.

01:53:10.400 I mean, like the, the chaos that's coming is definitely the fringes of both.

01:53:14.500 This is what happens.

01:53:15.300 And this is what, this is what happens in other countries.

01:53:17.240 Right.

01:53:17.520 So like, it's not like you can blame people and you can say like, oh, this one's worse

01:53:20.820 than this one, this one.

01:53:21.460 But the, the point is it's, the chaos comes from everyone.

01:53:24.460 That's what happened in that.

01:53:25.520 I mean, not to, not to, to bring up, you know, the, I hate to bring up Hitler, but the

01:53:29.720 whole reason, the reason lost the real, but the reason that he, but the reason

01:53:34.860 that he, we're live streaming, I'm not, I'm not talking, I'm not talking about him, but

01:53:38.520 I'm talking about the Weimar Republic, the fighting between the left and the right in

01:53:43.040 the streets is why the people called for a strong government to stop the fighting.

01:53:47.780 So we're not talking about Hitler himself.

01:53:49.560 I'm talking about, let me, the people before he, Weimar is close enough.

01:53:52.700 I want to, I got to go now, the shot heard, in my opinion, the shot heard around the world

01:53:58.980 for the next civil war, should it happen, will likely come from the right and not the left.

01:54:02.180 Oh yeah.

01:54:03.560 Well, the, the odds of that are like 50 to four.

01:54:06.300 And it's not because I am saying that there's a far fringe, right at room extremist who's

01:54:10.000 going to go to a racist.

01:54:10.840 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

01:54:11.920 The left is a destabilizing force.

01:54:13.900 I call them chaos.

01:54:14.620 I call them fire, but the right, what I, what I fear is I mentioned the border, the

01:54:18.680 shot heard around the world is not going to be a bunch of people pulling up some new

01:54:21.840 flag of, you know, a new American flag or whatever, and screaming revolution.

01:54:25.180 It's going to be 14 guys in a militia saying the federal government is in defiance of state

01:54:30.240 law and federal law, and we're going to go set up our own checkpoint on this road.

01:54:34.200 The federal government will pull up and be like, we're the authority here.

01:54:36.680 And they're going to say, you guys are in violation of the law.

01:54:38.800 That's chapter one of the next civil war.

01:54:40.480 Exactly.

01:54:40.880 It's, it is not the left that's going to do this.

01:54:42.900 The left is going to do stupid things like throwing fire bombs and acting like, like wild

01:54:46.580 property crime, low level violence, low level, widespread property.

01:54:50.560 But with that, they're much more likely to do that.

01:54:53.240 This is why I said watching the federal government raise the razor wire to allow lawbreakers to break

01:54:57.960 the law was terrifying to me because that is the catalyst for a group, a vigilante.

01:55:03.400 I can't even call it vigilante because they're effectively operating on the side of the law.

01:55:07.160 But more importantly, you have the risk of state versus federal violence.

01:55:10.160 If Texas says enough, they are in violation of state and federal law.

01:55:14.920 The National Guard will go in and stop the CBP from breaking the law.

01:55:18.000 Now you've got government versus government.

01:55:20.200 No, that, that to me is highly unlikely.

01:55:22.460 I mean, I looked at that scenario.

01:55:23.680 I talked it over with the colonel who drew up.

01:55:25.240 Like that's, I don't know, that would, that would just be, no, because first of all, one

01:55:30.480 of the more, one of the more interesting things that the U S military did was like in every

01:55:35.160 other country, it tends to work by these battalions that are formed in local communities.

01:55:39.400 And they, that's like, you know, in Alberta, like when you get the soldiers for the Canadian

01:55:43.980 military, they come from the same towns and the same farm towns.

01:55:46.820 And they fight U S after the, after the civil war, the U S was like, no, we're not doing

01:55:51.060 that because what happens is.

01:55:52.680 Yeah.

01:55:52.960 Cause then it's like, suddenly you've got someone in the military who's from Georgia

01:55:55.660 and like, do they owe their loyalty to Georgia or to the U S.

01:55:58.640 So this was literally the civil war.

01:56:00.900 Yeah.

01:56:01.320 You had all these West point graduates and they left and a great question by, uh, was

01:56:05.860 it, uh, was it Stonewall Jackson?

01:56:07.500 Maybe he was Virginia, right?

01:56:09.340 Yeah.

01:56:09.540 He, he wrote something about his loyalty to the United States, but the questions of his

01:56:14.340 loyalty to his home, to his neighbors and his community.

01:56:16.360 Well, that was Robert E. Lee.

01:56:17.380 Robert E. Lee had that famous comment where he, cause he was the star of West point.

01:56:22.680 He was like the, the, the, the shining light.

01:56:26.040 And he was like, Oh, I'm a Virginia first.

01:56:28.720 My family.

01:56:29.440 Yeah.

01:56:29.960 So my fear, that was like, you know, the thing that was very interesting about that

01:56:33.880 is like the United States was plural before the civil war.

01:56:36.900 That's right.

01:56:37.200 The famous line from national treasure.

01:56:38.940 Oh, is that in there?

01:56:39.980 Yeah.

01:56:40.280 Nicholas Cage says before the civil war, it was the United States are.

01:56:43.100 Yeah.

01:56:43.520 And afterwards it was the United States is.

01:56:45.320 That's right.

01:56:45.940 Yeah.

01:56:46.360 That's funny.

01:56:46.780 Yeah.

01:56:47.220 That's, and, and so that's like, and, but the military really reflects that.

01:56:51.200 Right.

01:56:51.680 So that, that particular conflict is that particular scenario is, is not likely.

01:56:58.540 However, if a County sheriff.

01:57:04.440 Yeah.

01:57:05.200 Does such a thing and they easily could, then that would, then that you really could have,

01:57:11.180 I mean, that's what the, that's what the U S military is, has actively planned for.

01:57:14.620 My, my fear is the, the, the, the circumstance that I just, that we were witnessing.

01:57:19.720 I mean, look, it's not the first one.

01:57:21.040 You've got videos of CBP snipping the razor wire.

01:57:23.540 Yeah.

01:57:23.640 This has been happening for years.

01:57:25.240 And California did the same thing too.

01:57:26.600 The issue is there is only one answer.

01:57:30.260 Either we do not uphold the law and the law no longer exists or the law is upheld and the

01:57:36.400 federal government, what needs to happen is if you are going to take the lawful good approach

01:57:41.660 of we abide by the rules of this nation, we are a nation of laws, the sheriff must arrest

01:57:47.460 the CBP who are cutting the barbed wire.

01:57:49.840 Then you have, yeah.

01:57:50.820 Then you have a real, well, see, that would be the, like the sheriffs, the constitutional

01:57:54.880 sheriffs have their own point of view on this legally.

01:57:57.220 The federal government has an entirely different point of view.

01:57:59.380 That's exactly right.

01:58:01.400 But I would also say that anyone who wants to go up against the U S military in any capacity,

01:58:06.820 you know, you're going to lose.

01:58:09.860 Are you sure about that?

01:58:10.640 Yes.

01:58:11.120 Name a war.

01:58:11.760 The United States military has won in the past.

01:58:13.280 Oh, they won them all.

01:58:14.620 Like, have you ever read that?

01:58:15.740 Have you ever read that?

01:58:16.260 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

01:58:17.120 You're talking about two different people.

01:58:18.620 Well, no, no, no.

01:58:19.100 It's easy to win.

01:58:20.080 Like why, when, have you ever read the book, why we lost by Afghanistan, Iraq, it's about

01:58:26.120 Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, he, you're conflating.

01:58:29.220 You literally read this book and you're like, why, when does the losing start?

01:58:34.760 Like they win every single battle.

01:58:36.480 That's because you're conflating two things.

01:58:38.000 You're, you're complaining that you're conflating military capability with political ends.

01:58:42.460 Well, that's my point.

01:58:43.480 Yeah.

01:58:43.780 I mean, it's like the U S military doesn't lose engagements.

01:58:46.920 Yeah.

01:58:47.120 They win every engagement.

01:58:48.520 It's the policymakers that fail in the policy.

01:58:51.500 They fail in what, what policy is attainable.

01:58:54.520 They fail in, in deciding what we should use the military for, but the military doesn't

01:58:59.760 lose.

01:59:00.380 No, no, no, no.

01:59:00.980 You're right.

01:59:01.320 They win engagements.

01:59:02.360 Yeah.

01:59:02.500 But Afghanistan is a really great example of we lost.

01:59:05.400 Oh, well, I remember one of the great stories a journalist told me about Afghanistan is he

01:59:09.180 was like in Afghanistan.

01:59:10.120 He was with, he was embedded with the Taliban.

01:59:12.500 This was when they were fighting the Soviets.

01:59:14.320 And, um, he saw that one of the Taliban fighters was fighting with a flintlock rifle from that

01:59:21.140 had been taken from the British from 1878 and at 1878, right?

01:59:25.020 And he was like, whoever goes up against these guys is going to lose.

01:59:28.360 Like it doesn't make, like, like, like if you're fighting with a flintlock rifle, you're, you're

01:59:34.360 not going to lose.

01:59:35.040 You're going to kill that guy, but his kid's going to pick it up.

01:59:37.600 Well, yeah.

01:59:37.980 I mean, like, but that is the point of the next civil war, right?

01:59:41.280 It's like, you can control when they, when they created the political space in Iraq for

01:59:45.760 elections in the surge, the violence that they had to commit to do that was so great that

01:59:52.040 it made politics irrelevant.

01:59:53.140 And that's exactly what could happen in the United States, right?

01:59:56.220 Like they would win against the sheriff.

01:59:58.440 They would, I mean, it would not be a contest.

02:00:00.860 It would be like the, it would be like an NBA team playing against the white MCA pickup team.

02:00:06.000 But like, it doesn't matter how much you win.

02:00:08.260 You're still going to lose.

02:00:09.160 Exactly.

02:00:09.780 Yeah.

02:00:09.940 So they'll win the engagement.

02:00:11.200 Uh, if a local sheriff comes out and goes to, uh, CBP and says, put your hands behind your

02:00:17.480 back.

02:00:17.680 You're under arrest.

02:00:18.320 They're going to say no.

02:00:19.540 And would you want to be like, would you want to be up against Americans?

02:00:23.400 If I was, if I was the sheriff, if I was the sheriff in the County where Eagle Pass resides

02:00:29.000 right now, day one, when I saw a video of them sending barbed wire, I would instruct my

02:00:33.640 deputies to arrest any of them on site immediately.

02:00:36.500 But you would be charged with treason.

02:00:38.780 That's not treason.

02:00:39.900 Treason.

02:00:40.320 Treason is aiding and abetting.

02:00:40.840 It would be according to the federal government.

02:00:42.320 No, it wouldn't.

02:00:42.820 Treason is providing aid or materials to enemies at war.

02:00:46.520 A sheriff only has.

02:00:48.080 A sheriff, like, a sheriff.

02:00:49.540 But one of the things that they have specifically is piracy, right?

02:00:54.680 So like that involves anything with water.

02:00:56.960 I just happen to know this technically because I spent so long with it.

02:00:59.780 Like, like if, if the federal government would just argue, well, you're interfering with our

02:01:03.760 right to navigate piracy.

02:01:05.440 That's not treason.

02:01:05.980 That'd be sedition.

02:01:06.900 Well, yeah.

02:01:07.420 Yeah.

02:01:07.620 Okay.

02:01:07.920 Fair enough.

02:01:08.440 Like, yeah, it would be.

02:01:09.500 Treason is abetting an enemy at the time of war.

02:01:10.780 That's right.

02:01:11.300 Yeah.

02:01:11.480 But it would, so you would just be charged with sedition, but like it's, so like they don't,

02:01:14.700 they don't have a, they don't have a, um, well, like there's other cases that

02:01:19.300 they may, like, you know, the, the federal government, the, the constitutional sheriff

02:01:23.080 changed charges.

02:01:24.040 There's only five things for the federal government to do.

02:01:25.720 One of them's counterfeiting.

02:01:26.980 One of them's piracy.

02:01:28.320 Forget what the one.

02:01:29.180 I think one of them's kidnapping, but, and then there's, um, and then there's a couple

02:01:32.580 others that I forget.

02:01:33.700 Um, for the, you know what I would do?

02:01:35.000 I would arrest them for destruction of state property.

02:01:36.960 Well, you, I mean, you could try, but I mean, you wouldn't get anywhere.

02:01:41.440 I absolutely would.

02:01:41.700 Don't care.

02:01:42.140 I mean, you would not have a legal right to stand on.

02:01:44.000 All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

02:01:47.040 That, I mean, come on.

02:01:48.180 Like this kind of moral clarity is so blinding.

02:01:50.980 We're in real situations here.

02:01:52.560 And the real situation is.

02:01:53.500 We're trying to deal with, we're trying to deal with complicated, um, overlapping bureaucracies.

02:01:58.240 And when you have the law and someone breaking the law, if you decide I will not uphold

02:02:04.800 it, you may as well not have it.

02:02:06.480 Do you really believe that the loyalty to a County is going to be greater than the loyalty

02:02:11.500 to federal authority?

02:02:13.940 What does that mean?

02:02:15.740 Well, because in this position, you're taking the role of the sheriff.

02:02:19.400 Federal law says these, these people are illegal.

02:02:21.500 I mean, yes, but that's not, I mean, the federal government's doing it.

02:02:25.060 So, you know, then your redress would be with the federal government rather than like

02:02:28.360 if a cop walks into a bank and points a gun at the teller and says, give me everything.

02:02:31.840 We don't go.

02:02:32.240 The government's doing it.

02:02:32.960 We say this person's committing a crime.

02:02:34.800 Well, not if they've been ordered to do that by the cover.

02:02:37.520 It doesn't matter.

02:02:38.100 It's still a crime.

02:02:38.840 It's still a crime.

02:02:39.600 If the federal government decides to, has all kinds of control over banks, all kinds

02:02:45.260 of controls over banks.

02:02:46.400 Like they don't go in with a gun.

02:02:48.040 They just, you know, they can, they have all kinds of ways of manipulating banks.

02:02:51.800 Regulation is different and we can argue that it's bad.

02:02:53.780 I mean, what you're essentially saying is if the federal government makes a regulatory

02:02:59.260 pull of a bank, controls over a bank, then it is essentially committing a crime and we

02:03:03.820 should shoot straw man argument to do it.

02:03:05.860 Well, that was an insane straw man.

02:03:08.040 An insane straw man.

02:03:09.240 You're arresting.

02:03:10.960 You're the one who brought up a cop walks into a bank.

02:03:13.440 Cops walk into banks all the time.

02:03:15.700 There is a big difference between a mandate from law for a cop to seize an asset under

02:03:20.500 writ of a judge and a cop deciding to point a gun at a teller and demand money.

02:03:24.700 Nobody went and pulled up that thing without a mandate.

02:03:28.160 That's my point.

02:03:29.120 So like the point is you're like the actual source of this is this man.

02:03:32.920 And so let's try again.

02:03:34.240 Okay.

02:03:34.600 Let's try a chief of police tells his office.

02:03:36.780 Try it again without morality.

02:03:38.680 Try it again like you're a Roman trying to come up with a better system.

02:03:42.380 A police chief tells two of his guys in his office, go point guns at tellers and take

02:03:48.180 money from the vault.

02:03:49.300 And they go, you got it, boss.

02:03:50.920 What do we do?

02:03:52.140 I'm sorry, but like if the way that's what is this example?

02:03:58.560 What how let me rephrase it.

02:04:00.160 Okay.

02:04:01.220 Um, a bank is in violation of their capital control amounts.

02:04:07.440 We're not.

02:04:08.220 Texas is not in violation of the law by doing what they're doing.

02:04:10.480 Well, that's the federal government's opinion.

02:04:13.040 Let's say that.

02:04:13.740 Let's say the bank is actually and the federal government is wrong and still does.

02:04:17.180 A judge has to sign off on it.

02:04:18.600 Yeah.

02:04:19.080 Well, I did not sign off on what we're seeing.

02:04:20.400 Well, look, you're bringing up this example that I don't know very well, but like my

02:04:25.320 point is that the federal government interferes with other institutions like literally every

02:04:31.320 minute of every day, right?

02:04:33.100 Like the fact that it's and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong.

02:04:36.980 Sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong.

02:04:38.560 And there are lines, but actually there aren't a lot of lines.

02:04:41.880 And the answer is not to witness crimes being committed to say, well, you know, there's

02:04:45.400 lines.

02:04:46.500 No, the answer is to go to court and talk about it like reasonable human beings.

02:04:50.400 Like, and, and, and figure it out with lawyers.

02:04:52.820 Like, that's why they're there.

02:04:54.780 Like, I mean, I, like, I don't think, I don't think, um, the answer is let's criminalize,

02:05:00.320 you know, everyone who's trying to impose federal authority.

02:05:03.100 But sometimes they're violating federal authority.

02:05:06.140 So the answer is there's lots of cases where there's a federal overreach.

02:05:10.480 Of course there are.

02:05:11.820 And the way to deal with it is like actually having a conversation in court.

02:05:16.260 And so first, what would happen is local law enforcement would approach CBP and say,

02:05:20.480 you are hereby ordered to halt pending review from a judge.

02:05:23.760 Have a nice day.

02:05:24.840 The law of our state says, no, federal law says no.

02:05:27.820 And you will need to come back with approval from a judge.

02:05:30.400 Instead, they're going and snipping.

02:05:32.740 It is insane.

02:05:33.400 I mean, I don't know what the specifics of this case, so I probably shouldn't talk.

02:05:36.560 I mean, you could be right.

02:05:37.900 Like it's, but like the point here is that the, there is always going to be a tension

02:05:42.940 between different levels of authority.

02:05:44.940 Absolutely.

02:05:45.500 Right.

02:05:45.700 That happens in Switzerland with the cantons and the federal government.

02:05:49.140 It happens in, the problem is, it happens in Iceland with the like local municipalities

02:05:55.360 and the larger federal authority.

02:05:57.300 It sure as hell happens in Canada.

02:05:58.780 I mean, we're in the middle of all this struggle between the provinces and the federal government.

02:06:04.080 I mean, they're, they're, they're, it's getting incredibly ugly.

02:06:08.120 But that, the problem here is not that tension is my point.

02:06:12.200 That tension is part of the natural order of a political system.

02:06:15.020 The problem is when the only way that you can respond to that tension is by conjuring

02:06:21.440 fantasies of violence.

02:06:23.120 Who's talking about violence?

02:06:24.460 We're talking about like arresting people, throwing them in jail when they're coming

02:06:27.340 from federal government.

02:06:28.440 You think an arrest is violence?

02:06:30.640 Have you ever been arrested?

02:06:31.720 Yes.

02:06:32.300 I mean, no.

02:06:33.700 Well, it's not pleasant either.

02:06:35.300 But it's not violence.

02:06:36.680 I put my hands behind my back.

02:06:37.900 I was placed in the car.

02:06:38.680 I went to, I sat in a room for, for 12 hours.

02:06:40.760 They let me out and that was the end of it.

02:06:41.960 Yeah.

02:06:42.120 Just 12 hours.

02:06:42.840 When was that occupation occupied Wall Street?

02:06:44.520 No, no, no.

02:06:45.080 I never got arrested for that.

02:06:46.020 I was arrested for skateboarding.

02:06:48.360 Really?

02:06:49.200 Yeah.

02:06:49.480 The only time you've been arrested is for skateboarding?

02:06:52.100 Um, I was arrested for driving on a suspended license, but that was an I bond.

02:06:55.980 Oh, right.

02:06:56.820 So that was, they, that's funny.

02:06:58.700 They don't often arrest for that.

02:06:59.980 And it was, it was an illegal stop too.

02:07:01.940 Uh, but he takes me out of the car.

02:07:03.340 He says, your license is suspended.

02:07:05.400 I said, I had no idea.

02:07:06.680 And he goes, it doesn't matter.

02:07:07.980 Sign this, have someone come pick you up.

02:07:09.940 You've been arrested and released.

02:07:11.080 That's upsetting.

02:07:11.720 And, uh, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's, oh, but you didn't go to jail then.

02:07:17.420 They just said, they just said, right.

02:07:19.160 Oh, okay.

02:07:19.660 But you, you are arrested.

02:07:20.780 You are processed on the spot.

02:07:21.980 Right.

02:07:22.100 And then they tell you to go home.

02:07:22.940 But I was actually, I did go to jail, uh, overnight for skateboarding once.

02:07:27.260 And the judge was so pissed.

02:07:28.720 Right.

02:07:29.620 I bet.

02:07:30.480 But it wasn't violent.

02:07:31.480 They sat me down and they said, you're being arrested.

02:07:34.040 They said it was a felony.

02:07:35.220 And then they said it was a felony for skateboarding.

02:07:37.480 Yup.

02:07:37.820 Yeah.

02:07:38.480 Riding my board on the sidewalk, downtown Chicago.

02:07:41.300 But the sidewalk was property controlled by the federal government.

02:07:43.980 So they said it was criminal damage to federal property.

02:07:46.440 Right.

02:07:46.720 Right.

02:07:46.860 Right.

02:07:47.020 The judge was livid and he was basically like, how dare you waste my time?

02:07:51.820 Yeah.

02:07:52.180 Of course.

02:07:52.660 Get the, out of my courtroom.

02:07:53.880 But, um, it wasn't violent.

02:07:55.140 Imagine if you'd had an idiot judge, your whole life could have changed.

02:07:57.880 Uh, yep.

02:07:59.080 They wanted to make an example of people.

02:08:00.840 It was three in the morning.

02:08:01.680 Wouldn't have been able to travel.

02:08:02.920 Oh yeah.

02:08:03.420 Of course.

02:08:03.720 Wouldn't have been like, uh, over life over.

02:08:05.900 Um, but the judge was, you know, the good judge.

02:08:09.220 And, uh, but my point is ceasing someone from committing an illegal act.

02:08:14.980 Okay.

02:08:15.260 Like I'm just saying here, let's just, why?

02:08:18.160 Like the problem here is that these debates have gotten so ferocious and so moralistic and

02:08:23.660 so about fundamental principles because they're so removed that what the actual business of

02:08:29.380 governing, which is Texas disagrees with the federal government.

02:08:33.420 They take their, their steps taken things happen.

02:08:36.840 You need to, you need to talk it over that gets removed.

02:08:40.080 And instead it's like, let's arrest people.

02:08:41.640 And like, I'll tell you why let's play out these dramatic scenarios.

02:08:44.980 And I'll tell you, I just think it's not very, and I'll tell you why right now you have almost

02:08:48.840 every state in agreement.

02:08:50.220 The Southern border is a crisis.

02:08:51.380 Yeah.

02:08:51.940 Eric Adams, New York city, several other, uh, governors are petitioning the federal government

02:08:58.380 to do something about it.

02:08:59.900 Not just border States.

02:09:01.520 Yeah.

02:09:01.960 The simple answer right now is if the plurality, nay, the majority of governance of this nation

02:09:08.100 says stop.

02:09:09.500 And the federal government goes, we're going to keep breaking the law.

02:09:12.120 Well, I mean, the federal government has actually been, I mean, you know, at some point

02:09:15.300 you need to say, it's really, it's really funny because like we have this very pro immigration

02:09:18.860 policy, but we're no one like illegal immigrants are, would absolutely not be accepted by anyone

02:09:24.940 in Canada.

02:09:25.720 Right.

02:09:25.920 Like, like, like, like, like it's a very rule abiding place and would like the idea that

02:09:30.660 there's like tens of millions of people illegally just seems insane to me.

02:09:34.820 But like, I mean, I mean, I mean, like, but well, I understand that there are different

02:09:39.240 reasons for it too.

02:09:40.020 And I understand that there's historical context and I understand that there's crisis and there's

02:09:44.260 humanitarian reasons as well.

02:09:45.640 And there's, but like, surely this has got to be something that people like, this is,

02:09:50.780 this is one of those things where it's like, surely everyone's on the same page.

02:09:54.180 Like there's other obvious answers to this.

02:09:56.600 Except the federal.

02:09:57.160 No, no, no.

02:09:57.820 I think the federal government is on the, like, they want both the solution and also.

02:10:02.480 My point is this.

02:10:03.340 Restriction.

02:10:04.060 Right.

02:10:04.200 If, if, if the states overtly willfully are subverting the law, I'm sorry, if the federal

02:10:12.080 government is, is violating the rights of states and there is no fair adjudication, you

02:10:19.800 get system collapse.

02:10:21.100 Yeah.

02:10:21.300 I mean, see, to me, the more critical problem, like, because illegal immigration in one of

02:10:26.040 those problems, it's like, I'm not, but let's, let's remove ourselves from this.

02:10:29.840 But I don't think you quite realize what a, um, like that's the right problem to have.

02:10:34.400 Right.

02:10:34.840 Let's like, because like people, like it is, it's a huge boost.

02:10:38.320 But anyway, like the abortion question to me is actually.

02:10:42.080 Much more legally problematic.

02:10:43.220 I'll give you an example.

02:10:44.580 What's happening in Texas is a granular component of what's causing civil war.

02:10:49.380 And I'll explain.

02:10:50.680 California in the past census had an extra congressional seat, perhaps two.

02:10:55.120 Yeah.

02:10:55.440 Because California violates federal law by allowing non-citizens into the country who

02:10:59.700 are then counted in the census and congressional seats and electoral votes are apportioned based

02:11:03.340 on this.

02:11:04.340 This means.

02:11:04.780 They don't know the same thing in Texas?

02:11:06.620 So all states do the census based on total people count, not citizen count.

02:11:11.900 Yeah.

02:11:12.480 So when, uh, Texas must have the same thing with, with non-citizens that the issue being

02:11:17.860 Texas is resisting.

02:11:18.960 So here's the point, but they're not, they're still counting those people.

02:11:21.440 Yes.

02:11:21.780 And so the issue is not whether or not they're counted.

02:11:23.740 It's the willful act of manipulating our electoral college and our Congress through intentionally

02:11:29.320 violating federal law.

02:11:30.380 If Texas says, please help us get, get these people out of this country, we don't want

02:11:35.720 them to be counted in the census.

02:11:36.940 And the Republicans under Trump said the citizenship question should be on the census.

02:11:41.740 The Democrat state said, no, it was the Supreme court said no.

02:11:45.380 And so what happens is California has a disproportionate amount of electoral power in federal government

02:11:50.500 based on violating federal law intentionally.

02:11:52.840 Tim, you put me in such a weird position because when you say these things, it makes

02:11:57.360 me want to argue the other side.

02:11:59.540 And like, I'm not arguing for them.

02:12:01.940 The point is this, listen, real quick.

02:12:03.100 It's like my, what I could say here at this point, what I could say at this point is like,

02:12:06.900 well, if you look at Republican gerrymandering and all these things, it's like, it's all

02:12:10.620 obvious, but my point is really like, why are we like, we all know that it's, we both

02:12:15.880 know, you and I both know that this system is collapsing.

02:12:19.700 Absolutely.

02:12:20.420 And my point is this.

02:12:21.160 The reason is for a lot of reasons on both left and right.

02:12:24.100 We also both know that.

02:12:25.300 Okay.

02:12:25.440 Let me make my point.

02:12:26.080 The point is, the reason why I called you an activist before is that.

02:12:29.700 I'm not an activist.

02:12:30.520 But you want to, but you are arguing that point.

02:12:32.460 But I am not arguing arguments, but also I am not arguing that Texas is correct or

02:12:36.780 California is correct.

02:12:37.820 I'm arguing that this is a thing that is happening and the red States will not tolerate subversion

02:12:43.400 or, and this is why we got Texas v.

02:12:45.080 Pennsylvania.

02:12:45.920 You can argue and say, California has a right to let people and don't care.

02:12:48.800 You can argue Texas has a right to get rid of them.

02:12:50.120 Don't care.

02:12:50.620 I agree with you.

02:12:51.300 Texas benefits, same as California.

02:12:53.040 You don't think there's more sedition on the right than on the left.

02:12:57.340 I don't know what that means.

02:12:58.340 I mean, the disrespect for federal government as a core belief.

02:13:05.620 You see, this is why I say you're an activist.

02:13:07.980 No, no, no.

02:13:08.860 That's not activism.

02:13:10.300 No, no, no, no, no, no.

02:13:11.000 I mean, that is-

02:13:11.800 How do you quantify whether there's more or less?

02:13:14.120 Number of court cases.

02:13:15.780 That doesn't mean anything.

02:13:16.800 That could, that could simply mean there's more institutional power for one faction.

02:13:19.680 January 6th?

02:13:20.600 What about May 20th, May 29th?

02:13:22.480 I mean, what's May 29th?

02:13:23.480 Exactly.

02:13:24.580 Buddy-

02:13:25.020 If you don't know, and you're using a-

02:13:28.160 The left is full of people that want a revolution.

02:13:31.440 But this is not even the point.

02:13:32.560 That straight up call for revolution.

02:13:33.740 Yes.

02:13:34.260 My point is-

02:13:35.080 They're just so powerless that you never hear from them.

02:13:37.680 They're like the-

02:13:38.340 They're like the-

02:13:39.480 So now, hold on.

02:13:40.240 They're like the most powerless people in the world.

02:13:41.040 Now you move the goalposts.

02:13:42.680 Are you talking about the power that they have, or are you talking about which side has more,

02:13:46.360 or whatever?

02:13:46.960 Because there are plenty of people on the left, and I'm not saying there aren't people on the right,

02:13:50.980 but there are plenty of people on the left who call for revolution, who say they don't want Joe Biden,

02:13:56.340 they want revenge, all sorts of, any number of revolutionary discussions.

02:14:02.320 Substantially more people rioted on May 29th than on January 6th.

02:14:05.660 Listen, you're talking about which riots?

02:14:09.160 The May 29th insurrection.

02:14:10.920 Which-

02:14:11.560 When they firebombed the White House, the president was forced into an emergency bunker.

02:14:15.500 Which, which-

02:14:17.220 Oh, you mean-

02:14:17.880 Yes, okay, I see what you mean.

02:14:19.080 St. John's Church is on fire.

02:14:20.320 St. John's Church, yeah.

02:14:21.760 Where are the court cases from that?

02:14:23.120 Where's the inquisition?

02:14:24.400 Look, all I would say is that I've spent a couple of years talking to the most dispassionate experts that I could find in, you know,

02:14:34.100 I would concede elite institutions of-

02:14:37.960 If you're talking to elite institutions, you're getting one perspective.

02:14:41.660 Well, the FBI as well.

02:14:42.920 You're still getting one perspective.

02:14:44.280 Well, I also visited, you know, I also spent a lot of time with Oath Keepers and with, like, with people, and I certainly got along with them great.

02:14:51.960 Antifa?

02:14:52.760 Far leftists?

02:14:53.500 I did meet some Antifa, but they're pretty boring, and they also, the thing about Antifa is they wouldn't, they don't want to talk to people like me.

02:14:59.060 That's right.

02:14:59.500 Like, they don't want, they want to, like, they, um, they're super, I mean, I did manage to interview some of them, but they're not, they're like-

02:15:05.600 So, my point is this.

02:15:06.840 Listen.

02:15:07.360 When I, when I ask you-

02:15:08.680 I think if you're honestly telling people that there's not a, a, a taste for sedition on the right, you know that's not true.

02:15:15.220 I didn't say that.

02:15:15.880 No, we're saying that it's not, it's not, it's not one side or the other.

02:15:19.620 This is something that you've been saying the whole time, that it's not one side or the other.

02:15:22.480 The idea that it's only on the right.

02:15:24.840 It may be more-

02:15:25.900 No, no, I'm more on the right.

02:15:26.520 This is what I was just saying.

02:15:27.400 It's like, you bring up these things from the left and it's like, that makes me say, well, you know, the other thing is happening on the right, but I don't want to be.

02:15:34.880 Like, I, that's not, like, that's not-

02:15:36.620 And we don't.

02:15:37.620 When, when you said, you asked me-

02:15:39.740 You're turning me into an activist by forcing me to mirror your half-

02:15:43.280 Why don't you have agency?

02:15:45.140 What are you talking about?

02:15:46.460 No, no, no.

02:15:46.860 Well, I am, I'm, I'm taking agency right now by saying, like, I don't like this process.

02:15:54.160 Though it's a single, though it's a single example, the reason I asked about the officer on January 6th is to make the point that you are coming from a left liberal perspective as you approach this and you think you're not.

02:16:04.520 You actually know.

02:16:05.940 I did not assert that there's more or less sedition on the right or the left.

02:16:08.860 You did.

02:16:09.360 What you don't understand is that I'm actually not on your spectrum.

02:16:13.620 I'm from another country.

02:16:14.820 I know that.

02:16:15.160 With a completely different spectrum.

02:16:16.320 Absolutely.

02:16:16.600 So in that, on that spectrum, I would definitely not at any, probably at any point in my life have been considered left, right?

02:16:26.560 And also-

02:16:27.880 By American standards.

02:16:28.940 But American standards, you're in the middle of collapse.

02:16:31.660 And we, I'm making an example.

02:16:33.000 You're in the middle of, you're in the middle of intellectual and political decay.

02:16:37.420 And so my point is this.

02:16:38.380 And I would also say, like, what I feel as, what I feel as a human being is politically homeless.

02:16:45.200 So when you say, I belong to someone, I kind of wish I did.

02:16:50.140 Okay.

02:16:50.280 My point is this.

02:16:51.120 But I actually don't.

02:16:52.380 If you are wrong about your, your, your single fact on January 6th, I know, we don't have the, we don't have the opportunity to go through everything you may be wrong about.

02:17:01.020 No, wait, we'll wait for that.

02:17:02.660 That'll be the long show.

02:17:03.840 My point is this.

02:17:04.440 Everything that Stephen Marsh is wrong about.

02:17:06.500 You said, you, you, you made the, the statement that, uh, you, you implied there are, there's more sedition on the right than the left.

02:17:13.220 Well, I would say this, I would say metric for this.

02:17:16.560 Well, the FBI officers I talked to who are worried about, and so, and the military, like, and now I'll respond.

02:17:22.360 The military people who plan for full spectrum operations in the homeless, they're only worried about right wing groups.

02:17:27.160 And now I'll respond.

02:17:27.960 Yeah.

02:17:28.120 On May 29th, when thousands across the tens of thousands, we saw police stations burn down.

02:17:34.840 We saw 90 plus days of firebombing of federal buildings, and we saw the White House actually get firebombed and the church in front of it, uh, across the street, St. John's was set on fire.

02:17:42.140 Yeah.

02:17:42.620 Where are the court cases over that?

02:17:44.280 Now I'm not saying either still that the left or the right has more.

02:17:47.880 My point is, I do not find your metric to be, uh, absolute or enough.

02:17:53.520 My position is, I don't know if there's more or less on either side.

02:17:57.140 You believe you do know, but you've not asked.

02:17:59.340 Well, it's not that I believe that I know.

02:18:01.120 It's that I believe that the most impartial, best voices that I could speak to and the best investigations that I could come up with were unequivocal.

02:18:10.340 But you're going to one source.

02:18:12.200 Oh, I'm not one.

02:18:12.940 One source.

02:18:13.540 There's two.

02:18:14.020 I mean, in next to a war, I interviewed 200 people.

02:18:16.060 I know.

02:18:16.420 I'm not saying, I mean, I interviewed farmers about corn prices.

02:18:19.020 I mean, I was, I was going deep.

02:18:20.620 And you didn't interview the far left because they didn't want to talk to you.

02:18:22.380 I did interview some of them, but they're, um, but clearly, but they're not, um, they're also, well, actually, there was a huge section about, uh, the tearing down of a statue in, uh, in, at which university of Virginia.

02:18:38.460 I forget which one it is.

02:18:39.420 Why was there no federal hearing on the, the, the 529 insurrection?

02:18:42.580 Well, I don't think it was considered a serious threat to the federal government.

02:18:47.100 The president was forced into an emergency bunker for the first time in what several, several

02:18:51.280 generations.

02:18:52.360 Yes.

02:18:52.520 But it wasn't an actual threat to the overthrow of the government.

02:18:55.440 Right.

02:18:55.860 Like no one, no one was worried.

02:18:57.400 The life of the president was, was in jeopardy.

02:18:59.660 They forced him.

02:19:00.160 The life of the president in the United States is always in jeopardy.

02:19:04.560 They forced him into an emergency bunker and you think that doesn't matter.

02:19:07.140 Do you believe that you believe that there was any out on January?

02:19:10.380 Well, see, I talked to a secret service agent on January 6th.

02:19:13.360 Do you believe that there was ever a possibility of any outcome other than Joe Biden becoming

02:19:19.920 the president?

02:19:20.400 Because I don't think 100% you believe that that it was possible.

02:19:23.480 Oh, I don't think there's, I look, I don't, I think the idea that I think the idea of it

02:19:27.700 actually happening, no matter what the people on the ground thought, I think the idea of

02:19:31.820 the, of it actually happening where Donald Trump was able to remain in office is as fantastical

02:19:37.660 as dragons.

02:19:39.580 You actually said this, that Mike Pence kicking back votes wouldn't have mattered because

02:19:44.200 Oh, no, no, no.

02:19:45.060 Well, also, you know, to, you know, some left-wing people have been upset at me because I don't,

02:19:50.880 I don't refer to it as an insurrection.

02:19:52.520 I think it was a riot.

02:19:53.880 Like, I don't, I don't think it was, I don't think it had, I don't think it met the,

02:19:57.320 the criteria that I apply were from PRIO, which is the Peace Institute of Oslo, which,

02:20:02.540 you know, they have the studies of civil war, right?

02:20:04.540 And like, for them, an insurrection is, is very different than what happened on January

02:20:08.880 6th.

02:20:09.380 Then I will clarify.

02:20:10.400 Yeah.

02:20:10.600 The reason why I refer to 529 as an insurrection is a political point, not a literal statement.

02:20:14.820 Well, my point is that assassinating presidents is something that your country does on the

02:20:21.680 regular, right?

02:20:22.660 Like, like it's, it's, I mean, a secret service, our presidents or their president?

02:20:27.260 Well, both, but like, but like, you know, a secret service agent told me it's part of

02:20:31.540 the political process, right?

02:20:33.100 Assassinating presidents.

02:20:34.100 How many presidents have been assassinated?

02:20:35.480 Four out of 45.

02:20:37.380 Okay.

02:20:37.840 10%.

02:20:38.380 It's one out of 11, dude.

02:20:40.340 Yeah.

02:20:40.520 Like there's, there's been one, one British prime minister in 1811 was assassinated.

02:20:46.320 That's it.

02:20:47.240 Right.

02:20:47.720 Like Australia had one candidates never happened.

02:20:49.760 They cut, they cut King's heads off.

02:20:51.520 Didn't they?

02:20:52.460 In the 17th century.

02:20:53.620 But that's after a long legal debate.

02:20:55.300 There's never been like assassination is.

02:20:57.760 So my point is that the, the, the threat to the president, I mean, you have to pay $2 million

02:21:02.380 a day to keep the president alive.

02:21:05.140 Yeah.

02:21:05.740 Right.

02:21:06.040 Like that's what, that's what the going rate is to keep the president alive.

02:21:09.200 The point is what's a bigger threat, a riot at the Capitol or people firebombing the

02:21:14.300 home of the president and forcing him into an emergency bunker.

02:21:16.340 Oh, well, definitely the Capitol.

02:21:18.800 No, I mean the, the death of a single president would, your country wouldn't miss a beat.

02:21:23.380 I mean, you guys have been here before.

02:21:24.680 We didn't miss a beat from January 6th.

02:21:25.760 Yeah.

02:21:26.360 Oh, you missed a bunch of beats.

02:21:27.980 We didn't.

02:21:28.320 They, they, they, they came back later that day and finished the day.

02:21:30.620 Yeah.

02:21:30.840 Same day.

02:21:31.460 The process was finished.

02:21:33.120 But the sense of vulnerability of the political system as a whole, I mean, was absolutely transformed

02:21:38.920 I'm, I'm, I'm not an activist.

02:21:41.120 That is a, I mean, that is a point that I think has been expressed by many people across

02:21:47.720 the political spectrum.

02:21:49.100 You know what?

02:21:49.920 For political end.

02:21:51.380 Listen, I, I'm just, I just have my opinion, right?

02:21:54.400 Like if you want to, but, and that is my opinion.

02:21:57.820 And, but I would also say that I don't think it fits neatly into a political category.

02:22:02.960 It certainly doesn't fit into, um, you know, the left-wing books that were written about

02:22:07.640 this subject.

02:22:08.240 Like I, I, and you know, neither did, neither did, uh, Barbara's book about how civil wars

02:22:12.940 start, right?

02:22:13.800 Like it's like, it felt, it fit into a political science metric.

02:22:17.940 Are you doing, uh, with a skateboarding?

02:22:22.220 You can't really, you can't get arrested for that.

02:22:25.120 I hear.

02:22:25.420 That's true.

02:22:25.740 But, uh, my, my point is simply this, I do not believe it is easy, easy enough or possible

02:22:30.580 to quantify the greater threat of May 29th or January 6th.

02:22:34.560 Oh, I, I, I mean, I think it has been quantified and the people that I've seen who have quantified

02:22:40.800 it would be of one opinion.

02:22:41.920 And that is the bias.

02:22:43.640 Um, well, I guess here's the thing.

02:22:46.780 A fact is what, oh yeah, I want to try this.

02:22:49.760 A fact is, um, you know, an opinion that we've agreed to stop fighting about.

02:22:54.140 And I think part of the major problem in the United States is that there are no, there

02:22:59.460 are no facts.

02:23:00.180 There's nothing that people have stopped agreeing about, right?

02:23:03.020 There's nothing, there's nothing that people have stopped fighting about.

02:23:05.100 And they keep coming up with new ones to fight about.

02:23:08.560 I care about this.

02:23:10.160 Uh, Ahmed Arbery, that case.

02:23:13.060 Yeah.

02:23:13.560 The left reports it as a man was jogging down the street and two white men lynched him.

02:23:17.520 My immediate question is, okay, give me the facts of the case.

02:23:19.700 Let's break this down and figure out what happened and how we prevent it.

02:23:21.620 Yeah.

02:23:21.980 You then discover that story is not true.

02:23:23.440 It's something totally different.

02:23:25.000 That's why we have courts.

02:23:26.320 And whether or not, and the court even agrees with my view on this, the question of why the

02:23:30.260 McMichaels went to jail was actually whether they had the right to engage in a citizen's

02:23:33.120 arrest, not that they were lynching a jogger.

02:23:35.880 The left maintains the false narrative.

02:23:38.040 I'm not here to drag the left for this.

02:23:39.700 My point is simply this.

02:23:40.920 When it comes to how we approach a story is what can we answer as fact, which is simple

02:23:45.140 is two plus two, four.

02:23:46.700 The answer is yes.

02:23:47.460 That's what I'm looking for.

02:23:48.500 As to your moral question and what we should have done or what happens is immaterial to me for

02:23:52.820 the most part.

02:23:53.260 I have my moral opinions.

02:23:54.120 You have yours.

02:23:54.840 You're allowed to have them.

02:23:55.900 Oh, I think you have a very distinct morality.

02:23:58.500 Absolutely.

02:23:59.380 I mean, that is.

02:24:00.280 Now the issue of January 6th and 529 to assert as fact that something is or is or is in this

02:24:07.540 in these regards, I think is an impossible question.

02:24:10.400 We don't have a simple.

02:24:11.440 No, it's not.

02:24:12.280 It absolutely is.

02:24:12.560 Many, many people have answered it.

02:24:14.480 People's opinions don't matter.

02:24:15.520 Many, many people do not find it.

02:24:16.140 Consensus is not science.

02:24:17.280 Well, that's.

02:24:18.180 Two plus two is four.

02:24:19.140 That's easy.

02:24:19.860 That's just consensus.

02:24:21.080 And people are.

02:24:21.740 Have you read Dostoevsky?

02:24:23.080 He said it's the right of every human to say two plus two is five.

02:24:25.920 And that's fine.

02:24:26.640 That's why we gamble.

02:24:27.240 But it doesn't change the fact that two plus two is four.

02:24:29.600 There will never be an instance where you take two apples, push them up against two apples,

02:24:32.620 and five apples appear.

02:24:33.660 An extra apple just manifests.

02:24:35.120 It's not going to happen.

02:24:36.200 There are simple arguments about the the nuances of decimal systems and fractions, and I'm not

02:24:41.520 talking about that when it comes to the issue of May 29th versus January 6th.

02:24:45.660 We have fact based questions to ask and then ask ourselves why we believe one was worse

02:24:49.320 than the other.

02:24:50.060 These are impossible questions because they're based on subjective morality.

02:24:52.760 So therefore, I would say January 6th bad.

02:24:55.300 529 was bad.

02:24:56.500 I don't know how you quantify one being worse than the other.

02:24:58.980 You have just expressed the postmodern view of news to an absolute perfect.

02:25:06.760 You are a postmodern human being.

02:25:08.760 Yeah, perhaps.

02:25:09.260 Even with the skateboard.

02:25:10.380 Absolutely.

02:25:11.180 And they call me a communist.

02:25:12.820 Heavens.

02:25:13.520 They call you a communist with the notebook.

02:25:16.020 This is it.

02:25:16.900 This is the picture.

02:25:18.080 Postmodern man.

02:25:19.500 There he is.

02:25:20.260 The guitar behind him.

02:25:21.400 What do you think of thinking that two plus two could equal five?

02:25:24.500 Well, that's Dostoevsky.

02:25:25.720 That doesn't matter.

02:25:26.460 It doesn't matter who said it because it is still postmodern to say that two plus two

02:25:31.280 equals five is postmodern.

02:25:32.520 I think he meant that, I mean, his claim was-

02:25:35.260 People are allowed to be wrong and argue for themselves.

02:25:36.640 Yeah.

02:25:37.040 People are-

02:25:37.760 Your soul matters more than the world.

02:25:39.760 That's fair.

02:25:40.360 But there is currently an argument that goes on online and Twitter, postmodernists, and

02:25:45.560 it has filtered into the hard sciences, which is part of why it's a significant problem.

02:25:50.580 But there are people that will try to assert that, no, two plus two can equal five.

02:25:55.960 And then they'll go ahead and they'll talk about different types of math that I can never

02:25:59.860 articulate.

02:25:59.960 Well, we've got the flat earthers, right?

02:26:01.060 I mean, we've got a lot of things going on.

02:26:03.520 But the point that I'm making is the idea that two plus two can equal five is a postmodern

02:26:08.900 idea because what you have to do is change the meanings of the words.

02:26:14.280 Look, dude, I'm just a journalist.

02:26:16.360 I'm out here trying to figure out what the hell happened.

02:26:18.780 And whether two plus two is five, I mean, I can quote Dostoevsky, but that's above my

02:26:24.880 pay grade.

02:26:25.520 I'm just trying to make sense of this.

02:26:27.600 I do agree with a lot of what the postmodernists argue about news, politics, and truth and

02:26:32.680 power.

02:26:33.100 They certainly understand that to a great degree.

02:26:34.580 Did you read it when you were a kid?

02:26:35.820 Did you read Baudrillard and people like that when you were a kid?

02:26:38.080 No, I did not.

02:26:39.280 Did you read any of it?

02:26:40.840 Did you read like-

02:26:41.620 Only read the internet.

02:26:42.700 You only read the internet.

02:26:43.860 So the answer is actually fractionally yes.

02:26:46.260 I've read-

02:26:46.720 Right.

02:26:47.200 So I would read like a chapter-

02:26:49.120 You read Zizek though, I bet, at some point.

02:26:50.900 No.

02:26:51.500 Really?

02:26:52.140 Nuh-uh.

02:26:52.580 Oh, interesting.

02:26:53.480 So mostly my upbringing is articles online.

02:26:56.920 And so that means sometimes I would read one page or two from like the Gulag Archipelago

02:27:00.760 or something.

02:27:01.000 You would love the postmodern condition.

02:27:02.880 You should read the postmodern condition and come back and we'll talk about it.

02:27:06.680 So there are some-

02:27:08.200 By Leotard.

02:27:08.620 Amazing book.

02:27:09.520 It's-

02:27:09.920 I think you would be-

02:27:11.140 You know, this stuff about numeracy, like numbers and that, like that's his argument.

02:27:15.160 It's like there's numbers and then there's opinion and that's it.

02:27:19.000 So there's what I see happening.

02:27:21.400 The general concept surrounding something like two plus two equals five at a high level-

02:27:26.280 How did we get on this subject?

02:27:28.100 I love it.

02:27:28.800 Don't get me wrong.

02:27:29.220 Postmodernist philosophy.

02:27:29.940 Yeah, yeah.

02:27:30.960 There is a core truth to the understanding of subjectivity, objectivity, and numbers and

02:27:35.800 nuance.

02:27:36.380 The problem is people who aren't smart enough to actually have the conversation start saying

02:27:40.480 stupid things like two plus two equals five.

02:27:42.060 Yeah, right.

02:27:43.160 Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's one of those things like the democratization of knowledge.

02:27:48.740 Yeah.

02:27:48.960 Like it sounds great in theory.

02:27:51.180 And then-

02:27:51.360 That really dumb people.

02:27:52.060 And then you like actually see what it looks like and you're like, oh, this is just all

02:27:56.380 idiocy.

02:27:57.080 Right.

02:27:57.380 You know?

02:27:57.820 I mean, this is what happened in the, you know, my, I did my PhD on 17th century drama

02:28:03.380 and stuff like that.

02:28:04.080 And this would happen with pamphlets, right?

02:28:05.940 When pamphlets spread everywhere, there was absolute chaos.

02:28:09.400 It was exactly like the period we're in.

02:28:10.980 Right.

02:28:11.220 I love it.

02:28:11.700 Civil war, English civil war, 1640.

02:28:14.080 I mean, that's pamphlet culture, right?

02:28:15.320 It's a fracturing of the unified worldview.

02:28:17.160 And suddenly you've got a hundred religions, right?

02:28:19.620 You had one and all these hundred religions want to kill each other, right?

02:28:22.860 And then, you know what, you know what solved it is they formed a royal society and the

02:28:26.940 royal society was like, we're just going to do reliable information and we're not going

02:28:31.760 to ask what your religion is.

02:28:34.220 We're not going to ask what you're, we're not going to ask what you believe about God.

02:28:37.560 We're just going to say like, how do you think a cell works?

02:28:39.740 And if you publish a paper, we'll look at it and tell you if it's bullshit or not.

02:28:42.500 And like, honestly, that's what we need.

02:28:44.600 We need like, we need like a royal society.

02:28:46.320 I'll do one final thought and then I'll give you a final word.

02:28:48.700 But here's a big challenge.

02:28:53.300 My final thought and then I'll throw it to you.

02:28:54.520 Big challenge.

02:28:55.620 So you're, you're, you're, I think we, we agree like 90 plus percent on like your, your

02:29:01.440 past.

02:29:01.640 Yes.

02:29:01.980 It's funny.

02:29:02.500 We get into these fights, but we actually are mostly in agreement.

02:29:04.940 Mostly in agreement.

02:29:05.980 So, but what ends up happening is I believe you're an expert on a lot of these subjects.

02:29:11.700 Yes, I am.

02:29:12.560 Even when I disagree with some of them, you have done way more work than the average person.

02:29:15.620 And what happens now, because of the democratization of, of knowledge, let's say your book has 95%

02:29:21.700 is 95% correct.

02:29:23.180 Oh my God.

02:29:23.620 You're so right.

02:29:24.300 I know just what you're going to say.

02:29:25.480 Someone's going to look at the book and go, but I know this one element is wrong.

02:29:29.480 Or they only take the 5% that they know is right.

02:29:34.360 That's the other thing.

02:29:35.300 Yeah.

02:29:35.740 Right.

02:29:36.080 It's like, I take this and the rest of it, they ignore.

02:29:39.380 Right.

02:29:39.820 Like, and they take, they just cherry pick.

02:29:41.760 That's the thing.

02:29:42.460 You cherry pick data.

02:29:43.780 And then you, and then of course you can make any argument you want.

02:29:46.360 And they'll say this, this guy, Stephen Marsh.

02:29:47.840 Yeah.

02:29:47.920 He wrote that book, but he thought this about this one thing.

02:29:49.980 So he's an idiot.

02:29:50.620 I wrote, I literally wrote a lyric in one of the songs that you heard the other day, brand

02:29:54.920 new.

02:29:55.360 And, and it, it actually points to exactly what we're talking about.

02:29:59.140 One thing wrong.

02:30:00.480 And then you can disregard everything that they say because it'll, or it allows people

02:30:05.380 to go ahead and say, Oh, this is, he's just a liar.

02:30:08.360 He's not telling the truth because I found the one flaw and that gives them the, the validation

02:30:13.500 to dismiss everything that a person says.

02:30:16.260 And the reason, the reason why I'm ending on this is to make the point.

02:30:19.280 I have pulled out single subjects and asked you about them, but I want to stress, I think

02:30:24.080 you're mostly right.

02:30:25.040 Right.

02:30:26.040 Yeah.

02:30:26.400 Well, I think, you know, I think I dislike the way that you describe huge groups of people

02:30:32.420 in generalized terms, like left and right.

02:30:34.580 I don't find it useful anymore.

02:30:35.900 Honestly, we're in such chaos now.

02:30:37.800 I mean, when you go and meet people on the right, like that, that is such a, but see what

02:30:43.660 you like people who, how else do you do it?

02:30:46.300 I guess, I guess that's really it.

02:30:48.440 Like how, like how else do you do it?

02:30:49.740 But like, they're so varied, like their opinions are like when you're in their spirit is so varied.

02:30:55.100 I met, I met a guy at a Best Buy once and he was like, I'm a huge fan.

02:30:58.520 And I was like, oh, nice to meet you.

02:30:59.440 And then he, and then he started talking about Flat Earth.

02:31:01.060 He started talking about, and I'm like, I don't understand how you watch my show.

02:31:04.840 I don't come to all that.

02:31:05.940 He was like, I think, I think on March, Trump's going to be the president again.

02:31:08.720 And I was like, did you watch my show?

02:31:10.000 Because I've been saying no to all of that.

02:31:12.040 Yeah.

02:31:12.820 Hey man, appreciate it.

02:31:13.560 But it's more, they're there for the vibe or whatever.

02:31:15.680 You know, and, and that's what, and that's how it, and I just, I mean, to begin with the

02:31:20.340 way we talked, like about how like left people don't come on right shows and like, it's a

02:31:24.760 problem.

02:31:25.520 It is.

02:31:25.860 It's like a legitimate problem.

02:31:27.240 I think it's like, it's like, and the right not going, like.

02:31:30.420 The right goes on the left.

02:31:32.040 I mean, like.

02:31:33.620 When they're allowed on, because the left says you're platforming.

02:31:35.720 Yeah.

02:31:36.200 But like.

02:31:36.900 The platforming thing is absolutely infuriating to me.

02:31:39.320 DeSantis, Vivek, Trump.

02:31:40.400 I just like, who do you think you are?

02:31:41.920 Like, like, it's like, this is not like, you just, you're just a person with an opinion.

02:31:46.720 Like, and when it comes down to it, just like everybody else.

02:31:50.200 It is.

02:31:50.840 It really is the, the, I really do think that the, the philosophy, uh, comments or, or whatever

02:31:57.820 is what it really boils down to.

02:31:59.400 If you believe that words are where power lives, then you don't want to have people saying things

02:32:06.140 that conflict with your perspective or that would empower opinions.

02:32:10.160 You don't like, we'll wind it down.

02:32:11.640 So if you want to throw any final thoughts, just by my book, last election, it is actually

02:32:15.500 very good.

02:32:16.540 It's, um, and it, if it's, uh, you got to leave me a copy so I can read.

02:32:19.900 Yeah, for sure.

02:32:20.420 Andrew, Andrew, definitely.

02:32:22.320 He explained how politics works.

02:32:24.460 And if you actually want to know the mechanics and like the, how the, how the watch works,

02:32:28.940 um, this is probably the best description you're going to get.

02:32:32.740 I want to do a review of it.

02:32:33.920 It's available on audible.

02:32:35.360 I just downloaded it.

02:32:36.080 I want to, I want to read it.

02:32:37.260 And then I want to give like my take on the variables within it.

02:32:40.960 You know, there's sort of a character like you.

02:32:44.900 But my, my, my idea is like, I want to read your, like your, your perspective on like

02:32:49.200 what could happen.

02:32:50.160 And then what I want to do is like, look for inflection points where I can talk about,

02:32:54.280 he mentioned the military here.

02:32:55.640 I'm wondering if this could happen or what would happen if this happened.

02:32:58.220 So I think you'll find it.

02:32:59.300 Andy Pons, the character's name.

02:33:00.660 Yeah.

02:33:02.180 Andy Pons.

02:33:03.100 I think you'll find it.

02:33:06.400 You're a lot of the things you talk about reflected in very specific ways.

02:33:10.560 Yeah.

02:33:10.980 Like, well, that was true with the next civil war too.

02:33:12.860 Yeah.

02:33:13.400 Right.

02:33:13.600 Like I think like a lot of the stuff you were talking about was, was in there as well,

02:33:16.780 just in a, in a kind of more, I guess, formulaic way, like a more like systematic way, but it's

02:33:23.200 the same stuff you've been talking.

02:33:24.420 Yeah.

02:33:24.900 Well, that's why we wanted to have you on.

02:33:26.160 Yeah.

02:33:26.300 Yeah.

02:33:26.420 Yeah.

02:33:26.500 Yeah.

02:33:26.700 It's always fun to be here with this book as well, but thanks for hanging out, man.

02:33:29.840 We went a little bit long, but it was really good.

02:33:31.320 Yeah.

02:33:31.860 I can't believe it just zipped by.

02:33:33.580 I know.

02:33:33.900 All right.

02:33:34.100 And we were talking over, arguing and yelling is great.

02:33:36.080 Yeah.

02:33:37.540 You want to say anything before we wrap up, Phil?

02:33:39.040 I'm Phil Labonte, lead singer of All That Remains.

02:33:41.900 You can find me on Twix at PhilThatRemains on Instagram, PhilThatRemainsOfficial.

02:33:46.980 The band is All That Remains.

02:33:48.000 You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music, you know, the internet.

02:33:53.400 I'm going to say it now, but we're not totally sure, but I believe the next episode of

02:33:57.200 this show will be appearing on Tenet Media, where it will find its new home.

02:34:01.340 Clips of the show will remain on this channel, though, and we're going to be expanding what

02:34:04.740 we do with this channel, with other stuff.

02:34:06.120 You may have noticed the Lauren Southern documentary that we've posted the trailers for on this

02:34:10.740 channel and some clips of.

02:34:12.100 So there's a lot of big stuff happening.

02:34:14.160 Super excited for what Tenet is working on.

02:34:15.920 There's a bunch of really cool people involved.

02:34:17.440 And then we'll just post the link and we'll keep you informed as to where it's going to

02:34:20.460 be.

02:34:20.560 I'll tweet it out and all that stuff.

02:34:21.780 Thanks for hanging out and we'll see you all next time.

02:34:27.200 Hey moms, looking for some lighthearted guidance on this crazy journey we call parenting?

02:34:40.700 Join me, Sabrina Kohlberg, and me, Andy Mitchell, for Pop Culture Moms, where each week we talk

02:34:46.460 about what we're watching and examine our favorite pop culture moms up close to try to pick up

02:34:51.600 some parenting hacks along the way.

02:34:53.180 Come laugh, learn, and grow with us as we look for the best tips and maybe a few what-not

02:34:58.800 to-dos from our favorite fictional moms from Good Morning America and ABC Audio.

02:35:04.540 Pop Culture Moms.

02:35:05.760 Find it wherever you get your podcasts.

The Culture War - Tim Pool - November 03, 2023

The Culture War #36 - This May be THE LAST ELECTION w⧸Stephen Marche & Phil Labonte

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