The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1381

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1381 for Tuesday the 24th of

00:00:07.520 March 2026. I'm your host Captain Darling joined today by Josh. Hello. Stelios. Hello. And today

00:00:15.440 we're going to be talking to you all about when woke ideas become lethal, when they actually

00:00:21.820 start to kill. We're then going to be talking about the fall of the lords and the end of

00:00:26.840 hereditary peerage in the House of Lords. And then we're going to end today's podcast by doing

00:00:32.860 a touching tribute, we hope, to the great late Chuck Norris. So before we get into the meat of

00:00:39.960 the segment, just want to alert you to the announcements, of course. We do have a live

00:00:43.940 event coming up in a few weeks, ladies and gentlemen. It's going to be on the 11th of April,

00:00:48.560 which is a Saturday, which should hopefully make it far more practical for you. And yeah,

00:00:54.100 come down to join us at the local mecca in swindon uh not to be confused with that religious city in

00:01:00.500 the middle east and we will have uh we'll have a live lads hour we'll have um a podcast we'll have

00:01:06.640 some great discussion it'll be a wonderful chance to meet many of uh the fans of the show of course

00:01:11.260 we'll have some drinks together and it should all be really really good fun also i just want to let

00:01:17.380 you know that I, Harry and I, when I find it, now have three parts, first three-part Chronicles

00:01:26.300 series all about Macbeth, because if you're going to go into anything in detail, Shakespeare's kind

00:01:32.840 of a thing that you should focus in on, and Harry and I had a really great conversation about Macbeth,

00:01:37.840 about a lot of its wonderful themes and characters, and I'm not normally one to like toot my own

00:01:43.720 on but i think this is some of the best work on chronicles so far so if it's of interest to you

00:01:48.720 check it out and that's a that's a good thing because chronicles is a wonderful series thank

00:01:54.360 you so if you if you are saying that this is one of the best works in chronicles so far you

00:02:00.480 definitely have to watch it i don't know i think this one was you know better obviously i haven't

00:02:04.620 seen this one it was damn good well i mean if we're gonna have a chronicles we've got uh amadeus

00:02:10.320 with josh firm uh whoever that may be that guy yeah uh stelios and i did one on the mandrake

00:02:15.460 done many more but you have to say that i was one of the voices who said that in amadeo in the

00:02:22.480 thumbnail yes on the thumbnail would need the f marie abraham's oh we were all for it we're all

00:02:27.380 for it anyway all right then let's um without further ado should we go to get back here we go

00:02:33.620 Okay. So I'm going to be talking about when woke ideas kill. And of course,

00:02:39.340 ideas can't kill, it is people. But what can be done is these ideas can permeate institutions

00:02:46.060 which facilitate people being able to kill others in ways in which they wouldn't otherwise be able

00:02:52.700 to. And this is one of those stories that in all my years of journalism, really sort of shocked me.

00:02:59.440 You know, I'm used to reading institutional failures. I'm used to reading about wokeness. But this combination of things was just such a stark realisation to me, just how deep the rot goes into Britain's institutions.

00:03:15.340 But it also shows you in great detail how these things can happen in the first place and how many failures went on to allow it to happen.

00:03:24.700 um one thing um before i get going is that we do have a live event um in swindon on the 11th of

00:03:32.820 april which is a saturday um if you would like to meet us and have some fun it'll be a very jolly

00:03:38.100 occasion and um please do come along it'd be nice to meet you all and uh it'll be nice to do

00:03:43.720 something a little bit different in person um so get some tickets while they last i think you know

00:03:50.720 got to get there they are selling so i wrote an article about this because um i was shocked when

00:03:58.820 i was reading what is known as the nottingham inquiry which is an investigation basically

00:04:03.820 into institutional wrongdoing dealing with the 13th of june 2023 attacks by valdo callocaine who

00:04:11.140 is I believe he's from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, a Portuguese-speaking country and he

00:04:20.480 moved to Portugal and then from Portugal to Britain but when he was young and so it's worth

00:04:27.320 mentioning as well another dynamic of migration is that people can move from one country to another

00:04:31.760 European country and then on to Britain and so that it might still be the case that you're getting

00:04:36.780 dangerous people from dangerous parts of the world from European countries which is something

00:04:41.600 to bear in mind when you're talking about immigration as well but I'm going to read the

00:04:48.340 actual series of events leading up to the attack because this will genuinely be shocking to most

00:04:55.620 people I'm not saying that as like a you know a slop this will shock you as in this is something

00:05:02.360 that you should be sending to people and saying look at how bad the situation is this is unbelievable

00:05:08.520 so i do excuse me reading my own writing a little bit but um as as you can probably guess i think

00:05:14.520 that my write-up is the best um otherwise i wouldn't have done it that way um so i'm going

00:05:22.100 to read a lot but please do stop me if you want to interject so callow kane's first notable contact

00:05:27.860 with authorities came in May of 2020. He attended A&E believing he was having a heart attack. After

00:05:33.140 returning home from hospital he kicked down the door of a neighbour's flat resulting in police

00:05:37.740 arresting him for criminal damage. A mental health assessment concluded that he was experiencing

00:05:42.280 psychosis and he was released for community monitoring which is interesting because of

00:05:48.180 course if he's going for a period of psychosis wouldn't you think that perhaps it'd be good to

00:05:53.360 keep an eye on him maybe he's a danger to himself or other people which funnily enough um was what

00:06:00.340 happened so mental health professionals were inclined to section him because of the nature

00:06:04.660 of the incident in that he violently kicked down a neighbor's door um but ultimately decided against

00:06:10.480 it when they considered the research that shows over-representation of young black males in

00:06:15.440 detention this is something that came out in the inquiry so because there are lots of young black

00:06:21.100 men in mental health detention uh they had to let him go apparently so this is exactly like in um

00:06:29.340 the manchester arena bombing where uh there were people who were suspicious of the terrorists

00:06:34.600 beforehand but in order to avoid the stereotyping and the the baggage that comes with these sorts

00:06:40.920 of things in order to appeal to the progressive values they turned a blind eye and that resulted

00:06:46.120 in um yeah all the things that would naturally result from it um it's also you know something

00:06:52.720 that happens quite often in the united states where people go through both the criminal justice

00:06:58.400 system and the mental health system repeatedly sometimes having like 40 different contacts with

00:07:03.100 authorities only to be released and then eventually do a horrific crime um i carry on to say within

00:07:10.840 40 minutes of being released he forced entry into another neighbor's flat and the resident was so

00:07:15.620 frightened she jumped from a first floor window suffering severe spinal injuries that required

00:07:20.600 surgery the woman insisted that had she not done so he could have killed her so you think at this

00:07:26.300 point okay the authorities messed up they're not gonna let him go for another time right they let

00:07:31.580 him go and within 40 minutes of him being released he did exactly the same thing again so you think

00:07:37.340 in a sane society had this mistake happened they would have been like okay we really need to do

00:07:43.120 something now uh well nothing was done we will see he was detained under the mental health act

00:07:49.840 for the first time bit of foreshadowing and hospitalized for around a month it was documented

00:07:55.520 that callocaine's behavior had been an episode of psychosis brought on by stress of coursework

00:08:00.600 and an upcoming exam believe me i've been under a lot of stress from both of those things um you

00:08:06.400 know including resulted in you like someone having to jump out of a window to escape you it's

00:08:12.840 probably, you know, accelerated my graying hair. But other than that, you know, coupled with a

00:08:18.600 lack of sleep, again, this isn't something that normally causes you to kick your neighbor's doors

00:08:22.860 down. The previous week, however, he would later be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, which

00:08:27.860 makes a little bit more sense. And then fast forwarding a little bit, in July 2020, he was

00:08:33.040 admitted to hospital after forcibly entering another neighbor's flat, but was released after

00:08:38.580 two weeks for some reason so at this point his neighbors must be absolutely terrified of him

00:08:43.880 free neighbors in in the same building that he lives in following his discharge he received

00:08:49.580 regular visits to monitor his condition but of course you can't have someone there all of the

00:08:54.580 time so it's not in any way a perfect system here then fast forwarding to may of 2021 he turned up

00:09:02.100 outside the mi5 headquarters dressed all in black and insisted over the intercom that he be arrested

00:09:07.640 and when police arrived he was coherent and compliant was already in the process of leaving

00:09:12.340 willingly the police officer had um into who he had interacted with sorry saw nothing unusual and

00:09:17.900 described it as a routine stop which uh what is quite a condemnation of the state of policing in

00:09:24.520 london i imagine i think that's where the mi half five headquarters is isn't it um that he thought

00:09:29.680 that that was normal so when the police arrived he was coherent right okay yeah so he went over

00:09:39.260 there basically asked them to arrest so even when the met police are as overstretched as they are

00:09:45.440 crime is out of hand even when they literally have criminals turn up on their doorstep asking

00:09:50.360 them to take them in and with the least possible resistance they won't even do that apparently not

00:09:55.720 At this point, it would be obvious that someone was undergoing a mental health episode of some

00:10:01.280 kind, right? That someone should have intervened. And then in August of 2021, it was established

00:10:07.040 that he stopped taking his medication and was refusing treatment, claiming the medication could

00:10:11.340 slow the mind, which, you know, there's a debate in psychology about this. As a result, he was

00:10:18.060 placed on a waiting list for inpatient care. By September of 2021, after refusing medication and

00:10:23.620 resisting detention during a mental health assessment the police were called when officers

00:10:28.440 arrived he was reportedly calm but as soon as they entered the room he suddenly attacked one

00:10:33.240 officer by punching and headbutting him and using handcuffs from the police officer as a weapon

00:10:38.340 and police had to use a taser and pepper spray before they're able to detain him

00:10:42.140 so at this point i think it's well established that this man is dangerous he's kicked down three

00:10:48.220 neighbors doors he turned up to mi5 trying to get arrested he assaulted a police officer

00:10:53.480 Sorry, because you've got the dates here.

00:10:55.040 When was the first incident that they actually...

00:10:57.780 May, 2020.

00:10:58.740 So these have been happening for over a year now.

00:11:01.320 Sorry, I'll get back to where you were.

00:11:02.640 And yet still, he's out there.

00:11:05.080 Yeah.

00:11:05.740 And there's a record of all of this happening as well,

00:11:07.940 because, of course, this is coming out in the inquiry.

00:11:09.900 And so it's not that these things aren't available

00:11:12.280 to the people taking care of him.

00:11:14.360 And then due to a shortage of psychiatric intensive care beds,

00:11:17.000 he was transferred between several private hospitals

00:11:19.080 before being discharged after about a month.

00:11:21.440 and medics later stated that they believed there were no he was no risk to himself or others at

00:11:26.760 the time which is obviously very naive given what he he had already done by january of 2020 uh two

00:11:34.640 police were called again after he trapped two flatmates inside their flat yeah i'm starting

00:11:39.340 to see a bit of a pattern here um he was assessed under the mental health act but was not detained

00:11:44.560 instead it was agreed that he would receive daily visits from mental health services which again

00:11:48.820 you know he just needs to do these things when the mental health services are not there

00:11:52.820 and nevertheless he's ended up spending another month in hospital care before being released once

00:11:57.360 more. By this point care providers had been instructed never to visit his property alone

00:12:03.840 due to his history of violence however he began failing to attend appointments to collect his

00:12:08.240 medication and his most recent address appeared to be incorrect meaning mental health services

00:12:12.480 weren't able to account for his whereabouts. Of course this is the failure of this in community

00:12:17.980 care that is so popular at the minute, that severely mentally ill people aren't going to

00:12:24.080 hang around to be surveyed, are they? They're severely mentally ill, and by definition they're

00:12:29.940 going to behave in unpredictable ways, because that's the nature of their condition. I assume

00:12:34.100 this guy, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he didn't have a job, given his mental

00:12:39.300 instability? I'm not entirely sure, it's not a matter of public record. But still, he's a

00:12:45.200 foreigner living in Britain, just putting excessive amounts of effort and waste into public resources.

00:12:51.260 Absolutely.

00:12:52.300 And we also have to remember that many times when crimes are committed, the first excuse

00:12:56.680 by the state is this person had mental illness issues.

00:13:03.480 And yeah, I mean, in this instance, he obviously did have some sort of mental health issues.

00:13:08.780 When he was kicking down one of the doors in his apartment building, he was hearing

00:13:14.580 auditory hallucinations that his mother was being sexually assaulted um right and so i think the

00:13:22.200 the medical records seem to indicate that this is a case where they were mentally ill but the

00:13:26.880 problem of course is why is this west african mentally ill man in our country in the first

00:13:31.920 place it would have been much better not to have him here um and three people would be alive had

00:13:37.060 he not been so on the 13th of june 2023 he carried out a combined knife and vehicle attack in

00:13:42.780 nottingham that left barnaby webber grace o'malley kumar both 19 and ian coates 65 dead whilst also

00:13:49.820 attempting to kill three other people and he was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order in

00:13:54.660 january of 2024 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility and attempted murder a

00:14:00.260 sentence that received significant pushback from the victims families because you you can't really

00:14:05.900 carry out a combined knife and vehicle attack without it being premeditated in my opinion

00:14:09.880 and it doesn't really matter if someone's mentally ill if anything that makes them more

00:14:14.780 dangerous because they're not going to behave in ways that a normal person might well and it also

00:14:21.380 obviously shouldn't shine huge investigations over all of the people that you're documenting

00:14:26.820 that led to this permissiveness throughout the years yeah and i i wrote a little bit about this

00:14:33.020 because um you know i know quite a bit about clinical psychology being you know a psychologist

00:14:38.600 although my specialization was behavioral decision making but that doesn't mean i don't

00:14:42.500 know how the system works and don't know the literature so i i wrote here there currently

00:14:48.180 exists a convenient marriage of perspectives women britain's institutions that result in

00:14:51.900 dangerous people being allowed on the streets the first of which is the belief that being

00:14:55.300 in the community helps those with mental health conditions this may be true if you have a family

00:14:59.440 living with you and caring for you but when living alone with neighbors who are rightfully

00:15:03.180 terrified of you it is doubtful that he received any support at all which i feel like is

00:15:08.400 near impossible to dispute really because i would be terrified if i lived in the same building as

00:15:13.380 him similarly detaining and treating someone with mental health issues is rather expensive and so

00:15:18.060 efforts have been made in britain to reduce the number of those detained in mental health

00:15:21.240 facilities the consequence of this partnership of perspectives is that severely mentally ill people

00:15:26.060 are mixed into the population without sufficient support and they are you know as we can see a

00:15:31.280 danger to both people around them and often themselves as well and this is something that

00:15:36.780 I think needs to be addressed. I think that we do need to bring back the asylums where people like

00:15:42.760 him, paranoid schizophrenics that are dangerous, should be kept and never let out because they're

00:15:48.300 not going to get better. And one thing that we need to understand in particular is the nature

00:15:53.060 and reality of schizophrenia, because it's not a condition where, you know, there's any impact on

00:16:00.800 racism. Racism doesn't change the manifestation of a deeply biologically rooted condition.

00:16:08.320 I'm going to skip to the part about that because this is really, really important.

00:16:14.220 So, okay. The reality is that rates of psychosis and schizophrenia are much higher for black

00:16:20.300 individuals leading to more interactions with mental health services. It's not that the system

00:16:25.220 is racist, as these mental health professionals initially posited, that led to his repeated

00:16:32.860 release over and over again. Afro-Caribbeans are nine times more likely to be diagnosed with

00:16:38.240 schizophrenia than white British people. Black Africans are six times more likely. Even in the

00:16:42.900 United States, black Americans are four times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia

00:16:47.620 than white people. So the disparity in psychosis and schizophrenia is well known, and most

00:16:54.560 clinicians are familiar with this and in fact large-scale studies have found that it's got

00:16:59.220 heritability rate of around 79 percent or 80 percent which is very high that you that is very

00:17:06.640 likely to be inherited from a parent and oh sorry so is this uh genetic and uh the narrative says

00:17:15.740 that no it isn't it's systemic yes nature versus nurture culture yes exactly but the research very

00:17:22.960 much says otherwise to this as in it's actually quite well established that schizophrenia is

00:17:27.980 largely a genetic phenomenon because as I later say in this article which I suppose I'll see now

00:17:34.420 you can look at neuroimaging outputs and diagnose someone with schizophrenia obviously it's not a

00:17:40.880 bulletproof method but you could at an above chance rate look at their brain scan and see

00:17:46.120 the difference between a normal brain because of the overactivity in certain areas and how their

00:17:51.140 brain is working and so it's got a deeply physiological rooted cause and so i don't

00:17:58.220 think that this is something that um even if you know he was the victim of racism um would be

00:18:04.480 affected by this well and also even if he was the victim of racism basically what we're saying is

00:18:10.640 because he was a victim of racism that is somehow equivalent to the distress that he's put other

00:18:18.920 people through and the lives that he's taken yeah which obviously you can't

00:18:22.640 quantify I'm of the opinion that the main priority of mental health

00:18:28.100 clinicians is keeping ordinary people safe you know you shouldn't put ordinary

00:18:32.780 people in danger for the well-being of a mentally ill person that's the wrong

00:18:36.980 way round and I think that that's something that needs to change in many

00:18:40.860 Western institutions that there's this really quite silly idea that oh he's you

00:18:47.360 you know, just being in the world is magically going to make them better. But if you don't have

00:18:50.760 the support like he did, what's going to happen other than you're going to degenerate and get

00:18:56.000 worse? Because there's no one there to support him. And then I go on to say, today, the genetic

00:19:02.300 basis of schizophrenia is well established within clinical psychology and psychiatry.

00:19:07.760 And I go on to point out the brain, parts of the brain, increased activity in the striatum is

00:19:13.020 associated with hallucinations in the hippocampus with memory deficits and the medial frontal and

00:19:18.300 parietal areas with an impaired ability to distinguish between thoughts and external

00:19:22.560 reality we know these things these are quite well established neurological areas that are

00:19:29.200 implicated in schizophrenia and and so that the idea that you know he just needs community support

00:19:34.700 well it can't change the structure of his brain and i go on to say that all this is to say that

00:19:40.540 condition is deeply rooted in biological causes that are largely genetic. There is little room

00:19:45.780 for racism to be a causal factor in the disorder itself unless racism somehow determines which

00:19:50.240 genes are expressed in a person's DNA. And anyone working in the field of mental health should

00:19:54.940 understand this very clearly. And I argue that it's because they placed ideology over the actual

00:20:00.460 real world evidence that this was allowed to happen in the first place. And in a proper

00:20:04.540 functioning country um his first interaction where he he showed signs of violence should be okay

00:20:10.440 we need to figure out what's specifically wrong with this guy you can't just say oh you know it's

00:20:15.060 an episode of psychosis let's let him out no no if someone just randomly kicks down a neighbor's

00:20:20.220 door that's a really unusual behavior to have in a normal society and should be taken seriously

00:20:25.780 they should be detained and monitored until you can with absolute certainty establish what is

00:20:32.120 wrong with them and what their situation is there's no ifs or buts about that really and

00:20:39.040 one thing that is quite frustrating as well is I'm not the only person to say this and in fact

00:20:44.840 people within the police have said the same thing that I've been saying the former chief constable

00:20:50.300 of Nottingham police has admitted that he should have been arrested before he carried out the

00:20:54.520 deadly attacks well she's a constable at the time when it was going on when you say I would presume

00:20:59.200 so yes um yes nottingham police so yeah i would imagine that that's the case this is all part

00:21:05.920 this is all the stuff being dug up by the nottingham inquiry right okay and um it's even

00:21:11.900 being talked about um i believe it should be somewhere here um the police are saying that

00:21:16.820 yeah i i believe this is um i can't remember sanders i think they were a senior person in the

00:21:23.240 police um that it was murder and that his um manslaughter charges were not necessarily just

00:21:31.940 because of the premeditated premeditated nature of the crimes and they were saying that at the

00:21:37.980 time they were preoccupied with actually dealing with the crime itself um and so there was perhaps

00:21:43.520 some some political efforts here to uh give it a mental health diagnosis which we say often are

00:21:50.280 Yeah, which is very interesting. And also another thing that I found very interesting as well was this ongoing narrative that's come out of the Nottingham inquiry that the police sped up charges upon him to shut down stories that, you know, the police had acted incompetently, that they've made mistakes, that the mental health services had made mistakes and the like.

00:22:15.340 um which you know is quite compelling given how long it takes to charge some people and he was

00:22:21.180 charged relatively quickly considering the complexity of the case and so there's so many

00:22:27.180 different layers here of errors that it's almost incomprehensible to to know where to start in

00:22:33.360 fixing them right and this is one of those things where um it's one thing to say yes

00:22:41.100 wokeness allowed this person to come out but once you actually hear exactly how this happened in the

00:22:47.260 institutions you realize wow we've got a really long way to go to restore some sort of sensible

00:22:52.440 policing and mental health service treatment of these people and yeah it really shocked me i

00:22:59.720 couldn't believe it um it's one of those things where you hear it going on more in the united

00:23:05.880 States, but less so here. But it seems to be the case that this is happening in just the same way

00:23:12.520 in the US as it is here. And so it seems to suggest that there's some sort of ideological

00:23:17.900 commonality because no sensible country would operate in this way and endanger their own

00:23:24.020 citizens in this way. Believe you are using the right word, it's ideology. And ideology makes

00:23:30.460 people completely unrealistic and it often gives them excuses for crimes they hate other people

00:23:37.140 when they're committing them and ideologues are very unrealistic and they don't understand

00:23:44.820 practical context and what do i mean by this it's a fancy way of saying that they don't understand

00:23:50.620 that our choices aren't always choices between absolute good and absolute evil it's a lot

00:23:57.600 sometimes it's a mix of good and evil of pros and cons and ideologues hate this and they focus only

00:24:04.160 on something they don't like and if they don't like something they instantly brand it as demonic

00:24:12.560 and this is one of those issues because there is a very interesting debate when it comes to the

00:24:18.240 nature and nurture aspect of discourse i think basically generally speaking it's a mix of both

00:24:26.080 for when we are talking about how the sorry just ever so quickly um to sort of reinforce your point

00:24:33.120 i did skip over a little bit uh just for the sake of brevity where i pointed out that the

00:24:38.060 environmental factors in schizophrenia are living in urban areas cannabis use and parental separation

00:24:43.440 which uh seems like a perfect storm for this fella um i don't know whether i'm not going

00:24:49.340 for Peter Hitchens here and saying that it was necessarily, but people of his demographic

00:24:54.440 are more likely to have these things in their life, you know, live in an urban area, have

00:25:01.620 access to drugs and be separate from, say, their fathers. And so these are things that

00:25:07.920 basically aggravate pre-existing genetic predispositions, as I think you were saying,

00:25:12.720 right?

00:25:12.880 Yeah, the issue with lots of these progressives within quotation marks is that they have an

00:25:18.700 ultimately passive view of human nature. It's always just a human being is a recipient of

00:25:24.820 welfare points. And their idea is that let's put them in conditions that are going to mechanically

00:25:33.220 lead them into being, you know, just ultra happy because they think that the state's duty is to

00:25:40.800 make people happy, not to allow them to pursue happiness and potentially fail, but to ensure

00:25:46.100 happiness for them and in this case the trouble with trying to communicate with people who think

00:25:52.400 this way is that if you come from a realist perspective what you're proposing isn't ideal

00:25:59.000 and they instantly translate this into you want to keep them um being unhappy and in such bad

00:26:08.320 situations that's actually reinforcing what you are saying about the perniciousness of

00:26:14.480 this kind of ideological thinking of the matter.

00:26:18.660 So yes, I thought it was very, very important to highlight the nature of this case, because

00:26:22.780 it is one of the best examples of how institutions are failing in the first place, and then you

00:26:31.720 introduce ideology that is naive to the true nature of reality, in my opinion, and you

00:26:37.580 create, quite literally, a lethal concoction here, and it was a combination of institutional

00:26:43.460 failings and woke ideas that has led to these three people dying and i think more people need

00:26:48.020 to know about this yeah i feel terrible for the all the victims involved in that story

00:26:55.260 i'm sorry to depress everyone but i thought it was too important not to mention

00:26:59.060 we will have a good palate cleanser yeah yeah that's true sigil stone says i'm having a mental

00:27:05.920 health episode i need free tickets and airfare to the lotus eaters live event for proper treatment

00:27:10.160 research says there won't be enough americans there so you have to do it well i hope you get

00:27:15.620 your treatment um ochidor says my biggest pet peeve for us not sure if britain is the not

00:27:22.220 mentally fit to stand trial if not fit for trial then why fit for society well said yes i agree i

00:27:28.500 think especially with mental health conditions that are for the entirety of your life you're

00:27:34.140 not really going to get that much better perhaps you get old and you're not capable of doing that

00:27:38.980 much harm but at the same time it's not good for them to be out and about in society they require

00:27:43.560 constant monitoring what was um the nature of with um biden where he was like incriminated in

00:27:50.260 something it's like oh he can't stand trial but he's not mentally well enough but he can be

00:27:54.660 president you know it was like okay great it's absurd isn't it yeah i guess we're doing this

00:28:00.720 all right uh well before we begin the segment ladies and gentlemen just to let you know that

00:28:06.200 We have a live event taking place on Saturday, 11th of April.

00:28:10.220 Oh, it's all right.

00:28:10.800 We've got three now.

00:28:12.300 Oh, blimey.

00:28:13.080 Yeah.

00:28:14.280 Proper organization.

00:28:15.020 Just to let you know.

00:28:16.260 We've got a live event coming up.

00:28:18.500 Many, many of us are going to be there.

00:28:20.480 Josh will be there.

00:28:21.260 I'll be there.

00:28:21.820 Carl, everyone that you see on there.

00:28:23.740 Stelios, you may be there.

00:28:25.160 May you not?

00:28:26.080 Probably not.

00:28:26.800 It's not a particularly good day for me.

00:28:30.300 Okay.

00:28:30.700 Well, just because of your schedule and everything.

00:28:33.800 But we're going to have a live event.

00:28:35.180 We're going to have, well obviously it is a live event, what I mean is we're going to have a live

00:28:39.180 lads hour, we're going to have a debate about Star Wars, which I will win, and we're going to have

00:28:44.740 many many drinks, it should be a good time, lots of banter, so if you'd like, tickets are on the

00:28:50.040 website for you to take a look at. Alright then, so this actually happened last week, but given that

00:28:57.480 we, just because of the way it's been scheduled, haven't really had time to talk about this in any

00:29:02.820 great detail. And it is something that deserves, I think, a larger discussion. And I suppose we can

00:29:09.580 start that discussion with how nonchalant the Cabinet Office's post was about this, which is

00:29:16.240 that this is the biggest reform to our Parliament in the generation. This morning, the seven-year-old

00:29:22.100 system of hereditary... 700. 700-year-old, thank you, system of hereditary membership in the House

00:29:28.580 laws was abolished. Membership is now earned through public service and merit, not granted

00:29:34.280 by an inheritance. Shouldn't there be a bit more of a, at least, melancholy, like a tinge of sadness

00:29:41.780 in doing away with something that has survived for all of these generations going back, you know,

00:29:48.480 since beyond the Enlightenment, beyond the Renaissance, right back into the medieval era?

00:29:54.060 I view it in terms of whether it's a good or bad institution.

00:29:57.680 Personally, if I think it's a bad institution, I don't care, I'm happy.

00:30:01.380 But in this case, I think that it has been an institution that has a lot to speak for it.

00:30:06.120 Yeah, and unfortunately as well, this was in the Labour manifesto.

00:30:11.920 I was meant to get the actual part of it, but it's in there.

00:30:15.280 They said that they were going to do this in the House.

00:30:17.320 Hayes wanted to do this. He's been pushing for a long time.

00:30:19.980 I mean, he did have Lord's reform when he was in office, but he wasn't able to get the full way to getting rid of the hereditary peers.

00:30:26.520 Yeah.

00:30:27.120 Sorry.

00:30:27.520 Well, no, it's just to say that you're absolutely right.

00:30:29.680 There was a compromise that was made which allowed for 92 hereditary peers to continue on, which was a deal made with the Tories at the time.

00:30:39.560 And obviously one of the reasons for this was that Blair identified that the House of Lords, because of the hereditary peers,

00:30:47.680 They were naturally more conservative, not only in party, but in their actual temperament and in their loyalties as well.

00:30:54.520 And so naturally, like everything else to do with Blairism, that was simply something that had to be done away with.

00:31:00.580 But because it was in the Labour Manifesto as well, it basically means that it's in alignment with the Salisbury Convention, where the House of Lords can't really block it.

00:31:12.100 So, you know, the peers can't actually block this from happening.

00:31:15.200 They just have to step back and allow the convention to take place.

00:31:19.140 But one of the things that I also wanted to talk about with all of this, actually, just to go back to the framing of it here, to talk about service and merit.

00:31:27.940 And obviously it's all being coached more in it being a gradual step to having an entirely elected and more democratic second chamber.

00:31:38.120 And actually, I just wanted to draw a passage from George Orwell on this, where he says in politics and the English language, the words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.

00:31:56.080 In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides.

00:32:05.360 It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic, we are praising it.

00:32:12.640 And I feel like this type of thinking of basically the way that the word democracy or democratic is kind of just used almost in international language at this point as a synonym of good.

00:32:23.520 If something is democratic, it is naturally good, it is naturally better than if something is undemocratic or grounded in tradition.

00:32:33.320 And this is really important because this is what we actually see, as Apostolic Majesty points out here,

00:32:40.260 that was kind of the trajectory from the very end of the Edwardian period when Asquith was prime minister and David Lloyd George was chancellor.

00:32:49.940 And when they were trying to put through the people's budget, the Lords decided that they were going to block it because obviously it was counter to their own conservative landed interests and their own economic interests.

00:33:03.940 And so because of this, Asquith went forward and basically changed it so that at the time before this, the Lords could actually veto legislation that was put to an end by the Liberals.

00:33:19.940 Sorry, just a question. So does this mean that the parliament has become a unicameral body from a bicameral one or not yet?

00:33:30.240 I'm sorry, I don't actually know what that...

00:33:32.480 It does, yes. So bicameral means that it has two different chambers in the legislature.

00:33:38.660 So what Stelius is saying is actually what I was going to say, which is basically it makes the House of Lords redundant

00:33:45.960 because it needs to be a distinct chamber from the House of Commons.

00:33:50.580 And even though it might still have the name House of Lords,

00:33:54.140 if both are elected, both are effectively operating the same way.

00:33:58.080 So it's no longer operating in the bicameral way

00:34:02.220 in which our Parliament has operated in for hundreds of years.

00:34:08.100 And so the expertise that the Lords had in refining legislation,

00:34:15.180 which is the main thing that they do in today's Britain, or at least they did, is probably going to be weakened.

00:34:23.240 And it just means that you can have a greater tyranny by the Commons, as I see it.

00:34:27.900 And there have been many criticisms from the Lords of the Commons and the way our democracy works in the first place,

00:34:33.640 which I find interesting, that this seems to align to a greater empowerment of the Commons,

00:34:38.680 because you have people like Lord Hallisham many years ago

00:34:41.920 saying that our political system is basically an elective dictatorship

00:34:45.940 that as long as you get a majority in the Commons

00:34:48.300 you can basically act as dictator

00:34:50.080 and having people in the Lords that are criticising your use of power

00:34:54.680 isn't always the best thing

00:34:55.960 but there have been many good and useful voices for the British public

00:35:01.480 coming from the Lords

00:35:03.040 and in fact I think it's one of the chambers

00:35:04.700 that had previously been less polluted by the corrosive nature of party politics.

00:35:12.560 It's basically an anti-constitutional move, in a sense.

00:35:16.060 Not that it's necessary that it's against the constitution,

00:35:20.840 but in the sense that you have less checks on power.

00:35:25.740 You framed it wrongly, but that, in my mind, is a bad thing.

00:35:31.680 Yeah. And the other thing as well that I would just say with all of this is that I'm not going to defend the House of Lords like it's always been a perfect institution, like it's been beyond corruption.

00:35:43.120 I mean, there are so many examples, not only with the way that King George V threatened to stack it with peers if the Conservatives didn't buckle to what the Liberals wanted back in 1911.

00:35:55.580 But, you know, going right back to times that we think of now as, you know, with more vitalism, when we were truly an incredible country, I think about the regency crisis with the madness of King George.

00:36:07.740 And, you know, William Pitt the Younger was very clear about making sure that the regent couldn't just stack the House of Lords with all of his cronies and his appointees and peers.

00:36:18.100 and okay fine so the king and all of these people can't stack the lords with their peers now but

00:36:25.760 now all of a sudden just boris johnson can do it though that's fine that's okay starma can as well

00:36:32.140 right and key is starma can and all the rest of them but the problem that we run into is the fact

00:36:37.160 that uh according to you go polling so you know i'm not expecting them to be the most honest about

00:36:44.600 anything. But most Britons would support making the House of Lords fully elected. And I would

00:36:50.400 suggest that actually, though, as I just said, I don't trust YouGov, I don't see there anything

00:36:57.320 really incongruent with public mood on this, especially when the public, like the Lords,

00:37:03.780 like everyone in society, have been inculcated with these more liberal ideals and these feelings

00:37:09.920 of democracy being the highest form of good, I can understand why the public have been

00:37:15.900 turned in this direction, especially as the Lords continued throughout decades to drift

00:37:21.880 more and more into this kind of halfway house where it's not really anything in a true form.

00:37:27.820 Democracy without checks and balances or with fewer checks and balances is not particularly

00:37:33.320 stable.

00:37:34.180 This is the exact opposite of what Madison was all about.

00:37:38.280 Right.

00:37:38.520 When they were drafting the US Constitution, where he was thinking that the states individually are too democratic, they do need extra checks and balances.

00:37:47.860 I was just going to add that I think it's the complete opposite. I think that the House of Lords should be entirely unelected, because otherwise it's just a repetition of the House of Commons, and therefore it is redundant.

00:37:57.980 It'd be better to have it in an ideal society as a chamber where you can have lots of expertise in various fields.

00:38:06.920 You have, you know, doctors, industrialists, lawyers, people who can weedle out mistakes and errors and conflicts within legislation and just improve the quality and the intention of it.

00:38:21.560 Of course, we run into difficulties in the modern day because we know that this would be abused.

00:38:27.100 but at the same time were we to have a restoration of british institutions i think that a movement in

00:38:34.420 that that direction would be much better because you want you you don't want people who've just

00:38:40.060 been freshly elected into politics shaping legislation necessarily because you want people

00:38:45.400 with years and years of experience and you can have the best of both you can have elected

00:38:49.400 representatives in the commons representing your interests whilst people with considerable and long

00:38:55.060 careers in their respective industries in the House of Lords. And these are good counterweights

00:38:59.460 to one another. And that's how the system has worked for hundreds of years. And it's a shame

00:39:05.100 to see it end. No, I quite agree with you. I mean, you know, I can only think back to the segment

00:39:10.420 that I did last week on abortion, of course, and the House of Lords feature quite heavily in that

00:39:15.280 as well. Because even though it went towards the most tragic possible result, the point was that

00:39:22.180 that legislation was rushed through the Commons after merely 46 minutes of debate.

00:39:27.220 Now, surely something as seismic as that requires much more discussion and, you know, much more

00:39:33.540 scrutiny and, frankly, shouldn't have been entertained in the first place, but that's by the

00:39:38.540 by. The point is that also as well, it's, as you say, it's good to have, it would be better to have

00:39:45.140 an entirely unelected chamber because ultimately once you, and, you know, I mean, your idea of

00:39:51.560 experts as well but even if you have it being uh amongst those ranks are the hereditary peers

00:39:58.600 those who are you know tied to the land who have literally their families haven't moved from their

00:40:04.760 ancestral homes in all of these generations and in the world of globalization and nomadism

00:40:11.140 i think that that's actually quite a healthy antidote to it another thing as well of course

00:40:15.800 is that if you are a member of parliament it's constantly making false promises it's constantly

00:40:21.160 laying out red meat to voters it's constantly having to appeal to these sort this the short

00:40:26.960 termism that comes with general elections and democracy and having a more educated body above

00:40:33.780 it that doesn't have to take into consideration that it gives it um more chance for long-term

00:40:40.480 planning for actual a more farsightedness i would suggest i mean just look at it at the face of it

00:40:46.660 it's the House of Lords. It's sort of like a proxy for some of the strongest points of monarchy

00:40:52.720 or, say, dictatorship, is that you have a stable group of people involved in the decision-making

00:40:58.840 process. And of course, I'm not in favour of, you know, I want people to be able to choose their

00:41:03.600 government. That's not what I'm saying. But that is what the Commons is for. And, you know, these

00:41:09.140 should be complementary. And that's how it was understood for a long time. And I don't think

00:41:12.620 anything has changed it's just that there's a political incentive for the left and the Labour

00:41:18.420 Party to remove these people and it has been for you know since 1997 right so not before so now

00:41:24.880 what we see just as an example is that one of those set to leave the chamber will be the Duke

00:41:30.900 of Norfolk and Earl of Arendelle and he can trace his peerage all the way back to 1138 and that's

00:41:39.300 just just gone it's just gone because the Labour Party willed it so and bear in mind as well that

00:41:46.920 this is a party that really only won the election because its competitor collapsed after being one

00:41:53.720 of the worst. It has no mandate to do these sweeping constitutional changes in sort of

00:41:59.180 objective terms. Sure it's got an electoral majority but they should understand that these

00:42:04.640 sorts of things, they haven't really been given the permission to do it. You know, being the least

00:42:10.720 hated at the time of the election is not an achievement and it's not a mandate to enact all

00:42:15.940 of the worst excesses of your manifesto. No, and it certainly doesn't endear you to

00:42:21.440 the more progressive vision of what the Lords can be if it's more reliant on appointees from

00:42:29.500 former prime ministers. And, you know, as Boris Johnson did when he was on his way out of office

00:42:34.480 and he appointed Charlotte Owen, 30-year-old former advisor,

00:42:39.040 joined the House's Lords as the youngest peer.

00:42:41.520 According to a LinkedIn profile, Baroness Owen started a career as an intern

00:42:46.040 in then-Chancellor George Osborne's constituency office,

00:42:50.440 and then she went on to intern for Johnson

00:42:52.480 and as a parliamentary assistant for Alok Sharma and Sir Jake Berry

00:42:57.760 before joining Number 10 as a special advisor.

00:43:00.000 So she spent, look, I'm not judging her as a person,

00:43:03.380 But there is nothing remarkable about her. There is nothing extraordinary beyond where she's come from.

00:43:11.980 In fact, she's served politicians who have only made England a worse place for them being here.

00:43:20.820 So their judgment on who to appoint to this chamber is really not worth anything whatsoever.

00:43:27.500 Also, the fact that when Keir Starmer's come in, sorry, we have Carmen Smith, a 28-year-old

00:43:35.260 Plaid Cymru activist, sorry, so not Keir Starmer, appointed by Plaid Cymru to become

00:43:40.380 the youngest member.

00:43:41.260 This is after Charlotte Owens.

00:43:43.120 And speaking to the BBC ahead of being formally introduced as a peer, she acknowledged she

00:43:48.180 would be one of the very few members campaigning to put herself out of a job, saying, I fundamentally

00:43:53.540 disagree with an unelected chamber.

00:43:56.180 She says, Baroness Smith defends the process by which she was nominated, arguing it helps to improve the representation of women in the chamber at 70% male.

00:44:06.840 And it points out as well that Plaid Cymru is one of only two parties, along with the Greens, who can elect their nominees for the Lord.

00:44:15.620 So again, just fine, this is what they're taking away, but are they replacing it with anything that actually seems to be an improvement?

00:44:23.420 It's worth pointing out as well that all the hereditary peers that have been removed were men.

00:44:28.100 Yeah.

00:44:28.800 Which is something, isn't it?

00:44:30.660 Yeah, it is.

00:44:31.640 Lord Ahmed as well, obviously in jail now, disgraced peer,

00:44:36.560 because he was convicted in 2022 of trying to rape a young girl

00:44:41.660 and sexually assault a boy under 11 when he was a teenager in South Yorkshire.

00:44:47.160 And so, okay, these kinds of people are just being appointed into the Lords as well.

00:44:51.420 obviously highest profile Peter Mandelson of late as well uh David Cameron just being made a lord

00:44:59.140 so we can get back into uh what was it Rishi Sunak's government and on and on so the entire

00:45:04.240 thing is entirely incestuous it has become such a corrupt um house of government and the entirety

00:45:14.660 of it is a farce but I really wanted to end with this as well because there is a another aspect

00:45:23.480 here which I do think requires a little bit more nuance and it's one of the reasons why for all of

00:45:29.900 my instincts and I am a traditionalist and you know I do get very uh I don't always kick and

00:45:36.560 scream about it but on an emotional level the culture war stuff does really irritate me it's

00:45:41.900 awful to see your country bastardized just day in day out with a little part of what made it

00:45:47.860 so special just taken away but piece by piece by people who have absolutely no care for it

00:45:54.140 but one of the things that I wanted to bring up was this article here by NPR because this was

00:46:00.540 absolutely fascinating so you can see that this was from three days ago in light of the recent

00:46:06.000 changes that are being made to the Lords. And as it says, the end of an era, the UK abolishes

00:46:12.840 aristocrats' right to inherit Parliament seats. And the article specifically focuses in on Charles

00:46:18.620 Courtenay. Now, anyone who knows their medieval history will know that the Courtenays were a very,

00:46:23.920 very powerful and influential family in medieval English politics, right? So this is a man who has

00:46:32.080 a family of deep lineage and ties to england to our history uh so much so that he is now the 19th

00:46:40.420 earl of devon uh you know which is obviously a pretty remarkable number of generations i also

00:46:46.900 know powder and castle quite well yeah you've been there yourself it looks wonderful yeah

00:46:51.900 the seats of the aristocracy are always the most beautiful parts you know most beautiful buildings

00:46:58.580 at the very least in the country and the fact that their decline has resulted in them having

00:47:05.420 to sell them off and commercialise them and things like that. It's quite sad because many

00:47:09.320 of them are in disrepair, but this is a tangent, I'm sorry.

00:47:11.740 No, no, it's actually very relevant in fact because as it goes on to say, look, he's very

00:47:16.820 aware of his whole family history and everything. He talks about the English Civil War, he talks

00:47:21.120 about sieges that the castle has been through, but it goes on to say in some ways, and this

00:47:28.460 is the article itself. In some ways, Courtney is a stereotypical lord. White, male, went to Eton

00:47:35.060 College and Cambridge University, and lives in a castle. But in other ways, he's different. He's

00:47:40.660 lobbied to change rules of male primogeniture to allow women, like his sisters, to inherit titles.

00:47:47.620 In 2013, laws of succession were changed for the royal family, but the rest of the aristocracy

00:47:53.860 still favours sons over daughters and this is now quoting him personally. The patriarchy puts up a

00:48:00.940 lot of barriers to its removal, Courtney told NPR on a tour of his castle. After one of his ancestors

00:48:08.060 William Kitty, Courtney was exiled for being gay. Courtney has restored Kitty's portrait to

00:48:14.480 prominence at Powderham Castle and he markets the castle as a venue for LGBTQ weddings now

00:48:21.460 and pop concerts in 2016 the castle hosted a big bbc music festival hosting coldplay

00:48:29.240 mumford and sons and stormzy that great british patriot uh remember that yeah uh last year

00:48:36.760 courtney stood on the floor of the house of lords calling the chamber itself gendered and

00:48:42.040 discriminatory the title lord uh for a lawmaker is out of touch uh he said using urging parliament

00:48:49.500 to step away from the negative associations with nobility and high rank associated with land and

00:48:55.520 power. Courtney says he's using his privilege for social change. And then, quote, obviously I'm a

00:49:02.380 man of a certain age with a title who lives in the castle, went to private school and Cambridge

00:49:07.340 University, but I've sought to break out of that stereotype because if you really believe in equal

00:49:13.180 rights, what on earth am I doing? And Courtney opposed the elimination of his hereditary seat

00:49:19.320 but he accepts the outcome he's a stain on the county of devon you know my home county

00:49:25.080 how dare you you know you have this wonderful lineage in one of the most beautiful counties

00:49:29.960 in the country you're throwing it all away to virtue signal says i wish i could do more but

00:49:36.200 my time is up he says and this is really why i the reason i wanted to read this article as well

00:49:42.860 is not only because i as a pleb can sit here on the other side and say gosh isn't it

00:49:49.180 destructive what's being done to the hereditary peerage. But what does it even matter what the

00:49:56.140 opinion of the majority of people, just going back to the poll, is? Because obviously it's not

00:50:03.460 everything is governed by mass consent in Britain. We know that because we've had unnumbered decades

00:50:10.320 of mass migration. So it's not exactly as if elites can't maintain things that they want to

00:50:17.460 maintain with enough power and backing. But fundamentally, what this article draws into

00:50:22.160 point of order is that the will has simply been lost to maintain the system. The entirety of the

00:50:30.260 British, I use him anecdotally, but we know it will be more pervasive than just this one man,

00:50:36.220 the entire will to maintain itself, all of the arguments, the old traditionalist arguments of

00:50:41.480 hierarchy and of elitism and the lords and aristocracy and kingship all of these things

00:50:47.680 have fallen away and now there is no real distinction between those times back when

00:50:53.300 the liberals were trying to obviously get rid of all of those Tory lords back in 1911

00:50:59.820 that trajectory was set right then and from that moment on to where we are now

00:51:05.620 this was the natural end state of where all of it was going to go i think it's the long shadow of

00:51:12.660 the two world wars where we started to lose confidence in ourselves um obviously the

00:51:17.700 aristocrats particularly in the first world war were heavily affected by that and i think that

00:51:22.540 disproportionately died yeah exactly and and so it would be nice to have people who were confident

00:51:28.960 in our ability to govern ourselves and our way of governing ourselves and this this self-doubt

00:51:35.040 and self-criticism is not the the language of a strong country no um given the opportunity to

00:51:42.280 serve his country that this lord in particular just decided to be like everyone else to just

00:51:47.240 follow the fads and phases that were just flung at us this year and next year and there's no

00:51:53.360 sense of um solidity in it there's no sense of perseverance or preserving or just will to

00:52:00.920 continue. So the entirety of the thing, of course, and I just want to end with this,

00:52:06.180 the deep irony of all of this is that, well, the House of Lords is a problem because it's

00:52:11.620 a hereditary peerage and it's deeply undemocratic. It doesn't allow for enough social mobility.

00:52:16.640 We need to change all of this so we can put in our party cronies who will just yes-men any

00:52:22.600 legislation that we're happy to say. And all of this naturally has to be signed off by royal

00:52:29.460 assent by the king himself and so there is a natural end state where all of this line of

00:52:36.680 thinking goes and I have deep grievances with the current royal family and in particular

00:52:44.000 if he gives assent to the crime and policing bill that has that amendment in it about abortion

00:52:52.420 and there's something I'd like to speak more on another time I think but for now you just get the

00:52:58.400 point that, sure, it's a great act of cultural vandalism, but everyone in the country has kind

00:53:06.080 of given up on the will to preserve it, and even those who were most privileged by it don't even

00:53:11.260 agree with having that privilege in the first place. So, naturally, the whole thing was going

00:53:16.340 to wither and die. Okay, I'll just go through Rumble Rounds, thank you.

00:53:24.440 uh mark's a shame says bbc's new drama where the bad guy submitted uh no less than nine freedom

00:53:32.760 of information requests how deplorable yeah i've seen some of the uh ads going around from that

00:53:38.300 yeah uh mr brackpool has been having some good fun with it though it's very rude of the bbc not

00:53:43.440 to cast him really play himself make it very convincing then i've seen some really good edits

00:53:48.140 of that going around.

00:53:51.080 Bald Eagle, 1787 says,

00:53:53.980 how much are we willing to bet

00:53:55.100 that within the year,

00:53:55.860 the House of Lords

00:53:56.560 will be overflowing with diversity?

00:53:58.600 Well, sorry,

00:53:59.180 that is another obvious point

00:54:00.860 as well, isn't it?

00:54:01.760 It's to get rid of

00:54:02.860 the landed aristocracy,

00:54:04.600 the actual landed,

00:54:05.640 like Norman Anglo peerage

00:54:08.500 and, you know,

00:54:08.920 those who actually have

00:54:10.060 genetic ties to the land

00:54:11.680 and replace them with

00:54:12.820 the new arrivals

00:54:14.360 like Worsi and the rest.

00:54:16.540 Question.

00:54:16.980 do they want to abolish it completely or do that that's what i think the house of the house

00:54:21.300 completely or do they want no they would just want to shuffle the people they want to get rid of the

00:54:25.560 heretic officially but i think that there's been a significant movement on the left for a very long

00:54:29.840 time where they basically argue that the house of lords is redundant which if you make it elected

00:54:34.400 it sort of is yeah and um we it's very obvious that that is a trajectory that it's going to go

00:54:40.620 This is, like everything, not the final part, but just the next step in a phase.

00:54:46.680 And Habsification says, Tony Blair and the Labour Party have done so much damage to the country so fast.

00:54:53.580 Yeah, they did.

00:54:54.480 And he also says, the entire point of getting rid of the hereditary peers was so that meritocracy could flourish and corruption is flushed out.

00:55:04.500 the exact opposite happened and the entirety entirely predictable outcome yeah absolutely

00:55:10.960 um i mean it's not going to get rid of corruption if all the appointees are appointed by the corrupt

00:55:16.660 is it so cheer us up stelios yeah stelios right so i'm gonna cheer you up by talking to you about

00:55:23.780 the 11th of april there's a low to see to the live event um i feel better already yeah yeah

00:55:30.300 Do get tickets and go to watch it.

00:55:33.600 It's going to be from 7pm to 10pm at the Mecca in Swindon, right?

00:55:39.980 So, confirmed presenters, Carl, Bo, Harry, Dan, Luca, Josh, Firas, and Nick Dixon.

00:55:49.160 VIP doors open at 6, show starts at 7.

00:55:53.520 You can be a VIP.

00:55:55.260 Yes, you can be a VIP and you get to, you know, hang out with us.

00:55:59.460 It'll be good.

00:55:59.940 For longer.

00:56:00.300 yeah i'm still gonna you know say hello to people that got the regular ticket i'm not that mean

00:56:05.600 don't worry i think i'm that important so chuck norris did not run out of time time run out of

00:56:12.480 chuck norris we are going to say goodbye to a legend uh and the legend will definitely live on

00:56:20.120 we are gonna bid chuck norris farewell with the segment right so he died uh about five days ago

00:56:29.140 and I want to say that I am very sad about this because I'm also a martial arts enthusiast I have

00:56:36.440 black belt in karate and Chuck Norris was kind of a big deal he won six world championships

00:56:43.340 in a row I like a warrior monk aren't you you like doctorate in philosophy and a black belt

00:56:50.300 in karate yeah philosophy and I know how to force it I know how to fight right but Chuck Norris knew

00:56:57.480 how to fight much better than i do right so he he was a martial arts master always also a big

00:57:05.860 screen action hero he was very unique in that he was one of the very few people who was really big

00:57:11.380 in martial arts and transitioned into a movie star and even though you can say that some of

00:57:18.060 his movies were a bit b action movies he definitely had a very strong um cult following right and

00:57:27.260 following and he definitely had critics saying bad things about his movie but he said it doesn't

00:57:33.020 matter what the critics say if you have critics saying good things but the movie makes two dollars

00:57:37.720 it really makes no difference i mean you really want to the people to like you he was one of the

00:57:43.540 examples of one of the early internet memes wasn't he yes yeah norris facts that's a real callback

00:57:49.740 we will get there one of my favorite ones was uh the downfall one where it's like hitler finds out

00:57:54.860 chuck norris is coming yeah it's great we will get there but um we are going to talk about his

00:58:00.960 life a bit and separate it in several phases we are going to talk about his early years and then

00:58:07.080 the karate championship title that he won titles that he won then the movie star era and then the

00:58:15.180 internet meme cool phenomenon because in some respects they're saying that the chuck norris

00:58:21.000 facts are the origin of the very interesting mix of authority and absurdity that we see in chaddish

00:58:28.400 memes he he was also there he is just a legend right so let's see

00:58:37.560 i'll i'll just gonna read some uh things about his his life so he says he was the oldest of three

00:58:46.500 boys carlos ray norris he was born on march the 10th in ryan oklahoma in 1940 close to the texas

00:58:54.460 border his father was a mechanic and a trucker and his mother wilma did odd jobs to help his poor

00:58:59.860 family get by genetically speaking he said that he was half irish half uh cherokee i didn't know

00:59:07.260 that yes his father had a drinking problem and often left the family for long stretchers so

00:59:12.680 Norris found his male road models in John Wayne was he was his father the Irish or Native American

00:59:19.300 side go either way here comes Josh with his genetic the genetic yeah I've got a decent

00:59:27.000 amount of Irish heritage I can judge on that side right so he has need Bo to weigh out yeah so John

00:59:33.280 Wayne Jane Autry and Roy Rogers were some of his role models and I'm just gonna say some things

00:59:39.040 hear about his family life one of the most tragic events that he experienced was that he lost his

00:59:45.240 brother will and in vietnam he died in 1970 and this was one of the things that he said it was

00:59:51.860 one of the most disappointing things he felt in his life but it was a constant motivation for him

00:59:58.780 to develop his own philosophy of life that is incredibly positive looking and um and very much

01:00:06.020 an attitude of grabbing the bull by its horns.

01:00:10.900 So what happened?

01:00:12.540 He really was interested in the military

01:00:15.880 and in becoming a policeman.

01:00:17.580 He wasn't interested in being a movie star.

01:00:19.800 In fact, this came as an idea much later

01:00:22.580 after he was 30 years old.

01:00:25.200 So when he was-

01:00:26.240 Never too late.

01:00:27.380 Yeah.

01:00:27.540 So when he was about 18 in 1958,

01:00:31.700 he enlisted in the US Air Force

01:00:33.320 and he went to the awesome base in korea to become an air policeman right and he was in korea there

01:00:40.920 until 1962 and there he he got steeped into the martial arts and he learned he received a black

01:00:48.800 belt in a martial art called tang su do and he developed his own chun kuk do his own his own

01:00:58.880 It sounds like chun kakdo or something.

01:01:02.420 Not a kakish one.

01:01:04.640 Right.

01:01:04.940 So he got married into his classmate, Diane Holchek, in 1962,

01:01:11.560 and their marriage lasted until 1988.

01:01:15.140 At some point, his wife found out that in the early stages of his relationship,

01:01:20.620 of their relationship, he had an illegitimate daughter.

01:01:23.700 But they found out.

01:01:25.120 But when they met, at some point she wrote a letter to him, they met, and he told her that we don't even have to do a genetic test, you're my daughter.

01:01:36.080 They had a good relationship.

01:01:38.840 Presumably, he just shook hands with the woman and she immediately fell pregnant.

01:01:45.380 Yes.

01:01:46.240 Also, he created the hospital in which he was born.

01:01:50.420 He built it, right?

01:01:51.540 possibly it was the nurse the maid who gave birth to him right right okay um then at some point he

01:02:01.460 he left the air force in 1962 and he started learning martial arts he wanted to become a

01:02:07.800 police officer a policeman that's too much hot fuzz yeah too much hot fuzz with you luca in the

01:02:14.640 office right he and he was um he was waiting on the you know in order to become and at some point

01:02:21.920 he decided that he couldn't wait anymore and he started teaching he started teaching martial arts

01:02:27.700 he taught plenty of martial arts classes in his backyard but then he opened some martial arts

01:02:34.000 studio and then he started um and fighting in tournaments he actually lost sometimes

01:02:42.680 he just let other people win so they didn't he allowed yeah he allowed other people win

01:02:49.340 and you'll see why he allowed them to win because when he at some point got really

01:02:55.660 went really best mode and he won six world championships in karate in a row

01:03:02.200 i think the students felt a bit emasculated and that caused a bit of a problem with his

01:03:08.360 karate studios so you're correct josh he allowed them to win so the students there in his martial

01:03:15.220 arts classes wouldn't be so emasculated he's a you know considerate guy yeah but uh he won he

01:03:21.880 won he had financial troubles at the at the time and steve mcqueen was one of the people who really

01:03:28.760 helped him because he was an action star a movie a movie star who was doing martial arts lessons

01:03:36.300 with chuck norris and he told him you those must have been incredible sessions yeah and he he told

01:03:43.600 him at some point when chuck norris told him that he had the issues he faced issues with his with

01:03:49.540 employability and money and stuff and he said listen when it comes to the movies you either

01:03:55.020 have presence or not i think you do have it so there he started trying to to get into the movies

01:04:01.380 in some respects he went there and he said that in in some auditions almost everyone knew him

01:04:08.120 and they started asking for autographs so he was kind of a star right already he he started doing

01:04:14.920 some of some movies by himself because he wanted to be a sort of american martial arts action hero

01:04:21.780 and he actually became that so here we have a filmography he has a massive filmography

01:04:28.140 right a lot of people don't know i'll just give you some of them he has the hitman 1991 the delta

01:04:35.240 force 1986 the delta force 2 colombian connection 1990 he had also missing in action 1984 sequels

01:04:45.960 firewalker 1986 sidekicks 1992 and he had he was also starring in a tv series the

01:04:55.060 walker texas ranger which lasted from 1993 to 2001 and i have this here it's just in a way it's

01:05:04.140 it's very american it's in your face you have here here uh jack norris with his nice hat here

01:05:11.360 most american image i've ever seen yeah he is basically the sheriff and what is interesting

01:05:16.480 is this show is that it shows in a way what he represented he represented a kind of you know

01:05:24.040 old american stoic attitude on the one hand but also the kind of mythological aspect that we see

01:05:31.080 in every culture where you do want to see the good guys win in the end and then triumph completely

01:05:37.740 over evil and he represents a bit more innocent times it's not it's not so much when it's before

01:05:46.980 cinema became very dark and tried to show you the gray aspect of life it's simple these are the good

01:05:55.160 guys these are the bad guys let's kick their asses it's it's very simple chuck norris just

01:06:00.940 karate chops the gray and they turn for black and white allow me to samson watch invasion

01:06:05.980 just throw out some recommendations so let's address the elephant in the room

01:06:12.100 who would win in a fight between chuck norris and steven seagal definitely chuck norris but

01:06:17.900 thank you for actually remember reminding this to me because uh i forgot to mention how could i

01:06:22.820 forget to mention the movie with bruce lee yes of course the way of the dragon in 1972 they met in

01:06:30.100 in the karate championships and bruce lee wasn't the guy who won the championship it was chuck

01:06:37.020 norris who did and they became friends and at some point bruce lee told him listen i'm gonna make a

01:06:43.180 movie and and i want a fight scene that is going to be ultra iconic it was the movie that they

01:06:49.380 started fighting in the coliseum in way of the dragon and track norris asked him who's gonna win

01:06:55.260 he said i'm gonna win i'm the movie star that was what bruce lee told him and he said it's okay so

01:07:01.120 he allowed him to win sorry i was just drawing a tincture this was despite the series initially

01:07:06.820 receiving mediocre critical reception with notable criticism for the amount of violence on the show

01:07:13.500 you're literally oh no i've got too many chuck norris fight scenes who criticizes that's the

01:07:19.880 issue that he okay let's face it okay he isn't a kind of you know laurence olivier or um actor

01:07:28.420 right that's not not everyone needs to be right not ever absolutely yeah yeah yeah when when

01:07:34.280 Arnold Schwarzenegger's on the screen I'm not listening to him for his you know gripping

01:07:38.560 emotional range yeah exactly you don't expect an Anthony Hopkins level of performance but you don't

01:07:47.180 you want to see just an action movie a simple code good guys bad guys good guys kick the asses

01:07:54.240 I still think Arnie's best film is Jingle All The Way.

01:07:57.440 Put the cookie down now.

01:08:00.580 Right, okay.

01:08:01.500 So let's move forward.

01:08:03.400 He always had the critics being against him,

01:08:06.400 especially later on when he started making some political comments.

01:08:10.960 He said some things about terrorists,

01:08:13.260 that you shouldn't give them an inch

01:08:15.160 and that you should just be completely,

01:08:18.340 you should go completely beast mode against them.

01:08:21.820 He was basically a Republican.

01:08:24.240 He wrote a book called Black Belt Patriotism.

01:08:28.600 That's a great title.

01:08:31.340 Yes.

01:08:32.160 Joe Rogan here says,

01:08:33.780 Jack Norris changed my life for real.

01:08:36.300 If it wasn't for Jack Norris movies,

01:08:38.560 who knows?

01:08:39.400 I might have never gotten into martial arts.

01:08:42.600 That gentleman will always have my respect.

01:08:45.620 That's good praise from Joe Rogan here.

01:08:48.760 He also wrote books.

01:08:50.980 He has the secret of inner strength,

01:08:53.900 my story and he has this this um trollish look here a trip yeah yeah i think it's a bit trollish

01:09:04.120 i actually find it fine i like it and i have here some of the cores of his philosophy which i want

01:09:10.480 to share with you so maximize potential you have to develop your potential do you like it i'm all

01:09:18.260 that's actually really profound because you're gonna tell me hey stellius you're actually

01:09:24.160 uh your captain obvious was here but yeah but you're forgetting it let's be honest the goal

01:09:31.080 is for you to remember it uh forget past mistakes well occasionally you have to learn from them but

01:09:37.440 don't dwell on the past it's a forward-looking philosophy uh maintain a positive frame of mind

01:09:43.260 it is like you have the two wolves in your soul one hates the state the other hates it too

01:09:49.660 one is very black pilling oriented the other is way very white pill oriented this is what he says

01:09:55.840 go for the white pills i i like being miserable i'm very good at it um but no it is true that

01:10:02.860 you should maintain a positive attitude because you know as peterson later said about the lobsters

01:10:08.040 your positive attitude changes how you carry yourself and your serotonin levels and things

01:10:13.300 it's obviously an important thing to do and it seems from all the things you're telling me as

01:10:17.120 well it's not just that chuck norris you know preached these lessons but he also clearly

01:10:21.060 lived them himself yes um i think the next one is his first wife may have an issue

01:10:28.120 we have the josh defense so he says you know just put family first

01:10:34.240 your girlfriend's watching this like what i'm not for infidelity just to be clear

01:10:41.820 okay defense of chuck norris okay didn't say anything badly you said that the most probably

01:10:50.940 the the other woman just saw was in a radius of his presence and just went pregnant chuck norris

01:10:57.360 can't actually meet other women because they'll immediately fall pregnant

01:11:00.560 yeah it says look for the good in life give time to self-improvement celebrate others don't be

01:11:07.860 somewhat like a miser who just constantly want others to harm themselves and and say hey they

01:11:14.640 have a worse life than myself so i feel good about myself don't be like this just don't

01:11:20.500 so and you know it's just simple stuff but that's the issue sometimes there is some wisdom in

01:11:26.900 simplicity and we kind of forget it you don't have to be you don't have to be a cunt an emmanuel

01:11:32.940 cunt i mean in philosophy in order to in order to have profound insights yeah i was talking about

01:11:39.500 philosophy luke and josh please that just took me by surprise is all um so um we are gonna go now to

01:11:48.220 to the chack norris facts and we are gonna talk about some of them and then explain how this

01:11:55.060 internet phenomenon started we have this death didn't take chack norris chack norris took death's

01:12:01.120 job and then immediately killed the only family there's another meme when you know it's chack

01:12:08.600 norris in front of the gates of heaven and they have the this dude from only fans where he says

01:12:13.720 no the gates of heaven are closed for you we have here chack norris is gonna do his own funeral

01:12:19.660 speech. It says Rip Jack Norris, and Jack Norris is delivering his eulogy. Here he is dressed

01:12:28.900 of the coffin bearers. Here we have Jack Norris, 1942, when he felt like it.

01:12:41.440 Here's his last appearance in a movie that was in Expendables 2. They say,

01:12:47.120 booker rumor had it you were dead so yeah i heard that too but there was also another

01:12:52.080 jack norris fact he said in that movie he said at once king cobra bit me and after three days

01:12:58.760 of excruciating pain the king cobra died yeah that's a classic yeah yeah and i think in the

01:13:06.720 spirit of jack norris's philosophy i think we need to be positive and remember him in a in a positive

01:13:13.760 mind that he would want us to remember him because he was definitely not the kind of you know look

01:13:19.060 back in misery uh type of person he is he would want us to celebrate his life so i have here lots

01:13:27.500 of chuck norris facts i want i want to mention some of them we have some time i'll mention enough

01:13:34.860 of them and let's have some fun yeah yeah great right so it says in the beginning there was nothing

01:13:41.080 then chuck norris run house kicked nothing and told it to get a job

01:13:45.120 says chuck norris once ran house kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light

01:13:53.840 it's more of an observation yeah says chuck norris's run house kick is so painful

01:14:00.220 it can be seen from outer space by the naked eye that's weird jack norris nasa have confirmed this

01:14:08.600 yeah jack norris doesn't strike gold gold is the byproduct of jack norris's roundhouse kicking

01:14:15.920 rocks this takes me back to the i know this is so like at college we were just always cracking

01:14:24.460 these sorts of jack norris once shattered the space-time continuum he felt so bad he put it

01:14:29.960 back together it's very considerate of him i really like this one especially for wheelchair

01:14:35.980 people. Says, Jack Norris plays Jenga with Stonehenge. Jack Norris is able to slam a

01:14:43.780 revolving door. Those are the kinds of ones I remember. Yeah. Jack Norris has a diary. It's

01:14:50.740 called the Guinness Book of World Records. But I think it's these sorts of jokes and,

01:14:57.600 you know, this internet humor that came with him as well that just helped him to be one of those

01:15:02.300 celebrities and film stars that you know his his fan base transcended generations it wasn't just

01:15:08.860 the older generation who grew up with his films as well it's part of the reason why you know

01:15:13.380 everyone everyone knows who chuck norris is yeah i mean from there you know it's not how you learn

01:15:19.980 but you know but once you've learned you can just go and study him as much as you want growing up

01:15:25.200 in britain the only reason i really knew who he was was because of the the memes on the internet

01:15:29.960 more than anything because we didn't really have many of his films and shows on our television

01:15:35.720 yeah it's a testament to the crystallization of his fame that uh he can transcend these

01:15:42.520 cultural barriers it says when chuck norris lifts weights the weights get in shape

01:15:47.600 if chuck norris were to travel to an alternative dimension in which there was another chuck

01:15:54.660 norris and they both both thought they would both win when the boogeyman goes to sleep every night

01:16:00.820 he checks his closet for chuck norris yeah it's a classic the flu gets a chuck norris shot every

01:16:08.340 year chuck norris is the reason that wally is always hiding what did he do bigfoot is still

01:16:18.080 hiding because he once saw chuck norris walking in the mountain oh car will be gutted yeah yeah

01:16:24.400 Now, this is really relevant.

01:16:27.860 Jack Norris doesn't worry about high gas prices.

01:16:30.580 His vehicles ran on fear.

01:16:34.320 I remember one, it says one night he got really drunk

01:16:37.960 and urinated inside a truck's gas tank

01:16:42.620 ever since that truck is called Optimus Prime.

01:16:49.520 And he says Freddy Krueger has nightmares about Jack Norris.

01:16:54.400 and what happens if chuck norris visits you in your dreams what is that like a blessing find out

01:17:01.380 tonight i find that chuck norris makes onions cry ghosts tell chuck norris stories at the campfire

01:17:10.780 anyway just check these uh stories check these facts about his life out real life events all

01:17:18.480 happened i can't believe all these things happened one of my favorite facts is that

01:17:22.620 At one point, Chuck Norris went to a feminist rally

01:17:25.420 and came back with his shirt ironed and holding a cent.

01:17:29.820 I can believe that one.

01:17:31.340 Right.

01:17:32.120 And here we have how these facts originated.

01:17:36.360 And what happened essentially is that in 2005,

01:17:39.880 there was a high school student, Ian Spector,

01:17:41.940 who created an online generator for absurdist celebrity facts,

01:17:46.280 initially inspired by Fast and Furious and Vin Diesel,

01:17:50.960 and following a user poll,

01:17:52.980 the folks of the viral phenomenon

01:17:54.380 shifted to Chuck Norris

01:17:55.680 because obviously.

01:17:57.880 Makes more sense.

01:17:58.920 Obviously.

01:17:59.860 Yeah.

01:18:00.500 And that led to the widespread popularity

01:18:03.240 of Chuck Norris facts.

01:18:04.680 That was 21 years ago.

01:18:07.000 21 years ago.

01:18:08.380 Thanks for making me feel old.

01:18:10.160 I remember when this was at its height.

01:18:12.540 Yeah.

01:18:12.700 And the meme success prompted Spectre

01:18:14.980 to publish The Truth About Chuck Norris,

01:18:17.400 a book that became a New York Times bestseller

01:18:20.540 Despite initial legal challenges from Chuck Norris's team regarding monetization, a settlement eventually was reached and there were subsequent additions being labeled as unauthorized parody.

01:18:34.320 Right.

01:18:34.420 And Chuck Norris himself was reportedly flattered by the facts, never taking them too seriously.

01:18:40.740 and in some cases he really leaned into it and said that uh he said at some point that

01:18:47.000 they once tried to carve Jack Norris's face into Mount Rushmore but the granite wasn't hard enough

01:18:54.100 for his beard anyway so I think we should um say goodbye to this legend and may he rest in peace

01:19:03.660 and may let us all rest in peace too

01:19:07.440 uh okay oh we've got quite a few chats through there yeah oh wow they're all going to be

01:19:14.980 uh sigil zone 17 says they named a bridge after chuck norris but had to quickly change it because

01:19:25.500 no one crosses chuck norris and lives that's quite a good one sigil again a chuck norris

01:19:32.020 had a staring contest with the sun the sun blinked bald eagle 1787 jack norris didn't die he looked

01:19:39.700 at death and said it's time again jack norris took half of everything she had in the divorce

01:19:52.140 jack norris used to drop his parents off at work before driving to kindergarten

01:19:57.920 again sigil stone chack norris didn't dial a wrong number the wrong person picked up the phone

01:20:06.520 or chick door says this is just for that amazing save stelios

01:20:12.140 i think he says it's a reference to a certain german philosopher i think emmanuel kant yes okay

01:20:18.880 the hapsification to stelios point about hollywood trying to be gray nuanced and sympathetic

01:20:24.440 especially the villains now would uh them to do it for the nazis because they did and still do it

01:20:30.340 for communists i will say that in fury with brad pitt you do have something like this you do have

01:20:38.320 a nazi soldier looking down seeing the the the young soldier and not notifying the the nazi

01:20:47.080 officials so i mean i'm sure that maybe they have tarantino's movie in mind right yeah there is a

01:20:54.300 cartoonist representation of uh of uh mid-century germans but i think that in general it's people

01:21:01.760 have got completely fixated on particular things and just completely blame hollywood culture or

01:21:08.340 just yeah whatever the the were marks for example were just german conscripts they were just german

01:21:14.300 citizens they might not have necessarily even voted for the ruling party uh or chick door says

01:21:20.540 So Hollywood didn't start the downward trajectory

01:21:23.160 until after Norris left Hollywood.

01:21:25.400 Yeah, except Expendables 2 was around that time.

01:21:29.780 Yep.

01:21:30.800 One of my favorite ones that I saw going about online

01:21:33.520 was that, say, Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his dad.

01:21:38.840 Yeah.

01:21:39.100 That was just one of them really cracked me up.

01:21:43.120 He was willed into existence.

01:21:45.480 Yeah.

01:21:46.400 All right.

01:21:47.080 Go on then, Samson.

01:21:48.080 Hit play.

01:21:50.540 please no uk you must be joking england gave the u.s monty python

01:22:00.780 benny hill and other truly funny shows england needs snl like a kick in the balls

01:22:09.420 yeah i um i would be very surprised if uh i mean actually i know kyle did a segment on it

01:22:18.200 yesterday which i haven't seen uh but i'd be very surprised if the uh viewing figures hold up

01:22:23.720 yeah very highly england needs or britain needs snl like chuck norris needs testosterone injections

01:22:30.780 there you go there's my contribution well played well played a bit of continuity any more samson

01:22:37.520 G'day Lotus Eaters

01:22:42.460 I'm doing another sale of my books

01:22:44.740 at cscooper.com.au

01:22:46.700 and if there are any

01:22:48.280 aspiring authors out there

01:22:50.240 who want to get their book published

01:22:51.860 reach out to me on the contacts page

01:22:53.960 and I'll help you get started

01:22:55.520 I can do manuscript preparation for publication

01:22:58.460 and I can also get cover art

01:23:00.580 designed for you and I'll show you the entire

01:23:02.880 process from start to finish

01:23:05.140 or maybe not start

01:23:06.380 because you need to start by writing the book.

01:23:08.480 So get to it.

01:23:11.000 Wonderful.

01:23:12.180 I swear, if I'm going to be on my deathbed

01:23:14.400 and they say, do you have any final words,

01:23:16.300 it's going to be cscooper.com.au.

01:23:20.960 That's committed and burned into my memory now, forever.

01:23:24.680 Well, there you go.

01:23:25.460 You've done something right, Cooper.

01:23:30.480 Hey, Lord of Seeders.

01:23:32.020 I've just completed Route 66.

01:23:33.920 I'm going to miss the American freedoms.

01:23:36.380 show us the target

01:23:46.520 that's awesome well you can't off camera chuck norris was catching the bullets

01:23:52.460 that was very cool though and yeah i hope you enjoyed it also i like the restore britain

01:23:58.420 picture um on route 66 also that was was that an m1 garand i'm gonna share my neva tea

01:24:05.680 i just had the ping so i presume so yeah i i'm not sure i don't really know my guns but

01:24:10.620 it was bloody impressive the recoil on that thing was wow i mean even when i i fired a soviet svd

01:24:18.000 dragon off the recoil wasn't as much as that but uh no i i need to do that i've decided yeah

01:24:25.440 into the us need to and shoot some guns uh should i read some comments yeah sure yeah uh someone

01:24:32.100 online says the woke will never learn they can have a migrant terrorist throw a bomb at them

01:24:36.600 and they won't change well that was certainly the case in new york wasn't it and um it's amazing to

01:24:42.760 me really that even self-preservation doesn't change people's ideological commitments because

01:24:48.880 if i believe something about the world and then i was just like oh okay actually this could get

01:24:53.700 me killed i'd at least reflect on it you know i i reflect on the fact that when when you know

01:25:01.020 minorities are causing problems i go up to them and say listen stop doing that and i think about

01:25:06.060 well i know this is the morally right thing to do but i could die is this maybe the wrong thing to

01:25:10.700 do yeah um and it's just amazing the lack of reflection that they have it's um you know i

01:25:17.360 think about all sorts of things from um what you were saying like policy decisions or whether it's

01:25:21.600 just your actual life and you know i thought that um after the murder of david amos the elites might

01:25:27.860 pivot and be like oh god no it could be yours as well it's not just the plebs out there getting

01:25:32.120 knifed it but no it didn't change anything and then when it came to policy when russia

01:25:36.900 invaded ukraine i thought okay well survival should dictate that we drop net zero and stuff

01:25:42.880 like that now and it didn't and no they're really stuck sticking it out to the end yeah well i think

01:25:49.460 that someone who actually reflects on what they believe is someone that you're more you should be

01:25:53.560 more inclined to listen to because you know every healthy person should reflect on what they believe

01:26:01.500 and and it's an important thing and the fact they don't do it is a testament to their lack of

01:26:06.440 character final one from me i think um omar awad amazing coincidence how these mental health breaks

01:26:11.760 always occur around um the unarmed and vulnerable this phenomenon needs to be studied hopefully by

01:26:17.520 I don't know if I can say that, but I appreciate the sentiment.

01:26:23.600 Anyway.

01:26:25.500 From my segment, Kulain Sloan says,

01:26:29.620 so the House of Lords is now the House of Bureaucrats?

01:26:32.500 Yeah, basically.

01:26:33.900 Steve Stevens says, I wrote to my MP before this bill was voted on,

01:26:38.100 explaining to him that it was pertinent to the health of the nation

01:26:42.120 and our politics, that it remain as is and to vote against it.

01:26:46.720 I was effectively told to F off that a decision was already being made.

01:26:51.460 I looked up what he voted for regarding this bill.

01:26:54.560 He voted for it.

01:26:55.640 Typical Tory.

01:26:56.900 Yeah, I've only ever written to an MP once before, I think, in my entire life.

01:27:01.280 And that was back during the lockdowns when they were trying to basically have, you know, a two-tier system for those who'd had the jab and hadn't had the jab.

01:27:08.300 Got absolutely no reply.

01:27:10.640 But what Steve says there is exactly right.

01:27:13.120 So many of these, it's like, no, no, no.

01:27:14.780 We don't care about your opinion.

01:27:16.260 we've already decided that this is a direction of travel and uh screw you um from chuck norris

01:27:23.940 wasn't killed he just stopped holding the air hostage uh it's worth noting by the way that

01:27:29.560 boris johnson's hairdresser has a log chip that's no there are some uh rumble chats have come through

01:27:37.280 with some chuck norris facts delios if you want to do the honors yeah sigil stone again says

01:27:42.320 check norris didn't pay taxes to the irs the irs paid taxes to check norris yes and fic tagius

01:27:49.880 says chuck was in a firefight with criminals they gave up after chuck was empty as they know they

01:27:55.460 wouldn't survive chuck's rapid fire kicks yeah yeah and uh sorry just from my segment if i may

01:28:02.760 because that's random name says i love how that traitor courtney uh speaks as um no believing in

01:28:08.700 equal rights is just the default position imagine his shock when he learns that most people don't

01:28:13.920 believe equality inequality um yeah no i i agree with that that it is just as the default position

01:28:21.560 and it's remarkable that for all of the um access to information and all of the generations of

01:28:29.200 history to fall back on as a lord that you wouldn't feel more loyalty and sort of intellectual

01:28:35.420 stimulation, I suppose, by those things than you would just modern day fads, as I'd said before

01:28:43.980 in the segment. All right then, Stelius. Before I say the fun stuff, I have to address this,

01:28:49.040 which I saw addressed to me. Cambrian Kulak says, Stelius, your views on the pragmatics

01:28:54.520 of ideology. Agreed. But what about the ideology Firas was talking about on Friday? Theology has

01:29:00.040 very real world impacts well i this is a very in a sense a very vague statement but i have to

01:29:09.180 address that i stand by everything i said on friday and yeah i mean i'm we can have a an

01:29:17.200 extra discussion about it but i stand by everything i said and i just don't think that if some people

01:29:24.760 or trying to build a temple

01:29:26.460 or trying to destroy the world

01:29:28.520 by building a temple.

01:29:30.000 So I don't feel that threatened.

01:29:32.280 Yeah, it's, sorry, I don't find it threatening.

01:29:36.680 I may be the idiot here,

01:29:38.200 but I just don't, I mean,

01:29:41.500 it's not destroy the world

01:29:43.420 by any means necessary to destroy the world.

01:29:46.020 It's assuming it is destroy the world,

01:29:48.580 which is a huge if,

01:29:49.880 if that is granted via building a temple,

01:29:52.520 what happens when the temple is built and nothing happens it wasn't we didn't try a real temple

01:29:58.160 let's change the feng shui it doesn't sound threatening what happens when chuck norris

01:30:03.020 comes and knocks it down so lancelot uh death did not take shack norris it negotiated terms

01:30:11.260 george hap for all the joke chuck norris was a legitimate martial artist

01:30:17.180 and certified badass a true american icon yeah sophie live chuck norris didn't die

01:30:24.000 he just outlived his body kevin fox chuck norris walked into a map bar and they started the wood

01:30:31.980 chipper blimey and uh honorable mention uh from uh culen sloan who says on a six mile hike

01:30:40.240 finally managed to catch the podcast during it well that sounds bloody wonderful and very jealous

01:30:46.620 Yeah, I'd love to go on a hike soon at some point.

01:30:49.940 Yeah, I hope the scenery is beautiful wherever you are, Sloan.

01:30:54.240 All right, well, that's all we've got time for.

01:30:56.240 Stelius, Josh, thank you for joining me today.

01:30:58.460 And we look forward to seeing you, of course, at 1pm tomorrow.

01:31:02.480 Have a good day.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 24, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1381

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