Smith believes that repeatedly denouncing anti-Semitism is a tactic used to keep people on their knees, unable to make their intended points without first placating critics. He argues that his stance on anti-Semitism is already clear to his audience, and he doesn't need to keep reiterating it.
Smith criticizes the prioritization of outrage, especially when it comes to issues like racism or anti-Semitism, over more significant matters like the slaughter of children. He finds it perverse that outrage over offensive language often overshadows real human suffering.
Smith believes that Jewish identity is often weaponized in debates about Israel, particularly by pro-Israel advocates who label critics as anti-Semitic. He argues that his Jewish identity doesn't dictate his stance on Israel and that he criticizes Israel's actions independently of his heritage.
Smith acknowledges that anti-Semitic rhetoric has increased on social media, but he believes that the focus on denouncing such rhetoric is often misplaced. He argues that the actions of groups like Mossad and the Israeli government, which he criticizes, contribute more to anti-Semitic sentiment than individual memes or comments.
Smith believes that the dehumanization of Palestinians, who are currently being slaughtered, is more appalling than the dehumanization of Jews. He argues that the asymmetry in the conflict makes the former a more urgent concern, especially when Palestinians are being denied basic rights by groups like Hamas.
Smith criticizes the Mossad for its global influence operations, such as selling fake weapons to Hezbollah, and argues that such actions contribute to anti-Semitic sentiment. He believes that Israel's dual narrative of being both a victim and a global manipulator is contradictory and damaging.
Smith argues that Israel's approach to the Gaza conflict, which involves significant civilian casualties, contrasts sharply with its more targeted operations in Lebanon. He questions why Israel doesn't apply the same precision tactics to Gaza, suggesting that the heavy-handed approach is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Smith believes that his Jewish identity is separate from his criticism of Israel. He rejects the idea that being Jewish means automatically supporting Israel and argues that his criticism is based on his individual beliefs and observations, not his ethnicity.
Did you know that you can make your life-saving donation to Doctors Without Borders go even further? Whether you donate stock, recommend a grant through your donor-advised fund, or make an IRA-qualified charitable distribution, you can take advantage of strong market performance this year to maximize your charitable impact, making it possible for Doctors Without Borders to stay ready to respond in more than 70 countries around the world. Together, we go further. Explore ways to give at doctorswithoutborders.org slash podcast.
All right, let's be real. If you're a content creator, blogger, or an entrepreneur just getting started, the last thing you want to do is spend hours building a website. That's where Bluehost comes in. Their AI tools make custom WordPress sites in minutes. No coding, no stressing. You also get built-in marketing and e-commerce tools to grow your business. And with faster loading, you can secure the bag without the lag. It's never been easier to launch your website. Go to bluehost.com now to get started.
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, joining us from Austin, Texas. How are you, sir? How's Texas treating you? Dude, I love being down in Austin. I had a great porch start in San Antonio, but then I got to hang out at the Creek in the Cave. I got to watch Lewis' show. I got to do the... Oh, right.
I forgot you guys are both out there at the same time. That works out. It feels old school when you can actually go to clubs and hang out and be around Lewis and BK Chris. It's like, other than Skank Fest, I don't get that that often these days. Yeah, dude, Austin, they're doing a really good job down there. They're building quite a comedy scene. I can't point to one particular factor that made it so much better, but it's great down there. Austin is constantly...
every time I go to Austin, it almost feels like, like I have to look deep at Austin in the eyes and be like, are you you're trying to steal me, aren't you? You're trying to get me to move my family down here. I know you are Austin. I know what you're doing. It's Austin's a seductress. All right. Well, Merry, Merry Christmas. Happy, almost Hanukkah. I think when does Hanukkah start, Rob? I don't know. I should know. But I don't know.
Wow. Some Jew you are there, Rob. Is it not? No, I don't know. Anyway. Oh, yeah. I think it's this week. I think it's right around. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's the day after Christmas. I have to make sure I say Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to open today's show because this is how I get this. More of a Kwanzaa guy now?
And also, by the way, you know what? Let's not miss them either. Kwanzaa too. That's going to be the rest of the show. Natalie, pull me up a list of holidays. I'm going to wish everybody a happy there holiday and then we can get out of here. So I did, you know, I was kind of internally debating whether or not to talk about this on the show a little bit today, partially because I kind of feel like this is something we've already covered and I've already talked
kind of expressed how I feel about this stuff. But yet, no matter how many times you do that, the question keeps coming up. You know, I had an interesting interaction with Mike Cernovich on Twitter a few days ago, who Mike Cernovich, for people that they don't know, he's a very, very popular Twitter. I should say he has a lot of followers on Twitter. He's got, I think,
over a million followers on there. And he's written books and been on a lot of podcasts over the years. I met him way back in the day, right before he really blew up and got famous on a Fox News show. And he's a very interesting guy, and he'll have very poignant observations at times. And this was one that I thought was really interesting. So now Mike Cernovich, and I don't want to...
uh get wrong what his views are but i certainly i think that certainly me and him disagree on israel i think that's safe to say he does not have like my the same perspective as me on uh
on the Israel-Palestine conflict or US support for Israel. Again, I'm not exactly sure what his opinion is, but certainly there's lots of disagreement between us. But he did totally side with me on the woke right debate between me and James Lindsay because he was just like, oh yeah, obviously, listen, he goes, I don't even agree with you on Israel, but let's get real. That's the thing that'll get you canceled. That's the thing that you... It's just...
so obvious that he was like, yeah, of course, obviously like within conservatism Inc, you're not allowed to be anti-Israel and they will come at you in a hysterical woke way if you are. So he's at least like, yeah, that's bullshit. You shouldn't, that shouldn't be the scenario. And one of the things, so this was, um, maybe this was a couple of weeks ago or something like that, but somebody on Twitter was asking me to denounce anti-Semitism and I
I, you know, like in some way, I was like, yeah, I've said this a million times before. I don't like Jew hatred. By the way, I'm Jewish, obviously. I don't like Jew hatred. Like what? And then Cernovich responded. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I thought there was a lot of wisdom to it. As he goes, look, Dave, this is the proof really that they are the woke. Is that true?
This is the whole game. They demand you denounce something, and it doesn't matter how many times you denounce it. They're going to demand again that you denounce it, and they'll pretend as if you never have denounced it before. And then the game is that they constantly keep you on your knees.
They constantly keep you having to sit here and you can never make the point that you want to make without sandwiching it between two pieces of I'm not a terrible person bread.
And when you're doing that, you're already kind of losing. Like there's, it's a different game than like, you know, the way Donald Trump plays the alpha game that me and you would never think of, but he does it constantly. Every time he shakes your hand, he's pulling you off balance. Every time you walk, he's making sure he walks a step in front of you. Like,
There are all of these other energies, aside from logic and rational arguments, that probably are much more important than logic and rational arguments in terms of how people communicate. And if they can get you to constantly be denouncing... This is why every single time there's an Israel-Palestine pact...
or anything like that, the first questions are always, does Israel have a right to exist? Do you denounce Hamas? Do you denounce terrorism? And then no matter where the conversation goes from there, they've started with you on your knees, you know what I mean, being like, yes, yes, yes, I'm against all these things, or they've started with you refusing to denounce those things, in which case they can go, hmm, well, look at that. This guy won't even say he hates Hamas or something like that. So
Typically speaking, this is why I was having a little bit of a battle, is that I just try to not even play these games. I'm not even getting into this. I've already, everybody who listens to me already knows how I feel about these things. I don't need to constantly be denouncing them, especially when there's much more important things going on. Does that make sense? I know it makes sense to you, Rob, because we've talked about this before. But anyway, that's kind of how I generally tend to feel.
Anything you want to add, feel free, Rob, and then I'll get into my rant. Yeah, I feel like we're not The View. We don't have a legal department handing us paperwork that we have to make a new public announcement. We're giving people our best insights on the news. We tend to be right. We're also comedians with jokes. And I think it's silly that we have to respond to Twitter accusations at the top of the show to go, hey, we got a legal disclaimer here to re-notify you that we're not anti-Semites. I mean, it seems a little...
The whole structure sounds a little silly. 100%. So here's why I'm even talking about this at all. Is that...
And listen, like I said before, you know, I'm not going to keep saying this over and over again. So if you guys want to, you guys who are the tech savvy people, clip this. And then this can be the thing that you send to people when they ask me to denounce whatever. And this will be my, you know what I mean? Like my close to final time. So we pledge allegiance and hold our circumcised penises in front of the camera to test our Jewish faith? Yeah.
It's not going to hurt, Rob. It's not. So I'm just saying it's worst case scenario. We're right back to where we are now. No, but so essentially what happened was I was I thought Natalie, by the way, had the best organic reaction to this one before we started the show. I was like, oh, I'm going to I'll address this controversy of people being mad at me because Jake Shields posted a meme and she goes mad at you. And I was like, yeah, no, that's right. It is ridiculous that. But anyway, that's
So what happened was Jake Shields, whose show I just did. Well, I guess it was back at Skank Fest. It was back this fall, early fall. So a few months ago, I did his show. So he posted a meme that was very offensive to a lot of people and, you know,
certainly insensitive to Jewish people. Let's say, leave it at that. It was a meme of a Jew kind of like eating Uncle Sam's intestines or something like that. It's pretty graphic. And for the record, I don't think kosher, but that's the real outrage, if you ask me. Although I don't know, there could have been a rabbi who blessed Uncle Sam. I'm not sure. I don't, you probably know this better than me, Rob. But
Then there was a call of a bunch of a bunch of people I was getting swarmed on Twitter to denounce Jake Shields for posting this meme Which is anybody who knows me knows I refuse to do because I just don't first off I don't throw people who I'm friends or friendly with under the bus. I don't denounce people on command That's just not I don't play that game. The only reason why I'm even addressing this is because after I
a few interactions with people who are like, "You must denounce Jake Shields." And I'm like, "What you're saying, someone I did a show with posted a meme you don't like and therefore I must jump." No, fuck you, you know, in my kind of typical fashion. But then there were several people who were like following me
On social media, I don't know how, you know, if they're fans or not, but they're following me on social media who were like, hey, Dave, I love so much of what you have to say, but come on, man, can't you just call this out? I mean, this is pretty gross and wrong. And so, you know what I mean? There were enough people like that.
that it kind of did make me think, you know, okay, look, if you're, if there's somebody who's like supports what Israel's doing to Palestine right now, and then they're just trying to get me on this outrage, it's like, fuck you, dude, you know? But if there is somebody who's not that, who's going, well, wait a minute, this is a little weird. I mean, don't you want to separate yourself from that? Or don't you, don't you not agree with this? Like, why, why can't you just give it to us straight and say how you feel? There was enough of that that I was like, all right,
Maybe I should at least address this a little bit. And so here's what I'm going to say. And this is me and you have talked about this before, Rob. I'm sure we'll be forced into talking about this at some point in the future. But for now, let this be the thing. If you want to clip this and post it, here's my opinion when it comes to all of this stuff. First of all,
I think that the way that people view racism and bigotry and prejudice and all of these things is somewhat twisted and not healthy.
And of course, this is in large part because this has been for many, many years the cardinal sin of the dominant progressive culture, searching for racism or sexism or transphobia or homophobia, in this case, anti-Semitism, which, again, a lot of these words I just hate.
I don't like anti-Semitism to me is like homophobia. It's just a really bad word. It doesn't even mean what it's supposed to mean. What you mean is Jew hater, but Semitic people are not just Jewish. And then it's so it just be particularly when all of the people involved in this conflict, or at least all of the Palestinians are, or most of them are Semitic. And then a lot of the Israelis are debatably Semitic, whatever. It's just, it's not a good term to me, but,
as i've said for many many years i just think that there's there's a huge kind of problem with prioritization of outrage when it comes to these type of issues the example i always uh gave was that you know barack obama or donald trump or joe biden or someone like that could literally drone bomb a wedding and kill you know six children and if the same day they said that
You know, if you're born a man, you're a man, and there's no such thing as transgenderism or something like that. We all know what the outrage of the day would be. The outrage of the day would be that they said something offensive to trans people, and the fact that six kids got killed at a wedding in Yemen would be like 27th on the list, if it's on the list at all. And I find that to be...
sick and perverse and backward and insane. Like it's not, this isn't a libertarian or a left-right question. It's like if you are at all a sane human being, you'd go that that's just like, what type of monster upside down world are you living in where the slaughter of children is not more outrageous than like someone having an offensive view that may or may not be right. Um, anyway,
When it comes specifically to, you know, look, me and Rob are both Jews. We're not like currently practicing religious Jews, but, you know, we're both Jewish in the way that everybody means it. Right.
including the pro-Israel side whenever they talk about it. You know what I mean? It's not as if there were some terrorist attack on atheist Jews that Ben Shapiro and Netanyahu would all be like, "Oh, this wasn't an attack on Jews." You only become not a Jew when you're criticizing Israel and then they go, "Are you even a Jew, really?" Anyway, that's for another day.
But as two people who are Jews who have been very critical of Israel over the year, it's an interesting spot to be in. I've compared it before to being kind of similar to being a black conservative or something like that who's critical of Black Lives Matter. There's a kind of...
you know, in some ways you're protected because it's a little bit harder to smear you. But in some ways, you know, your identity is weaponized and it's kind of vicious the way they come at you. But whatever, not the end of the world. But I've always kind of thought that I have the attitude that I think a lot of conservatives pretend to have when they're talking about every other group.
So, you know, like I've used this example before. In fact, I think recently I said this, that, you know, Ben Shapiro has this famous clip of when he was much younger and he's on the stage with like three like progressive black professors and he gives them all a dose of bitter medicine.
He looks right at him and he goes, "Hey, you know, you guys are complaining about systemic racism, this and that. Let me tell you something. Black people are 13% of the population and they make up 50% of the homicides. The black illegitimacy rate is over 70%. The black illiteracy rate is this. The black this. Just taking the gloves off. This is what's wrong in the black community and it's not white people's fault. This is your own community and you need to police that, right?"
But if anyone ever took the gloves off with Jewish people the way he does with black people, he would immediately turn into that pink haired 20 year old feminist chick and just start shrieking anti-Semitism. I mean, Ben Shapiro may not have the same.
You know views that me and you have with like say the military industrial complex or the banking sector or something like that But certainly at least if you're talking about like the corporate media and academia, he's been railing against those things forever There are there is a dispro a disproportionate amount of Jewish people involved in those institutions like a wildly disproportionate amount but if anyone ever just started blaming Jews based on that and
He would flip out and say you're an anti-Semite. And by the way, it's very similar logic to the blacks are 13% of the population but 50-something percent of the crime. It's like, okay, but that doesn't have – like I'm an individualist on these things across the board. I don't – I'm like, okay, yeah, that might be true of – there might be black people, but that's not a reflection on some black guy who has nothing to do with that. And I feel the same way about Jews. I don't judge people as collectives in this way. All right.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is ProtonPass. ProtonPass is more than a password manager. It's an identity manager. This means that it does all the basics of a password manager, securely generates and stores your logins, makes it easier to securely share passwords with anyone, and it makes your online experience more convenient and efficient by auto-filling passwords and forms for you.
ProtonPass is easy to use and user-friendly. It's accessible to all users, even those who are not tech savvy. I say this as someone in that category myself. It's available on all of your devices. Finally, you'll have security you can trust and end-to-end encryption. That means your data is encrypted and combined with rigorous hashing and authentication, so your data is not accessible to anyone but you.
ProtonPass is open sourced and identity audited, so anyone can review and verify their encryption. Don't just take their word for it. Plus, you can offer access to the free tier of all Proton products, so you can have more control over your online privacy and security.
such as email, protecting your email communications, VPN, protect your browsing and the drive. They have a whole suite of products over at Proton. Check out ProtonPass today. Internet security is more important than ever before and these guys are all over it. Click the link in the episode description to learn more. Thanks to ProtonPass. Let's get back into the show. At least I try not to, not to an unreasonable extent. Anyway,
My attitude has always been, as I've said many times on the show before, that my grandfather grew up in a country, Nazi Germany, or at least the Nazis rose while he was young. And that was a legitimately difficult place for a Jewish person to be. It was an anti-Jew society in many ways. And that's just not been my experience.
I grew up in a country where literally not once in my life has there been an obstacle toward my happiness, my success, my achievements. There's never been an obstacle put in my way because I'm Jewish. And so I just think whining and crying and labeling people as anti-Semite or you hate Jews, I think is like very bad form.
I don't think that Jewish people should be complaining about how bigoted our society is because it's just not true. It's not the case that Jews are some oppressed minority. Jews are a market-dominant minority, as Amy Chua says.
I think coined the term, or at least uses the term quite a bit. Jews are thriving in our society. And so I don't think this whining about, because what are you even talking about? I've always been able to, it's always been very easy for me, especially when criticizing woke progressives, which by the way, none of these people who are coming at me ever have a problem with it when you're talking about the woke progressives.
But when you just sit there and you go like, look, man, what are you even talking about here? Are you talking about like someone's feelings were hurt on a college campus? Well, get over it. Who gives a shit? Even if someone said something offensive, okay, you heard something offensive. That's your plight. If you want to tell me your plight is that your people are struggling and people don't have enough food to eat and people can't get good education or good healthcare. Okay. Let's have that conversation about what's causing that. But you're telling me someone's feelings were hurt.
You're telling me someone micro-aggressed against you on a college campus or someone posted a meme that you don't like? This just isn't that important. I don't care, okay? Like, it's just this doesn't rise to the level of being anything. And so all of that being said, obviously, as anyone could deduce, I don't like anti-Jewish stuff.
I think it's wrong and it's ugly. And it also, it leads to people, um, to people being sloppy and not understanding the world. I think that the people who get like poison their own mind and get obsessed with Jew hatred, they end up being wrong. Like they just don't get it right. So yeah, I don't like any of that stuff. Um, that being said, I also, um,
you know, it just isn't at the top of my list of outrages. I guess that's really what it is. And I don't think that, I think that,
as a Jewish person or whatever. I don't think the correct response to that is to become a hysterical leftist and start going, oh, woe is me. It's so horrible. Let me denounce this. And you're an anti-Semite and you're an anti-Semite. I think all of that is kind of stupid and doesn't help. I'd rather just be me. I treat people with decency if they treat me with decency. And I think that's kind of the best antidote for a lot of this stuff. So it's not like
that I think is fairly obvious for anyone who watches our show. If I liked that stuff, then we'd be doing it. But we don't. That's not what we're about. That all being said, just doesn't rank that high on my list of outrages. But, you know, I'll tell you...
Probably the thing that, and maybe this is an admission of some sort, but probably the thing that annoys me the most about it is that they hurt us. They make us look bad. Everybody in my Twitter replies who's saying some like, I hate the Jews stuff. You're not helping.
You're helping them a lot more than you're helping us. It's only weakening like our argument and then it puts us through this headache of having to defend the dumb shit you say or explain it away or something like that. So I don't like it. I don't like any of that stuff.
I didn't like the meme that Jake posted and like you know, but if I'm gonna say that I'll say that to him I don't need to say that to somebody accusing me of something on Twitter the truth is just taking the the Jake example itself Jake shields is somebody who I was a huge fan of for many many years before I ever met him Jake shields for people who don't know was a legit
like elite level UFC MMA fighter. The dude beat Dan Henderson for the Strikeforce title and went the distance with GSP. I also particularly loved his camp. He was trained with Nick Diaz and Nate Diaz and all those guys, Gilbert Melendez and them. And then when I met him like a few years ago, we hit it off and got along great. He's a really nice guy and we hung out together. Then over the last year,
He's definitely, like, been focusing a lot on Israel and Jews in general. I don't agree with everything that he said. He asked me to come back on his show last time we were out in Vegas. I was like, absolutely, brother, would love to. You know, like, I don't know. And when we talked, and as we have talked several times, he's like, yeah, I don't hate Jewish people at all. No. No, you can kind of judge. Does that mean he...
That there's 100% he doesn't know? I don't know. You could listen to him. He's got a platform, too. He can say what he wants to say. I can say what I believe. And that's that. I still...
I still will be nothing but exactly the same to Jake going forward as I have been in the past. I don't stop being friends with someone because they post a meme I don't like because that seems insane to me. Like, I don't know. Is that great? That's just fucking insane. But then people go, they'll just jump to these things. Well, can't you admit this guy's a neo-Nazi? You're like, well, I mean, what?
What do you even mean by this? Oh, he's an anti-Semite, he hates Jews. It's like, listen, a lot of times these things are not black and white. Life is not simple. I know that woke progressives like to make it into these neat little lines. The bigots are over here and the anti-bigots are over here. That's not how real life actually works. The truth is that we all have certain prejudices. We try to not let them get out of control or irrational.
Sometimes people do allow them to get irrational and out of control.
I still don't think the best response to that is like, "Denounce and disassociate and call names. You're a bigot. You're this." By the way, and just to be clear here, and I'll wrap up in a sec, I'm not at all, I'm not saying that I'm Darryl Davis or what I do is anything like that, okay? So just to be clear, preface this, that's not what I'm saying. But if you know the famous story of Darryl Davis, he was a black guy who used to go meet with clowns men
And he would collect their hoods, like they voluntarily give them up, but he would like de radicalize them essentially was the idea that convincing them not to be a bigot. And in every every single time, the way he did that was he would go just have a conversation with them, not come in calling them bigots and racists and denouncing the Ku Klux Klan. That was never how he started it. He'd come over and say, can we have a meal?
can we talk together can we hang out a little bit and then just be their friends and that's what de-radicalized them ultimately now i'm not saying that's an apples to apples comparison to what i'm doing it's nothing like that
I'm just making the point simply that if that was the goal, which that is not my goal. I'm not going on Jake Shields' podcast or I don't go on and have conversations with any of these guys like, "I'm gonna leave here with their clowns hood." That's not my goal. I'm like, I'm gonna tell the truth.
And as I see it in a compelling way, I'm going to do what I always do on these shows. I'm just making the point that even if the goal was to let's say you think Jake Shields is a Jew hater and the goal would be what to deal with that. Well, then I do think the best way to handle that would be for someone like me, who's a Jew, to just be a decent person to him.
I think that's the best way. I actually think when you're actually dealing with prejudice or people who don't like one group of people, I think the best way to handle that if you're a member of that group is like just don't be the caricature of what they accuse you of being. Show them that you're something different and then that in itself demonstrates that like, oh, you know what? There are actually lots of Jews who are just decent people who treat us with decency.
That to me seems to be a better way to deal with it. I'm sorry. I've been ranting for a while, Rob, you can get in and say whatever you want to, but I did feel like this kind of has to be addressed. Uh, I mean, I'm okay with everything that you just said, but, uh,
I, you know, I've experienced this a little bit. I really love working on jokes. That's what I'm passionate about, crafting jokes. And a lot of my jokes, you know, I have a bit of a commentary about freedom and being anti-government. And that's really important to me. And sometimes people come along with their social causes and they're all upset that my social cause, that their social cause is not top of my radar. And it's not the thing that I'm talking about or working on or more passionate about. And, uh,
Like, it's kind of like I remember Louis once did a clean set, like, on TV, and then someone got upset at him that he was a blue comic, like, when they came to his show, and he's like, that's what I do. And, like, that's my brand. That's what I'm doing. We're over here. We're talking about...
that we like freedom and that government is evil and corrupt and proliferates evil. You know, that's what we do. So we didn't get here by constantly complaining about anti-Semitism. That's not what you know what I mean. I feel like this is a game of other people with a more losing agenda because it's annoying being out in the world just yelling about anti-Semitism all the time that are, you know, just trying to force us to take on their stupidity.
Yeah. I mean, I, right. I completely agree. And I'm sorry, but like your, the thing that you do is just dumber and weaker than the thing that we do. All right. We're focused on the things that matter that are important. And the truth is that. Jake Shields is not an act. Like I'm not, I don't listen to Jake Shields show. I'm familiar with MMA. He's a cool guy. I think I shook his hand at a scanning fest. He's not an academic. The idea that he put out a meme, like sometimes just Twitter's a little bit like hanging out in high school and you post some dumb shit up in your locker. It's not, I,
I don't know. This is not proof of anti-Semitism. And I'm not that concerned that Jews are so unlikable that if anyone's tearing us down a little bit and cracking jokes or putting up an evil meme that all of a sudden people are going to start rounding me up once again. Yeah. Well, that's right. I think it's – and it does really – I mean –
I'm talking about like a one-to-one comparison, the way it mirrors like what woke college kids would be saying, like where you just go, oh, so you were just a little bit offended. And then they have to, of course, make this grand, no, this language is tied to violence and this is what leads to violence. And I just got a ton of this. No, this is another Holocaust essentially. You know, that's,
That bad memes are a Holocaust. I mean, there's a couple steps in between, but like they'll lead to them. And if you don't call this out, you won't. But I'm just saying, even if the goal was to reduce anti-Semitism, if the goal was to reduce people who don't like Jews or people who are talking about Jews in a negative way, like,
I don't know. Why has there been a rise of it over the last year? Is that connected at all to what Israel's doing and the fact that we have to fund it and the fact that you're not allowed to criticize it and the fact that all of our politicians are...
And from both parties, all of them are just constantly in a who can kiss Israel's ass more competition. Is that helping you think? Because from my perspective, I think that's pushing a lot more people toward not liking Jews too much. So I certainly don't think that this is eradicating the problem. Sorry, go ahead. I just think people are playing into stupidity if you're getting worked up over a Jake Shields meme.
If that's what you need to sit around and have serious discourse about, I don't know. You're just being sucked into a world of stupid and you're platforming things that don't need this much conversation. Look, I agree. And I also think that there's – I have seen –
an enormous amount, like I'm not trying to downplay it. Like I've seen a lot of like anti-Jewish stuff on Twitter and it's definitely gone up over the last year. There's no question about that, at least in my anecdotal experience. And I think this is true in general. But I've also seen just appalling levels of anti-Palestinian, you know, views that are really, I mean, and I'm not talking about just, you know,
memes, I'm talking about like in debates that I've been in on this topic, whereas I'm certainly, there's never, of course, because it's me, there's never been a podcast or a debate or a show or anything that I've ever done where I'm just ranting about the Jews and how the Jews don't have natural rights and you should be allowed to do whatever you want to the Jews. And like, that's never been my position. And I don't,
Look, I'm not saying no one's ever done that, but I haven't heard anybody ever make the argument that Jews do not have rights. Jews do not have rights. This group of people has forfeited all of their rights because of the way they've acted. Yet that is exactly what's been said to me in Israel-Palestine debates.
in multiple debates that exactly has been said to me that these people do not have rights and usually the argument is something about like well they voted for hamas or what you know these just ridiculous arguments um but i'm sorry you know there there also is something
Where it does seem to me to be a little bit different to spread bigotry against a group if the dynamic is that one of the groups is being slaughtered in mass and the other group is doing the slaughtering. I am a little bit more appalled by dehumanization of the people being slaughtered.
than dehumanization of the people doing the slaughter i don't think that's completely unreasonable you know like i don't think that if if you could teleport yourself back to um like
1840 and you were just like dehumanizing black people who were slaves or you were dehumanizing the slave owners, I wouldn't see that as like a one to one completely the same thing. I don't really like either of it if you're doing it based off like immutable characteristics such as race. But
I do find one to be a little bit more appalling. I don't think that makes you woke or a critical theorist. I think it just makes you like it's just common sense. But there there is something where it's like part of the asymmetry here is that these people are doing this. They are actually arguing this point to me in all of these debates. And yet then I'm still supposed to just be appalled by memes or something like that. It just doesn't exactly make sense to me. I think that.
There's a lot that's going on typically when you have the rise of this kind of dehumanization on both sides. I think none of that is good. None of it's good. I don't like it. And I do not support it. And I certainly will never be participating in that. I also do, again, I should mention this.
Again, because it's not, again, it's not like my number one priority, but I do think that they're getting it all wrong. Like, I think all of the arguments that are made against Jews rather than just against, like, say, the Jews who are involved in this or the government of Israel or something like that, I think they all become pretty weak arguments.
You know, we've briefly touched on this, I think, before, but all of the Talmud arguments, I think, are very weak from a bunch of people who have never read the thing. And if they even tried to, don't even know how to. I also think it's something that the idea that the Talmud plays a major role in most Jewish people's lives is just false. It's just not true.
There's lots of other arguments like that that I think are very weak. I think I've seen people make the argument which is identical in its weakness to the argument that somehow like the Palestinian people have forfeited their rights or something like that, where the pro-Zionist crowd will argue that, look –
an opinion poll, because they don't have an election since 2005. So the opinion poll says that the people in Gaza support Hamas, which, by the way, for the record, I'm always a little skeptical of these opinion polls that are taking place in the middle of a war, but whatever. But the people of Gaza support Hamas. And then they'll make the same argument on the other side, they'll be like, well, Jewish people by this percentage support Israel. But
I always find these arguments to just be terrible. People are easily propagandized, and that's not a comment on what separates us. It's a comment on what unites all of us. People are propagandized. I'm old enough to remember a time 20 years ago where every goddamn right-winger in this country was convinced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was in on 9/11, and if you don't believe that, you're just some type of homo.
It's what every goddamn right-winger, except for 200 of them who were great, every other right-winger in this country accepted that view. And it led to a war where hundreds of thousands of people died. But I don't know, they were propagandized into it. I'm not going to look at that and say, this is a comment on this group. I just think it's a weak argument. So anyway, I don't like any of that stuff. But, you know, now can we talk about what actually matters?
Now can we talk about what's actually going on in the world? So anyway, there it is. That's my comment. Don't like bigotry against Jews. Don't like bigotry against Palestinians. I've seen a whole lot of both of it. Only one of those groups is getting slaughtered right now, though. That's kind of the bottom line. And that's quite a bit more offensive than somebody posting a meme, is women and children getting slaughtered.
when they don't need to be. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth, a longtime sponsor of this show. I love this company. Look, nobody likes the big health insurance companies, and yet so many of us feel like we're forced into that market, that we're forced to buy one of these crappy Obamacare plans. However, there is an alternative to the broken health insurance system, and that is CrowdHealth.
CrowdHealth is a decentralized healthcare payment system that frees you from the tyranny of health insurance. You can go to whatever doctor you'd like because they have no networks. It's significantly less expensive than health insurance. First, it rips out the bureaucracy of the middleman. Some say this is upward of 40% of the costs.
Second, the people who have gathered at joincrowdhealth.com take personal responsibility over their health care, and this means they take better care of themselves. Singles are just $185 a month. A family of four is $605 a month. And right now, you can use the promo code POTP to get $99 a month per person for the next three months.
CrowdHealth is not health insurance. It's a totally different way of paying for healthcare. Terms and conditions may apply. Learn more at joincrowdhealth.com. And remember, use that promo code POTP to get it for just $99 a month per person for the next three months. Joincrowdhealth.com. All right, let's get back into the show.
I think I'm on pretty solid ground making that argument. I'm trying to think if there's like one or two other points I wanted to make in here, because I don't want to just be giving this rant again for quite a while. But yeah, no, I guess, I guess we could leave it at that. I think that there is also, you know, like what I was saying before, like it does matter who has power, you know, that is a relevant factor. Why do we have to be the condemning guy? Like,
I don't know. It's not our job. People are worried you're going to get there and condemn. It's like, am I the condemning department of the Internet? Is that was that how I got into comedy and podcasting? Is that on a weekly basis? I get out there and I give out my condemnations. And now people are like, why didn't this person make your condemning list?
You know what I mean? It's like people. How often do we get out and condemn people other than the government and Fauci? You know what I mean? I don't know. There's just something. It's like we're not the condemning department. It's not like, hey, how come my trash wasn't picked up? You're the trash department. Why is my trash picked up? I don't pick up the trash. That's not what I do. So when people are shouting at you, hey, how come you haven't condemned this person? That's not what we do.
Yeah, I mean, I do think to some degree it's that simple. But I mean, I just also think that you treat things with a level of seriousness based on what they, you know, because like, for example, Rob, if let's just say like.
I don't know, like CNN, you know, imagine back in the day when CNN still existed, but like CNN and the White House and a third of Congress had all been taken over by people who hated Jews and were talking about what we ought to do to them.
Me and you would probably start being in the condemning that business. You know what I mean? Like we would start going like, hey, this is really disturbing. And what's the difference there? Well, the difference is power. And of course, power matters in these things. In the same way that like if there was just if there was some like schizophrenic guy who's in prison.
just like a poor, you know, completely powerless, imprisoned person. He's in there for like armed robbery and he's doing 10 years. And he said in jail, he goes, I want to kill the president, you know? Okay. But then like, if the leader of like JSOC,
said like i want to kill the president and also had like the white house scoped out and had men around them or something you're going to take that a lot more seriously that's like whoa there's somebody with actual capabilities and actual you know what i mean like whatever i don't know what just an example in my head but there's um
There is something different about being like, okay, there are memes and people talking shit on the internet, but nobody with any real power is even allowed to go near these opinions lest they lose all of that power.
Yeah, it just doesn't have as much importance to me. And that's kind of how I feel. I don't think it's that crazy to go like, you know, and again, one of the things that's frustrating about this is that especially the kind of conservatism inc Zionist crowd, they would completely agree with me on this point if we were talking about any other group. You know, if there was like some a black kid
at an Ivy League school and they were complaining about how like, you know, some, I don't know, some member of the Klan said something racist, any black conservative or any conservative, I should say, would immediately be like, yeah, but you're at an Ivy League school. You're about to go take on the world. That's some backward redneck in their mother's trailer. Who cares?
Why do you care what they say? You know what I mean? And like the idea that people, you know, if you think about the level of support, let's say, I was going to say influence, but forget that because that might even be like a triggering term to some of these guys. Let's say the level of support that Israel gets from the U.S. government, but then you're complaining that people in the United States of America say mean things about Jews. Like,
Okay, but like you've won this game. You have the power. They have none. And so what is my role to be, when I completely oppose that dynamic, I oppose the US supporting Israel, I oppose what Israel is doing to Palestine, doesn't it seem kind of like a convenient game
that you're gonna say that my role now is to go and denounce all of the people who oppose that, who aren't sensitive enough about their opposition toward that, that that is what I have to go do, is talk about this. Meanwhile, there is...
I mean, I don't know how to even measure these things. I was going to say just as much, but I think there's more, but I guess I don't even know how to measure these things. But there's also a tremendous amount of the same type of dehumanizing rhetoric toward the Palestinians when...
You know what I'm saying? The people who are actually being fucked over right now and the people who I debate with are actually presenting these arguments to me. Like, you may not think of them in terms of, like, racism or bigotry, but again, imagine that, like, the argument I was making in a debate or something like that was that Jewish people had lost all of their rights.
that you have every right to just go slaughter innocent Jewish people. Imagine somebody was actually making that argument. By the way, I have not heard that argument made by...
by anyone. Now I'm not saying nobody has made it, but I'm saying even of the people who are labeled vicious anti-Semites, I've never seen any of them make the argument that regular Jewish people, by their support of Israel being in too high numbers, have now lost all natural rights. But that is precisely the argument that Mark Pellegrino made to me in our last debate. It's precisely the argument that Laura Loomer made to me when we debated.
Literally, they are saying that. They are saying they've lost their rights. Laura Loomer's argument was that essentially that because they haven't overthrown the status quo, which is Hamas, therefore they've lost their rights.
Because the obligation is on them to overthrow that status quo. Of course, my immediate response was, well, why do we get to impose these standards on them when we would never dream of imposing them on ourselves? Think about what George W. Bush and Barack Obama did. We didn't overthrow the status quo, did we? We just accepted that. In fact, we reelected both of them. By the way, a lot of these countries or countries
whatever you want to call them, territories. Gaza, they had an election in 2005. They never got a chance, a choice to reelect Hamas or to continue Hamas. They had one election in 2005 where Hamas took a plurality. Okay. Um, the,
But anyway, so by her own logic, we'd be more responsible than they are. But anyway, that was her. And then Mark Pellegrino's argument was that because Hamas is not a rights-respecting organization, therefore none of the people under their control have rights. So I'm just saying, like, if you want to talk about prejudice or bigotry or dehumanizing rhetoric, that seems pretty up there to me. So...
You know, sorry, that's just how I feel. I don't like any of that stuff. You're not going to catch me doing any of that stuff. Now can we get back to talking about what actually matters? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. We're in crunch time now.
A new administration will be sworn in soon, but many people are worried about the next month that we still have to wait for that. And it does seem like there's a lot of craziness around the world. And I know there's a lot of people out there who are like me, who always want to be prepared in a crazy world. That's why I have emergency food supplies from MyPatriotSupply. And right now they're offering $100 off their three-month emergency food kit.
It's got 2,000 calories per day for three whole months. Plenty to get you through even a prolonged emergency. And all of their food kits last for up to 25 years in storage. Plus, they come in rugged weatherproof buckets.
Go to my website, preparewithsmith.com right now to order your three-month emergency food kit. I keep emergency food kits in my home because my family's safety and security is the most important thing to me. It should be to you too. Go to my website, preparewithsmith.com to order your three-month emergency food kit now. Thanks to my Patriot supply. Let's get back into the show. Speaking of what actually matters.
And maybe this is a lot more important than somebody posting a meme that they don't like. I swear to God, Rob, I saw a clip of this on Twitter. You sent me this video this morning. So I don't remember exactly what time, but sometime this morning you sent me this video, which is a, was it from 60 Minutes, I want to say? Yeah, it's pretty wild. 60 Minutes. Now, I saw a clip of this on Twitter, right?
And I swear to God, this was like right when I woke up this morning. It's like 6.30, around then. I'd had a cup of coffee, I think. I was on the toilet. And I saw this on Twitter. And I just thought it was made up.
I just saw it and I went, "Oh, that's hilarious. They edited a video together where it's the 60 Minutes lady and she's interviewing a Mossad agent and the Mossad agent is all in dark going, 'Yes, we control the galaxy.' And then, 'We are the dark force that rules everything.' And I went, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha. What a funny joke that somebody on the internet made." Turns out it's not a funny joke, Rob.
I swear to God it was five minutes later I went to open my emails and I saw Rob sent over as typically you do hey here's some topic ideas and I looked at that and I went wait a minute this is a real thing this actually just happened I mean this is a while we're having this conversation about memes let's play a clip from 60 minutes and see if any of this seems a little bit more important than a meme yes so Israel sold this device
To Hezbollah. Hezbollah paid for this weapon that was to be used against them. They got a good price. A good price that couldn't be too low or they'd be suspicious.
In the end, Hezbollah bought over 16,000 of these exploding walkie-talkies that Israel then didn't activate for 10 years until three months ago. How did you convince Hezbollah to buy this? Well, obviously, they didn't know that they were buying it from Israel. Who did they buy it from or think they were buying it from? We have an incredible array of possibilities of creating foreign companies.
that have no way being traced back to Israel. Shell companies over shell companies who affect the supply chain to our favor. We create a pretend world. We are a global production company. We write the screenplay. We're the directors. We're the producers. We're the main actors. The world is our stage. This is Mossad's old... All right, let's pause it there and discuss...
And I think you could kind of see why this was like the perfect segue from what I've just been talking about. All I'm saying is this, Rob, is that if there is really the concern of the rise of a rise in anti-Semitism.
Isn't it interesting because I can't tell you how many people just came at me in the most bad faith way over the last couple days over this Jake Shields meme on Twitter, which is as I say it out loud, it's just so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous that a guy you know said something we disagree with. I'm like, okay, well, he's right here. So go talk to him. Like what? But
As people are making these arguments, and the argument is something like, "Oh, I'm normalizing anti-Semitism because I'll be friendly with these guys or even friends with some of these guys. Therefore, I'm contributing to this problem," or something like that. And you're like, "Maybe it's me." Obviously, when we're talking about me, I'm biased. I have a dog in this fight. It seems to me that this clip would be much more encouraging of the rise of anti-Semitism.
You know what I'm saying, Rob? Like, wouldn't this is like actual what I am to, I would think, I mean, to
I'm a guy who, like most people, even if they don't like Jews very much or are very critical of Israel, I'm kind of at least being an example to them where, like, I treat them with decency. I try my best at least to, like, take on the merits of their arguments and grant when they have some legitimate grievances. Yeah.
And then to be an example of just being like, hey, you know, you can oppose this war and oppose it pretty passionately and come from, I would argue, a pretty educated, informed place on it and go win debates pretty dominantly against people against it and oppose all of that while being Jewish and treating people decently and not, you know, whatever.
and then you have someone else here who's going muhahaha musad controls the world the jews run everything and you are our puppets and somehow that you don't think that's gonna lead to a rise in people maybe being suspicious of jews anyway of course and i'm curious to get your comments on this but
Of course, they're having this interview to kind of brag about the attack on Hezbollah, the beeper cell phone attacks. And yet, of course, as is always the case with the war party, whether it's Israeli or American,
They always just have so much hubris that they can't help but give away kind of like what villains they really are. But anyway, any thoughts on any of this, Rob? Please weigh in. Well, exactly as you said, I mean, for all the people in the world who like to think that we're the shadow creatures behind the scenes running the world in the Puppet Masters, having a guy dressed like – I mean, even the ISIS terrorist guys don't usually wear masks, but –
Usually when you don't want to even be on the news with your face like the drug dealers when they do the segments from like South America and then they overdub the voices, they don't get in trouble to be standing there going, we are the directors. Not a great look. I don't know who thought that this would make Israel look better, but this didn't seem like a wise PR choice.
Yeah, I mean, there is an infuriating thing that many of the people at the top of the Israeli leadership, and I mean all the way up to Benjamin Netanyahu himself, but this is also something that lots of just Israeli supporters do, where they try to simultaneously, it's like the whole back
and the whole narrative that they rely on in order to kind of draw support and in order to twist your emotions and in order to kind of silence dissent, the narrative that they rely on is like, listen, we are this weak group of people
The greatest victims. Yeah. The greatest victims of the 20th century. You know, these are the people who went through the Holocaust were nearly exterminated. We now have this tiny little dot in a sea of hostile Arab and, and Muslim, uh, neighbors were a little country, the size of New Jersey in this broad Muslim world. And they would all tear us to parts if they could, you know, like there's this constant, um,
like over dramatization of the precarious position that Israeli Jews find themselves in. And that's why you must be sympathetic for them. That's why you must be on guard against people who hate Jews and stuff like that.
They say that and then on the flip side, they'll turn around and brag about how they actually run the whole world. And there's a plethora of options available to us on how to manipulate everyone. And Benjamin Netanyahu will brag about how Israel can touch anywhere in the Middle East. And the ever, I forget how he said it, like the ever-present eye of Israel is always on you. And it's kind of like, hey, which one is it here, guys?
Are you like, are you America's fat welfare mom who needs us to fund and arm every one of your conflicts? Are you the victim on the precipice of total annihilation? Or are you the dominant powerful ones who will impose your will on everybody else? Because it's pretty tough to be both of those things at the same time. You kind of have to pick. It's just like this shit is out of a cartoon.
And like to sit here and be bragging about how you, this is how you, you know, you tricked Hezbollah and they bought these weapons 10 years ago, not thinking there was anything to them. And you were able to sit on it and you have all these shell companies that can't be traced back to Israel. And this is how you like control other. And then to sit in a dynamic where every single one of our politicians has to go cry at the wailing wall.
You know, and you do like this is what leads to people going like, huh? All right. It seems like you might be using some of your massage tricks on us as well. The other thing that I hated about this, this reporting is, you know, if Israel pulled off a targeted strike and managed to just take out just terrors and they pulled some sneaky Bugs Bunny tricks, I go, wow, that's pretty cool. You guys figured out how to not kill civilians.
It is still unclear to me how many civilians were actually killed in this attack. And even at the beginning of this, they just say, I think 11,000 people were killed or injured or this, that, but they don't differentiate. How do you possibly start off a piece addressing a targeted strike that they did without addressing if there were or were not civilian casualties and how many civilian casualties were a part of it?
I mean, just if you're not the Israel propaganda department, so if you're inviting them on to kind of explore their targeted attack and how slick they are and that all the terrorists should be on notice because you're so slick, don't you need to give me a breakdown up front of exactly what actually took place and not just glance over the crucial piece of information and just go, well, this incident took place and this amount of people were killed without telling me how many of them were civilians? Yeah.
Like, I'm just saying, how do you start a piece about this topic without the most critical, just basic information to evaluate what transpired? Well, as Ayn Rand might tell you, you need to check your premises because you're starting with the premise that they're not the Israeli propaganda department, which might be incorrect. You know, the other problem that, the other issue that you have is,
From a PR standpoint, and I mean, don't get me wrong, I think this is a legitimate issue, but just from a PR standpoint, you have a real problem where, like, let's even just say for the sake of argument that civilian casualties were very low in these beeper cell phone attacks against these Hezbollah guys.
the, the problem that you have from a PR standpoint for Israel is that then it just creates this immediate contrast between the way you're fighting the war in Gaza versus the way you're fighting the war in Lebanon. And they went like, wait a minute, this is at your disposal. You're telling me you have the option to do targeted assassinations, to do, um,
intelligence operations and not just treat this as a military problem and not just send in your army? Oh, okay.
Well, then why aren't you doing that? Why didn't you prepare something like this for Gaza? I mean, it's not as if Gaza has been an issue for only a few years. You know, they said, oh, it was 10 years since they sold these things to Hamas. Who knows if that to Hezbollah, rather. Who knows if that's true or not. But if that's the case, why weren't you working on something like this in the Gaza Strip? So you didn't have to just slaughter, you know, the...
innocent people by the, I mean, I don't even know exactly what the numbers are at this point. I've seen people argue that it's way, way higher than the estimates are. I'm not sure whether that's right or not, but certainly the amount of carnage has been substantial.
So why not fight them like that all the time? It's very hard for you to brag that like, oh, right here on the north, we can do these targeted assassination campaigns and have very little civilian casualties. But right here on the south, and by the way, again, we're talking about the north and south of New Jersey. You know what I mean? Like not like some gigantic country. So a few miles over down here, we just have to slaughter women and children. There's no other options. That's a tough sell.
uh the other thing that i thought was cartoonish about this piece is uh firstly and this is part of the problem uh with the internet is that you go to even the news organizations websites to watch the video and they're always slow to load with more ads so then you just end up going to youtube and you're like this was so much easier why can't every other website just get their together so we don't all all have to be on youtube and contribute to what that landscape is but
With that said, when I went to the CBS website, so of course the segment starts off with an ad from Pfizer. It's a segment brought to you by Pfizer. And if you're you and I and you know what we know about the news and the media, it's just funny to watch Israel propaganda, mainstream media brought to you by Pfizer.
Yeah, it's a goddamn joke. The whole thing is so it's so just like out of a cartoon. But I think, you know, I guess in closing with all of this, it's I think that I am I'm
at least to the best of my abilities, I think I'm being consistent with how I view these type of issues across the board. Like one of the things, and I will confess this, and I don't know how you feel about this, Rob, but there definitely is something when like, you know, when people online, let's say like the anti-Semitism, again, a word I just hate, but when people online are expressing, say like, uh,
a dislike of Jews. It's a little bit of a weird feeling when you're Jewish to like hear that stuff. It's a little bit weird and you're kind of like, ah, hey guys, it's like talking about me and my family and friends. And you know, the truth is that
I do have a little bit of that feeling, like a little bit of it, but I also have another, like, then I also go like, well, hey, I have to be fair and I have to be consistent. And I can't, if I have a different feeling than I would view anyone else about their group. I can't just like do what these other guys do where you have this entire worldview, but then there's an exception for when it's your group. And then you have to totally have a different, you know what I mean? Like, I don't like that. That type of hypocrisy is terrible to me.
And so there, you know, there, there, I do have that feeling. It's just impossible to not look at it and go, oh, look, I got to treat this the same way I would treat anybody else. If anybody else, let's say it had nothing, it was a black dude, but he's exactly in my situation. And his complaint was, hey, there's these people online who aren't being very nice to black people. And I'd go like, yeah, but look at you. You're doing great.
It's like, what? I don't know. This has nothing to do with you. This isn't impeding your progress at all. The truth is that probably not in the top five reasons, but one of the reasons down there on the list, maybe in top 10 or top 15 reasons that this shit drives me fucking crazy is
is that I do feel like they're totally like throwing my group of people under the bus. You know, it's amazing that... So I got like a few people because I was arguing with, you know, a lot of these like pro-Israel types over the last few days on Twitter. And I had several of them, including one young reporter...
who would have been a good fit for the old media model. But he basically said to me, and I never even posted this, I thought about tweeting it and then I just, I was like, forget it, I'm not engaging anymore.
But he said to me, he goes, "Dave, the only reason why you're even known is because you're the token Jew who will go on these shows. And so you'll take some heat off the hosts." So they're like, "Look, we don't hate Jews. We got a token Jew right here for you." And I remember immediately I thought, I go, "You know, I've only heard that criticism from two groups of people. There are two groups of people who have made that ridiculous retarded argument to me. And it is Zionists,
And Gripers. Those are the two people who go, we'll reduce everything you are just to the fact that you're Jewish. And isn't that interesting in a way that you guys share the same worldview here? Because obviously it does. Look, even if you could make the argument, it would only apply to Candace Owens. There is nobody else who you could even make. Candace Owens was the only one who was real hardcore against Gripers.
the against Israel and then brought me on where we were going to talk about Israel. Now, I would argue I don't think that's why she did it. I think maybe she just liked the stuff that I had to say and we had a good conversation and we became friends and we got along. That seems more likely to me. But she is the only one you could even plausibly make that argument about.
Rogan, I requested to come on and talk about Israel both times that we did podcasts about Israel. Like, he requested me to come on after the election, and he requested me to come on to talk about COVID vaccine passports and COVID lockdowns and shit, but I was the one who asked him if I could go talk about this shit, because I wanted to, like, set the record straight.
Tucker never even wanted to talk about Israel. I just kept bringing it up. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's just not, but anyway, these two groups, both because they, and this is what I'm talking about. It's this, I think this collectivism puts blinders on a lot of times and you don't get things right. It makes you sloppy in your work. And then if you're after the truth, that's the truth is that I think that
That Israel and the neoconservatives cynically use Jewish identity and weaponize it so that they can get into this game. So that they can claim you're anti-Semitic, you hate Jews if you don't support what Israel's doing. And I think embracing that is wrong. I do not have even...
an ounce of contempt for Jewish people. I actually have not, and this isn't something I talk about all the time because I don't think it's that relevant to politics or to this show or to the issues I really care about, but I have no limit of just like positive
positive feelings about Jewish culture and Jewish people. I've met amazing Jews my entire life. I think it's played a role in shaping who I am as a person. I love Jewish humor. I love
I love Jewish people's love of logic. I like their values around family. Like there's a lot of things that I think I've gotten that are somewhat influenced by Jewish culture. And I just, I don't know. I have nothing negative. That being said, to me, that has nothing to do with Mossad doing influence operations all around the world or the Israel war cabinet slaughtering Palestinian women and children. I hate that shit.
But that has nothing to do with, like, in the same sense, again, by the way, and I'll just end on this, I'm sorry. But the fact that I think sometimes individualism can get caricatured, can get straw manned. And I'm not making the argument that people are...
atomized individuals who have no connection to community or people or culture or religion or race or anything like that. If you do believe in individualism, you obviously also believe in groups because that's what individuals do. They come together and form groups.
The point is that it's a unit of analysis. Like if you read Ludwig von Mises, that's what you understand about individualism. It's a unit of analysis. It's the way, because individuals act and individuals suffer and individuals, you know, think like this is the way human beings work. And the point is that it's not to say that race, like if I were to say race means nothing,
Well, that would be kind of silly, right? Because you're like, well, obviously race is a thing. There's a genetic reality to race. There's also culture and traditions and identity and all of these things that come together. However, if I were to talk about, let's say, let's say you got like a black dentist who lives in New Jersey, who's my neighbor.
And then you have a black gangbanger in the south side of Chicago who just stabbed an old lady. Do you see where me, if I even tried to place some of the blame on my black dentist neighbor, that that's just insane?
I'd be like, "Well, this is, black people did this. Black culture did this." It'd be like, no, he could love a million different things about black culture and then still go, "Yeah, but that guy's an animal. Fuck him. I hope he gets arrested and does a long prison sentence." That to me is the fundamental distinction.
That it's like one does not have to be a comment on the other. And you could argue in some way, well, there is this corner of black culture that somehow produced this kid who stabbed a grandma. OK, fair enough. But that doesn't mean that you therefore have to slam like everything about black culture that my black dentist neighbor might like. I think that's just a fairly reasonable like.
Something an eighth grader should be able to like this might it might be a little advanced for fifth grade But by eighth grade for sure, I think you should get that. Okay. Anyway, any anything you want to add to the end there Rob or will? Not gonna go clean up this Airbnb It's that horrible thing that they charge you the cleaning fee and then give you instructions to repaint the entire house before you leave it if
It is enough that I never stay at Airbnb is because of that. I literally, it drives me crazy. Yeah. It's enough that I'll pay more and just stay at a hotel. Yeah. It's one or the other. Give me a cleaning fee or if not, I don't know why I got to strip the beds, take out the garbage, rake the leaves. Like I don't own the house. Yes. I will pay a hundred dollars more just to stay at a hotel where it is clear that I am going to drop a towel in the middle of the floor and someone else will figure that out. Well, I had to be in the bathrooms all the way over there.
all right later buddy later buddy thanks everyone for watching catch you next time peace