The Pipeline - Episode 3 - Iran, World War 3, Missiles and Ricky Gervais
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Summary
In this week's show, The Western Standard's Peter Holmes and Fildebrandt discuss the latest on the Iran situation, the Golden Globes, and the decision to oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline. They also discuss the U.N. committee's decision to condemn the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Transcript
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Welcome to The Western Standard's The Pipeline. My name is Paul Holmes and I'm the digital editor
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of The Western Standard coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia. Joining me today
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is Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of The Western Standard coming to you from Calgary, Alberta.
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How are things in lovely Calgary, Alberta today, Derek? It's snowing in nearly negative 50.
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Well, fantastic. This is The Western Standard's weather report. Make sure you stay warm.
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Outstanding. So this is, of course, our weekly show. We're going to cover a few topics today,
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Iran being the big topic of the week. And we're going to touch a little bit on the Golden Globes
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because, hey, why not? And then we're going to talk a little bit about the Trans Mountain Pipeline
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and the committee of the United Nations that condemned said pipeline as well. So without
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further ado, let's get on with the show. Derek, we all woke up one morning or went to bed one evening
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hearing about Iran and suddenly it was World War III trending on Twitter. What's going on?
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Well, I was a bit alarmed yesterday when Google Ads algorithms had matched up the Iran stories we
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were covering yesterday on The Western Standard with advertisements for a World War III simulation
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game. So I thought that Google might know something that we don't. So I was a bit concerned. But yeah,
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it's obviously been a mess in the Middle East with the Iran situation now. Until this morning, I actually
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didn't see much of a way to disentangle this from continuing to escalate. Trump says Iran is blinked,
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but it actually looks to me like Trump is blinked, which is very surprising to me. His whole personality,
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for better or worse, is not the type to back away from the ledge here.
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I mean, the drone strike on the Iranian general Suleimani, his first name I cannot pronounce, that
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was in the American view of retaliation for the attack on the US embassy from Iranian sponsored
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militias in Baghdad. The Iranians did not see the scores even after Suleimani was taken out. He was a big
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deal. He was their top general. And they sought to even the score with a missile attack, a ballistic
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missile attack on a few US air bases in Iraq, where Canadians are stationed as well. And this has
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kind of gone unnoticed that this is, unless I'm mistaken, this is the first conventional military attack on
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a US base since Pearl Harbor. This hasn't happened in peacetime. So I wouldn't be counting, you know,
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an attack on a base in Afghanistan, the Americans set up or in Vietnam during war times there. But
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during peacetime, if we could call this peacetime, this would be the, this is the first conventional
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military attack on a US base since Pearl Harbor. No one was killed. And Trump has emphasized that. But
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it's very much not in keeping with his whole modus operandi. He's a tough guy. He is not though,
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a neoconservative imperialist and the tradition of most American presidents, regardless of party,
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he's been trying to extract America from overseas commitments, particularly in the Middle East,
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which I think has been a positive move. And one thing that's put him at odds with the warfare party,
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the warfare state sorry, that dominates both parties in Washington, and really left him as an outsider.
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And, you know, alienated him from many, much of the traditional hawkish neoconservative base of the
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Republican Party. But it did look yesterday, in my view, that just Trump's personality does not allow
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America to take an attack on its bases, even if someone's killed, that would not allow an attack
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on its bases to go unanswered. And I didn't think any American president, especially Trump would allow
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that. But today, he went to a press conference after his signature kind of crazy tweets about
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we're the best. Then he comes out and says Iran's blinked. And I actually haven't seen how Iran's
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blinked. Iran took the United States, punched them in the nose, and they punched America, kicked America in the
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shin. And then America says they've blinked. But it looks to me like the United States is blanked,
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actually, which perhaps is going to keep us from a major war.
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There's a couple of very peculiar things here. First of all, Soleimani, or however you pronounce
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it, nobody knew who this guy was a week ago. Like, certainly unless you were, you know, a political
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scientist that studied Middle East politics, you know, short of those people. I had no idea who this
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No. Well, that's fine. Actually, I can't. I have no idea who that is.
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But, and I was, I was in the army. But yeah, the, and this is, so if you're going to take out a big,
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a big name like that, don't you demonize them a little bit ahead of time? Or was that,
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you know, it's just strategically best to kind of get in there and do it and then do the demonizing
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Well, you know, it's been pointed out, I think rightfully, that there is no Trump
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doctrine. You know, we always say like, you know, there's a Reagan doctrine,
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there's a Bush doctrine, a Clinton doctrine, Obama doctrine. There's not really a coherent
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Trump doctrine. He is an opportunist. And I don't mean that in the pejorative sense. I mean that
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he has very little ideological view of foreign affairs other than that he doesn't like China.
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Well, he loves China, but he doesn't like China.
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So that's the one consistent is kind of an anti-Chinese containment foreign policy. Everything
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else is what you might almost call a Bismarckian realist policy of being opportunistic in the
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sense of just reacting to events as they come, not trying to play some long grand strategy game
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With pieces on the board, something happens and he reacts to it.
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So I was very telling, it's very telling that in American politics, the fact that Donald Trump
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doesn't despise Vladimir Putin is, is problematic for the Democrats. You know, that you all, he must be
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cozying up to them. You know, we hear that all the time because he doesn't hate them and he doesn't hate
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Well, I thought it was always supposed to be the, the Democrats, well, the Democrats were
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always accused of sucking up to the Russians when they were communists.
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Now that they're kind of a neo-imperialist, a reactionary regime, the, you know, now the Russians
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are bad guys, but they were okay when they were communists.
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But, so Suleimani was in Iraq though, which, and he's, because he's in Iranian general,
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he's not normally in Iraq. So I think they, they just saw the opportunity because I,
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I, a drone strike on a major general of an enemy state is a provocative thing. You,
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I think it was justified to take the guy out. It was a, I think it was a reasonable retaliation
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for the attack on the embassy. Was it a wise move to attack a man that senior that would obviously
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be very provocative? That's a completely different question that I don't really know the answer to,
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but it's, it was much more acceptable to hit the guy with a drone in Iraq than in Iran,
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where the United States does not have authority to have military, any military action. So that's
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probably why they didn't go through a, a protracted propaganda campaign to hate the guy,
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because as you said, no one had heard of him until he ended up as a pile of mist.
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My, my favorite conspiracy theory that I, I've heard from a few sort of pundits online,
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a few tweets here and there, is this idea that there was a mutual need,
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that Soleimani was freelancing too much. Uh, the, uh, the Ayatollah was unhappy about that,
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but couldn't really take them out or demote them, uh, internally without there being a whole lot of,
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uh, uh, blowback. And, uh, of course, Trump wants to get out of the region, wants to close some bases,
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wants to, wants to, uh, withdraw. And, uh, so this worked out beautifully. Just a, just a one quick,
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um, uh, perfect phone call and, uh, they can make the exchange and, and maybe, uh, maybe that's why
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we're not seeing further escalation. Uh, you think there's anything to, to that?
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You know, uh, uh, I don't normally attribute a complicated explanation to it when a simple one
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will do. Fair enough. Um, I do love it though, from an entertainment value perspective.
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Now, again, using a term used by conspiracy theorists, deep state, I think it is a,
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it's a real thing in that there is a, there's a bureaucratic inertia within every government
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that stays there regardless of which power, uh, party is in power at the time. At least this exists
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in democracies, uh, where we turn over government governing parties from time to time. And you know,
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do actors within the so-called deep state act independently and do things? Absolutely. Uh,
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you know, politics is dishonest and full of misinformation enough, but when you're talking
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foreign policy, when you're talking intelligence and counterintelligence and defense, um, misinformation,
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lies and propaganda is, uh, just currency, it's, it's absolutely necessary, which is why you can't
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trust anything from any government we're told. Right. Um, so you're almost forced to take every,
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to make, you have to make a judgment though on these things. So you almost have to take it at face value
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to a reasonable extent, but you have to keep in mind that they're probably lying to you somewhere.
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Just how, how much are they lying to you based on the facts we have, I'd say the United States was
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probably justified in what it did. Uh, was it as a different question was, was it a wise move?
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I don't know. I thought when Iran launched those missiles at the United States that that was the
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dumbest thing they could possibly do. Their special, their conventional forces, while semi-strong
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are no match for the United States, let alone the United States, plus the Sunni Arab powers, Israel,
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possibly Turkey and a few other of the Western allies, they would stand no chance whatsoever.
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Their strength is an asymmetrical warfare, terrorism, militias, um, you know, uh, electronic warfare,
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that kind of thing. That's where they're strong. And so their policy is simmer, not boil. They don't
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want a conventional war with the United States cause it's suicide. Well, and, and, and really the,
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the best way to end it, cause they had, cause they, you know, certainly if,
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if the protests happening on the streets in Iran are, are legitimate and I, we have no reason to
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suspect otherwise, um, there was an appeasement to the people that needed to happen. And so sending
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some missiles to a base that also, by the way, didn't kill anybody. Um, just gosh, darn, we missed.
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Um, uh, sounds to me like a really great way to end it. You, you struck back, you hit them hard.
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Well, nobody does. I thought they would have been smarter going with traditional terrorism,
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like blow up a hotel of innocent people or somewhere. Like they do it all the time and
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they get away with it. There's plausible deniability. You're like, oh, geez, uh, Hezbollah,
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you know, bombed a bus full of kids. Oh, what are we going to do? I mean, that's what they do.
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Cause they can deny it constantly. They couldn't deny these missiles. They, they took credit for
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it, which gave the United States a cause belli for war. If they so choose. Trump has decided not to
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do so. Right. Because even though he, he might be just, again, if we could take the facts at face
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value, which you never can, but if you do, he, I think had justification for war and he chose not to
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take it, which I can't remember the last time an American president had cause for war and didn't
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jump at it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, uh, of course the, the terrorist angle wouldn't have worked
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super well because they just took out their top terrorist or the terrorist organizer, I should
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say, not the terrorists, the terrorist organizer, the guy who helped organize the terrorists. So we're
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told anyway, so speaking of alternative, um, uh, angles, of course, uh, coincidentally, um, an Iranian
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jet crashed on its way, or sorry, a Ukrainian jet crashed on his way from Tehran to, uh, the Ukraine
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two minutes after takeoff, um, killing, I think everybody on board, including 63 Canadians, about
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people. Yeah. But half of whom were from Edmonton, of course, um, Alberta, Canada. So, uh, so what's
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going on? What do we know so far? Well, this is, I just said we almost have to take everything at
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face value, but we should be highly suspicious. Um, so while everything's going on here, you know,
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there's rumor, obviously that turned out not to be true, but there's rumor that American warplanes are
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already in the air headed for Tehran to, you know, strike back for the missile strikes. And,
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uh, you know, late last night, I got notification from Dave Naylor, a news editor that this had
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happened. And I have a hard time believing this was just a technical error. We plane crashes over land
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with everybody lost two minutes after takeoff just don't happen anymore. I mean, this kind of thing
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is so rare and that it happens to be filled. Um, well, we can only speculate with who it's been
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filled with, but it's filled with Ukrainians and Iranians, many of which live in Canada. Now,
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uh, at least in my own anecdotal experience, the vast majority of Iranians living in Canada
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do not even call themselves Iranians. They call themselves Persians and they are vehemently, uh,
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uh, against the Ayatollah, um, uh, theocratic regime. Like these tend to be Western liberals,
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liberals in the classical, uh, political sense, not in the party sense that we think of. Uh,
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these tend to be people who are not big fans of the regime. Some of them are allowed to travel back
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because they're not blowing the government up or something, but, um, and then full of Ukrainians,
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uh, power generally considered to be pro Western. I'm a bit suspicious about what it's what's happened
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here. Uh, I should say a lot suspicious. It just doesn't smell right. No, there, it certainly doesn't
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pass the smell test, but you know, planes do crash. So I guess we'll, we'll find out potentially,
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um, you know, whether there's more to it. And, um, I don't think we're going to find anything or we
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won't kind of like, um, like this just don't crash. Yeah. Yeah. Um, unless there, um, was it the max eight,
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which was the, the ones, the, the Boeing one that, uh, that they, uh, that they took out of service.
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They lost a couple of those. This was a 737. They, these things do not just fall out of the sky.
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It seems, uh, very suspicious. All right. Well, I guess we'll, you know, what else is suspicious?
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Tell me what else is suspicious, Derek? Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein's death,
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which is a good segue to the golden globes. Why don't you set it up?
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Well, you just did it. We're, we're, we may as well be live. Jeffrey Epstein. Ladies and gentlemen,
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did Jeffrey Epstein, uh, no, um, Ricky Gervais was, uh, the only reason. Well, he, he, uh,
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he kind of rubbed it in their faces at the golden globes. So I've been trying to segue for you and
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you're not picking up on my signals. Set us up with what happened. You've completed the segue. Well,
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of course, Ricky Gervais. I've segued. Now, now you set it up. Ricky Gervais, uh, um, was the host
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of the golden globes for the fifth and final time. This is gonna be final. Okay. Okay, man. Well,
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and I kind of, you gotta, you gotta think the guy's like, you know, not going to apologize for something
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and he's there anyway. There had to be like a pretty tight contract and, uh, you can bet if that
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contract is in fact up, it's probably not getting renewed. Um,
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Well, so like, I guess everybody's seen the video. I, I, I'm, I'm guessing there's very few
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people who have not seen the video. Yeah. Um, but good God, that was satisfying. I, I so rarely watch
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something 15 times and I, I, I must have watched this video 15 times. It's not just that it's funny.
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It's just that it's so satisfying to see these smug superior people just, just broad down our level
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a bit, you know? Yeah. Well, and, and yeah, I mean, I don't remember when I was growing up that
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actors and singers were seen as competent lecturers of the political discourse of the day. This is a,
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I think this is a fairly new phenomenon and, uh, you know, I, I can respect if, if, if, if we have
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some famous actor or musician who's, you know, got their PhD in political science or, you know,
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had a hat, got their feet wet in journalism or politics or whatever.
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If you invented a light bulb before you got into acting, then tell us about electricity.
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Well, and they're, I mean, they're certainly welcome to their opinion and this is the problem,
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right there. You're welcome to your opinion. Everybody is, but they also have a platform,
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right? They have a, they have a platform, people listen. Um, but I think most people
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take everything that famous people say with a bit of a grain of salt. Um, you know, just one person's
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opinion. And, uh, I don't, I don't think anyone's saying they don't have a right to, it's just,
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it just grates on you when like every second, um, you know, to, to paraphrase Ricky Gervais,
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he said, like, you know, most of you was, you know, have no experience in the real world
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whatsoever. You don't know how you're not qualified to speak about anything. Most of you have spent
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less time in school than Greta Thunberg, which in addition to being true, it was like very,
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like, like a double attack. Cause you're not allowed to go after her saying,
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Greta and you're not allowed to talk about how these guys know nothing. And just like,
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don't use it to give a political speech. Uh, thank your agent, thank your God and F off.
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And I guarantee you, you know, at least half the people who were nominated for a
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award were sitting at their tables and they pulled out their little speeches and a pen and
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like panicking. I can't give a shout out. There was one in particular that I can't remember who it
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was or what the award was. Cause of course I only watched the clips from, uh, Ricky Gervais,
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like most people. Um, but, uh, you know, one actress won an award and got up and proceeded to
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give a political. Jennifer Aniston apparently did, but like, but by Gervais doing this in advance,
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he kind of salted the fields of everything to come. So I think it was Jennifer. Again,
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I didn't, I've only watched, uh, I've probably watched the length of the golden globes twice over
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just by repetitively watching Ricky Gervais. Yeah. But, uh, Jennifer Aniston, uh, was apparently the
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one who, uh, did her little speech, but I bet you half the people had these, because these things
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are always full of political lecturing speeches. And, um, all it was, uh, uh, I always have a hard
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time saying his name, Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Um, he had an interesting
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thing. He went out, uh, I don't know if he had changed his speech or it was intending to say,
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but I actually listened to it to a clip of what he had to say. And he went up there and said like,
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look, guys, let's stop being a bunch of hypocrites. You know, we're lecturing everybody, but like,
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you know, we're flying around, we got our jets. It's essentially the whole thing.
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You could just like zoom the camera in on Leo, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio at this point,
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or half the guys, I guess, but he's probably the poster boy for it. But like saying like,
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guys, we've got no right to speak about this. We're being hypocrites.
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I did like the dig to Apple as the CEO was sitting across the room and they panned over to Apple.
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And just as Ricky Gervais was talking about the, uh, the, the, the virtue, the great virtue of the new
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show, uh, which was amazing coming from a, uh, a company with sweatshops in China.
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They're talking about justice and all these things coming from, just the whole thing.
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Well, and what's funny of course, is, uh, Ricky Gervais' show is on, uh, I believe it's on Amazon.
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Yeah. Well, it's, they just renewed for season two, apparently.
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And you know, like the thing is like, but he, he, he dug against them.
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It's like, you know, this is the fifth time he's done it. And he's always been like pretty tough.
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And every time he's saying like, I'll never get invited back.
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Cause he's not just giving like little good natured ribbings. He's like always kind of
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given it like in a serious way. And I think today, like that, well not today, just a couple of days
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ago, he, he just like packed the place with dynamite. And during his speech, he's just pouring
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gasoline around the crowd. Like he went out of his way to never get invited back.
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Yeah. And, but that's what made it so great. So bizarrely without him, the ratings would be
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nowhere near what they were. So it's almost like there's a bizarre incentive now to permanently
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make him the host. He's there to crap on the whole event. He's what brings the ratings now.
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Well, what's interesting about the, you know, the, the state of the culture war,
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I think this is really interesting. And I hope that 2020 sort of, we turn it, we turn the page
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a little on this because Ricky Gervais is no conservative. No, he's, he's, he's, he's,
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you know, he's a liberal. His, his, his wife is very notable, um, uh, approached pro choice advocate,
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you know, with very strong political views, you know, um, and here we are in the middle of this,
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this disgusting culture war where everything has just become personal. And here's a guy who's,
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you know, I think pretty arguably pretty safely to say he's on the left. Um, and he's lecturing people
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on the left to just basically stop being a bunch of, um, virtue signaling hypocrites and, you know,
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be nice to people. And I actually, I think it was Brad Pitt who, uh, after winning the award or
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presenting the award, whatever it was said something along the lines of, Hey, why don't we all just go
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out and do something nice for somebody tomorrow? And I thought, you know, yeah, there's a great message.
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I think you actually watched the award show. I mean, you've cited, I've cited two clips and they
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were just clips. I think you watched it. Admit it. You didn't just watch the Gervais clip.
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I don't even have cable. You watched the whole show. Admit it.
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I wish it was true, but the most, okay. So the, so the greatest moment and, and you can do yours.
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The greatest moment for me was, uh, not from the monologue, but it was when he introduced
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Sandra Bullock to present an award. So you watched the whole thing. I know you did,
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because that would not, that's not in the clip. You watched the show. You have incriminated yourself.
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You watched it. Fine, fine, fine. I watched the whole thing. All right. So excited about Hollywood.
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All right. Um, so this, this was the moment. So, and I did, and I do love Sandra Bullock. I think
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she's a, she's a fabulous, uh, actress and I do love the, the birdcage, which was the, um, or the,
00:24:25.780
sorry, it's not the birdcage. Whatever. Yeah. We all know it's the bird, bird movie. The bird,
00:24:29.540
it's a meme everywhere. So yeah. Um, but of course the concept with the bird movie was that you could not
00:24:36.900
look, you know, you couldn't look at the thing that was haunting the world because it would corrupt
00:24:41.300
you and you, you think terrible things would happen. And, um, and for those of you who haven't
00:24:47.140
seen it, it's an excellent show. So, so Ricky Gervais is introducing Sandra Bullock and he,
00:24:52.500
he says, uh, he says, yeah. So basically, uh, the next person is the star of this Netflix show that we
00:24:57.940
may have seen, uh, where essentially, um, you couldn't look at what was right in front of your
00:25:03.620
face, kind of like Harvey Weinstein. And, uh, and then of course there was, there was groans
00:25:14.260
coming from the audience, like, uh, this Hollywood audience. And, uh, um, and then he,
00:25:20.340
and basically at that moment, he's, Hey, you did it, you know, to the, to the crowd. So yeah,
00:25:26.340
I think it's probably fairly safe to say that he's not going to get invited back next year,
00:25:30.740
which gives me no reason to watch it next year, to be honest.
00:25:33.620
You know what? I didn't think he'd get invited back this year. So let's just pray that, you know,
00:25:39.380
as much as he was there to kind of take a turd sandwich on them all, the ratings were good enough
00:25:44.180
that they'll be forced to bring him back. I don't even know if it's possible to top what he did,
00:25:50.820
short of physically burn the place down. So despite, despite your, uh, insistence otherwise,
00:25:56.500
I did not watch it. But if Ricky Gervais comes back next year, I vow that I will watch the whole show.
00:26:04.260
I believe you as about as much as I believe Iranian intelligence.
00:26:08.260
There we go. Okay. Speaking of intelligence, uh, we have the United Nations, the most intelligent
00:26:14.820
organization on the planet and, um, a certain committee that condemned the Trans Mountain pipeline.
00:26:23.940
What's the, uh, name and acronym of this committee? Well, it's the United Nations Committee,
00:26:30.100
uh, for the eradication of racial discrimination, which, uh, abbreviates to UNERD. And when I first
00:26:39.140
saw it, I, I thought it was funny, but I thought it was funny for a different reason. So, so what,
00:26:44.180
how did you read the name of the committee? I thought it was unearned. Unearned. So like,
00:26:48.980
it's just, uh, you know, it's, uh, some nice countries on there, but then it's a bunch of,
00:26:53.300
you know, jerk countries and they're all there to lecture us about racism and things.
00:26:58.020
And I thought, uh, you know, it's criticism when it's unearned, but you had a different take on
00:27:02.660
it. And I giggled because the first thing I saw was the, the, what was right in front of me,
00:27:07.860
which was UNERD. It's just a bunch of nerds. I think this was like a, this was like an inkblot
00:27:14.420
Rorschach test or something. Like you look at this name of a committee and you see different.
00:27:22.580
And so this particular committee, um, hasn't been newsworthy, um, very much,
00:27:28.500
but was, it's, it's news has not been earned. It's been, it's been unearned media. And then they
00:27:34.420
came for you nerds anyway. So, uh, they have condemned, how long can we do this?
00:27:40.980
I don't know. Days. We could, uh, this is, by the way, for those of you who watched previous episodes,
00:27:47.300
this is officially the silliest version of the pipeline, despite probably the most serious news
00:27:55.140
of the, uh, yeah, we're discussing war and golden globes. Yeah. We're going to have to,
00:28:00.500
we have to bring it up a little level here. All right. Yeah. Let's class it up. Let's class it up.
00:28:05.220
All right. Sit up straight. Uh, so, uh, any, does anybody care about this committee condemning
00:28:10.660
the Trans Mountain pipeline? It's going to change anything. Well, well, I guess we have to explain
00:28:15.060
what happened that the UN, the UNERDS or, uh, the unearned guys, uh, issued a report. Um,
00:28:25.060
apparently pipelines are racist. They, uh, they demanded that Canada cease construction and
00:28:30.580
approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline, the site sea dam and the gas link coastal pipeline.
00:28:37.860
If I got that correct, three big, important projects. Um, and this is all based on the UN
00:28:43.380
declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which sounds nice as a title, but if you read it,
00:28:47.700
it's a crazy document written by countries with no indigenous populations. At least as we understand
00:28:53.060
the term indigenous, an old time Englander, I suppose is an indigenous Englishman, but we're
00:28:57.460
not referring to the term in that sense. We're talking about former colonial societies. So all
00:29:02.020
these old countries that are, haven't gone through any of the experiences we have, uh, they write this
00:29:08.180
thing and it essentially is about giving, uh, indigenous peoples, uh, not just the right of
00:29:14.020
consultation, which is, I think most of us would agree very reasonable and, and important. Um,
00:29:20.100
uh, not just compensation, uh, for property, et cetera, but talking about giving them an outright
00:29:26.260
veto. And it doesn't even define who has a veto. Is it, if, if all the first nations agree, except
00:29:32.020
for one particular band disagrees, then they have a veto. Um, is it, if just one individual in a band
00:29:39.380
disagrees, and then we've got the issue of who's actually speaking for the bands. Cause in many cases,
00:29:43.700
the elected chiefs are actually supporting, uh, pipelines of resource developments,
00:29:48.340
but the hereditary chiefs, which about, which have about as much legitimacy as Prince Charles,
00:29:53.220
um, they often, uh, are against it. And I'm not sure why we would take the political advice of Prince
00:29:59.780
Charles or hereditary chief. Um, so this is the UN saying that there are a few hereditary chiefs
00:30:05.700
who disagree with this. So Canada should just stop the development of its economy, essentially.
00:30:10.820
And as far as I know, the federal government hasn't responded to this, even though they
00:30:14.260
ostensibly do have a presence at the UN. Well, and interestingly, we talked on a previous episode,
00:30:21.300
um, British Columbia has, um, uh, recognized, uh, through, I think just through a, um, resolution
00:30:29.940
to, uh, recognize the United Nations, uh, declaration on the rights of, uh, indigenous people.
00:30:37.060
Well, didn't BC say it was going to enshrine it in legislation?
00:30:41.220
I, I, I believe that they did, but I believe that they, that all the back down now,
00:30:48.180
I think that, I think all that's actually passed was the resolution to do that. Uh, but I could be
00:30:53.140
completely wrong. I, I, I, I, you know, more than I do, but like, do you think there's any chance
00:30:57.380
they're actually going to give it legal weight that this, uh, this nebulous document can trump all
00:31:03.380
legislation? Like it was some kind of constitution in BC after, um, cause I, I know Trans Mountain's
00:31:09.540
opposed by the provincial government at least now, but I thought the, the, the, the, the coastal
00:31:14.820
gasoline pipeline, isn't that supported by the provincial government? Oh, they love gas in, in
00:31:18.980
the province of British Columbia. Yeah. As long as it's not Alberta's, they're great with it.
00:31:22.820
Absolutely. Move that, you know, it's the Northeast corner of the province where all the gas is
00:31:27.540
coming from. So they're, they're, you know, and it's successive governments, the, the BC liberals,
00:31:32.660
when they were in charge. And of course the BC and so we'd like, you know, what do you think
00:31:37.460
the chances are they'll actually put this in legislation? I think it's, I think it's a ways
00:31:41.300
off anyway. Right. I think it's all, you know, it's feel good. And, um, I mean, part of the, there,
00:31:46.900
there's a, there's a downside to the vagaries of it, but there's also an upside in that, you know,
00:31:51.540
it leaves enough things open for, to interpretation. You can interpret things. Then you leave it to
00:31:55.540
courts to interpret and our courts tend to be pretty damn bad at interpreting law. That's, that's a valid point.
00:32:00.260
Yeah. That's, I, I, uh, when I was in politics, I voted, uh, I voted against more legislation
00:32:06.900
than any other MLA in the legislature in the four years by a, by like a ridiculous margin,
00:32:11.940
not by a Ron Paul margin to my shame. Uh, but by, by an approaching Ron Paul margin,
00:32:18.260
I voted against everything pretty much. Added to the size of government and aggregate,
00:32:22.260
I voted against it. If it was a vague law and not strictly defined in what it's trying to do very
00:32:27.700
specifically, I voted against it, but you know, that's tends not to be much of a habit for most
00:32:33.380
politicians. They're, they like vague laws. No, here, here in British Columbia, the rule is, uh,
00:32:39.860
you know, you vote pretty much almost a hundred percent of the time with whichever direction your
00:32:45.380
party is voting. That's a long, proud tradition. That was not, uh, that was not very good for my political
00:32:51.620
career. Yeah. Well, yeah. And that's true actually in Canada more generally. Uh, interestingly,
00:32:57.540
you know, we borrowed the system from the UK and it's very common for MPs to vote against their
00:33:03.540
party in the UK. It's just extremely uncommon. It's not inherent to a Westminster parliament. It's a,
00:33:08.500
it's just inherent to Canada and our provinces. It's very strange. Well, you know, we, we should get,
00:33:14.500
um, Scott Reed, the MP from Ontario for, he was one of the only reformers elected in Ontario in 2000.
00:33:21.060
Uh, he, he just wrote an essay published about how he was whipped to vote, uh, against marijuana
00:33:26.260
legalization, even though he's a libertarian and he came out saying, I was forced to lie. I'm sorry.
00:33:30.420
I lied about it because I had to maintain party unity, but I was punished, kicked out of my position
00:33:34.660
because he was pro legalization. Uh, a few things like that. We should, uh, we should really get him
00:33:40.340
on, uh, we should get him on the drill. He would be a really good, uh, guy to have on.
00:33:45.220
That would be good. Yeah. Um, I, a friend of mine, journalist friend, uh, left wing journalist friend,
00:33:50.340
uh, Sean Holman did a documentary called whipped a few years ago that, um, was all about, all about
00:33:57.060
this and the, the, the weird history of British Columbia. The conclusion was kind of like, I don't
00:34:01.860
know why it's so weird, but there's lots of potential reasons. Right. But, uh, it's very,
00:34:07.060
it's a very true fact of Canada. Uh, but nobody can point to exactly why it is just some potential
00:34:13.620
reasons and, um, and why it would be any more so than say the UK or another country that has
00:34:19.860
a similar parliament. Well, maybe we could consider doing a whole episode with, uh, with Scott Reed there
00:34:25.540
and kind of get, get into that maybe a bit more. I think, uh, I think there's a lot of, a lot of
00:34:29.540
discussion for us to have on the topic so much. And, uh, if you're listening right now, uh, to us on
00:34:35.060
YouTube, remember you can get our show on the podcast channel, your favorite podcast app,
00:34:40.660
subscribe and rate us there. And if you're listening to us on the podcast channel,
00:34:45.380
then find us on YouTube and subscribe and like and comment. And we'd love to hear your thoughts
00:34:50.180
in the comments as well about, uh, topics like this. What topics would you like to see us cover,
00:34:55.940
um, during our shows, the, the pipeline and, uh, the drill. So thank you very much, Derek.
00:35:02.660
And don't forget to become a member of the Western standard. Of course,
00:35:05.700
Western standard online.com slash member. Just, just, just go there. You'll find it.
00:35:13.700
Yeah. Western standard online.com. And of course, uh, the Western standard does not take government
00:35:20.260
money. Uh, so we, we rely on the goodwill of good folks like yourself. If you guys don't give us
00:35:27.540
money, we're going to have to get bought by Trudeau. And you really don't want that to happen.
00:35:31.060
I completely changed the editorial slant. My bet. Well, thank you so much,
00:35:37.460
Derek and have a terrific week and we'll see everybody next week. Thank you, Paul.