The Dangers of Free Speech
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They're part of the more than 300,000 jobs BP supports across the country. Learn more at BP.com slash investing in America. What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you living, brother? I am doing well, my friend. How was your weekend?

It was good. It was good. Weekend with the family. It was very nice. Went down to my in-laws' house and hung out with the kids a bunch. How about you? What'd you do? Not a whole lot. Filmed some stuff yesterday. Check out Run Your Mouth on Wednesday. New sketches coming out this week.

Hell yeah. Well, there's something to be excited about. And of course we are only a few days away from Houston, Texas, which is going to be a lot of fun. Looking forward to going down there. I believe the tickets are moving fast, but there still are some available. So if you'd like to come hang with me and Rob in Houston, go to comic Dave Smith.com. You can get the, the ticket link there. We'll be at the punchline. I believe this is our first time doing the punchline.

We've done Houston before, and it's a great, great comedy town. But anyway, then right after that, we will be in Buffalo, New York of...

Going forward, maybe we're going to try to book that one in the summer, but we're going to Buffalo in the middle of winter to do Helium Comedy Club, which I have heard. I love Helium in Philly, but I've never done the one in Buffalo before. I've heard it's a great, great club. So very much looking to that. So looking forward to that. So Houston and Buffalo are the next two coming up. ComicDaveSmith.com for those ticket links. All right. Well, there's been a lot going on.

in the world. And there's, particularly of the very viral stories at the moment, a lot of them seem to revolve around the topic of free speech and Europe more broadly. And you know, Rob, I've been on the record for many years now, unapologetically, that I do not care about Europe. Right.

I just don't really care that much. I mean, look, I care once it starts affecting America. You know, I certainly care a lot about the war there in Eastern Europe that's been going on for the last few years. But in general, like I'm not and this is kind of how I feel about it. Like, I think it almost is the correct default policy.

Like, I don't I care. Obviously, if there's like horrific things going on, if there's horrible human rights, human rights abuses, we'd all rather that not happen. I hope everybody's free and prosperous and I root for everyone. You know, I mean, I hope I hope the North Koreans are free. Their prospects for that don't look so great at the moment, but like, I hope they're free.

I root for prosperity and freedom across the board, but I really care much more when it actually affects America or when America is involved or as is the case far too often, America is doing the killing or backing the killers or whatever. But,

It is perhaps the case that, you know, one ought to care a little bit. It's not a good state of affairs if Europe is falling. But between the there's some

First, I guess we could start with JD Vance's speech that he gave in Germany. And then there was this 60 Minutes piece that's been going super viral. We're going to play a clip from that in a second. And then there's also kind of the negotiations that seem to be starting to potentially bring an end to the war in Ukraine. And all of them are kind of there's some overlap between all of them. But let's just start with JD Vance's speech.

because I did find it to be a truly remarkable political speech that seemed almost—

It seemed more like the type of thing you might hear on like a podcast that we do, Rob, or somewhere in our world. And it seemed the thing to me that was really striking was that the guy who's a heartbeat away from the presidency and probably right now the favorite to be the Republican nominee in 28. I mean, I'd assume it would have to be J.D. Bounce. I'm not sure. I'm sure there are betting markets on that type of stuff, but I'd imagine he's the

overwhelming favorite right now. It was just kind of interesting to hear him say some of the things he said. So did you, did you watch the speech, Rob? This, I saw that it made the headlines and I did not watch this speech. Well, one of the things to me that I thought was very interesting is that he, um,

He's giving this speech. He gave it in kind of a friendly like he presented it as like he said us us a lot when he was talking about Europe, like he presented as like, look, this is like friendly advice. But one of the major points, I think, in fact, the major theme of the speech was a pitch. Well, I think it was essentially that Europe has lost its way.

And that we hear at these elite gatherings, we hear so much about national defense and national security risks. And meanwhile, the greatest risk to Europe is really coming from inside the house. And it is that Europe has rejected so many of the principles that made Western civilization great. And again, this is just like something to me, it's like when I was getting in an argument with that...

that Kara Swisher lady on, on, on Pierce Morgan the other day. And she was talking about how like the government needs to regulate social media because Iran and China want to spread misinformation. And then, you know, I was making kind of fairly obvious counterpoint to that, which is that like, yeah,

Yeah, but look, our own government has spread so much misinformation. So like, and much more devastating misinformation. Like you can't, you can't give me examples of Iranian disinformation or Chinese disinformation that has had the horrific catastrophic results that that disinformation from our own government has had. So why would we put them in charge of it? And then she basically just called me naive and said, you have no idea what Iran and China want to do to us.

It's like, anyway, I just, one of the things, it's such an interesting, like obvious point is that, look, it's true in the United States of America. And obviously it's true in Europe as well, that with the exception of like, maybe I'd say with the exception of say, like some Eastern European states who might be concerned about Russia. Okay. Like there's a legit concern of the outsider there. But in general, it's like,

anything aside from non-NATO Eastern European countries, for the rest of them, it's like, well, Vladimir Putin couldn't even take Kiev.

So what threat is he to take any of the rest of Europe? And if that's the case, you know, look, like as the example in the United States of America, we've had lots of enemies, some pretty serious enemies. And if you want to go back before our lifetime, you know, but from the very beginning of America, who are the great enemies of America? Well, there was the British Empire. There's, I guess, France.

I mean, even to any of the monarchs in Europe in the first world war, even really count as great enemy, like to the Barbary pirates count as great enemies. And it's kind of like you had the British empire. You had the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese, um, Native Americans. We'd take a Native American from them. Yeah. They got in the way of expansion. They didn't put up too much of a fight. I guess they put up a little bit of a fight. Fine. But even the Native Americans, if you want to count them, uh, the Soviet union, uh,

Al Qaeda, ISIS, right? Like there's all, there's been some serious enemies and some of them are pretty goddamn evil and some more powerful than others. But were any of them a threat to destroy the United States of America? I really don't think so. None of them even came close.

However, is the $36 trillion of debt, is that a threat to destroy America? Yeah, it is. Is the permanent warfare state a threat to destroy America? Yeah, it sure is. So I think it's just kind of almost obvious when you look at it on its face that like, look, I mean –

I'm sure that if Osama bin Laden or Adolf Hitler or Stalin could have, they would have shut down the U.S. economy. I'm sure they would have if they could have. But none of them could. But you know who could shut down the U.S. economy? Our own politicians, you know? And so now anyway, J.D. Vance was talking about Europe, not America, but I think a lot of the stuff still applies. But anyway, it's just very interesting to hear him talk about this stuff. And then one of

the the things that seem to get like the people uh that got like such a hysterical reaction was um him talking about how many European states have kind of abandoned the concept of free speech and that people ought to be allowed to say what they want to say and this response has been really something to behold I don't know any thoughts on any of this Rob well I saw some of the freak out in the response and that I was certainly entertained by

It really, it's also just so interesting

One of the things that's been so bizarre over the last decade, and of course, obviously, things have changed quite a bit. There's been like a major pendulum swing or something since this last year. And of course, Trump winning the presidency again. But it is just so bizarre. I know this is kind of like a basic thing to say, not like this isn't my unique hot take or anything, but the idea of being...

For free speech, as even the idea that that's even something that isn't just like a starting place for all of us.

You know what I mean? It's like so strange. While the kind of progressive establishment has been hysterical about the threats to democracy, whatever exactly that means, they've also decided that free speech is a right-wing value. It's just all so utterly bizarre. I think their jobs rely on censorship. So they're going to preach the dangers of free speech because it's their competition. It's people giving you the truth.

Well, this one clip has been going super viral. I actually... I will say that there aren't... You know, I...

for a living, you know, like we tear apart the corporate media constantly. And I'm, you know, I've, I've come to be known and at least probably one of, if not the most like signature things in my career is the debate with Chris Cuomo. I've, I've gone viral more times than I could count that me and you have just torn apart some piece by the corporate media. And in general, I,

I kind of know their game and nothing they say really shocks me anymore. This one actually got me. I mean, like this one, I don't even want to like poison the well here. Let's play the clip and then we can respond to it. This was on Face the Nation this past Sunday. I should say yesterday with Marco Rubio, the current secretary of state. Hey, Lucy.

Yeah, we're not the biggest Rubio fans here, but he's, you know, but there is something I love. Lucy really did warm you up to a nice looking Cuban. But this was, I mean, to the point that I was like trying to figure out what the hell she really meant.

Like, I couldn't even believe these words came out of her mouth. But again, this is the woman I'm blaming on her name right now. But this is a woman who moderated, I believe, the vice presidential debates. There's also just something so batshit crazy that you're supposed to be neutral or pretending to be neutral if you're on one of these news networks. Yes. And forget asking non-neutral questions, but dramatically crying as if.

some new i don't know regime is taking over like it's it's the next level of trying to sell bullshit is also dramatically pretending like all of our lives are going to be ruined because of the other person on the screen and yes you know what i mean it's like that's a different level of spin they're going more crazy girlfriend on us there yeah that's a good way to put it all right let's let's play this clip and then we will uh discuss the historical accuracy of the claim being made

Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. And he met with the head of a political party that has far right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it.

And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right. I have to disagree with you. Can you pause? I don't know if we can pull up the transcript of that, but that's like seven degrees of bacon to not even being able to make a point at the end of that. And you know that. What, the four layers of random things you tried to bring together to claim that there was a dog whistle here? Well, but her claim that

I mean, this is truly like I when I first heard this, I was almost like I re listened to it. And I was like, wait, what was she trying to say there? Because like, I don't want to jump on someone if they just like misspoke or something like that happens to all of us. You know what I mean? Like you just Oh, no. Yeah, I said that. But I didn't mean that I meant this. But she goes, but but as I listened to it the second time, you go, no, there's really no mistaking it. Her complaint is

is that J.D. Vance went to Germany and talked about how Europe is abandoning free speech. And so it makes no sense that she'd be saying anything else. She's saying it's offensive to go to Germany, of all places, and argue for free speech when free speech being weaponized is what led to the genocide of the Jews. Like, the funny thing about this is that it's not even just like...

Who even learned it that way in government school? Like what historical revisionism school of thought is this, that it was excessive free speech in Nazi Germany? That's what happened? That's your understanding of the story? It's like Adolf Hitler got in there, and then he just started letting everybody say what they wanted to say. And obviously, yada, yada, yada, six million dead Jews.

That's how it went down. Like, what? What are you talking about? Like, the Nazis pretty famously cracked down on speech. If you wanted to look throughout, say, the 20th century at a regime that cracked down on free speech the most...

They'd be up there in the running for it. I'm not saying they lead the way. There's definitely some competition. From what I remember, they burned the books that more people couldn't read and would be forced to speak. And so it was actually an amplification of freedom of speech as they motivated people to speak more.

Like, what really is the claim here? But this is so, so what she's trying. And they congregated them on trains so that they would be closer together and forced to have discussion. Once again, free speech. But you're, you're totally right. I mean, it's like, she just, she start, she's starting backward from the like, how can I say this makes you a Nazi? And then it's like, okay, well, it was in Germany. It was in Germany. And you're arguing for free speech and free speech is what led to the Nazis. And,

And then he met with a far right wing group like, OK, so this even this far right wing group, which, again, I don't know enough about the internal politics of European nations. But like, I think we are past, you know, I was on I was on Piers Morgan's show like maybe a month or so ago, and I was on with Tim Pool and the topic of.

of Tommy Robinson and the Muslim gang rape things in England came up. And it's one of those topics, like I just don't know that much about it. I've read a few articles about it, but I don't like to read three articles about something and then start speaking like I'm an authority on that topic. Well, that's my career. Yeah.

But you're no, you're actually pretty good about it. Believe me, there's a lot of people who are quite comfortable doing that. But I try to have, you know, if I'm, if I'm like really passionately talking about something, it's it's something I've at least read a couple books about I've re spent, I've at least spent like, a few dozen hours thinking about this. And you know, you know, whatever I try.

to at least do that. But so I didn't really have to like, you know, I was talking about a couple of the other things. I don't really have like a hot take on it. But I remember Tim Pool said at one point, I really actually quite liked this is that so Pierce Morgan said something about, you know, how Tommy Robinson isn't a good guy. He's a bad guy. He's doing all these things. And like all this stuff was reported in the British media. And and Tim Pool just goes, Look, Pierce, he goes,

you got to understand my starting point here is that I don't believe any of you. And I understand that that's not like the most educated argument you could make, but I kind of get what Tim was saying. And I was like, yeah, that's actually not. And he's like, look, man, your government was covering up pedophile rings. And the one guy who was exposing it ends up being prosecuted on all these different charges. I don't buy it.

I think you were just going at, you know, it's like there is a certain point where it is reasonable to just be like, you've lost all trust. You saying it means nothing to me. It just, it, it, it doesn't. It's like, you know, if you're like, like,

in, in a, if you were in a relationship and like your boyfriend cheated on you like a hundred times and you caught him a hundred times and then you suspect him one more time and you're, and he's like, no, I swear I'm not cheating. You're like, yeah, but that doesn't mean anything anymore. That doesn't. And so I will say that when people like this lady say like, oh, there's some far right wing political group in Germany. I just don't believe you. Like, I don't know. Maybe they are, maybe they are a really extreme far right wing group, but

I don't believe you that they are because you would consider literally if –

You could have been the most hardcore lefty who just five years ago went like, I don't really believe like little boys can become little girls. And you would have called them far right. You know what I mean? Like if you have one opinion that strays from the narrative, you call them far right. So this means nothing. And then my other thought is like, hey, so when J.D. Vance met with those far right wingers, did they agree with his message about free speech? Because if they did, then OK, great.

then he's actually arguing for liberal values. I'm sorry, there is no way to get away from the fact that free speech is a liberal value. If it's not, then these words mean nothing. So what you're saying is that this guy who's the vice president of the United States of America, who is Trump's number two, somebody that say like your right wing parties might actually listen to, is going out there and arguing that they should embrace free speech.

How do you make that sound bad? I guess the only way is to say that free speech is what led to the Holocaust. What? Here, let's just play the end of this clip because it is actually Marco Rubio, who I never like to agree with, but it is pretty funny what his response was. That the censorship was specifically about the right. No, I have to disagree with you.

free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history. Well, he was- Okay, so I mean, look,

Do you know, you know how perfect you got to throw a lob in order to get Marco Rubio to dunk on you like that? You know how fucking Gary Payton, perfect. John Stockton, just perfect lob you got to throw in order to set him up. It was almost, you could almost like see the little glimmer in Marco Rubio's eyes where it's like at the end of white men can't jump where he's like, oh, I could dunk that one.

That's pretty easy. I don't see how I could... Am I being baited into a trap here? It's like, I'm going to take issue with your claim that in excess of free speech is what led to the genocide of the Jews in the Second World War. That is not...

That's not how I remember it. That's not how I was taught. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Small Batch Cigar. If you are a cigar lover or if anyone you know is a cigar lover, you got to check out Small Batch.

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com promo code problem for 10 off all right let's get back on the show you know like it's just i don't know but uh like there is look i mean like rob you kind of gave away the answer at the beginning as i'm sure you know most people listening know but right there it's just the game is that they're the the establishment's rule relies on censoring speech

And that's really as simple as it is. And so they actually do. It's, you know, every accusation is a confession type thing. They're confessing here that actually, yeah, they do see this as a threat to the world, the global world order that the vice president would be going over and advocating for free speech in Europe. Let that sink in for a little bit. They actually see that as like an alarming, controversial view.

You should go over and argue in Europe that they ought to allow their citizens to dissent from the government, which is, by the way, all that free speech is all is ever about, really, when you think about it. You know, it's all just about like, are you allowed to dissent from the people with the guns?

Like, are you are you allowed? You know, there's this group of people that are at the center of society that call themselves the government. And essentially what a government is, is a group of people who have a monopoly on the aggressive use of violence. Right. This is like of all the different ways that people think of governments. And if I were to go into, say,

If I were to go into like a high school or a college class or something like that, I were to ask somebody for a definition of the government, say, what is the government? You know, there'd be a lot of different answers that people would give me. None of them would be an accurate description. The only accurate description of a government is a group of people who maintain a monopoly on the initiation of violence or threats thereof.

That really describes the government if you think about it, okay? Because you could say like, oh, the government are the ones who write the laws or

or something like that. But I could go, I don't know. I write the laws for my house. Am I the government of my house? And it's like, no, not really. Even though you can make the rules, you can make the rules to you. You could make the rules, whatever you want to in your house. If you own it, I could make the rules that you have to wear green pants and hop on one leg when you come in my house. But why am I not a government? And the reason is because

All I can really do to enforce that is kick you out of my house. All I can do is take a legit, I can't like initiate violence against you. Otherwise the government will come in and arrest me because I'm a criminal now. You're not allowed to do that. There's only one group of people who are allowed to do that. And that's the government. They have the military, they have the cops,

They have more guns than everybody else. And so they decide what they're allowed to do and what you're allowed to do. Now, they can tax you and call it taxation. If anybody else were to do that, you'd be guilty of extortion or robbery or whatever. They can start a war. Nobody else can do that. They can throw you in prison. Nobody else can do that. They have a monopoly in the truest sense of the term.

They are the only ones who are allowed to initiate violence without consequences, at least theoretically. Like you could get away with killing somebody, but you're at least risking that you would go to jail for it, whereas the government isn't even risking that. And so this whole free speech conversation, really what it's about is about whether you're free to dissent from the government.

the government or not. Other than that, like even, even in the height of say like tech censorship, right? Which, what would you say? 2020 was probably the worst year of tech censorship. There were people arguing for like flat earthers and stuff on there. There were people doing all that. You know what I'm saying? Like you could, you could have conspiracy theories. You could be wrong about stuff. You could always criticize people who it's popular to criticize.

But you couldn't really criticize the lockdowns or the COVID facts like you can't you can't criticize them. And so this is what it always comes down to. It's the question is, should Europeans be allowed to criticize their governments? And J.D. Vance is taking the radical and dangerous position that they ought to be allowed to. That's really what what it all comes down to.

It's really incredible what the media will try and sell you on. And I'm loving the storyline of them outraged over what's going on with Doge and them trying to say they're not actually finding fraud and abuse. And it's such an odd approach from the media because.

we're spending too much money as a country and if there's actually massive amounts of just fraudulent payments that elon musk is able to clean up and maybe get us out of this mess without having to even cut back on too many entitlement programs that would be such a massive win

if you could cut the budget deficit by 20%, because it turns out it's just going to faulty social security numbers and just sporadic bank accounts abroad, wouldn't that be a great turnaround story that someone managed to clean that up? And it's amazing how the entire media apparatus is screaming about how, uh,

even though he's got the power of the president and the president won in part because he was going to do this. And it's no different than when governments create agencies and nothing's happening without the authority of the president. They couldn't be more outraged over the fact that fraud and abuse is being discovered. And they're trying to spin every story as no, it's not actually be uncovered or it's minor or that's impossible. The government has other agencies that would spot this if it was their agency.

It's such an amazing thing that they want to sell you on. No, they can't possibly be covering unfraud and fraud and abuse. Well, it's also like the, you know, like so many of the responses to the Doge stuff are that right. One of them will be there's there's a couple that I've seen. They're all just cartoonishly stupid. But one of them is that like, no, no, no, no. This isn't the appropriate thing.

way to do this and that we already have things in position for that. Yeah, well, they're not working. Yeah, exactly. That's like the newest thing out of Europe is Europe needs to be at the table for the negotiations in order for us to have a long lasting piece or a solidified piece. I forget the bullshit word that they're using.

But they're admitting like, oh, yeah, Donald Trump could probably get this done. But their new bullshit, the same as that Putin was going to take over all of Europe, is that it won't be a lasting piece unless Europe's at the table. And it's like, what exactly is Europe bringing to the table in this discussion that will make it a lasting piece? It's also Donald Trump. Yeah, of course it's bullshit. Bullshit. It's also like, look, I mean, this is look, this is kind of harsh to say. And.

And just to be clear, because obviously I've talked about this for years and years now, but Ukraine really is a victim in all of this. And like that, that's certainly like that's something that should be appreciated. Like and basically all the people in our camp who have been arguing against this war from the very beginning have all been saying that the whole time. It was John Mearsheimer's quote in I think he said it in either 2014 or 2015, which

But it was where he said the U.S. is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, which evidently I did not know at the time when I heard it. I remember hearing the speech and being like, oh, that's a

That's a real beautiful way to say that. And like, like, it kind of made sense, even. But anyway, it comes from Shakespeare. And the idea is like, that you're leading someone down a beautiful path that ultimately leads to their demise. So like, we're saying all this nice stuff to that, oh, you're going to be a NATO, we're going to do joint NATO military training with the Ukrainian military, we're going to give you weapons, we're going to give you aid, you stand up to Russia, and don't worry, you're going to be a part of the Western world. But really, what we were encouraging them to do was pick

a fight with Russia that we were not truly going to have their back in. And so, you know what I mean? It's like, so in a lot of ways, and then of course, it does at least seem, I mean, look, I'm not pretending I can get inside Zelensky's head, but it does at least seem like

Zelensky was interested in that initial peace agreement after Vladimir Putin had invaded and that it was Boris Johnson as an agent of the West, you know, who who basically forced his hand out of it and made him have. And so Ukraine kind of is a victim in all of this. But at the same time.

The reality is that Ukraine doesn't really have a seat at the table here. I know people don't like to hear that. They like to go, well, why doesn't Ukraine get to decide about Ukraine's future? It's like, because the world doesn't work that way. And what's going on in Ukraine is not a war situation.

between Ukraine and Russia. What's going on in Ukraine is a proxy war between the United States of America and Russia. And the last administration at that. Yes, and right. And not even the current administration. So sorry to negotiate here actually really just requires the U.S. and Russia. Look.

The the the whole Burisma scandal that that that Joe Biden found himself in, because the Burisma was, if you guys remember, the Ukrainian natural gas company that was put Hunter Biden on the board was paying him like one hundred fifty grand a month to be on a board of a Ukrainian energy company. He has no experience in the energy sector and doesn't speak Ukrainian.

But they needed his valuable insight on this poor. So, OK, so obviously what happened was they were a company. They were very in bed with the Yanukovych government. Barack Obama and Joe Biden was vice president and kind of in charge of Ukraine policy. They the Obama government backed Biden.

the coup against Yanukovych and overthrew him. Okay. So then this government, this company, Burisma, is freaked out because they were in bed with a government who was just overthrown. Okay. And so they wanted to ingratiate themselves to the new government. And so what did they do? Instead of bribing one of the, you know, officials in the Porzingis government, they just went right to the source.

We'll just we'll we'll pay off the vice president of the United States of America's kid. So essentially, my point is that was even a recognition then of who was really in charge. Forget the Porzingo government. Go go bribe off a Biden. That's what will really get you security. OK, so like they knew what they needed to do to really get security. And no, the truth is that there's.

The Ukrainians don't really need to be involved in these negotiations.

This is also if the U.S. is pulling support. Good luck, Zelensky. What does Zelensky do then? If Donald Trump goes, hey, well, that's I put together the peace agreement. You're giving up these territories. The war's over. You're not getting into NATO. And here's a security guarantee, which will be a nonsense, whatever guarantee that the Russians won't continue to take territory. But what's Zelensky going to do? I don't take the offer. And then Donald Trump goes, all right, Putin, you can have it. We'll stop you if you get to Poland. Well, it's kind of like.

It'd be like if...

Let's just say like you're out with a girl Rob and she said there's you're out at a bar with a girl and she goes You know, this guy is like this guy's like being a creep He said something creepy to me and then she goes to him She goes well this guy Rob I'm with is gonna kick your ass or something and then you start talking to him and you guys are talking shit And then it's like hey guys, we don't want to have a bar fight here. So Rob, why don't you and this guy? Just talk this out Okay

And then I were to say, well, really, the chick should get involved in these conversations, too, because it's not a true peace unless all three of you agree that it's like, no, sorry, no, because these are the two ones here who are actually capable of fighting. Look, there are there are three great powers in the world right now. OK, the three great powers are the United States of America, China and Russia. And in that order.

Okay, that is two of the great powers in the world are fighting a proxy war here. That's the story between the two of us. We have, I think, 90% of the world's not nuclear stockpile. Okay, that's the conversation here is to find peace between America and Russia.

Zelensky ultimately, as always, is going to have to do what he's told. And like you said, all it takes is, okay, if the U.S. just goes, we're pulling every ounce of support out that we have, then he has to do whatever Putin tells him to do. So like, there's just, it doesn't matter. And Europe and NATO, all of them, that's just the European wing of the American empire, period. There's no, this is on the level of like,

I don't know what, you know, if it was like the Soviet Union and you were like, OK, well, we got to deal with with Moscow. We got to negotiate with Moscow. And you were like, now I really think what you want to do is talk to Estonia. What? It's like, no, that's just that's just a satellite of the Soviet Union. That is not you know what I'm saying? Like, this is not a different player here. And so anyway, the whole thing is is.

It's all just so ridiculous. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Enterra Skin Care. It's a peptide revolution. In the quest for youthful, radiant skin, Enterra Skin Care unveils the secret ingredient, peptides. Their scientifically formulated products are infused with powerful peptides,

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worth playing. Let's play the clip from 60 Minutes, where there's a conversation with between CBS and three German prosecutors. I will say to walk back my earlier comments about not caring that much about the internal politics of European countries. I will admit that this is chilling, if you ask me. So let's let's play that clip.

Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes. Yes, it is. And it's a crime to insult them online as well? Yes. The fine could be even higher if you insult someone in the Internet. Why? Because in Internet, it stays there. If we are talking here face to face, you insult me, I insult you, okay, finish. But in the Internet, if I insult you or a politician... It sticks around forever. Yeah. Cool, cool.

The prosecutors explained German law also prohibits the spread of malicious gossip, violent threats, and fake quotes. If somebody posts something that's not true,

and then somebody else reposts it or likes it. Are they committing a crime? In the case of reposting, it is a crime as well because the reader can't distinguish whether you just invented this or just reposted it. That's the same for us. The punishment for breaking hate speech laws can include jail time for repeat offenders. Is it a crime to insult somebody in public? Yes. So this is a... I mean...

What can you say about that? That's really creepy. The guy in the middle. I mean, I guess this is the type of stuff that prevents a Holocaust, Rob. Yeah.

Well, not when the government's in control of what it gets to say is true or not true information. And if you learned anything from COVID, they're not that good at that. But the guy in the middle, I mean, he looks like Eric Idle. And the first time I was watching this, I didn't think you had sent me a real news clip where he's like, no, it's even more dangerous when it's online. What are you talking about? How is that? Because it stays. And she's like, oh, the logic.

this brilliance of this man, it can stay online forever, or it could just evaporate with the thousand other tweets that get sent off every two seconds. I mean...

You're looking at I didn't realize that Germany was this totalitarian, but obviously free states can't have that. You're not allowed to say offensive things in person or on the Internet because who gets to determine what is true and what's offensive. And if you said something politely or not politely, you're just ceding over power to the government to, you know, get people in trouble it doesn't like.

Oh, I mean, look, it's with all of these things. And it's the same thing whether you say, you know, as they say their thing, insults or... Frankly, I find Jews offensive, just their very existence. They got ratty faces. So anything they say, it's just a ploy from them to try and use their Jew tricks to take my money. So if anything, this is, you know, we might have to restore free speech just for the Jews to continue to be able to exist in Germany. Well, look, I mean, that's...

probably going to affect our YouTube numbers in Germany. But sorry, I apologize to our German listeners. But it is, I mean, you know, obviously, right? I mean, this is, it's so weird because it's such a basic argument that you can't even imagine that anybody's still having it today. But this is what I argued with David Cross about back in when we were on that panel together in like 2018 or whatever that was. It's like, no, you're going to sit here and say,

oh, we need censorship, but we're only going to ban lies. It's like, all right. I mean, that sounds nice, except...

Who gets to be the one who determines what is the truth and what is a lie? And, you know, like, I mean, you could think about so many contentious political issues where that's what the whole debate is about. And it becomes this thing where you're just presuming the conclusion to say that your side is the truth and the other side is a lie. But it's the same with insults, right? Like,

Even what you're going to say, oh, we're just saying people aren't allowed to insult each other. But then who gets to determine what's an insult and what's not? I mean, I'm sure, you know, we've all had this experience where somebody has told you just in life, forget even like political disagreements. But we've always had all had this experience just in a disagreement, in an argument where someone's like offended by what you said. And you're like, yeah, well, I'm offended by what you said.

So what is, where does that get us? Right. We're right back to square one. I've had it. Happens to me constantly. Listen, as somebody, and I've, I've been known to throw out a few of myself too, but as somebody who gets insulted constantly on social media, which is,

I'm going to say those people should face jail time for insulting me. Like what? Like somehow you have some conception of rights where I have the right to not be insulted, but you don't have the right to speak your mind.

Think about how backward that is, how sick that is. And again, who after living- - How does German insulted court work? How does that work? You show up, I was insulted.

Run by queers with complaints by queers. I don't know. Yes, I would honestly think that I think and I mean this very genuinely, Rob. I think we would both find what those three prosecutors just said, both offensive and insulting. He declined my invitation to a party. I'm insulted. Now, what are you going to jail because you're antisocial?

I mean, it really is, you know, it's something. And of course, by the way, he let it slip that if you insult someone or a politician, Ooh, I wonder why that's what came to your mind. I wonder why, what a, what a coincidence that that's the first thing you thought of was a politician. Oh yeah. Because that's all this is always about is whether or not you can dissent from your government. And, you know, again, like it, it's just funny, like the people who are out there, like, you know,

Again, I don't know enough about like European politics, but give me a break that they are not insulting people. You know what I mean? Like the idea that these people, oh, are you not insulting the people who you wish to censor? But look, all of this stuff, it always...

It just comes down to like if anybody's going to have this power where you get to determine what type of speech is allowed and is not allowed, it will always be corrupted because there's no way for it not to be. You know, the idea that you're going to sit here and determine I mean, and of course, right.

All of this stuff is always they don't mean any of the stuff they say. And as you pointed out at the beginning of the show, it's never actually about democracy. It's about their rule. And it's never actually about disinformation. It's about their rule. That's all that matters. And, you know, we lived for decades.

for years under the COVID regime here in America. And what was the motto the entire time of the regime? It was follow the science, which is, you know, just another way of saying follow the truth, right? Like this is the official truth, TM. This is being given, you know, this is what's coming down from Pravda. So this is the truth. You must follow this truth, except like it wasn't true, right?

And I'm sorry, I'll put our track record of telling the truth up against any of theirs. But there was net but like, that's what they'd be talking about. And look, there might be other examples where there is actually disinformation. But still, you're going to give the government the power to censor that shit. Oof, good luck. Good luck dealing with the the results of that.

All right, let's see here. Maybe I'll check in on the chat for a minute and see if anyone's got a question. If you've got a question, throw it in the chat. Maybe we'll get to one or two. Then I did have another couple topics here, so we'll cover what we can. Thank you, by the way, to everybody who has signed up to be a supporting listener over at partoftheproblem.com. If you want to get the members-only bonus episode every week, you've got to sign up.

Oh, good. The chat is popping off today. Hope everybody's doing good there. If you want to be a part of this live chat, you got to go sign up at partoftheproblem.com. All right. You know what? We could... Let me see. We got time to... Why don't we go... Did you see... This is... People are getting very upset about this. But did you see the...

Tom Hanks was on Saturday night lives, like 50th anniversary. Rob, did you watch any of it? All right. I watched very little of the 50th anniversary. Uh, for some reason I am just over celebrating SNL. It's kind of annoying me. I have, maybe that's just jealousy and pettiness, whatever. Uh,

But people were very upset with this sketch. And I watched three quarters of it just to see what people were upset about. I thought it was fine and funny. I didn't think that there was the character type was that it seemed like woke Karen ism from the right that they seem to have been upset with the sketch.

or the parody. I thought it was actually funny. I thought, like, the game of the scene in sketch terms was funny that conservative right-wing people have the same thoughts and attitudes as, like, black people on certain distrust of government. I didn't think it was...

I don't even know why people were bothered by it. Maybe you felt otherwise. Well, let's play the clip and then let's discuss. I mean, I guess it was a little similar to his Forrest Gump character, and then maybe that was what people were taking issue with. I did see a little bit of that. You did see Forrest coming up a little bit in that character. Here, let's play the clip and then we can discuss. I don't entirely disagree with you. Oh, well, thank you. Hey, speaking of church, can I say something? If more folks went to church, we wouldn't be in this mess we're in now.

You know what? I agree with you, Doug. I'd like to shake your hand, sir. Here we go. No, no, no. Oh, no, no. It's just a handshake. Yeah, it's just a handshake. Yeah, all right. You're welcome at Black Jeopardy anytime. I didn't get to this part of the sketch.

Yeah, it's like, I don't know. It didn't really land. But at the same time, you're like, I could see what they were going for was to be funny, kind of there. Look, I guess like what people I think the thing that people are objecting to, but I don't think it's anything like, look, I really just don't, despite everything.

despite the arguments about the woke right stuff over the last couple months, which has been fairly silly, I really just don't have a woke bone in my body. Like, I just don't... You're like, they're trying to be funny from their own lens or whatever, you know? Now, I understand you could say that, like...

Look, they'll never take the gloves off with like a Kamala supporter or something like that, or they'll never be like, hey, let's do a caricature of like, you know, a hood black guy.

supporter or something like that, but they will kind of take the gloves off with Trump support. It's like, yeah. And that's why they're less and less relevant than they've ever been before. It's like, I don't know. I guess I'm more or less with you. I will call things out for, uh, for not being funny. And, uh, we certainly have seen a lot of comedy where there was no comedy. Uh,

We've seen it with the late night shows where there's no joke there. It's just might as well be the news telling you why they don't like Trump. There's literally not the structure or trying to tell a joke. They're not even going for laughs. Yes. In this particular sketch.

Listen, I'm not ever going to work at SNL. I don't know that I'd be qualified to work at SNL. They spent too much time with the two black characters playing their silly game of, you know, I guess what's relevant to black people. Maybe I'm starting to sound racist. That was not that funny. The actual Tom Hanks lines in the sketch are,

I was like, OK, I get the joke here. There's a joke here. It's not just woke agenda nonsense. Like there was an actual joke there of that. The conservative Republican has the exact same distrust as government as these black. Like and it was that was actually I wasn't laugh aloud funny, but there was enough of a joke there. I'm like, all right, I don't this last piece a little bit more agenda, but I didn't even make it that far. That's how interested I was. I watched the first 40 percent to go. This is nonsense. Republican complaints.

The thing about it is, right, is that it's in a way, you know, they're in a pickle. I mean, the people at, you know, the people at Saturday Night Live and Hollywood...

Hollywood and, you know, obviously the people in the corporate media, but like the late night hosts and Saturday Night Live and people in Hollywood, you know, they went all in on this kind of like demonization of Donald Trump and of Trump supporters. And the

the problem of course was that this blinded them to everything else and and particularly blinded them to why people supported donald trump because they didn't just see donald trump they saw the other actors in the room too but when you hate donald trump with such a singular focus you blind yourself to all this other stuff and then of course that's what led them to support joe biden and that's what led them to pretend joe biden wasn't senile for all these years

But after four years of Joe Biden, they wake up in this new world where like for the first time, you know, we watched on CNN as they explain those numbers to us. Remember, they kept underlining them so that we could see the difference between the numbers. But like really, aside from a few days in his first term, but for the first time, Donald Trump is popular.

Donald Trump has a net positive approval rating. And so most Americans, or at least most voting Americans, support Donald Trump. So it's just, you know, what they're struggling with is like, well, while you're trying to caricature the Trump supporter, the Trump supporter in reality is most of us.

That's just the new political reality that we're in. And so now if their game is going to be demonizing most Americans, you don't need to be the woke outrage police.

The market's going to take care of this on its own. And of course it has been, you know, it has been, it's like all of these people have been losing viewers for years now. And so, you know, it, in a way to me, you know, I saw a little bit, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I saw a little bit of the event and it was kind of sad to me because I, I grew up such a huge Saturday night live fan. And it's all lame. Everything I tried to check out just wasn't hitting and the rehash and old bits. And it's just not fresh and funny. Yeah.

And you know, it was interesting for me because I've never watched SNL. I've never watched it. It's never been a show that I watched. And the wealth of talent that came off of that show and then went on to do the funniest things in the entire world. And then I go back and watch this and just listen, it doesn't appeal to me, whatever. But then it's funny because everyone's celebrating the thing and you're like, all right, let's go check it out. It's the best comedians in the entire world. These are the most talented people in the world. And

Miss after miss of lameness and lameness where you're like, all right, this is why am I even trying to get into this? I'm not going to watch the show when it's the show. Yeah, it's to me, it's just kind of like, look, the last 10 years really have the the the mainstream, which is no longer the mainstream, has just been so broken that it's like not capable of producing greatness anymore.

It's kind of unfortunate, but that's just kind of where we are. Like, it's just these guys are just not there. They're so just not tuned in to the new moment. I mean, talk about, by the way, is an example of this, right? Is this.

uh when i i know we played it on the clip and i we ruthlessly mocked him but he deserves it uh but when chris cuomo said that um now that the podcast space has become the place you're gonna see all the a-list talent going there and it won't be me and joe rogan anymore because it'll be um louis ck and stephen a smith are gonna come in and take over the podcasting world and it's just like

man, talk about not having your finger on the pulse. You know, like just talk, by the way, you know, Louis CK is one of the greatest comedians ever. I am not at all arguing his talent, but the idea that he's going to go replace Rogan as like the podcast guy, like you just don't know. I don't know. It's, it's, there's a great thing about radio, which is it, it is its own medium.

And Louis C.K. is one of my all-time favorite comics. He actually did this three-hour stint. Firstly, all of his appearances on Opie and Anthony are incredible. He was great on that show, yeah. One of the best ones is with Donald Rumsfeld when he keeps asking Donald Rumsfeld if he's a lizard. And then also you can find this if you want to do a deep dive. He once on the ONA channel hosted this three-hour thing on a Saturday night.

and he's just kind of uncomfortable doing it and talking about how he shouldn't be there and there's this weird meta moment where someone calls him in to try and coach him with how he should handle the show and the listener's so stupid that he doesn't realize he called into something while it's live and louie's just like agreeing with the guy of like yeah you're absolutely right i should probably incorporate if that i'm gonna do like it makes no sense anyways with all that said louie's a super talent

They try and launch people into the podcast space all the time, and they're not radio people. That's what this is. And they stink at it. So like you're just objectively wrong. You can bring the biggest Fox News anchors and hand them podcasts and you're going to find out, oh, they're not that interesting or good. They were platformed by Fox News.

And you can bring, by the way, I think Bill Murray's one of the funniest people ever. He's a movie star. I don't think he'd be a great podcaster. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It might be interesting. Like the first episode, Bill Murray's sitting down for drinks with someone. That might be interesting. I don't know that he really knows how to conduct an interview or that he's...

not good when he's kind of just responding and doing the sarcastic Bill Murray aloof thing. I don't think he hosts a show. That's not what he does. So it's just dead wrong when people look at it, you know, and it's like throwing a boxer into MMA. He might be a great boxer. That doesn't mean he can do MMA.

No, that's exactly right. And then just to take it a step further, like when you're talking about in this kind of space of political commentary or whatever, it's like, oh, no, there's a huge current thing going on that Joe Rogan taps into. And to think that you could just take anybody and put them in that role, that they'll tap into that too. Again, it is...

It's the old school mentality of like, oh, well, if the CNN 8 p.m. hour leaves, you plug someone else in there and then they get that audience. But it's like, that's not how this new game works, dude. It's just a different thing. And that was one of the things to me that was just very, it was very apparent.

watching the Saturday Night Live thing, just for the little bit that I did, that it's like, oh, you guys just aren't, you're not tapped into what's going on now. You just don't get, and it's a shame in a way because there would be a lot of really funny shit you could do with it. But you're just not, you're not able to because you don't even get it. You don't even really understand. Like in the same way that like during the cultural revolution of the 60s,

There was just no way that like your grandma was going to produce great comedy about it. She didn't really get it. She doesn't even really know what in her mind, what she's thinking of that is a weird caricature of what's actually going on. Whereas like somebody in, you know, like,

George Carlin might be able to make it really hilarious because he got it. He was of it, you know, and like that. That's the thing is that these guys, particularly in the podcast scene, they are of this new world. Like they they know it because they are it. And these other guys are dinosaurs. They just don't understand what they're even commenting on. It's like like listening to what was Elon's guy's podcast.

uh troll name or whatever big balls giant balls little balls tiny nuts it's listening to cnn talk about big balls and it's like oh you don't even understand the you don't even understand the kind of troll culture the like you just don't even get what it is you couldn't possibly analyze it because there's so many steps the fact that a brilliant wizard kid who once at 12 years old had a name harry balls

Like, well, then where are you gonna find a good artist to work at your company if everyone who had a funny Twitter handle's out off the books? You're gonna have to hire from India. - All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals. Are you ready to start building your wealth by putting your precious metals to work?

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Yeah, that's right here. Before we before we wrap up, I also did want to play this just because I thought this really was was great. But it's on kind of the similar topic. But here was Ben Stiller being interviewed by another guy who I was arguing on Pierce Morgan with. I can't remember his name, but another guy who I just...

talk about didn't get it. But here is Ben Stiller and having a conversation about, you know, how he feels about going forward in Trump's second term. Yeah, I think we probably I don't I don't I think everybody's going to have their own personal reaction. And it's impossible not to be aware of the fact that

people feel this, you know, that, oh, wow, you know, there can be retribution from the government if you say something wrong. And that's really scary. So just to even be thinking that way is, but, you know, of course I'm aware of it. I think everybody's aware of it. And, you know, certain people are just naturally more outspoken and always have been. And I, I've sort of like, you know, had my own path with it, but right now, uh,

Yeah, I think it's definitely a thing that people feel. And in a way, for me, it makes me think about it even more about what do I really want to say and how do I really feel about something. And I think for artists in times like these, their creative energy really goes into expressing what they feel. And there's a lot of... It is...

I don't know. It's hard to even come up with the words for just how like it's flabbergasting, I guess, to hear like rich Hollywood A-listers say,

talk about the fear that they have to live with now, that there might actually be retribution from the government for what they say. You know, it's like, it's to be in a position as me and you have both been for years. And again, Elon Musk just bought Twitter not that long ago. The kind of like, this pendulum swing is very, very new. But we were for years in a situation where like, we're guys who are like,

hustling to, you know, keep this show going and keep our careers going. And you're under real threat of like,

being shut down, being like there was a time there where people were being just plucked and removed from the conversation, shut down with all of the big companies colluding, shutting people like Alex Jones say, shutting him down off everything. And like, it is a real, you know, like when we're in this game of

when there was the real threat of like you could lose access to itunes youtube you know spotify twitter facebook everything and just be unpersoned essentially and nobody stood up for like the guy who's who's making a salary you know what i mean doing this losing everything but now i'm supposed to

feel for the real victims, which are what Hollywood actors worth hundreds of millions of dollars who in some theory think that there could be retribution from the government. It is a very bizarre, like,

It's a very bizarre thing. It's like if you like if some country got liberated, you know, like if, you know, whatever the the commies after the collapse of the Soviet Union or something, we're like, you know, you just like now we're worried that they might crack down on us. And hey,

you know, citizens of Russia, you have no idea what that's like to be worried about a government that might crack down on you. Like what, what, how did those words come out of your mouth? You guys were the ones cracking down. And like, I don't know, maybe it's, maybe it's me, but it's like, yeah, Ben Stiller, if you do, if you have fear about this, like sit with that for a little bit and maybe think about it. Think about actual fear, you know, like, I don't know. Any thoughts on that, Rob?

Well, unless he's actually afraid that some, you know...

Dollar figures are going to come out of what he was paid by the CAA to back Zelensky or whatever the fuck he did during COVID. But it's so funny with the funny people. He's a super fucking talent, and I've heard him talk about how he couldn't make Tropic Thunder today. That's not because of the Republicans. The Republicans aren't the ones that try and say that comedy is violence and we can't have jokes in this style. Right.

That's not coming from the conservative party anymore. No, that's right. You got to pretend like you're living in a different time period if you want to pretend that the Republicans are the ones keeping you from this stuff. Here, let's just play the rest of this clip and then we'll wrap up. Yeah, I got to pee. Go for it. No, I'll wait till... Yeah, let me go. Amazing work coming out of times like these that I hope we see. I kind of feel like we...

Didn't get that in the first Trump. I don't know why it's not that there wasn't great art in the first Trump But it's wasn't like during that four years you look back on that and feel like feel about it the way that you might about Civil rights movement or right like all this like amazing I can music and movies Why do you think that is maybe the first time around it was more about Trump and then this time around it's more about the realization that our country is

is really deeply divided. And for me, it's less about the fact that he won by a majority and that many, many, many people are, you know, willing to go down that road. And what is that? So that's actually something that it's always, I think, been about. And that divide is something that I think- You can pause it there. You know, you have to sort of-

You can pause it there and I'm done with this clip. But, you know, the truth is that it's just, it's so funny to watch this question get asked. You know, leaving aside what Ben Stiller says about the country is divided. That's what it's about this time. It's like, no, the country's been divided this whole time. In fact, I think the country is less divided than it's been over the last 10 years. That's at least what the numbers seem to indicate. But the question is like, well, why didn't, you know, why didn't we see the great art

The first time Donald Trump was in, like we didn't see like, you know, during the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War or something like that. It's kind of known for like the great music and comedy and movies and all of these things that came out of that time. But why didn't we see that in the first Trump administration? And the answer is obviously twofold.

Number one, because this was not a crisis like that at all. And I know you want it to be. I know that your entire identity is that this was like the civil rights movement all over again, but it wasn't. It wasn't like the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement. It was nothing like that. It was like a guy who you didn't like the way he tweeted won the White House. That was what the first four years were. And then number two, as Rob kind of indicated before, it's because your side put

an ungodly amount of arbitrary restraints in so that you couldn't make art. You couldn't make great art anymore because everything was a landmine that you weren't allowed to step on. So there it is. This isn't a great mystery. There's your answer. All right, look, we got to wrap up on that one. Thank you guys for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.