Ep. 410 - AOC's Cartoon Version Of Reality
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Summary
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that billionaires don't make anything, they just sit on their couches. Is this a gross oversimplification or something more nuanced than most socialists in the Democratic Party are willing to admit?
Transcript
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Okay, great to see you all again. Thanks for being here. Thanks for coming back for another
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round of this. I'm not sure why you do, but you do. So since you're here, let's have a
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conversation. I want to begin today by talking about impeachment. Just kidding, of course. I
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haven't really followed that story for about four weeks. So instead, I want to talk about
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everyone's favorite socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was speaking, being interviewed
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for an MLK Day event on Monday and had a few things to say that have provoked conversation
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and consternation. I want to go over what she said and my take on it might not be entirely
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what you expect. There's a point I want to make about this, about her, about what she's
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saying, about what all of the socialists in the Democrat Party are saying that maybe hopefully
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is a little bit more nuanced than they're stupid and bad, which they might be. But I
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want to go deeper than that and have a fuller conversation than that. So first, let's listen
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to a clip of this. Here she is talking again, their favorite subject, of course, the evil,
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You sat on a couch while thousands of people were paid modern-day slave wages, and in some
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cases real slave, real modern-day slavery, depending on where you are in terms of food
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production. You made that money off the backs of undocumented people. You made that money off
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of the backs of black and brown people being paid under a living wage. You made that money
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off of the backs of single mothers. And all of these people who are literally dying because
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they can't afford to live. And so no one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.
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And I'm not here to villainize and to say billionaires are inherently morally corrupt. But
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they are... Some disagree with me, clearly. I mean, I think there is a case. But it's not to say
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that. It's to say that this system that we live in, life in capitalism, always ends in billionaires.
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Right. Yeah. She's not trying to villainize. She would never do that. Billionaires are useless,
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lazy, thieving slave drivers that are killing people. But she's not trying to villainize.
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And I don't mean to villainize. I mean, they're just... I would never villainize those slaving
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scumbags. I would never do that. Never. No. So what we have here, as always, from AOC, is a gross
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oversimplification. A cartoon that she is drawing for us. It's the same cartoon that Bernie Sanders
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draws, that Elizabeth Warren draws, that all Democrats draw to some extent. This cartoon where you could
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almost imagine in your head... You can imagine in your head the image that they have in their head,
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which is of a billionaire with an evil grin, chomping on a cigar, big pot belly, holding a huge
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bag of money with a dollar sign on it, and laughing maniacally as he watches his destitute, enslaved
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employees dying on the factory floor. That's the image that they are painting. And that's what they
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want us to take away from it. AOC says that billionaires sit on their couch and don't make
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anything. They just sit on their couch. That's what she thinks billionaires do, sit on their couch all
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day. Now, it's true that billionaires probably have nicer couches to sit on. So, you know, who wouldn't
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love to sit on a billionaire's couch? But I'd wager that they spend less time sitting on the furniture
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in their home than the average person. Far less. I would wager that the average billionaire spends a
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lot less time sitting on his expensive couch than you spend sitting on your cheap one. Or that I spend
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sitting on my cheap one. You don't become a billionaire by sitting on your couch. That's not how billionaires
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are made. Despite what we are told by AOC and Sanders and others, that's not how you make a
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billionaire. By just putting somebody, you don't just plunk somebody on the couch and, ooh, they're a
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billionaire. Now, unless you were born into it, okay, if you inherited your billions, then fine. Yeah, you
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could inherit it just by sitting on the couch. But Bill Gates didn't inherit his billions. Jeff Bezos
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didn't inherit his billions. Elon Musk didn't inherit it. Mark Cuban didn't. Peter Thiel
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didn't. Mark Zuckerberg didn't inherit billions of dollars. On and on. I mean, basically, any of the
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actual billionaires that come to mind, any of the actual people who are billionaires that we know of
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that come to mind when you say billionaire, those people, they didn't inherit the money. They did,
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in fact, earn it. They all started off with far less than a billion dollars. Some of them had more
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than others, but they started off with a lot less than a billion, and then they had a billion, and then
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they had a lot more than that. How did they earn it? Well, most of the names I just mentioned
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got there, got to the point of being a dreaded billionaire by founding or helping to found a
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business that became very, very, very, very, very successful. And how do you get a business
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to be that successful? By sitting on the couch? Really? By exploiting slave labor? No, that's not
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it either. And I'm not denying, by the way, that there are corporations that do essentially exploit
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slave labor, but that happens later. It doesn't begin that way. So how do you get there?
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Well, it takes, for one thing, an insane amount of work. I mean, these guys have all, I would say,
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worked longer hours, longer days, and endured more professional pressure than most of us will ever
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experience. That's the fact. And this is what AOC's black and white cartoon version doesn't account
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for, can't account for, can't admit. Those evil billionaires are extremely smart, extremely hardworking,
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extremely innovative, and that's how they got where they are. She can't admit that. And her version
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of the world can't account for that. It's not just circumstance, okay? Put the average person,
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put me, let's say, in Elon Musk's circumstance, going back to the beginning from birth. Am I going
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to make a billion dollars? You're taking me, you're putting him in his situation from birth. Do I get
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to make a billion dollars? Probably not, because I don't have his mind or his work ethic, or any of the
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other things that make him a unique person. Put me in Mark Zuckerberg's position from birth. Do I go on
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to make billions and billions of dollars on a website? Probably not. As much as AOC says she doesn't want to
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villainize, her whole worldview, her whole shtick depends on villainization. She cannot admit
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that these people at all earn their money, or that they have any skills, any abilities,
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certainly any virtues that the average person lacks. She says, you don't make a billion, you take
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a billion. Well, that's a really catchy, nice little applause line. So if you say that in front of the
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right audience, you're going to get an applause. But that's all it is, it's an applause line. If you
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stop and think about it for a second, it just takes a second of thinking about it, and you say,
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what the hell does that mean? Yes, it rhymes, and it sounds nice, but you don't make a billion,
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you take a billion. What do you mean? What's the difference between those two things, and how exactly
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did they do that? How did Bill Gates, I would say, made billions, but you say he took it. Well, how did he
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take it? He had this idea of, you know, this, he presented to the marketplace a product, personal
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computer, that a lot of people really liked and wanted to buy. And then he made a lot of money off
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of it. Now, yes, that is a, that's a, that's a, that's a very whittled down version of, of that story,
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but that's, at its essential ingredients, that's what it was. He had a product that a lot of people
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really wanted, and they bought it, and he made a lot of money. You're saying he took it, he didn't
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make it, so we, what, he forced the people to buy it? Here's a fact, if nobody wanted to buy a
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Microsoft computer, uh, Bill Gates wouldn't be a billionaire. But they wanted to buy it, so he is.
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So you'd have, to say that he didn't make it, he took it, you'd have to argue that he forced
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people to? What he had, he put a gun to their head? Now, see, that's what the government can do.
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See, everything she's saying about billionaires is actually true of the government. The government
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doesn't make money, they take it. They take the money from you by force. If you don't give it to
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them, they can put you in jail. Okay, that's what taking money looks like. And they don't have to do
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anything for it, actually. In fact, there are a whole lot of bureaucrats in the government who
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essentially just sit on a couch, really don't do anything. You could erase their job from existence,
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and nobody would notice. Okay, if you erased Bill Gates from existence, starting back in the 80s,
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uh, the whole, the whole history, things would look different. Things would look very different. We
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would notice the difference. Not to mention an entire huge, uh, very influential and significant
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company wouldn't exist, probably, without them. But so many positions in government, you erase those
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positions, nobody would know. You continue your, your life, you would never know that, that, that
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position doesn't exist. Entire departments of the government you could do away with, and nobody
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would notice. Because they don't really do anything. That is something that is possible
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in government. It is possible. I mean, talk to someone who works in government, or has worked
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in government, and they'll tell you. It is possible to work in government, and really just do nothing.
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It's not really possible if you're going to be a successful business person.
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Uh, so it doesn't make any sense. You know, if, um, what AOC is, is left to claim,
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she's left to make the really psychotic claim that anyone could have started a billion dollar
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business in their garage like Bill Gates. Anyone could have done that in the right circumstance.
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In fact, I guess she would say, we all did do it. Bill Gates didn't do it. He didn't make
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Microsoft. That's not his. We all did it, somehow. He didn't do anything. He just sat on his couch.
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We did it. Society did it. So we all own it, not him. That's her claim. And again, it's psychotic.
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And not only that, but morally repugnant. Not just intellectually vacuous, but ethically and morally
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repulsive on top of it. And it's also greedy. As much as she accuses others of greed and the
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billionaires of greed, she is exhibiting it herself and engendering greed herself.
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By encouraging people to look at a successful business person and people who did nothing to
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contribute and say, that's mine. I deserve a piece of that. What the hell did you do for
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Microsoft? You didn't do anything. You don't deserve any of that. You did absolutely nothing.
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I did absolutely nothing to contribute to the success of Microsoft other than buying some of
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their products. Which gives me a right to the product that I bought, but that's it.
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So there's a lot of greed there as well. But with that said, here's the part. This is the point that
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maybe not everyone is going to agree with, at least the listeners of this show. I do have a point to make
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on the other side of the discussion. Because there is oversimplification that happens, I think,
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on the other side when we talk about this sort of thing. And I want to talk about that. But first,
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That's joinhoney.com slash Walsh. Okay. So AOC, Warren, Sanders, et cetera,
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they demonize billionaires and they paint a picture of the world that is disconnected from reality.
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But a word of caution, I think, for conservatives. I think we make a mistake when we do nothing but
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wave off and dismiss, and I see this too often, where we wave off and dismiss concerns about the
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exploitation of workers and the plight of poor people who are essentially screwed by the
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circumstances they're born into. We make a mistake when we act like anyone can just bootstrap their
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way into the American dream. When we act like the free market is entirely free for everyone. When we
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act like luck has nothing to do with it. And I think sometimes we are guilty of that kind of
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simplification. The left has a simplistic, absurdly simplistic narrative where billionaires are evil
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and we're all their slaves. Okay. Well, that's not true. There's no nuance there. There's no attempt
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to understand. There's no thought put into it. And that's not good. But, and we can't have a
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conversation that way. You know, the way that AOC opens the conversation about income inequality or
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whatever we're talking about, it's just, there's, we can't, you've, you've begun by accusing all rich
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people of being slave owners. And so where can we go from there? But we don't want to respond to that
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with our own oversimplification. And this is what most debate in America these days consists of.
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One side oversimplifies, demonizes, villainizes. The other side does the same in the other direction
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and nothing is accomplished. Um, so what I notice on the right sometimes is an oversimplification where
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we say, no, you know, the, um, the free market provides equal opportunity to everyone and nobody is
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being exploited. And if you don't like your job, it's always as simple as just going and getting a
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different job. There is this worship of the free market that you find sometimes this, um, unwillingness
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to admit that there could be any problems at all with free market and capitalism and everything.
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Um, uh, and, and, and this, um, unwillingness to admit that there are real moral and ethical concerns
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when it comes to billionaires, um, living in luxury and, and, and buying five houses and yachts and
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everything else. In other words, it's a mistake to allow the left to be the only ones talking about
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the exploitation of workers, the only ones talking about greed, the only ones talking about the moral
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implications of an uber wealthy person owning seven houses and three private jets and the rest of it.
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When we react to their cartoon version of the world with our own, the effect is that first of all,
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nobody's dealing with reality. And second, from a political perspective, um, we become the ones
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defending billionaires while they're the ones defending the working class and the poor.
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And that's how a lot of people see it. They think of the conservatives and Republicans as the ones who
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are on the side of billionaires and Democrats on the one, the ones on the side of the working class.
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That's, that's, that's been the impression for a long time that a lot of people have had.
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And it's, um, it's, it's not good to put it mildly politically. Here's the way I look at it.
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It's true that low wage workers are, are often exploited by these big corporations. It's true that
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some of these corporations do essentially, especially the ones that, um, the ones that
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outsource overseas do essentially use slave labor. It's true that lots of people are born into
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situations where it's not as simple as just climbing the ladder. A kid, for example, born in
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the inner city, no father, no role model, bad education, emotional turmoil, crime all over
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the place. A kid like that, you know, he can't bootstrap his way to a billion dollars or a million
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dollars. He has been born into a nearly impossible situation. One that you didn't have to deal with
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and I didn't have to deal with. We have advantages. Yeah. Yes. Privileges that he doesn't have through
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no fault of his own. That's true. And you could always point to some examples of people who are
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born in dirt, poor poverty and managed to climb their way out of it and become extremely wealthy
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and successful. There are examples of that, but for every example of that, I could give you a million
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examples where it didn't work that way. Right. Um, it's, um, you know, you take someone like
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Mark Zuckerberg. Okay. You take Mark Zuckerberg with his intelligence and creativity and ambition and all
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of that. And you take him out of his, the circumstance that he was born into and you put him in, I mean,
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if you take him out of that circumstance, is he going to be successful in any other circumstance
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you put him in? Probably not. Now he'd probably be successful in a lot of circumstances.
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Take him out of his circumstance, put him into mine. He'd probably be just as successful, even
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though I, you know, I didn't, I wasn't born into a family as well off as his and I didn't have the
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same educational opportunities and all that, but I'm not, you know, not that far off comparatively
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speaking. So put him in my situation, probably be just as successful, but put him in the inner
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city, put him in a trailer park with a meth addicted mother. Is he going to end up founding
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Facebook and being worth $60 billion or whatever it is? Probably not. Maybe. I mean, there's a slim
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chance, probably not. There's also a good chance he doesn't even survive to be as old as he is now,
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if he's born in a situation like that. And I think we have to acknowledge that. It's like an,
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it's an obvious thing, but it's, it's important to acknowledge it.
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Um, it's also true that living in a 15 bedroom mansion with just yourself and your wife and, um,
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and one kid and a dog and all your butlers and maids and having a fleet of luxury cars and two
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private jets and a yacht, et cetera, that is greedy. That's materialistic. That's vain. That's
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grotesque. That's, uh, immoral. You know, I admit I have times when I, and I've, I've been traveling
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and I drive through a really, really, really wealthy neighborhood and with just mansions all
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over the place. And one thing you think is, wow, these houses are awesome. And then, but then you
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also think these houses are gross. I mean, who would live in this? You really, you, would you need
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this castle to yourself with rooms you never even go in? So I, I've had that thought, right? I think
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we all have. Um, and it, it, it is, uh, it is very hard to morally justify living in a house like that
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with rooms you don't even use or see while there are people starving and living on the street and
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freezing to death. That's going to be very difficult to morally justify. And if you're
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a Christian, by the way, it's impossible and you just can't do it. Um, there's, there's no getting
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around it. I mean, especially in the new Testament, it's, it's Jesus constantly talking about the,
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the moral implications of being very wealthy and greedy. And, um, uh, so, you know, you really can't
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get around it. Now it's true that Jesus isn't saying that no wealthy person can go to heaven or,
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or, you know, the way that it's sometimes portrayed, but certainly, you know, it's hard
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to imagine that Jesus would endorse somebody living in a 15 bedroom house.
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So all of that is true, right? But it's also true that most wealthy people, most billionaires
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worked extremely hard to get what they have. They have skills and abilities and a mental capacity
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that most people don't possess. It's true that they earn their success. It wasn't merely given
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to them by circumstance. Um, they, even if there are, there would, there could have been
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circumstances where they could have not, that would have, that would have foreclosed their
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opportunity to earn that success. That's not the same thing as saying that the circumstance
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gave them the success. They did earn it. It's true that they employ lots of people. Um,
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and, uh, sometimes they employ people who would not be employed. Otherwise you take Walmart,
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for example, with Walmart greeters, you know, these are people who, if not for Walmart, probably
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wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere. It's true that they, when they buy things like yachts to
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satisfy their vanity, people are hired to make those yachts and staff them. And so there are jobs there.
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And it's true that if you have $6 billion to throw around, you have a right to spend it however you
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want within the bounds of the law. Even if it's greedy, you still have that right. It's also true
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that coming up with some limit of the amount of money a person can make and the amount of things
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they can buy and the material possessions they can have, that limit is going to be arbitrary. And
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you're going to run up against the problem of who has the right or the authority to come up with
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that limit. Who is the person who can put themselves above everybody and say, no, this is
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the limit. Where are you coming up with that limit? Who says it should be there and not somewhere else.
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And besides that limit will have to be enforced by the even more powerful and wealthier and,
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and, and more wasteful and more morally ambiguous force called the state, the government. So you could
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take money from billionaires for the sake of fairness, but all you've done is made the state wealthier
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and the state has guns and armies and a power to put you in, in jail if they want to, and to take
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away your rights. So it's true that Bill Gates is less of a threat to us. His power is less of a
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threat to us than the state's power. All of these things are true, seems to me, but this picture that
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I painted doesn't fit neatly into the narrative of either side, because I think the truth rarely does.
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Um, but I think we need to acknowledge, I mean, this is the whole picture and decide where to go
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from there. And, and, and once you've acknowledged that, then yeah, now there's a whole conversation
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we had about policy and about everything, right? You haven't really settled any of the debates that
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we're having, but at least you're starting from a place of reality where we aren't pretending that
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billionaires are a bunch of, of, of villainous slave drivers who don't do anything. We're not doing
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that, but we're also not pretending that the American dream is equally open to everyone and
00:26:40.280
your circumstance and luck has nothing to do with it and nobody's being exploited and, you know, all of
00:26:44.420
that. Um, we're in, we're in the realm of truth now and then we can go from there. All right. If you're a
00:26:54.260
regular listen, listener to the show, um, you've heard me talk, uh, many times of course about the pro-life
00:26:59.580
issue because it's the most important issue. It's the, it's the defining issue of our time. It's hard to come
00:27:06.260
to any other conclusion when you consider the fact that 60 million people have, have died since Roe v.
00:27:11.600
Wade. Um, it is the abortion is the number one cause of death in America. Um, it is the, you know, the abortion
00:27:19.620
industry has killed more people than any, uh, dictatorship or any tyrannical government ever
00:27:26.520
has in history. And so it's hard to come to any other conclusion that this is the most important
00:27:31.240
issue. And, uh, but we, we live in a, in a culture that is, has embraced the culture of death and is
00:27:39.700
going deeper and deeper into that abyss to make matters worse. You know, you have pro-life advocates
00:27:45.700
who are being targeted by the pro-abortion left, uh, sometimes in very direct ways. You look at
00:27:52.420
what's happening to Dave Daleiden and center for medical progress, how they're being legally
00:27:55.860
persecuted. If you come after the pro-abortion, if you come and go, come after the abortion industry,
00:28:01.000
there's going to be a price to pay. That's what we've learned. And sometimes the price can be as
00:28:06.480
significant as that. Other times more commonly, you know, you've got, um, you know, look at what
00:28:13.880
happened with, with Ben Shapiro at the, the March for life last year, where our advertisers were
00:28:18.300
targeted by left-wing media watchdogs. And, uh, we lost some revenue because just because he spoke
00:28:24.520
at the March for life and spoke up for the unborn, but we're not the only targets. Of course, live
00:28:28.620
action is one of the biggest voices in the pro-life movement. Um, one of, um, I think the most influential
00:28:34.160
voices. And, uh, I would say one of the sort of founders in a way of the new, of the new pro-life
00:28:42.060
movement of the modern pro-life movement of the last decade or so. And they continue to do some
00:28:46.760
of the most important work in that space from raising awareness and, um, and also education
00:28:50.440
on the abortion industry, industry, undercover videos, uh, that expose Planned Parenthood and
00:28:55.360
other abortion clinics for horrific human rights abuses. Um, and, um, but they've also been targeted.
00:29:02.600
They've been banned from advertising on Twitter for their calls to defund Planned Parenthood.
00:29:07.220
They've been banned from Pinterest altogether, um, for spreading medical misinformation,
00:29:12.840
which is actually just the truth that they're spreading. They've also seen their advertised
00:29:17.340
efforts and, um, their online distribution restricted depending on the platform. That is
00:29:21.700
why our dailywire.com members are so important. Your membership helps keep our cameras on and it
00:29:26.540
helps keep our microphones turned up even when the left pressures our sponsors. That's why from now
00:29:31.040
until January 31st, a portion of any dailywire.com membership will be donated to live action with
00:29:36.020
promo code live action to support awareness and education around the world on this issue.
00:29:40.180
So join dailywire.com and make your pro-life voice heard. Um, all right, let's see here.
00:29:49.720
One other thing to mention before we get to do some emails, you know, when Jackie Robinson
00:29:56.140
broke the color barrier in 1947, he was subjected to racist jeers from fans, discrimination from some of
00:30:05.020
his teammates, his teammates, death threats, physical abuse. Um, I mean, there are many examples of that.
00:30:11.540
One example is in his first year on the Brooklyn Dodgers, a player from an opposing team intentionally
00:30:16.860
slid into him cleats first and put it in gashed his leg open just as a racist assault because he
00:30:22.820
didn't like the fact that Jackie Robinson was black. Um, now his willingness to endure that kind of
00:30:32.980
abuse and that sort of treatment and the heckles and the taunts and the death threats and everything
00:30:36.440
while blazing a trail for other black athletes that has led many people to consider him perhaps the
00:30:43.200
bravest athlete in, uh, in sports history, certainly in American sports history. But here's the news
00:30:50.560
that his reign has come to an end. He is no longer the bravest athlete in history. According to the gay
00:30:58.580
sports outlet, out sports, and yes, that's a thing. There's a gay, there's gay sports media. There's a
00:31:04.000
gay sports outlet. Um, out sports is what it's called. According to them, you know, forget about
00:31:10.840
Jackie Robinson. There's a new bravest athlete in American history. Sid Ziegler, uh, writing for
00:31:17.840
outsports.com has declared that the bravest athlete of all time, the sports figure who best embodies,
00:31:23.900
you know, the virtues of courage and heroism is a biological male who beat up a bunch of females in
00:31:30.220
MMA, the bravest. Ziegler gave the trans athlete Fallon Fox, the moniker of bravest athlete ever in a,
00:31:40.060
in a recent article. And I wrote a piece about it. You can find it on dailywire.com. And he explains that,
00:31:45.260
um, the professional woman beater is quote, an indelible part of LGBTQ sports history and has
00:31:51.820
open possibilities for trans athletes and women's sports that will be felt for generations.
00:31:56.500
Now, why that requires courage, much less the most courage of any athlete ever is not actually
00:32:04.880
explained in the article. It also isn't explained how it requires courage, uh, when a biological male
00:32:11.780
with his testosterone and his greater muscle mass and his denser bone structure fractures the skull of
00:32:17.000
a female opponent, which is what this Fallon Fox person did to one of the opponents that he
00:32:21.780
faced in the ring, left her lying on the mat, concussed and bleeding. Now one would think
00:32:28.080
that if there's any courage involved, it's all on the part of the woman who's willing to get into
00:32:34.240
the ring with a man and try her best. But no, what we're told by out sports is that no, it's more
00:32:42.600
courageous for a man to beat up a woman than it is for a woman to fight a man. That's what they're
00:32:48.880
saying. And we're also assured that it's okay, uh, for a male to physically brutalize a female
00:32:56.580
because, uh, you know, females sometimes brutalize each other. This is what Fox was interviewed for
00:33:01.380
this story. And this is the justification that he offered. He said, I'm not the first female MMA
00:33:07.420
fighter who's broken another fighter's bones. And people will, of course, because I'm trans hold it
00:33:12.480
up as this devastating thing that couldn't possibly happen if I weren't trans. But there are many
00:33:16.900
different examples of similar things happening. Now he's right. Of course, he's not the first female
00:33:23.580
fighter to break another fighter's bones, mostly because he's not a female fighter. So he can't be
00:33:28.800
the first female fighter to do anything because he's not one. But you notice again here, as I've been
00:33:36.560
pointing out for months, the, the arbitrary sex versus gender distinction has been completely
00:33:44.640
collapsed. He's not saying he's not, he's not identifying himself as, you know, a male fighter
00:33:51.040
who identifies as female. He's saying, I'm a female fighter. Female is a biological sex.
00:33:57.740
And that's what he's claiming. But don't count on Ziegler to grapple with that difficulty because,
00:34:04.980
of course, we're just supposed to dutifully applaud, accepting at face value, whatever
00:34:09.300
lame justification or explanation or excuse is put forward. He doesn't present actual arguments
00:34:18.220
at all in favor of allowing men like Fox to fight women because there are no arguments available to him.
00:34:25.220
There is just, there's literally nothing you could say. It is objectively wrong on every conceivable
00:34:30.780
level, morally, ethically, scientifically. There is nothing, there's not even the semblance of a
00:34:36.440
reasonable argument that you could make for allowing Fallon Fox into the ring to fight women.
00:34:44.780
The most that the other side of the debate can do is make vague emotional appeals,
00:34:49.760
hoping we'll forget that the women have emotions also.
00:34:55.420
And they probably don't feel too emotionally good
00:35:17.740
why that should take precedence over everything else.
00:36:04.840
them feel good, what makes them feel comfortable
00:36:53.140
because they know they don't have any arguments,
00:37:06.360
and if they use language that's hyperbolic enough,
00:37:33.260
but if he's saying that he's the bravest athlete ever,
00:37:35.800
then there must be some reason why he's saying that.
00:38:04.780
but now the next step is to stop this crap from actually happening.
00:38:33.660
I have recently learned that my girlfriend of five years
00:38:36.180
thinks Elvis Presley is better than Johnny Cash.
00:38:39.160
She has even gone so far as to say Johnny Cash is a bad singer.
00:38:45.040
I'm not sure where she was brainwashed by this false indoctrination,
00:38:48.060
but I am currently working to right this wrong.
00:38:50.760
Would this type of false claim be punishable by death under your regime?
00:38:58.880
I think that Elvis Presley was obviously a very significant figure in American pop culture,
00:39:06.900
Is your girlfriend really sitting around and listening to Elvis Presley songs?
00:39:15.200
I feel this way about a lot of Beatles stuff too.
00:39:32.200
Pretend that you just heard this stuff for the first time and it was,
00:40:04.040
Are you going to hear that song and think this is a work of genius?
00:40:24.220
his songs aren't about yellow submarines or for Presley,
00:40:58.380
You would think this is one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard in my life.
00:41:05.220
If you heard a Johnny Cash song for the first time,
00:41:20.900
one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs is A Boy Named Sue.
00:41:40.840
They couldn't have told a story like that through song in that way.
00:41:47.520
if you heard that song for the first time in the year 2020,
00:41:57.380
this is a very talented songwriter that's been able to tell this story,
00:42:30.200
this is a common debate where I work and would like your opinion on the matter.
00:42:33.900
could anyone truly be selfless in a particular act?
00:42:37.380
Some argue that this is not possible because all of our decisions grant us some sort of favorable result.
00:42:44.500
a coworker of mine claimed to be selfless because he was taking time out of his schedule to coach a girl's softball team.
00:42:50.520
He claimed that volunteering his time and helping to buy equipment was a selfless act.
00:42:54.280
This was argued to be not selfless due to the fact that he could get some sort of satisfaction or a good feeling by coaching the team.
00:42:59.820
Others argued military service and first responders are selfless when they join up knowing they could be put in risky situations.
00:43:07.400
The argument my coworker makes against this is they have peace of mind and are gaining satisfaction knowing that they are saving somebody's life or protecting people.
00:43:16.580
He says they make this choice in the moment knowing the worst case result and therefore are not selfless in the situation.
00:43:23.240
I said that if I was in a car wreck and brain dead,
00:43:25.720
it would be selfless of me for my family to make the decision to harvest my organs for potentially life-saving surgery for someone else that is unknown.
00:43:32.920
I would have no knowledge of this going on while crashing and a person I do not know could potentially be saved by organ donation.
00:43:41.480
None of these arguments have convinced my coworker and I would like to know your opinion.
00:43:45.340
Well, Zach, if selfless means performing an act with absolutely no expectation of reward of any kind
00:43:56.320
and with no emotional or psychological benefit and with no boost to the self-esteem or self-image,
00:44:03.580
with no pleasure coming from it of any sort of any kind,
00:44:07.260
and an act which the performer of the act knows that after completing the act,
00:44:13.100
he will not enjoy the fruits of that act at all to any degree in any form.
00:44:19.140
It sounds like that's what your coworkers are saying.
00:44:20.920
Like, that's what a selfless act would have to be.
00:44:24.700
And they are arguing that such an act is impossible.
00:44:30.440
And so there's no such thing as being selfless.
00:44:31.840
Well, I'm going to, I have some real qualms with that definition of selflessness.
00:44:40.000
But even by that definition, I mean, it is possible.
00:44:43.440
So I think, you know, I guess by that definition of selfless,
00:44:51.640
a selfless act would have to be something like an atheist jumping on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.
00:45:02.580
Because in that case, that would be someone doing something for the benefit of others
00:45:06.140
while believing that he is not going to receive any reward at all for it.
00:45:12.140
And in fact, will be obliterated upon doing it.
00:45:15.180
So he is trading his obliteration and non-existence for the continued existence of other people.
00:45:22.040
And he's not going to be around to feel good about it, in his mind.
00:45:25.780
So, you know, I think that would qualify as a selfless act.
00:45:28.460
But, because of course the argument you can make is, well, if it's a Christian doing it,
00:45:44.300
So what I'm saying is by that, and maybe this is, maybe this is what they're trying to get at.
00:45:48.520
What they're trying to argue is that really it's only possible for an atheist to be selfless
00:45:52.100
because of the lack of an expectation of reward.
00:45:57.760
I say a selfless act is, and even, you know, even, because even in that case,
00:46:02.840
even there you could argue, well, maybe they're doing it because in the moment they feel good about doing it.
00:46:08.000
And yeah, it'll be their last moment on earth, but there still is that reward at least.
00:46:12.460
So it's almost like in order to be selfless, what they're saying is you have to be almost like a,
00:46:20.840
I guess you have to be a psychopath and an atheist.
00:46:24.820
Psychopathic atheists are the only selfless people by this definition.
00:46:28.280
Because you have to, in order to feel no reward at all for doing a good act,
00:46:32.380
you would have to not feel good about it, according to them.
00:46:35.320
Even the atheist jumping on the grenade for the two seconds before it blows up and blows them to smithereens,
00:46:47.380
So we need to be someone who has no, who paradoxically has no concern for anybody else
00:46:52.180
and thus doesn't feel good about saving them, yet does it anyway with no expectation of reward.
00:46:59.620
So I guess a robot, really, in the end, is what you need.
00:47:06.160
I think that a selfless act is one where you must overcome your immediate instinct
00:47:14.460
to pursue self-preservation or comfort or luxury or profit for yourself
00:47:18.600
in order to do something that will benefit someone else.
00:47:27.140
In that you have put yourself to the side, right?
00:47:30.400
It's not literally selfless because you still have yourself.
00:47:35.220
But, so, you know, you can't take the word absolutely literally.
00:47:40.560
But what it represents is, I think, the subordination of your own interests
00:47:49.900
Not every word in the English language can be interpreted in an exactly literal sense.
00:48:04.260
And so I think that's what selflessness symbolizes.
00:48:10.320
I think it is important to acknowledge that a lot of what masquerades as selflessness is not.
00:48:18.220
But, so, if you're, you know, if you're doing something that, yeah, you know at some level you will benefit from,
00:48:27.980
whether morally, spiritually, emotionally, yet you have to, as I said, overcome that selfish inclination
00:48:35.160
to go for the more immediate reward, a more immediate luxury or comfort, in that, you know, you have to overcome that for the greater good.
00:48:45.540
But, if you're doing something that will benefit the greater good, seemingly, but really your only reason for doing it is to benefit yourself,
00:49:00.340
if that is, like, at the end of the day, the number one reason why you did it, and your only real motivation,
00:49:06.420
and, thus, helping someone else is a secondary to it, is more like happenstance, it's more incidental,
00:49:16.400
I think an example of this, okay, an example would be,
00:49:19.500
you see these people online who record these inspirational videos of themselves helping the homeless.
00:49:30.760
Where somebody goes and does a generous act for a homeless person, and records it, records themselves doing it,
00:49:40.840
And I hate to be cynical, but I would say that is not a selfless act.
00:49:45.880
Yeah, it's good for the homeless person, because they still were helped by it.
00:49:48.360
But the point of it, 100%, is just, look at me, look at this great thing I'm doing.
00:49:55.080
So the point is self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, elevating yourself, making people, flattering yourself, fishing for compliments.
00:50:07.740
The fact that somebody is being helped in the process is totally incidental.
00:50:12.020
So that, I would say, is a selfish act masquerading as selfless.
00:50:23.140
That's one hell of a cynical way of looking at the world.
00:50:31.440
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00:50:33.940
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00:50:42.340
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00:51:10.740
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00:51:13.340
All the nations, the stage, and the Democrats and Republicans are putting on the impeachment play,
00:51:18.860
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00:51:22.060
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