"Don't Let It Go" Season Premiere, March 11, 2020
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Hello, you guys. It looks like I am streaming live. Amy Peekoff here. You are watching the season premiere of Don't Let It Go. So I'm rebooting my flagship show. If you are over here watching me on YouTube live right now, you see that my channel is called Don't Let It Go. And it's because originally, years and years ago, I started a blog called

called Don't Let It Go, and it's at don'tletitgo.com. I was lucky enough to grab that URL. What we'll talk about today is why I chose that name in the first place, because it's going to be relevant to our reboot. And at the same time, I'm going to try to do a little bit of application of the overall theme of this show to something that's on everyone's minds, which is the coronavirus

situation. So that is coming. I welcome all of you who are just starting to join me over here at YouTube. Feel free to say hi in the chat.

At some point, I'm going to try to figure out how to stream live on Facebook, say simultaneously and things like that. But as of now, the tech that I can handle is getting live up on YouTube and streaming live there, as well as afterwards, I will be downloading these and making them available for audio only podcasts.

You notice if you are already accustomed to watching me and James Valiant on Fridays with none of the above, that I'm not wearing my headphones right now. And it's because why I don't have anybody that I'm going to be...

listening to. I don't have to hear you guys. I do want you guys to participate in the chat over here on YouTube if you can. So yeah, do say hi and come in and click like if you're watching. I urge you to subscribe if you aren't subscribing yet. I do plan on having this on at regular times. My flagship show, Don't Let It Go, weekly.

It's going to be on Wednesdays, 2 p.m. Eastern Time, 11 a.m. Pacific Time. And that's going to be in addition to continuing to do that fun show with James called None of the Above on Fridays. Again, the same time, 2 p.m. Pacific, 11 a.m. I mean, excuse me, 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific. Can you tell I'm a Pacific-centric person?

woman that I'm saying Pacific first. Yeah, I know everybody says Eastern as the default. So yeah, 2pm Eastern, 11am Pacific, Wednesdays, just me Fridays with James as well. I would commit to more than that. I mean, I would love to kind of come with you guys every day. But there's a few things going on. There are a number of valuable podcasts out there that you can spend your time listening to. So in a certain way, I think we'll

Who am I to think I want to just, you know, bombard into your life and take a whole bunch of your time so much days out of the week. You have limited time and I don't want to take more of it than is warranted. And at the same time, I have other things that I need to be getting onto as well. So whereas I really missed doing this show in particular, I want to write and do other things as well. So I'm trying to be careful not to overcommit. So

One day with me, one day with James, and then otherwise writing and stuff. You will see me, I think, on the reboot. I envision doing more interviews, and I've got some requests that are already out there. I've got one where the recipient to the request says, yes, yes, I'll do it, but can't do it right now. It's going to be sometime in May. But in general, I'm going to be trying to also do more interviews and

And those interviews will be guided by me and all the various rabbit trails that I explore based on my values as we go along. I will be sharing all of those things with you. Anything that I feel has helped me in the kind of quest that I'm going to describe to you in a second is something that I'm going to want to go ahead and share with you as well.

So with that said, what I should do is really launch into this. What does she mean by don't let it go? What is don't let it go? People who haven't followed me for a long time maybe don't understand what I'm talking about. The it, and this is the question that I get from really astute interviewers. When I say don't let it go, what is the it? And the it is...

It's determined by the name actually that inspired me. I am being inspired by an essay that was written by Ayn Rand back in 1971, and it is called Don't Let It Go. And it's in the book Philosophy Who Needs It. I will put links to everything that I talk about today in program notes for the show at DontLetItGo.com.

later. So you don't have to worry about taking it down now. You can get that later, but just subscribe at the blog. DontLetItGo.com is where you want to keep up with me as well as here on the YouTube channel. But yes, this essay, I'm bringing it up on my iPad now called Don't Let It Go. It is

refers to something that Ayn Rand called the American sense of life. She called it the uniquely American sense of life. And one thing we can talk about on this show is how unique the sense of life that she describes, which I believe is a good one,

How much does it uniquely apply to America or can we say that there are other places in the world say Hong Kong. I've been very impressed with of late that the people who live there, maybe also partake in this sense of life. So the it is the American sense of life. What is a sense of life. What is a sense of life and

Rand has a long paragraph in the beginning of the essay talking about what a sense of life is. I'm usually not, and I'm not going to be on this show, a chapter and verse quoting person. It happens to be that I learned a whole lot from Ayn Rand, and I consider myself an objectivist, and this essay in particular is something that inspired me enough to start a blog named after it, Don't Let It Go.

But I'm not going to be a chapter and a verse quoting person. Typically, I will be looking at the essay today because I want to recall some of the themes in the essay, what she would call the components of the American sense of life so that we can talk about them and apply them. But typically, like I said, I'm not a chapter and verse quoting type of person. I don't consider myself a scholar per se. I consider myself someone who's very much an analytical thinker and someone who pursues values and

Following the rabbit trail wherever it leads and I've got many examples and I'll tell you all the boring stories probably, you know, repeatedly I'll tell you the boring stories. I don't think they're boring. Why do I say that I've got things to learn still from one of the people who's been helping me out lately.

I think they're good stories, but you may hear them a few times about the various value pursuits and the rabbit trails that I've pursued along the course of my life. I will share it with you. Rand is definitely one of those. And

In this essay in particular, I think there's a lot of value. There is a lot about this essay that describes the state of the world that we're in and kind of what's at stake for us, those of us who want to fight for freedom and the ability to live freely and happily as individuals on this planet.

So that's why I'm here. And it is this, what she calls the American sense of life that I think is something that's been crucial in preserving the

freedom for us and everybody else who loves it around the globe so far. And then the question is, how do we continue this going forward in the face of various threats to it? And that's one of the big concerns of this show. So what is a sense of life? A sense of life, according to Rand, and I'm going to keep it very brief here, is a subconsciously integrated appraisal

of man and existence, a subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and existence. So what's meant by that is subconscious. It's not made conscious. It's not made explicit.

It's an appraisal, it's an evaluation, and it's an evaluation both of human beings. Are we fundamentally good? Are we fundamentally evil? Should we have some guilt associated with us just by the fact that we exist? Or are we good? Are we worthy of happiness? Are we deserving of good things? So appraisal of man, and then she says, and also of existence.

the world out there? Is it a horrible, scary place where disasters are ready to befall you at any moment? Or is it generally what Rand would call a benevolent universe such that, yes, there are dangers, but we happen also to be born equipped with a lot of resources at our disposal

whereby we can deal with all of the challenges and the risks and the things out there? Is it a benevolent universe? Not in the sense that there is a mystical power in the universe who's looking out for you, but in the sense that there is cause and effect and that we are beings with a nature that makes us capable of doing a hell of a lot

to deal with all the risks and the scary things that are out there. And so you could add to that phrase, you know, integrated appraisal of man and existence. It's an appraisal of human beings separately, human beings, excuse me, the existence separately. And then

man's relation to the universe. It's funny, I miss speaking a lot here at the beginning. I'm kind of nervous because I'm restarting this flagship show of mine and I'm excited about it and I really want it to go well. So if I miss speaking here in the early part of it, then you can see I'm just, I've got the little bit of the season premiere jitters going on. So

Yes, that's what a sense of life is. And what I want to talk about is I want to recall for many of you, the themes in the essay, the various components of this sense of life is

And in the essay, she contrasts it with what she calls a European sense of life. But just as I sort of wonder since the 70s and things have gotten a bit more global, have things changed to an extent that you can't say, okay, the sense of life that she describes is only uniquely American. Maybe it was originally American, but important components of it have spread, as I said, to places like Hong Kong around the world. And we can cheer it wherever it exists.

Similarly, there are places in Europe that share, you know, significant components so to say okay well it's America versus the European sense of life, maybe that you know it's in certain pockets of Europe, and it's in America, where a lot of this sense of life this subconscious philosophy and attitude.

where it originated and you could contrast it then more clearly. But today let's just sort of look at the positive and

And I'm really just going to highlight what is this positive attitude? What does she think? What work does she think that this is doing? And let's think about to what extent it's alive and well today, looking at the example of the response to coronavirus, for example. And what are we going to see going forward in that? Someone in the chat over at YouTube says jitters you. Yeah, of course. I mean,

I think every performer has a little bit of jitters every time that they do something live, performing in front of people, a little bit. And then the question is how much? So for example, I went on Tucker and the very first time I was more nervous, but each time I was a little bit nervous when I went on Tucker several times. If I get back on Tucker, I haven't been on for over a year, I'll be jittery again.

It doesn't always show, but sometimes I can see that it comes out in terms of misspeaking and things like that. And I, you know, I can sense, okay, just, it's okay. I can, I can calm down and, and just enjoy the ride, so to speak. So sometimes naming it helps. And that was what I was hoping as well. So thank you for joining me here.

Jennifer in the chat over here says Great Britain shares it. You mean Great Britain shares American sense of life. Ken says don't say the sense of life comes from the Constitution. No, it does not come from the Constitution. It doesn't even come from memorizing an explicit philosophy. I mean, this is something that I've learned a bit this week as well. And it just kind of reminds, you know, I get reminded of it every so often.

There are people who will be able to spout explicit doctrine from objectivism, and they do not have the American sense of life in a lot of the various ways that I'm describing it. And the example that comes to mind this week, and it's also relevant to something that you can decide whether this show is for you or not. On Sunday, it was International Women's Day.

And I am not a leftist feminist man hating blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I do question whether there is a role for some sort of feminism in the world today. And I was reminded of it, ironically, on Sunday, when a female friend of mine on Facebook had posted about really horrific experiences that she had had, um,

because of the way that two objectivist men had treated her. And I don't think it's unique. So, you know, people who spout a particular good explicit philosophy are not immune to

not really having the sense of life behind it and treating their fellow human beings, namely women, horrible. And there is, you know, I think still work to do along those lines. So, you know, one of the things that I will talk about is, you know, is there a role for feminism today? And

And if so, how would we describe the type of feminism for which there is a role? Because I don't believe, for example, that every female or anybody should decide that they have to vote for Elizabeth Warren because she's a female. And maybe it would be nice to agree that sometimes a woman is the most qualified for the job as well. I don't have anything against a female president, either.

you know, at any point, as long as it's somebody who's good. I certainly wouldn't vote for Elizabeth Warren. I wouldn't and did not vote for Hillary Clinton or anything else. So, you know, that's just an example. The Constitution is a political document. Surely it's not enough to ensure an American sense of life. And

You know, even an explicit philosophy is not enough. And this is something that brings up a theme for me we haven't gone through the various.

components of an American sense of life. But part of the reason I think I was attracted to Don't Let It Go is because I see myself personally as having had a struggle with some of the elements here. And I think that the philosophy, discovering the philosophy and being involved in the philosophy kind of brought me along. And people talk about objectivism saving their life.

A philosophy can't save your life. You can save your life using philosophy as a tool, being exposed to it and then deciding that you agree with it and trying to do your best you can to live by it accordingly can really help your life, certainly.

But even a full philosophy is not enough. There's psychology and there's other things at play. And I think that the other things at play are the things that have been part of my personal struggle. You might say you quibble with Rand here or there, but in Fundamental Ideas, I agree with her. But I think that there is a lot of work to do with respect to application.

to, again, you know, the nature of man, the nature of the universe and the nature of man's relation to the universe, things that I'm discovering oftentimes the hard way as life goes on. So don't let it go. Why is it a personal appeal to me? It's because I think I have struggled with

maintaining certain components of this American sense of life. Some of it could be because of what I've been exposed to through progressive education and the culture. My upbringing was not a big help. And there's, you know, lots of things that we could talk to about causes, but whatever it is, it's been kind of my personal struggle. I think it's a valuable, um,

set of attitudes to look at and kind of take the temperature of to see what the fate of our nation and of freedom as such is.

So I've got it kind of both on a personal and a political level. The themes in this essay are very appealing to me. I hope they're appealing to you as well. And this is really the reason that I started the blog and everything else. And so we will, like I said, go through some of this today. I'm not going to quote huge passages, but I will quote, you know, a bit here and there, and we will talk about it. And then you can see what I'm talking about and

know that we're going to every so often sort of revisit as we carry it forward. I like to come back to this essay every so often. So again, sense of life, it is subconscious. It is integrated within you such that what happens with this subconscious philosophy that you have

is it results in certain attitudes, evaluations about people and various characteristics of people and about the world and various things in the world. Young Spice over here in the chat at YouTube, welcome. I haven't seen you before, so thank you for joining. Did the suffragists label themselves as feminists?

I would say some of the, I don't know if they labeled themselves as it. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I don't know if they did, but certainly it was a female centric movement. There was, I mean, this is really the question and I actually want to

interview my favorite feminist, you know, she calls herself a feminist. My favorite feminist really is Haley Mary, who's the lead singer of the Jezebels. And this is where I'd love to get philosophical with her about really, you know, kind of what is feminism properly and what its role is today, because clearly,

Women today generally have their rights respected. And yet, in some ways, and we could say at least on a cultural level and in some places on a political level, there is a lot of work to do. Jose in the chat says, thank God for spiral theory and I sigh because, oh yeah, definitely.

Yes, we just come back and revisit and revisit and get more out of this stuff as I did when I revisited the essay for today's show.

So what a sense of life says, Ken, again, a sense of life is this subconsciously integrated appraisal of human beings and existence. And so then you could say, you know, translate it to a personal level, a subconscious appraisal of yourself and your role and your place in the world and your deservingness of happiness and things like that. She thinks, or she thought in the seventies that Americans uniquely had several of these components of

routinely kind of at you know you could say generally of americans that they did and then the question was you know was that enough really to save freedom in our country and she was saying no you have to make the philosophy explicit as well and so i you know i guess maybe part of the the thing that i've discovered is you know she says oh well you know we have this implicitly right um

And we need to make it explicit if we're going to save freedom, if we're going to save the world. And what you then come back to is you can have an explicit philosophy, but then you can't

you know, get rid of that subconscious appraisal, you have to try to do what you can to also have it subconsciously integrated so that you're not at odds with yourself. And of course, a country's culture has to not be at odds with itself either. And those are the sorts of things that we will discuss.

Yeah, so Jose says art and sex are the areas where it's best expressed in my mind immediately went to this okay so I'll show you where I have my struggles I'm giving you an example of a struggle that I have to a certain extent, as soon as you bring up art and I'm not going to talk about sex, don't worry.

uh no I'm going to talk about art right so um music talk about the Jezebels and I tell you okay Hayley Mary's one of my favorites and stuff the Jezebels have a bit of a melancholy tone to it you know a lot of the stuff that I like in music is what I would call struggling optimist music and so the question is you know how much does the sense of life really you know and then

It's funny because I have just been through like a long period of struggle and one of the reasons I'm here today is because I feel like I'm coming out of it in a very significant way. Thanks to a lot of people to whom I'm going to express a lot of gratitude. I hope later today I've got this whole post in mind, but in any event, coming out of this struggle during kind of the worst of this struggle, a health crisis really, and I

I couldn't even listen to a lot of the music that I would find energizing and fun before. I just wouldn't listen. And then the fact that I was able to then again, listen to these songs and sing along with them. So you can get a sense of where you are from your ability to appreciate the art and the music and everything else that you had before.

Jose says yeah music is the hardest of the arts to pinpoint. Yes, perhaps and so I have had objectivists over the years lecture me about my taste in music, and how you know and I do I appreciate good classical music as well, but I wasn't brought up with it. And so it's something that I have sort of acclimated myself to over time, there's other things I wasn't brought up with that I'm learning to appreciate now so there's always hope right.

And I'm doing a lot of things to generate that neuroplasticity and everything. So we'll see. Jose says literature is a lot easier and yet some objectivists love Tolstoy. And, you know, is there also, you know, Leonard Peikoff has that lecture that came to mind, which is that I believe he calls it something like the survival value of great but malevolent art.

And so what is the survival value of this stuff? And there are, there is a value to some of this stuff. And then the question is, what do you steep yourself in all the time? And can you appreciate a range of these things? So that's really the sorts of questions that we'll look at. But anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. So sense of life.

Right. And I think that both the implicit components and the explicit philosophy are going to be necessary. And I, you know, I'm hoping you're going to agree with me, but we'll see as we go along. So let me see if I'm missing anything here in my notes. Yes. One thing that she points out is the sense of life that you have can clash with

So you can have a sense of life that clashes with your explicit convictions. And as I said, I think those objectivist guys that were treating my female friend badly are a case of that you were, you know, supposedly they have this philosophy that says you should have motivation by love, not fear that you should treat every human being, uh, with respect, the respect of a rational human being. And this would include women, et cetera. Um,

But

for whatever reason, they have some sort of implicit philosophy about them that seems full of anger and malevolence and disrespect for the fellow human beings. And that just doesn't seem to me to be part of the objectivist sense of life. So there can be a clash on the personal level. There can be also a clash on the political level. And the way Rand talked about it in the 70s, which she said, on the one hand, there are all these great,

qualities of the American sense of life that point towards benevolence, happiness, the love of freedom, the love of individualism, the celebration of achievement of people living life according to their own values, so long as they're letting other people do the same.

All of those wonderful attitudes that people had back then she observed were clashing with what many people said were their explicit philosophies and their

their explicit philosophies had to do with some sort of leftist, socialist, collectivist, and altruist. Altruist not in the sense of benevolence for your fellow human being or even a desire to make a world a better place, but altruism in the sense of believing that human beings need to sacrifice themselves for other people as a moral primary, that things have moral value only if you are sacrificing.

So she said there was this clash in the 70s. And the, you know, the clash on the one hand sort of preserved us because there was enough of a clash so that people would not vote for a full fledged socialist candidate, for example. But on the other hand, the clash, of course, can hamper you because it will prevent you from making strides in the right direction in the political realm.

You're not going to be well equipped to make strides in the right direction in the political realm unless you hold your ideas explicitly, not only in the form of implicit attitudes about human beings and the world. So, you know, for example, Americanism, let's think about Americanism. And in fact, there's a quotation from Rand that I've highlighted in this essay about

Americanism and the way that it gets perverted today. She says what, and even in the 70s, this was true, but I think it's even more true today. She says the welfare state was put over on Americans piecemeal by degrees, under cover of some undefined Americanism.

She says this is culminated in the absurdity of a president's declaration that America owes its greatness to the, quote, willingness for self-sacrifice, end quote. So what do we have today? We have Donald Trump, who is saying, oh, yes, we have to get rid of that horrible Obamacare.

Right. And I would say I would submit that it is in accordance with a true idea of Americanism to get rid of Obamacare. But what is Trump's version of getting rid of Obamacare? He wants to ensure universal health care coverage, which is something that he's always been for. And he always reassures people when this comes up on Twitter every single time that don't worry, we're going to, quote, cover preexisting conditions.

Covering pre-existing conditions is, you know, to the extent that you're redistributing wealth within that healthcare system, you've got a little bit of socialized medicine in there. But this is, you know, under the guise of America because he loves America. And so conservatives are swallowing it up.

I believe that Donald Trump, because he is seen as pro-American, and then at the same time is doing things like that where he wants to entrench covering pre-existing conditions into our healthcare system further by supposedly getting rid of Obamacare, but leaving that in there.

you know, he is undermining what America actually means. Over in the chat room, Stuart is saying repeal and replace is what they call it. Yeah, you know, repeal and replace with what? With some kernel of socialized medicine. So we really want to be careful when we're looking at, you know, for instance, the Donald Trump and the attitude of

the limited government people towards Donald Trump, does it truly reflect both the implicit

and explicit understanding of what America really stands for. And so again, I think that is one of the attractions of this essay. So let's get into it. What are the actual components of what Rand called an American sense of life? How can we make sense of what she meant and then think about whether we share these attitudes in our own persons? So

The first is Americans thinking of themselves as independent. We are independent entities, right? We do not think that we are simply parts of a state. And then we don't say, okay, well, the only question is which state do I belong to? So I think, okay, you know, it's better to belong to Germany than it is to belong to Italy because at least Germany is financially responsible or something like that. Yeah.

We don't do that as Americans, we think of ourselves first as independent individuals traditionally, we don't traditionally think of ourselves as part of some state and then the only question is which Fuhrer do you think is the best the most benevolent Fuhrer who's going to take care of you.

You know, again, I'm bringing up some of this language explicitly because I believe that our current president, Donald Trump, tends to want you to feel like you are part of a nation primarily, that you should have loyalty to the nation over an actual robust understanding of individualism. And at the same time,

that he would like you to think that it's the nation who takes care of you. He personally, he would love to take credit for taking care of you in the right way as well. So do you see yourself as independent or do you see yourself as some sort of ward of the state that the, you know, it's the state that is the unit of importance, not the individual. That's one component.

Second, do you admire achievement? Americans, Rand writes, admire achievement.

that they are not primarily filled with envy, that they don't respect only old money and things like this. Now, you know, as I said, these attitudes, the pro and the con, the good and the bad can exist anywhere in the world. But this is another question to ask yourself. The traditionally, you know, American attitude, she says, is to admire achievement, not to resent it, be envious of it, etc.

How do you treat your public figures? She says in America, we traditionally treat our public figures with respect, but that we also treat them as equals. So you go up to these people that you admire who have contributed to your life and you just say, hey, you're awesome. You've contributed to my life. At the same time, you feel like you have your own things to offer the world and you're a worthy individual. So you can have a dialogue with these people.

people as well. I'll give, you know, Donald Trump one thing when I talk about this thing, which is that he puts himself out there on Twitter. Now, what that does in the positive sense is it gives people the impression that they can interact with him. And in fact, he retweets a bunch of people too. Of course, he retweets people who only see him as the end all be all of the perfect

leader, right? But, you know, ideally, you could have a president who is out there on Twitter, who does interact with people and retweet them, etc, who is accessible, that would be truly in line with an American sense of life where you say, okay, you treat your leaders with respect, but at the same time, you treat them as equals. And, you know, there's a little bit of a difference with your political

kind of cultural figures or political figures a little bit different in the sense that because they have political power over you, one of the uniquely American appropriate things is to be able to criticize our leaders. You know, but for example, I am super critical of Donald Trump. I mean, I think he's, you know, not good for our country, actually.

But at the same time, if you look at all my feeds and stuff, I do not criticize him on the level of,

Oh, what color is his hair? Or does he wear a toupee or blah, blah, blah. All the different things that you'll see out there. People just make fun of him mercilessly about appearance. To me, that just really doesn't have place in the critique. So I would say, yes, you have respect for your public figures, even for your politicians that you're going to criticize.

But, you know, you also think you're an equal with them. They're not so much better than you that you have to just, you know, treat them with some sort of awe and, you know, reverence to a spiritual figure or something that you can imagine. That's not how we treat our public figures. Any of them will treat them with respect, but at the same time, we might even

talk about them in first names and things like that in a way that isn't true around the world. Germany in particular is known for piling on titles. So these different attitudes, this idea of thinking of yourself as independent and also admiring achievement, Rand says it's got practical consequences. And the first consequence that she sees is that in America, people tend to have more initiative.

people in America, she would say have tend to have more initiative. And again, she's calling this uniquely American sense of life. I think now, you know, she wrote it in 71. We're here in 2020.

so many years later, that this attitude is spread around the world and we see these characteristics everywhere. So again, my disclaimer is as I'm going through and she's saying, you know, she says Americans this and Americans that, people all around the world do share in this. In some ways, I think in some places, there's more of the American sense of life, say, in a Hong Kong than here. But again, we're focusing on the characteristics.

characteristics that a practical consequence of believing in independence and respect for achievement is initiative.

Do you, if you see a problem out there, just kind of sit there and keep your place in the world and say, okay, well, it's above my pay grade, or it's not really my place to come in there and try to say what a solution is or anything else. Or do we as Americans, when we see a solution to a problem, say, look, I just want to dive in and

And work on it. And, you know, the example that is coming to my mind right now as I'm thinking about this is something that I have been working on with a state representative in New Hampshire, his name is Joshua Keller.

And one of the big things I want to tell you about today is that I am hoping, and he's agreed to, so I think it's going to happen, that he will come on regularly on this show to give us an insight into what it's like in the front lines. Somebody who's actually trying to get involved in politics and with the right ideas and the right attitude do good. Right?

in politics. He's out there, he's on the front lines, he's a freshman member of the House of Representatives in New Hampshire, and from everything that I can see, he is kicking butt. So one of the things that he has been doing, which has also helped me tremendously, he's one of the people to whom

I am grateful is that he is making clear to me a possible insertion point for the ideas about the legal protection of privacy that I've been working on. And I'm not going to go into all of that now, but what I want to tell you is that right now he has been

on the front lines trying to, first he was trying to achieve it as a constitutional amendment. Now he's in the process of trying to achieve it as a part of legislation. He is trying to solve the problem of the so-called third party doctrine in New Hampshire. And so this is what I was working on yesterday when I wasn't able to do a supporter hangout with all you guys is I was helping him at the last minute put together some language for this amendment

for a piece of legislation that they have going forward in New Hampshire right now to solve the third party doctrine problem. And to solve it, I think, in a way that is better than Utah, not because it was like, oh, I just want to beat Utah. You know, cheers to Utah who got rid of the third party doctrine there. But

Instead, you know, I think solve it in a way that preserves a proper role for government in law enforcement. George over here in the chat room must be new. So welcome. I love seeing all these new people. Josh, Josh Jokella is a freshman state representative in New Hampshire. He has been following my work and my shows for quite a long time. And then he got himself elected and

He didn't just sit there and say, okay, know my place and don't do anything. He got himself elected. And as a freshman representative, he is out there saying, okay, we're going to propose this as a constitutional amendment. I flew out there. I spoke in front of the House Judiciary Committee in New Hampshire in support of this proposed amendment that we worked on together. And now we worked yesterday on...

some language to amend a pending piece of legislation that, and the language appears to be getting some support there. So I'm really excited about this. It is something where you think, okay, if you can find a little bit of an insertion point where you can do something that you think overall is in the right direction, even though there are so much statist apparatus that it's hard to figure out where that is,

Josh is doing that in New Hampshire. And what I hope to bring to you is the same sort of inspiration that I've been getting. Of course, for me, there's a real personal value attachment to it because it happens to be in this one example, taking this theory that I've worked on and applying it to solve a real problem in the world that

in a piece of legislation which is like beyond dreams of what I've thought really possible if you look at me in my darkest moments okay this is this is amazing so he's doing that but he's doing all sorts of other things too some of it's just very common sense like for example let's get rid of the stupid daylight savings that we all just suffered through this last week let's

you know, let's, what do they call it? Lock the clock is the new tagline that you're supposed to have. Lock the clock. He's in favor of locking the clock and he's going to do something about that as well, right? He's doing all sorts of stuff. He's working his butt off. In New Hampshire, they don't get a salary. So he's having to work his regular job and do all this. So he'll write me and he'll say, okay, I got this legislation. We got to get going now. The deadline's soon. So

okay, so go back and forth. And it's so much fun. Sometimes as he shows me what he's up against in terms of the bureaucracy, when I look at the language, it's like, oh gosh, you know, maybe this is hopeless. And then he comes up with an idea. Well, what about this? And it's perfect. So you're going to get some of that here on this show. We'll have some sort of regular feature. I don't know what the title of the segment is going to be, but it's

from the front lines, somebody who's got both the right explicit political and philosophical ideas and a great attitude. And he's just going out there and kicking some butt to do it. And let's see if we can help him and encourage him. And also I could help, you know, I hope it's going to provide inspiration for all of you guys as well. So that's going to be fun.

And then, yeah, so in terms of initiative, yeah, why was I bringing that up? So I was reminded of him, you know, go ahead as a freshman, freshman, a freshman in the House of Representatives, let's propose a constitutional amendment.

I mean, okay, why not? Otherwise, we'll just keep your place. You're just a freshman. Don't do that yet. No, he doesn't do that. He has initiative and he's going out there and doing it. And I just, I love it. It's very inspirational. As for me, you, excuse me, I'm going to pat myself on the back for a second. Cause I just, I don't do it that often. Last year when I saw the case, United States versus Facebook,

And I saw that the FTC is doing what I think amounts to a power grab, perhaps in the direction of Orwell's 1984. You know, I saw that what they're going to do with this consent decree that they're trying to have approved by the court is Facebook could gain access to your private data.

I mean, not Facebook. Facebook has your access anyway. Excuse me. I'm still nervous. The FTC and the DOJ could get access to your private data, your private Facebook data through the terms of this consent order. So I saw this.

And then the question was, what can I do about it? So I do a brief scan. Is there an organization that's going to be willing to work with me to file an amicus brief to do something about this? Because, again, I have this theory, same theory that Josh is putting out there in New Hampshire that I think is an insertion point that we can use also in litigation cases.

not just legislation. And I saw a way that maybe if this gets before the right judges, the judges could see that the government is not entitled to your data just because you share it with Facebook. I have a naysayer in the chat room here right now and YouTube says, I foresee sadly a short political career for Josh. Hmm.

Well, based on what I have seen firsthand so far, I don't. So you're, I guess, free to continue to be pessimistic about it. But I see someone who's got the right ideas and the right attitude, who is earnest, who is trying to work with people, not just go in there and bulldoze.

And everything that I see so far, and we're talking, including, you know, he goes back and forth with me about strategy, working with these politicians just this morning, I'm running around getting ready for the show. And he's like, well, should I introduce it now? Or should I wait with this and meet with the committee there and the blah, blah, blah. And we're going back and forth about this. And I think he's just got a very mature attitude. He's young, but he's got a mature attitude about this as well. And so, yeah.

I don't necessarily see that. I have not given up that way. And, you know, I had a Benjamin who works with me on the privacy stuff too. They're with me also witnessing, you know, Josh and his attitude, his go get them attitude. And yeah, Benjamin adds here, he says, probably in the right state as well. Yeah. New Hampshire, right? Live free or die.

And what did the woman who's the head of the committee say to me? She says, we believe in choice. Now, I didn't get it at the time because I'm nervous. I'm about to give my own presentation. But she was saying we believe in choice, choice for women about abortion. Now, I happen to believe in that, too. But, you know, the the the idea that the individual gets to choose abortion.

Values for themselves seems to be alive and well in New Hampshire in a way that it might not be other places and sometimes that leads to certain things being a little bit messy at times right more freedom can be a little bit more messy at times in this coronavirus might play out that way in a certain way, but at the same time, if we have freedom and we have the right underlying attitudes.

It's going to be better. Yeah, don't tread on me, says Jennifer. I think a lot of that attitude is alive and well in New Hampshire. George says, what is his last name? I missed it. It is Yokella, Y-O-K-E-L-A, Josh Yokella. So definitely start following him. He's out there on Twitter and everything too and could use the support. But as I said, you're going to have the opportunity to see him or hear him here on the show as well.

Yes, Joshua, Benjamin typed it there in the chat room. So thanks.

Yeah, I'm optimistic. I am cautiously optimistic about this. You know, like I said, I think he's handling things well. And so if anybody has a chance at this, I think it's him. You know, do we all have things to learn? And are we perfect and everything else? No, no, no, no, no. But is he out there trying his best and doing a lot of good things and trying to work with people in the requisite sense to do it as well?

Yeah, it seems that way. So I've been impressed. I hope you will be too. Are there also elements of collectivism in the American sense of life? Let's go through some more of the characteristics, but I'll say not collectivism in the sense of putting the collective over the individual, but in terms of appreciating other people.

sentient and even non sentient beings, just appreciating life, and even just appreciating the beauty and the resources that are out there. Of course, there's that in the American sense of life. And some of those sorts of things are things that have become a bit more apparent to me lately. And we'll talk about that and

future episodes. I'll just leave you hanging on that as well, but not collectivism in the sense of a collective over the individual, but in the sense of an appreciation of your place in the world and a respect generally for your fellow human beings, unless they give you a reason otherwise. Yes. Sorry, I got to take a sip of water every so often. I've got two drinks here and I'll give a plug, right? Because I've got

This is LMNT element, which is Rob Wolf's

electrolyte beverage, which is really good, but I don't drink it down all at once. I'm still healing and it's got a little bit of citric acid. And if I have too much at one time, it's a little bit irritating, but a very high standard for comfort right now. So just plain water, but I talk a lot and I need it every so often. So sorry if that's bad optics to, isn't that the Marco Rubio thing? You know, you grab your water and you take a drink. That's supposed to be bad, right? Sorry. I don't know.

Anyway, so yeah, maybe that's part of my American sense of life that I'm not going to worry about something like that. Okay, so that's one thing initiative people take initiative and yeah I took initiative last year it's like, okay, I can't find anybody else to file the amicus brief with me. And so, what do I do, I get my organization, you know, kind of set up as a legal entity, and then I filed a brief.

And what are the results of filing the brief? What we've seen as the results of filing the brief so far is that I have been able to reveal a difference in attitude about what's going to happen to your Facebook data under this consent decree. As a result, you can go read it at legalizedprivacy.org. You can see the responses to the arguments I made in my little amicus brief where the government says, hey, no, we're entitled to your data. We always have been. We always will be.

Nothing to worry about. You have nothing that you can say here. You're kind of crazy actually for bringing this up. That was the government's attitude. And then Facebook says, oh, you know, you're kind of crazy for bringing this up, but not for the reasons the government says. It's because there's this statutory language that's going to protect the data. But of course, what the government said contradicted Facebook's assumption, which is that there's a statute that's going to protect your Facebook data in the face of this order. And so Facebook

presumably the judge who is going to be deciding this case can see the contradiction between the two. Why? Because I, I'm the only one who brought up the Fourth Amendment arguments here, decided, okay, I'm going to just file that brief. So yeah, okay, I've pat myself on the back a little. I'll stop doing it now. But sometimes I'm going to do that for myself a little bit. I took initiative. And so I guess for me, this is just kind of a reassurance that I'm doing better in terms of the American sense of life and myself.

Differences in social atmosphere, Ram talks about. Again, differences in social atmosphere, she says, are a consequence, a practical consequence of both independence and admiring achievement. One of them is this, that she said that typically then in Europe, you would have different stores for different classes of people, whereas Americans, we all shop at Target or Walmart.

or whatever, you know, cheaper store that you think, okay, they offer the stuff that I want at a better price and a good selection. I'm going to shop there. I don't care if I'm supposed to be shopping on Rodeo Drive or whatever it is. I'm going to go buy the Target brand of the thing.

And she says, yeah, you know, she with this friend who was visiting from Europe, the front room, Europe was aghast like, oh my gosh, you know, can you as a famous author, Ayn Rand, be seen shopping in this store? And she said, no, no, of course not. You know, here, everybody shops everywhere. And she says, we went to the five and 10. That's what they used to call it then. Five and 10 then was the equivalent of Target now. So those are practical consequences. Yeah.

Another one, she says a European, you know, again, this is generalization, but she says they live emotionally in a world made by others. And you just accept your place in this world that's made by others. You don't have control over it. And this is emotionally, your emotional experience is that this world is made by others and you just have to kind of sit and fall in line. And she said the,

proper attitude, what she called at the time the American attitude, is the world began when I was born and the world is mine to win. There she is quoting the poem The Westerner by Badger Clark.

You know, which attitude do you have? Do you believe, you know, for instance, in an idea of victimhood? That would not be the proper, what she called at the time, American sense of life, a more benevolent, individualistic, freedom-loving sense of life. The freedom-loving, individualistic sense of life is that the world is auspicious, that it's out there for you to win, not in the sense of world domination, you know, like a Trump would want to do, but instead, you know,

It's, you know, the values that you want to attain in this world are yours to win. You are deserving of them. And it's not up to other people per se, in the sense that they can't keep you down if you go out there and you provide value and you want value in return. It's auspicious. You can get it.

general happiness in America. People tend to be more happy in America, except she said the intellectuals, right? And the intellectuals a lot of times are very doom and gloom. And so it's good that the Americans would sort of rebel and

and in effect be anti-intellectual. Ironically, it's the anti-intellectual element that could save us this year if indeed the choice is between a Bernie Sanders and a Donald Trump, because what do we have in a Bernie Sanders? We have somebody who is adept

at giving the pro-socialist argument in an intellectual way out there, who even Ted Cruz was kind of pathetic against in the debate about healthcare a few years ago, if you saw it. And, you know, is our anti-intellectualism going to

save us for some short period from getting full blown socialism? Is it really being saved if you have Donald Trump's version of Americanism? That's another debate we could have. But, you know, in a way, it's sort of sad that you have to be anti intellectual in order to be pro freedom. But there is this anti intellectual attitude that came about. Why? Because the intellectuals were promoting misery and guilt. And Americans just said no. Why?

You know, we think that the world is a great place. We think that we're basically good. And we think we're deserving of going out there and achieving these things. And if that, you know, if being intellectual means rejecting that, then no, no, we don't want any part of it. She says America's best minds went into science, technology, industry, and reached incomparable heights of achievement.

Why did they neglect the field of ideas? Because it represented the Oggyn stables of a kind no joyously active man would care to enter.

And then you might have noticed that now what we have is we'd had leaders in technology, people who fled to technology, have started to have profound effects, I think, on the culture. So Apple, for example, has had such a wonderful benevolent effect on culture. Is it perfect? 100% doctrinally? Objectivist up and down? No. But in general, has there been a

very benevolent pro value attitude emanating from the Apple brand and all of the things that it's done to put so much at our fingertips. Oh yeah. So we have seen that now she says a sense of life is not a substitute for explicit knowledge. And so what this sense of life has done so far is it has protected us from tyranny, but she says, nonetheless, because of the,

because we don't have explicit philosophy by our side helping us for the most part, some of us do, but a lot of us don't. She says the welfare state was put over on Americans by degrees under the cover of some undefined Americanism. And that's indeed what's happening today, I think, because of Donald Trump being seen as representing Americanism and at the same time putting forth very statist ideas, such as, for example,

repeatedly urging the Federal Reserve to reduce the interest rate to zero or even below zero. Why? Because everyone else is doing it and he wants his monopoly money to play with. He's going to take care of us in the health care system. It's not government's job to take care of us, etc. So that's supposedly Americanism, you know, shutting off the borders and not allowing for free commerce and things like that. None of this is a traditionally American idea, but that's

That's what passes for Americanism these days. Anti-intellectual, we talked about this. She says, instead, Americans are self-confident, trusting, generous, enormously benevolent, and innocent. They see man as a value, as clean, free, creative, and rational. She says, Americans do not believe also in the power of evil. And she says, they also don't understand its nature. And in her view, Americans were right about

not to believe in the power of evil, right? The evil as such is impotent because what is it? Evil is a conscious agent who's trying to do evil. And so long as we can understand its nature, we do need to understand its nature and act in reaction to it, then it

It does not have power. It's when we fail to understand it and we unwittingly go along with evil that it attains its power. You know, so for example, when, you know, a Donald Trump is coming out with various authoritarian types of ideas, such as

Thou shalt stand at attention for the American flag during the national anthem or something like that and trying to tell the NFL what their hiring and firing practices should be and everything else. That's an authoritarian power grab or trying to, for instance, have any sort of state leverage over the media when he has suggested that the FCC, the

remove licenses for so-called fake news outlets where fake news is just anything he happens to disagree with because he propagates fake stuff on his Twitter feed as well. You can see me getting animated a little bit angry here because he's a walking contradiction in the sense. But what he is doing there is he is pushing America down the line towards accepting an authoritarian leader

of accepting a put up and shut up attitude. It's like, you know, America, you have to love every single thing about it and be quiet about it or leave it. And that is not a healthy American attitude. Yeah, Jennifer gives another example, telling a company to stay here.

or telling a company that it has to move its manufacturing. Say, you know, he was, he's been doing this to Apple, right? Poor Apple is trying to do whatever it can to give us a better culture and better products and everything else. And at the same time, he's clamping down on them and saying, take your manufacturing away from China and make sure you put it here. And then he pats himself on the back for forcing them to do things. That is not the American way.

Right. We need to understand really what is truly evil and what is truly evil is not allowing people to think for themselves and pursue their values according to their own best judgment, which he is not happy to let people do. If you know America is so wonderful and if you know that that flag deserves respect, then be confident in that fact. Don't order the NFL to tell football players what to do and everything else.

More from this essay. She says there's never been any masses in America, like the poor masses. She says the poorest American is an individual and subconsciously an individualist.

American workers do not see themselves as any sort of proletariat, but are among the proudest of property owners. And we'll see as this election cycle plays out how much that's really true in the United States. I know now there's a huge segment of the population among which socialist ideas and the idea of a proletariat class against the bourgeois and all that is starting to appeal to some people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Bernie Sanders out there.

but we'll see how that plays out. Then she also talks about the ecology crusade. She says the ecology crusade is also going to end in defeat for its ideological leadership. Now quoting from her explicitly, Americans will enthusiastically clean their streets, their rivers, their backyards. But when it comes to giving up progress technology, the automobile and their standard of living, Americans will prove that the man haters quote, ain't seen nothing yet.

And this is still going to continue to play out. And there are actual real challenges to be faced in terms of ecology and the environment, some of which has been brought home to me only recently. The answers to those challenges is not for the state to grab control and do all sorts of huge programs in the name of, quote, climate change and everything else. The answer is to educate people

as to what the consequences of various actions are and put them in the best position to act according to the long-term well-being of themselves and then also the human beings that they care about. And that's an attitude that I think Americans and freedom lovers around the world should and would have. America, she says, has no sense of fundamental guilt.

There's no, and you just sigh about that, right? Because the first variety of reasons, some of them because of explicit philosophy, others because of upbringing and things that are put, you know, on to people, kids at school and everything else.

that human beings should feel fundamentally guilty for their mere existence, that you should apologize if you're going to go ahead and pat yourself on the back for something good that you actually did or some achievement or improvement that you've achieved in your own life and everything else. Should you feel fundamentally guilty as a human being because you are evil? Today, if you think about the environmentalists, should we feel fundamentally guilty because we have a carbon footprint at all?

you know, nevermind what size it is and everything else. You know, what do they do when people are typically when people are answering someone like an Al Gore, you know, the thing that they typically do is they say, Oh, well look what his carbon footprint is. And so then you accept that standard of value. It's like somehow the size of your carbon footprint makes you guilty. If you're going to be alive on this planet, you have a carbon footprint. Um,

Life requires having a carbon footprint. And so you should not feel guilty about that. You can decide how big you want to have your carbon footprint be in conjunction with all of your other values. And, you know, what you want to do if you want to persuade somebody to have a smaller carbon footprint is you tell them here, look at these are the consequences of having too big of a carbon footprint as they call it. Right. Um,

Fundamental guilt for your existence for pursuing happiness. She says no, the traditionally American attitude and as I said the attitude that is, I think, shared by the best freedom lovers and individualists worldwide is that human beings are generally good they are generally deserving of

of having their rights respected. They have the right and they should be cheered when they are pursuing their own individual values according to their own best judgment. That is what, you know, the proper attitude towards a human being is.

So think about what do we have, you know, today, in conjunction with some of the things that are going on in the world, do we feel fundamentally guilty? Or do we feel fundamentally good, like we are worthy of continued success and value pursuit. And finally, we get to, I think, one of my favorite quotations, actually, there might be a little bit more than I want to look at.

In here. Yeah, no, this is this is really the last of the sort of constellation. This is a collage of various attitudes and qualities that she says make up the uniquely American sense of life. American, she says, don't allow themselves to be pushed around. So if a little podcaster aspiring show host, right, you know, here I am on YouTube, everybody can start up a YouTube show right now.

Someone like me goes out there on Twitter and I'm tweeting to Donald Trump and everything else. You know, I have somebody telling me, oh, well, this is not how you should talk to Donald Trump. If you want to further freedom, the thing that you should say to Trump is this, this, this and this.

No, you know, again, I treat the office with respect enough that I'm not going to make certain types of stupid ad hominem or, you know, superficial criticisms of the guy, but I'm going to hit hard. And why is it because

That is the thing that we need to do in order to fight any power grabs by our politicians so that we can fight for freedom in this country. We will fight against any threats to it. And that's including from the authorities, from the politicians. Again, in this essay, Don't Let It Go, after which this show is named, defiance, not obedience, is the American's answer to overbearing authority.

And I've seen people who are even pro-Trump describe him as a bully. I mean, what constitutes overbearing authority more than someone who is in politics, not just in politics, but is holding the office that has some of the most power in the whole world to it, President of the United States, and he's a bully.

That's overbearing authority if anything out there and so of course he deserves our defiance, not our mindless defiance not our superficially insulting defiance and what does that achieve, but instead I will go out there, I will always call things as I see them, and every so often, I have actually even clicked like.

on a Donald Trump tweet. It's rare, but every so often there's a tweet out there that I think is worthy of saying, yeah, that, you know, kind of taken out of context. And, you know, I don't know what he's going to do tomorrow, but boy, that tweet is good. And so I will do that. But at the same time, when he is doing bad things in terms of policy, when he is acting like a bully, when he is acting like an authoritarian,

I will call him on it. It is appropriate to call him on it. That is part of what the uniquely American way is, right? Which is from the very beginning, we had a revolution when there were various usurpations against the American people, right? We go out there, we have a teep.

party, you know, throw a bunch of tea in the harbor over a tax on tea. And now I've got people who are supposedly my fellow travelers in a freedom pro freedom movement, pro capitalist movement, even.

telling me that the way that I speak to Donald Trump is not a way that I should speak to Donald Trump. When what I'm doing is I am calling him. Yes. Sometimes in very stark terms, I don't pull punches, but they are not low blows. They are substantive and I'm going to put them out there again. Defiance, not obedience is the American's answer to overbearing authority. I see that authority. I'm going to defy it.

Don't let yourself be pushed around, said Rand, and I'm not going to. So she asked at the end of this essay, she wonders because she again believes that all of these attitudes, these bits of attitudes that together when you integrate them make up this American sense of life, this implicit philosophy, that way of looking at human beings and their place in the world.

She says, you know, is it still there? Is it going to save us? She says, is there enough of the American sense of life in people under the constant pressure of the cultural political efforts to obliterate it? She says, it's impossible to tell. She says, but those of us who hold it must fight for it. Those of us who hold it must fight for it. Otherwise, what option do we have?

Over in the chat room, Stuart is saying, Michael Bloomberg said it's petty for people to defy the government over the government micromanaging their beverages. No, that's a completely healthy attitude. I mean, I would never, ever, ever, ever, I don't even drink soda.

But if I was in New York during the soda ban, I would go buy a huge soda just to do it. Like I, I suggest actually you guys don't drink soda. So it is like, it's terrible for you. Um,

But I'd go buy a huge one, whatever one is not allowed. And I guess if you really couldn't get the big one that isn't allowed anymore and go out there on the street and do it, you do two of the next thing. So it's like, look, I'm still having this huge quantity of whatever. No, it's not petty. This is what we are. Elizabeth Warren got worshipped for what she called a two cent tax. Oh, gosh.

Yeah, I mean, if you think about that, if you think of our founders, and what they were willing to risk their lives and freedoms for, you know, the sorts of invasions and violations of their rights, that kind of stir the rebellion. And then now you've got a Donald Trump telling Apple how to do business. And we've got them telling, you know, and again, Apple, you know,

the value created by this company. Donald Trump should just be grateful to them. And as long as Apple's not violating anybody's rights, just shut up and enjoy. But instead he's going to go out there and he's going to tell them what to do. And he's going to go around and brag how he's been ordering them around and getting them to move facilities to Austin and stuff. Jennifer says, gave him the middle finger. Oh yeah. Wow.

So that's really the sort of response that is warranted. You defy this. George says our founders were quite literally signing their death warrants. Yeah, and so what you would think is here we are in the 21st century where there is enough understanding in the world that we should be able to speak out against our political leaders without signing our death warrants. And

Then I still have people telling me, as I said, on our own side, that there's a certain way I should speak to Donald Trump and there's a certain way not. I mean, you know, I'm a nice person. Like I said, I don't do all those low blow things. I don't do the below the belt hits. Don't pull any punches, but none of it's below the belt. I don't do it.

And yet I'm told that I, you know, should speak to, I'll be damned if I'm going to do that. There's no way that I'm going to, you know, bite my tongue when it comes to him. And I, and I do the same thing to an AOC, to a Bernie Sanders, to an Elizabeth Warren. I do it to all of them. Why? Because I think all of them are a danger to those core values of individuals, individualism and freedom.

So that is the long and short presentation. So then my question for you is, and I'm going to look at an essay in relation to this, or maybe I'm just going to kind of do a little bit of a paraphrase and at least give you a citation to go check out. But how do you see the response to coronavirus as either embodying

Aspects of the American sense of life or not. And there's an essay that was posted by my friend David Cohen recently, and it's called Coronavirus and the Clash of Civilizations, published by Bruno Masias, I don't know if I've pronounced that correctly, of the Hudson Institute for

Yeah, so it's Coronavirus and the Clash of Civilizations, if you find it at the Hudson Institute. I'm gathering that it was also republished at National Review. In the essay, the author talks about the varying responses and where at a superficial level, it appears to be the case that the Chinese, by using a very authoritarian totalitarian control model,

have achieved quite a bit of success in stopping the spread of coronavirus. And whereas by contrast, at least so far, and you know, again, this remains to be seen, this is something we have to revisit as the knowledge that we get kind of progresses. But, you know, here, Donald Trump is kind of, you know, dismissed a lot of the risk of

and said, no, basically we should go about business as usual. And he seems, you know, to me, what seems, he seems very desperate for the economy not to stall the way it's been doing. I have not looked at the stock market today. I had a friend on my feed,

They're putting out there on social media now, you know how they have on Facebook, marked yourself safe like you mark yourself safe from whatever hurricane or earthquake or whatever it is. He says he marked himself safe from looking at, you know, the value of his stock holdings or something like that and that's kind of where it is right now. And

And, you know, Donald Trump, who's been out there saying, oh, I'm such a good president because look at the stock market, is also worried that people are now going to look at the stock market and think, well, maybe he's not that good a president. And then they'll vote for a Bernie Sanders or a Joe Biden or whoever else we're going to end up getting. It looks like it's going to be one of those two. But, you know, Trump, it's not surprising, right? And I mean, kind of this is this is the way that the author of the piece writes.

presented it is that the attitude that Trump has seemed to take, which is where he's downplaying the risk, and he's just thinking that somehow everything's going to be okay, just because he wants it to be so that that's more of a religious attitude. And then he says, well, the attitude of the Chinese is more scientific. Now, I would say that those are false alternatives. And

that we can have an American freedom-loving attitude as we confront a threat like coronavirus, and we can be generous and think about our fellow man in the sense of being courteous. If you happen to be sick,

then stay home. If there's a time that you have to go out and get something that's necessary for your life during this time that you're trying to self-quarantine,

then do it in a way where you wear your mask or your gloves and you stay away from other people and you make sure not to infect your fellow man, because you don't know. I mean, you can look at anybody down the street and they look healthy enough. And you think if you cough on them, it's not going to make them too sick because, you know, for most people, it's not too bad, but this is worse than the flu. And again,

You know who wants to even make anybody else your fellow man sick so let's have a benevolence for your fellow human being, you know, a courtesy treat everybody else's equals, and we don't necessarily have to have government clamping down and telling people what to do, there might be certain sorts of gatherings where you say okay, this type of gathering, no matter how careful people are.

They are going to infect each other. And so maybe you could say at a certain point it's time for, you know, a government's role to step in and say okay well this type of gathering and this kind of place where you can't keep your distance no matter what you try to do. Maybe that's out. But other things you say okay you take various precautions.

so that people can go about their business and not infect each other and count on the general common sense and benevolence of people to win the day. Anyway, so the author is saying, look, you know, the way it's put it out there right now, the Chinese are putting this propaganda out there.

We have this, you know, total control model and it seems to be working. And so what we're going to show is we're going to show the superiority of the Chinese system over the American system. Now, it's interesting that Donald Trump and the way he's handling it is going to be seen as representative of the American system.

On the one hand, you seem to have him being very blase and not taking real precautions fast enough with respect to the risk, not doing the testing widely enough. You know, why don't we have the drive-ins? You know, in South Korea, they have drive-through coronavirus testing.

And you can get a result in 10 minutes. That's one of the things that's said in this article. By the way, I'm being asked if I've got a link for the article. I will put a link in the program notes at don'tletitgo.com. But again, it's the Hudson Institute. So it's hudson.org. And the name of the article is Coronavirus and the Clash of Civilizations. Why don't we have drive-thrus with 10 minute results? They are testing apparently 10,000 people a day.

in South Korea. So they have tremendous amount of knowledge. If you want Americans to exhibit their sort of traditional attitude of being willing to knowingly take on a certain amount of risk that's inherent in freedom,

If you want that, then you need to give Americans adequate information so that they really know the risk that they're facing. And I don't believe that Donald Trump has done a good job at that at all. Why? Because he's so scared about his precious economy and the stupid stock market, which doesn't reflect real value anyway. It just reflects that his tariffs and his, you know, propping up farmers and these people and that people and all the controls he's doing.

you know, there's some sort of air in the market anyway that was ready to go. He's so concerned about that, that he is not actually doing his job of taking care of the security of Americans in clear ways that he should. So for example, there was an article that Timothy Sandefur was putting out there on Twitter today, and I went ahead and retweeted it out there on Twitter. You can find it in my feed, Amy Peekoff on Twitter, follow me. And

It says that a big problem has been that the FDA has not allowed private companies to develop testing for coronavirus in America. Right. In America. Someone asked, why is Italy doing so badly? So.

It's hard to say because I don't really know Italy. And there's one little element that was discussed in the article, that article at the Hudson. And it was that Italians often greet each other with the kisses on the cheek and stuff like that. That's something that Americans don't typically do. And that's just a tradition. And it's not a bad tradition, but it's not great for virus spreading. And again, they may have not ramped up the knowledge that they gave as well. There may have been a...

an unwillingness to get the right knowledge out to people and the right testing out to people early on. They're also lacking resources right now to a certain extent because they continue to defy fiscal responsibility measures. And there's a lot going on there. I think also in Italy, there is a celebration for

breaking the rules in a certain way, which given they have a huge overbearing bureaucracy, it's like they sort of created that because they have so many rules about so many things that you almost can't survive doing any value pursuit unless you break some rules. So then it's like, well, which way did I craftily break the rules? So then what happens as soon as word leaks that there's going to be a travel ban, all these people are like, oh my God, I better travel right now. You know, I know there's going to be a ban. And so then they go and take off.

That's not a healthy way to be either. So there's a number of things. I think that here, if Donald Trump said, look, I'm going to urge people not to do anything but the most important value oriented travel thing.

I'm going to urge people when they do travel to take XYZ precautions. We're going to let everybody do as much testing as possible. And, you know, I encourage you guys forget the permits at the local level and everything else. We want drive-through coronavirus testing in 10 minutes and the blah, blah, blah. If he did all this,

I think if he did, for instance, say, I'm sorry, can you cancel your sporting event? That's not an authoritarian move. That is, you know, saying, okay, we don't want people to be walking vectors in an event where they can't help but be anything but a walking vector, right? Yeah.

And so people are talking about different things that are going on out there. I got distracted for a sec. Sorry, everybody. We'll talk about that in a sec. You know, if Trump took some of the appropriate measures, I think what a sensible American would do is say, okay, yeah, you know, I'll work from home for a bit. And I'll go out very little. And when I do go out, boy, I'm going to be like super careful and do all the precautions. And

And we'll ride this out for a bit. We as Americans together, we all have this common interest in not seeing people suffer needlessly. We know that there is something that we can do that would be effective, namely lay low for a couple weeks. And that if we all do it in the right way, that this can be drastically reduced or maybe even eliminated, at least for this season, where then finally we could have sensible rules about

getting a coronavirus vaccine up to speed. Let's just open the gates and say, okay, go out there, go create the vaccine. Let's get everybody. Cause that's, you know, that's the other thing, the other component on the one hand, they say it's more deadly. And, you know, again, what we're talking about is a flu kills 0.1%, but the sort of updated numbers again, in the article at hudson.org was that it's 0.7% for this.

And then so but that's the one factor. And then the other factor is that we don't have a vaccine so that we don't have a significant proportion and especially those at the most risk of

going out and getting a vaccination. It'd be nice to have that option for people as well. And that would reduce the chances of it spreading out there. So those are things that I think he could do. What the article is pointing out is that the Chinese are touting this as a, you know, at least so far, a triumph of the

totalitarian system, a socialist communist system, because at the time that they were at the level of infection that supposedly we have here in the United States now, they had already clamped down to a significant degree and

we're not seeing the degree of clamp down here. What will Donald Trump do? And what will all the other government officials do? Are they going to play follow the leader? Are they gonna buy this in China and say, okay, you know, the way to do it is to really clamp down on people and exert that control. And how are Americans going to react? Is that going to really be an appropriate way to handle this crisis given the implicit attitudes of American people? I don't think so.

What I've seen is, you know, you go to Target and like all the toilet paper is bought up because people are scared of being told that they're going to have to stay in and not be able to get things. I think...

that Americans tend to have more, at least still, and I hope this is the case, benevolence towards their fellow human being such that we could count on people taking the necessary precautions if they are somebody at a danger of infecting other people and that we don't have to have those kind of controls. As we'll see, time will tell. Yeah.

Yeah, Tom says that the Communist Party in China arrested the original whistleblower about the virus and that that person died. Oh, you're talking about SARS, that that person died in prison. Yeah, well, the original doctor actually died as well.

People are talking about little anecdotes that happen out there in the world in the wake of coronavirus. Someone was saying, oh yeah, Frederick, he says, I ordered a drink and they served it without a straw.

They said they no longer provide straws. And he said, he takes it back. He said, take it back. He doesn't want it without a straw probably because they're touching it. You're going to put your mouth on it. Yeah. I have not, you know, for me, it was been for health reasons, but it happens to be, I guess, for a different type of health reason that it's not a bad idea. I have not eaten anything that's been cooked out, you know, any restaurant, fast food or otherwise for a month or more.

Something like that, but it wasn't because of coronavirus I was doing it for general health reasons and it's helped me a lot but it seems to me that that's not necessarily a bad thing to do during this time where we really don't know what's going on. So what you know.

What is the American sense of life with respect to coronavirus? You know, how would you handle it? Like I said, I think that the general attitude would be that there might be some appropriate role for government in prohibiting certain types of close contact.

proximity gatherings from taking place because in those situations people can't help but be disease vectors and the risk is is just too much and of course it's a temporary thing it's sort of like we're at a state of war you would do it for a limited time period but with respect to other types of restrictions i believe that americans generally can

be sensible. They can be generous, not altruistic in the sense of sacrificing themselves for other people, but that you can take common sense measures to not infect people who may be very vulnerable, not overuse resources. Don't be a jerk and, you know, hoard a whole bunch of hand sanitizer and face masks and everything else that other people might need and are of dubious value to you anyway. You know,

take precautions, remain as calm as you possibly can, realize that if the virus is coming in, it's coming in through

your eyes, your nose or your mouth. And the way it does that is either because somebody's, you know, coughing or breathing on you in a close range, or, you know, you've done it yourself because you haven't washed your hands. So wash it. My, my nails are beat up and everything from so much hand washing also, cause I'm cooking for myself so much too. But that's just going to continue. That's just kind of the, our, our way forward is to take sensible precautions and

Uh, try not to panic. Don't be a jerk. And, uh, you know, don't do what that Dartmouth guy did that I talked about on the show with James last week. Don't, you know, be a person who's been told you potentially have coronavirus. We've tested you for it. You're waiting for results, stay home and then go to some social event, particularly if you're a medical worker, that is just a total jerk maneuver. Um,

Don't generally I think Americans don't do those things and we can ostracize and shame the people who do. And I wish that our government would allow us to release the names of people who do that so that we could properly shame them and use that.

Why not? Why not do that? That's what I would think. One thing that the author of the piece, you know, said he was saying, look, there's there's the pros and cons to the more totalitarian approach. But he says, suppose that China has, you know, they clamped down and they've they've gotten rid of it for now. And it's it's been a huge economic cost.

And he says, suppose now they free up the reins a little bit and the virus starts to come back and they have to clamp down again. What effect is that going to have on their economy? And so it might be the case that a more sensible, freedom oriented strategy is going to have in the long term.

a much better practical outcome as well. So he's saying basically the Chinese are too early in congratulating themselves for the proper response to coronavirus that it remains to be seen. Where I think he's going wrong in that article is he's, you know, again, putting forth like so many things that we see today. We see this false alternative. We see on the one hand, the communist leftist total state, right?

On the other hand, we see, you know, supposedly just this sort of religious anti-intellectual wishing will make it so attitude that supposedly standing in for Americanism. And that's not what Americanism is. Americanism is the different types of characteristics that we talked about here today as I see it. And again, Americanism is not unique anymore today to America. There's so much Americanism in those words.

You know, residents of Hong Kong, there's a number of them. I just want to go hug coronavirus notwithstanding, right? It's this independence, this admiring of achievement, this willingness to stand up for your values and defy authority, this belief that

There is no place that you have to inhabit and kind of keep your place and accept the, you know, your emotional destiny and all the emotional baggage that's being thrown on you by others, especially in your formative years, you go out there and you say, look, here's

Human beings are generally good. I'm good. This is a place, this world that we're lucky enough to be in where human beings can achieve values. Yes, even in the face of things, dangers like coronavirus.

And then we're going to go out there and do our very best to achieve them and not feel guilty about wanting it or thinking that we deserve it or anything else. That is a truly American sense of life. It is not. It's funny. The thing that came to my mind was one of my old show titles. The, oh gosh, it's, yeah.

kind of what is the Trump doctrine. And I'm actually blanking on my old title. So if somebody can remember my old title, then please tell me what it is. I was drawing a parallel. Trump basically, oh yeah, it's called Pharaoh Trade.

Pharaoh Trade was the name of the show. So I called it Pharaoh Trade instead of Free Trade. And in that show, I was talking about how Donald Trump basically expects certain companies to

to be the favored ones who are going to build the trade surplus that he wants to brag about to everybody. He wants America to have a trade surplus and a booming stock market and all these different things. And he thinks Americans should just step in line and either, you know, suffer through the higher prices that the tariffs have caused or move their companies or do all these different things. This is not, you know, what America is about. We need

A leadership who recognizes that individuals have rights and values and the values, you know, the proper existence for a human being is for them to be able to freely pursue these values so long as that they are not hurting anybody else and just preserve their ability to do this. We are for freedom. We are not for erecting some sort of mystical wishing we'll make it so, you know,

economy that's got a huge bubble in it that's just going to burst when the next president comes in and everything else. That's the sort of thing that he seems to be doing. And I think the only alternative that he sees, unfortunately, is to go from this wishing we'll make it so everything's going to be okay kumbaya attitude about it that he thinks is going to preserve his vaunted economy and

you know, make it possible for him to achieve that Pharaoh trade, as I called it. But if he sees that that's at risk in any way, when a little bit of reality comes and hits him, I fear that he's going to sway completely to the other way, pendulum wise, and want to, you know, just do all the controls that they have in China. How many times have you seen him sort

sort of wistfully talk about the obedience, the unquestioning obedience that leaders around the world have experienced, whether it be, you know, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, or Xi in China, or Putin in Russia, by the way, Putin is apparently setting himself up to be in power there till 2036. Is that going to live to 2036? You know, Trump jokes about it, but Putin does it.

That he sees I think those two things as the only two alternatives. And what we really need is we need, we need an American leader, right? And we don't have one on the ballot.

And so I do kind of worry not so much about the danger of the virus, but the danger of the mishandling of it by political leadership, because I think they don't take the American nature, true Americanism, the American sense of life in the American way and how it could be applied to coronavirus into account.

So that's kind of my take. Let me see what you guys are saying over here in the chat at YouTube. A thriving economy by force, impossible. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you know, he gets this idea that somehow a trade surplus is a proxy for the health of the economy. And he says, I'm going to go out there and achieve it however I can. I'm going to force it to be happening. A liter of Everclear and some two ounce spray bottles. That sounds pretty cool. Instead of the hand sanitizer. That's not bad.

I was able to find a cleanser yesterday that actually kills 99.9% of bacteria, but it's nothing that can be used on your hands. So I've got the surfaces covered. Try smaller stores, gas stations and everything, washing your hands and Lysol spray. Yeah, I found an equivalent of a Lysol spray.

Bree says, my daughter has the flu and I couldn't get hand sanitizer to protect the rest of the family. Yeah. If you go on Amazon, there are springing up some sellers of hand sanitizer, but I don't know. These are not tried and true brands. And I don't know whether to trust that everything in there is just maybe a water gel of some kind. And that's it. If you're a priest, ignore the Pope's advice to bravely confront virus sufferers. Yeah, don't do that. Thank capitalism for Kleenex, Purell, et cetera. Definitely.

Um, uh, Amesh Adalja has got videos on YouTube. Yeah, definitely. He's a very, um,

very much a voice of reason about this. He, as much as possible, recommends caution. He doesn't, you know, for example, I think completely dismiss the idea of closing down a sporting event or things like that. And so I assume, because I see him to be very rational, that he would probably agree with me that there might be a role for government with respect to, again, those close proximity events in which people are necessarily

And we don't want to have those situations going on. If we shut all that down for a couple of weeks, you curb the growth of it. As long as people are taking adequate precautions, otherwise you do, you do quite a bit, but I want more testing, you know, more testing, more numbers, more meaningful numbers. It's good that they're breaking down some of the numbers to, you know, here are the number of people because of travel.

Here is known person to person infection. And then here's what they call community spread. Well, we don't know a source. If they give you those statistics in each area, then people can take, you know, calculated risks or not. But as it stands because of the dearth of testing, which for which I blame Donald Trump in large extent, we're kind of left at sea a little bit. Okay. So I think I've got through some of these comments here. Yeah.

Better avoid antibacterial sanitizer. Yes. Anything that's antibacterial that is not going to kill viruses is not going to help you. Right. Um, and the other thing is something that's antibacterial, but then we'll leave fungus around is got its own thing going on. So ammonia is pretty good. Ammonia can kill a lot of bad things. Um,

Wash the hands. And when you have unwashed hands, don't touch your face and try not to sneeze on each other and infect each other when you know.

You've got something going on and I don't know any other thing that we can do besides making our own body strong. Those are the sorts of things that, uh, the kind of making your own body strong stuff that I've done deep dives into in the last several months. It's why I'm here today, able to talk to you for over an hour and a half, an hour and 40 minutes without getting too tired. I'm feeling a little bit. Cause the, the thing that I've had is something that affects the esophagus and vocal cords. And I'm still healing. Another reason I'm doing only one day a week. Um,

I've got numbers of reasons for just doing this for now. But in the coming weeks, I hope to bring to you interviews and more information about the things that I've done to make myself as healthy and strong as possible, you know, knock on something right, because I don't know if I if, you know, despite all the precautions that I'm taking, I end up getting exposed to Coronavirus. I'm not

eager to perform that n equals one test on my own body you know statistics are one thing and your own person is another and as I said I've been recovering over a period of months I feel strong I

But all of us, we, you know, we do the best we can to get ourselves in the best situation that we can to both take the precautions that we need to, to not get it. And as a fallback, be strong enough and hardy enough to know what to do and be able to feel like we're able to do it if we do. And that's what we do now, you know, as, as Americans exhibiting that sense of life. As someone says, carnivore diet, I'm not completely carnivore.

And if you want to hear more about specifically what I'm doing, here's my little plug. And this is one thing I'm going to be doing. Just like earlier, I just had to kind of

rest myself and say, okay, guys, you know, I'm going to pat myself on the back for taking the initiative on the Facebook thing a little bit. I felt like I had to do it. And now I'm looking back on it. It's like, look, maybe my American sense of life is at least being rehabbed. If it, if I knew it had a problem. The other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to say, Hey, you know, there's certain values that if you want to talk more in depth about those types of things, like specifically what I'm doing, some of it is going to be in my

weekly is what I'm trying for weekly hangouts with my supporters yesterday, Josh Yokella, I was glad to give him my time and energy on that proposed piece of legislation for New Hampshire. That stuff isn't always going to come up but yeah Tuesdays in the afternoons afternoon Pacific time.

Isn't isn't the Pacific time the center of the world. It's 7pm Eastern time 4pm Pacific time on Tuesdays, I will have supporter only hangouts for people. Some of you have joined me for the ones that I've had so far and those are fun, and I'll do deep dives into it but yeah I'm carnivore ish. I am eating some carbs, and in accordance with what I talked about with James last week and the reluctantly carnivore bit.

I have an aspiration to increase the amount of carbs in my diet, even though I do always plan to have a substantial amount of meat. Why? Because meat is one of the things that has made me feel better. And there is no arguing with evidence that you have, you know, experienced for yourself that something makes you feel better and stronger. So, um,

Yeah, that's, we'll talk about that. That's one of the things. But yeah, so here I am. What am I going to do? I'm going to say, please join me over at Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Amy Peekoff.

Patreon, Amy Peekoff, Google me there. If you find me on Subscribestar, it's Amy Peekoff, but there they put a hyphen between the first and last name. So whereas you can just type Amy Peekoff, all one word at Patreon, and that's the URL for me at Patreon, at Subscribestar, at Subscribestar.com, Amy-Peekoff.

And then paypal.me. If you prefer PayPal and you'd want to come, you know, become a regular supporter there, then it would be...

paypal.me forward slash amy peekoff. You can donate there. Don'tletitgo.com is a place to follow me as is here on YouTube. Subscribe here. If you don't subscribe already, click that subscribe button. And if you have enjoyed anything about what you've got here today, if you are looking forward to getting what I believe are going to be inspirational updates from the front lines from Josh Yokella on this show, if you're going to enjoy getting interviews with the people whom I

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Show me your support here. As I said, become a supporter and everything else. And we will move forward. I'm going to not be on this Friday with James, unfortunately, because I have a schedule conflict on this particular Friday. But my show schedule is regularly here. Me on Wednesdays.

at 2 p.m. Eastern time, 11 a.m. Pacific time, and then with James on Friday in the same time slot, which again, 2 p.m. Eastern time for none of the above, as we call it. So

Thanks everyone for joining me on this episode. And I will see you next Tuesday. Those of you who are the supporters, you'll get the special Zoom invite via the various channels. And those of you who have, if you become supporters now, you can see the replays of those previous Hangouts as well. Okay. Take care, everyone. See you next time. Going to navigate and end the stream.