None of the Above #2
01:49:00 Share

Okay, we should be streaming live. This is the seat of our pants version of none of the above.

I'm here with James Valiant and I'm watching just to make sure that we do make it up on YouTube this time. I think we're going to get it right away. Yeah, we're already there. Okay, I think I need to put us in gallery view. Okay, now we're side by side. We're already there. Okay, I need to put us in gallery view. Oh no, now I've got the audio in the wrong way. Okay, let me fix my audio. This is so much fun.

Okay, all should be good now. So how are you, James? I'm really well. Yes? Much, much better. I had some health problems last week, as you know. And thank you for being so patient with those. But they're all cleared up. I'm feeling great.

A lot of people sent me links on how to deal with diverticulitis in an unusual way using kind of the ketogenic approach as opposed to the approach the doctors tell you in the hospital. And it's working out well. I got to say, I'm feeling better than I have after any such thing happened before with me. So I'm feeling great. That

That is wonderful. So we are going to cross fingers and hope that it continues for all of us. And I mean, you say I help you out or whatever. Jeroen has had this stretch where he's wanted to do shows back to back in a row and stuff, which hadn't happened for so long. And now he's going to be off for another seven weeks or so. So...

Yeah. Yeah. So now you stay healthy. Okay. I promise I'll do my best. But you know, I'm probably not going to be able to do a show next week just because my life and my schedule is bizarre and everything's crazy, you know, a little bit right now for me. So I figured today, my biggest thing is I have to give James a platform. What in the world? Um,

Well, you know, like we were saying, a freewheeling conversation between such brilliant and sedulating conversationalists like ourselves has got to be, you know, worth the price of admission. Okay. But I mean, you know, one thing that I like to do, of course, is I like to steer a conversation at least. So maybe if, you know, I'm giving you a platform, but maybe I'm going to...

push you in different directions or something. What I like right now, though, this is beautiful. You have your headphones on. So we have an equal amount of geekiness in the display. You know, you've got your big headphones. I got my big headphones. Okay, we're all cool. But the biggest thing is you can hear me.

So do you remember our first show? Someone was saying that, oh, I was talking over you a lot or something. And I was talking over you sometimes. So I think there was audio difficulties. Well, it is. It's because you couldn't hear me trying to interrupt you gently. So now you can. And it's beautiful. So we're going to go good. One question I have for you first, because one of the things I was dealing with this morning was...

somebody put a thing on Twitter I'll just leave this right here and then tag my name and it's some YouTube guy and he is do you by the way do you consider yourself an oblectivist are you one of us James yes I from that by their definition you know it's one of those terms like capitalism that Karl Marx gave us that I think we should embrace

if what they're doing is not so much identifying us as being on the left. I mean, it's really hard to think of us as left-wingers in the classical sense. On the other hand, if they want to announce their own conservatism, that's their doing.

So I'll embrace the term for those purposes. Yeah, within a limited sphere. In any event, what this guy posted then may have been also a threat against you insofar as you might be known as an obloftivist. I mean, tell me what you make of this, right? Somebody puts up a graphic

And as far as I can tell, it's not a picture of him. Right. You know, when when people post on social media or elsewhere on the Internet publicly, some picture of them like holding some big gun and saying that they have something against some person.

That's pretty much seen as a threat, okay? - A visual threat, yes. You don't need words, just add a couple of harsh words to a picture with a gun and you'd made your point. - Yeah, yeah. And so, okay, so the picture is some guy holding a gun and he's got like a big rifle and then he's got the American flag in the other. It's not this guy, this YouTuber,

But it says on there, the name of this YouTuber scummy guy that I'm not going to call him scum bag because he hasn't done the things but it's like he's threatening seems to be threatening. Here's his name and it says, wants to fight the leftists. Mm hmm.

Is that a threat? With a gun? Am I reasonable? Apparently it's more than verbal threats that involves weapons. So, yeah, more than that, you know, the same guy has declared that Trump is an objectivist in a very forthright way in the last 24 hours. I mean, just nakedly declared Donald Trump to be a capital O objectivist, which kind of tells you where his head's at.

Okay, well, I was, you know, you're a prosecutor so you know this better than I do. I was wondering, am I overreacting? Well, I don't think all these expletives on my Facebook. Yeah, I don't think I don't normally do, but I'm not sure it's a legally actionable terrorist threat.

uh mostly no but i mean like a reportable kind of threat so that you can say this guy poses i should think it's reportable to facebook youtube and i don't think it's a criminal offense because there has to be an element of immediacy i'm going to get you now and i'm going to do oh no i didn't i didn't think it was a criminal offense in and of itself right a reportable threat insofar as maybe i could clue in the authorities and things like that right oh yeah

It's worth that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So that was part of my morning. Good morning. Yeah. Yeah. And so I've started parts of the process and stuff. So, yeah. Oh, we got Luca over here saying to a left of us. He should have known better. He's out of here. We shouldn't have revealed our identity so soon. Exactly. We shouldn't be so forthright and authentic. Yeah.

There's a lot of people don't know what that is. And if you don't just stick around and we will show and not tell. And you'll know exactly what we are because we are not the hiding type, James and I. So let's get on to some of the topics because you have a number of juicy topics that you sent me.

Oh, and speaking of graphics, I was going to say there's a graphic that's going around, you know, while I'm fumbling for your message. There's a graphic that's going around that I think is just so powerful. I saw it yesterday. A friend, Joe, on Facebook had it. And there's a page on Facebook that posted it and I shared it. And it's saying, be the America that Hong Kong thinks you are.

- Wow, yeah. What a great point. - So talk about powerful.

Yeah, you see, I saw the pictures of the last couple of days of the Hong Kong protesters using the American flag, even the Statue of Liberty. It reminded me of Tiananmen Square and even more pro-American stuff. It's the image they have of what America is compared to what America really is. That's kind of depressing. I mean, even Trump calling the protesters rioters and being so cautious about it.

You know, America, just from that, just from Trump's reaction, is not what America used to be when it came to taking a moral stance against authoritarian dictatorships, enslaving free people.

Yes. Yes. And he's not doing that decisively. There's, you know, that rioting language, just to talk about the evil of adopting that language. I just saw in the last day or so that Cathay Pacific has fired at least one pilot. I can't remember if there were two, there may have been two because they were convicted of rioting.

as part of these protests. So let's extradite them to China to be prosecuted for that terrible writing. It was an offense against the people's state of China, right? Yeah. Now, I don't know if you got a chance to watch the discussion that I had with you on the other day about Hong Kong, but I assume that you have a bit of your own sort of crunchy take on it as

as well. I'm glad that your own book was published in China, but China is still, in my view, a communist dictatorship. And even however we technically parse its economics today, it's still a command economy and it's still brutally, I mean, ruthlessly goes after its own civilian population. Take the Muslims,

who live in the west of China. They're being basically kept in real concentration camps and the rumors that I hear about what's going on there are just abysmal. I mean they torture people, they imprison people, they're persecuting the Muslims within their country. That's the kind of country China is. They're a totalitarian dictatorship and Hong Kong is one of the freest places in the world and this would clearly be an instance of Chinese aggression in my mind against a free people.

Right. Yes. Now, I was going to ask you, he was talking to me about the point that, oh, you can talk about Hayek and you can talk about Rand and all of these great things, right? Right. And I was trying to argue that, sure, you know, you can talk about those things, but the overall premise is we're giving you permission to talk about those things. And so the government...

the governing principle is we're still telling you what you can and cannot talk about, regardless of whether, you know, so you can say, okay, you know, they're keeping you in this bottle.

And it might be a very big and luxurious bottle, but it's still a bottle, right? Right. No. And they're calling the protesters, even the peaceful protesters, what, terrorists? The Chinese government doesn't use, they're much tougher than Trump's rioters. They're terrorists. So anyone who even verbally objects or stands in the street is apparently a terrorist. Yeah. So the underlying premise, you're not convinced, for instance, by the idea that

they get to talk about Rand and Hayek and all these things in China. You know, funny thing is, is that Rand and Hayek were both of the position that a socialist economy must eventually lead to dictatorship. Rand less deterministically so, but Hayek very much in his whole theory of road to serfdom. Now it's true in recent years in the post

Mao world, there was some economic liberalization of China, which is responsible for whatever the economic development China has had, but it hasn't fundamentally changed either their command economy or their authoritarian treatment of their own people. - Right, okay. And will you go visit China?

Not mainland China. I'd actually be, I have friends who live, actually live in China. For myself, I avoid slave kids. I want to be able to talk as freely as I always do. And so places like North Korea, China, Iran, I would avoid. Yeah, I like the plague.

But you would visit Hong Kong, depending on what happened? I would love to visit Hong Kong. All my friends who've lived there and visited there say it's one of the most exciting places in the world. I have a dear friend who remembers all the spectacular light shows at night and what an exciting, vibrant place it is to be. And that would be sad to see destroyed.

Yeah. China had agreed to give Hong Kong its independent government for 50 years back when Margaret Thatcher, you know, the deal that started with Margaret Thatcher was completed in 1997. They said 50 years, that would take us to 2047. But it looks like China is accelerating that by decades. Yeah. Oh,

Oh yeah, no, big time they are. And I mean, extradition is just a phony way of saying we're going to make our laws govern your territory now already. Right. And although the Hong Kong authorities, the Hong Kong police have not asked for mainland Chinese help, apparently thousands of Chinese troops are now amassing on the border there. The Hong Kong Macau section of the Chinese government is preparing for some kind of threatening or violent action there.

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. So you sent this Bloomberg story and I'll go ahead afterwards and put these up on my blog sometime later. We'll have, you know, whatever stories that we talk about and get to. But you've got this Bloomberg story. How many Chinese soldiers are in Hong Kong and why? So they're in or they're on the border?

Where are they? What's the deal? The belief is that many of them may have already come in and infiltrated the Chinese or the Hong Kong police and Chinese authorities or not even in more covert ways infiltrated Hong Kong without making it a national, you know, an international story.

And so that some of them are already there, some of them might be those plants that make the riots seem like more than they are. Hong Kong protesters are actually peaceful, but here are these other people stirring things up. Precisely. Very sad. And I am not optimistic, I'm not sanguine about what's going to happen.

I have to say, I do not think Trump would do anything significant for Hong Kong as he would for trade issues. And it's really kind of sad that Trump

would have approached the issue of trade war with everybody, you know, North America, Europe, Japan, tariffs for immigration purposes, tariffs for everything on everybody as a normal tool for dealing with things. But now when it looks like economic tools might be appropriate to put pressure on China by Hong Kong,

The whole thing is diluted. And now his whole plans for having an economic deal, which he really wants with this good friend, you know, President Xi of China. He's really afraid that deal might not come through because, well, gee, this Hong Kong thing is really an inconvenience to that deal.

No. And I mean, you know how silly and pragmatist he is. There was that story the other day that I was just laughing about hysterically. He's going to put off the latest round of tariffs until after the stores have stocked up for the holidays. No, we want the Christmas stuff in there. Christmas trees, electronics. We want that stuff just for Christmas so it doesn't affect the consumer as the tariffs are now really going to start to affect the consumer. But he doesn't want it

quite to affect this Christmas, I think, for next year's election round. He's got to be able to brag about the consumer confidence, as they call it during the holidays. Get everybody to ignore what's really going on in the world and just spend that money so that he

can look good and then get re-elected next year. And considering the economy, I mean his trade policies have had a direct impact on the volatility of capital markets of late as everyone has seen and there are even a lot of economists who are now beginning to realize that the economy is fragile and might go into a recession and that too has affected Trump. He does not want a recession

at least a perceived recession in an election year next year. I still do think that he has a better than 50-50 chance of winning the presidency, so long as the economy is not perceived as being in recession next year. Right. Now, let me tell you. So if you were going to try to put a positive spin on this,

How many dimensions of the chess game would be required to sort of do that? We've gone from 3D chess to 4D chess. I think we may need to invent a new game. It's gotten so complicated because obviously interaction with China is a very complex thing. They are obviously involved in the stealing of intellectual property. That's important.

That can be addressed in various ways, it seems to me. They are clearly the culprits behind North Korea. They're the enablers of all of that. And Trump wants to protect that dictatorship, you know, wants to secure Kim's regime. But don't you know, all they have to do, all they have to do, Jim, is get rid of their nuclear weapons.

And then even though they're a communist, thuggish dictatorship, they can be successful. Oh, and continue to starve, brutalize their own people. But success. I mean, you know, who are you to say what success is for Hong Kong or for any other country, right? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, geez, the wonderful love letters that Kim sends to Trump. I mean, they're beautiful. They're just beautiful from top to bottom. Beautiful.

So talking so positively and talking so positively about securing this thuggish dictator's permanent power there, which is apparently one of Trump's stated goals.

is very disturbing. So a trade deal with a dictatorship that might not even keep the trade deal or nuke deal because they've never kept any deal that they've struck in the past is more important to him than the actual fate of freedom and free trade in the world because he'd be protecting this dictator with his nuclear powers. Even if his plan came true for a deal with Kim,

with whom he's exchanging these beautiful love letters. Yes, yes. So the thought that just came in my mind is if, and we're all assuming that when really something bad is going to happen in Hong Kong, the sentiment from people here in the United States, how is it going to compare with

Tiananmen Square, right? This, you know, when you talk about one thing that I was, would talk about with my old show called, it was called Don't Let It Go Unheard. It was named after Don't Let It Go. Ayn Rand had this essay where the it and don't let it go is the American sense of life. And part of the American sense of life is a benevolence

toward the fellow human being who is a producer, who is also a valuer. These people in Hong Kong, we can see more than just the graphic with holding up the American flags. These are American in spirit, these people, right? Exactly. More so than a lot of people around the world are, more explicitly.

More so than Americans. Right. And so you would say that, you know, at least in the past, right, with the Tiananmen Square, so many of us were cheering them on. But now we have as our head of state, Trump, and I just use that term, I hate calling him president, right? But yeah, he's, he's there. Um,

he's someone who's setting this example that Hong Kong doesn't really matter that much and yeah you know he hopes things work out for everybody including the Chinese that he wants a trade deal from um he's just going to be kind of blasé and not care I've had people on Twitter just react and say hey why do you care about people in Hong Kong it's not us you know

And they are us in spirit. They are us in spirit. And for, you know, to sit back and to say, oh, well, it doesn't matter. And they've enjoyed free speech, freedom of assembly, free press. They've enjoyed a vibrant free economy in which individual property rights, individual rights in the criminal justicism have been respected now because their system was basically shaped by the British system that was there before.

And so they have, you know, one of the best legal systems in East Asia. And to see a comparatively just system go under to the military aggression of a totalitarian dictatorship that so brutalizes its own people, just take Tiananmen Square, is horrifying. It's not simply a dictatorship suppressing the

slaves it already has, like Tiananmen Square, and that was horrific enough. That was, I mean, ghastly enough. But to see China go into a place which now for more than a century has had, you know, a century and a half has had a comparatively free and open society go under completely without an American peep.

That's not America. And that's not the way America used to be. Yeah. And so just sometimes I will imply things and not completely spell out exactly the thought at the end, which is that we would look at that, whatever the reaction is at that point, and compare it to what was going on after Tiananmen Square here. And you might witness, I'm predicting, unfortunately, we're going to witness a market decline in the American sense of life.

Because I see Hong Kong as such a symbol of freedom. Well, you know, as Ayn Rand said, America is under no moral obligation to help out overseas anyone at

at any time, right? But she also said that any dictatorship can be morally invaded by the United States at any time because they are already in a state of war in effect against their own people. No dictatorship has any legitimacy. I mean, it's not like they're a legitimate government we have to respect in the first place.

China is not a government we have to recognize diplomatically in the first place. We can end all these cultural exchanges, all these agreements through WTO. There are all kinds of mechanisms by which we can affect trade even without using tariffs. There are all kinds of diplomatic pressures we can put on them. We don't have to recognize them as legitimate China.

which was kind of a betrayal to Taiwan and Hong Kong in the first place anyway. But while we don't have a moral duty to correct the situation in Hong Kong, I think that in this instance, we have selfish interests as a country. That was what I was going to ask you next, because don't we have some property interests of Americans that would be affected if China takes over?

Well, I would say the mere existence of such a comparatively free society in the context of China is something worth protecting or trying to protect or doing something, at least raising your, at least doing the Ronald Reagan evil empire stuff. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, in terms of giving, you know, sort of a moral support to protesters, that's obligatory. At least a moral support.

And then to have diluted the whole effect of tariffs with everyone else, it sort of dilutes it as a weapon against China. Now, you know, the Trump supporters, you know, the people who call us epileptivists, one of the things they'll say is, well, gee, give Trump credit. He was the first president to bring up intellectual property theft with China. And that's a fair point. It

It really is. Now, whether tariffs or selected tariffs are the correct way to go about that is a separate question. But even if IP was the main, intellectual property was the main complaint, we now have Hong Kong on the map. And that seems to me as important an issue, given how much trade and interaction we have with Hong Kong, and just the fact that they're a bastion of freedom supporting American interests

surrounded by hostile states like China. It makes it an important value for at least for us to at least stand up in a moral way and do something about it. But I don't see any of that happening. The IP issue is

Should not be solved by tariffs because then, you know, Jeroen and I have talked about it to death too. It's that you're allowing in these in effect stolen goods. Right. Because the manufacturer of them is based upon theft of ideas. Right. And then you say, oh, well, but we're addressing it because we're letting it in, but we're skimming off the top.

And that's always, that's, this is the way that I always, I'll keep talking about it this way forever. You know, there's a song by Alice in Chains called Rooster. Right. It's perfect. I'm like, I'm, I'm the rooster. All you guys call me a leftist. I'm the rooster. I'm there. You're trying to make. That was a literary reference to Edwin Rostand. But yeah.

I do pop songs. All of my references are pop songs. You have this erudite background and you've got pop songs. That's what I'm throwing at you. But my brain is still working. So...

But no, I'm out here saying the truth. And the truth that I want to keep repeating is that all Trump's doing is, in effect, allowing the stolen goods through and skimming off the top. And then Americans are paying the tax. He keeps boasting about how much revenue the government is collecting and how he can send those revenues straight to the farmers who are negatively affected by his tariffs.

so that he can not only have tariffs but subsidies, the very trade policies in China that he objects to. So if China wants to shoot itself in the foot by taxing its people with tariffs and making it harder for them, the Chinese consumer, Trump's idea is to respond by shooting us ourselves in the foot by making it more expensive for American consumers to buy cheap foreign products.

That'll really show them by making us pay more taxes, right? But not just that, right? That he's bragging about all the money that's being taken in. From Americans. He's not telling us really where it's going. I mean, it's obvious where some of it's going. It's all those farmers that he's retweeting because of their support out there on Twitter. So that's where some of it's going. But now he's got somehow a bunch of...

What do you call it? Mad money, right? Oh, he's raking it in. He's so happy that he's raking it in. He's got all this bad money. It's this fund. And I guess he's deciding he's going to play real estate developer or something because the next topic I want to talk about with you is this...

trial balloon that was floated out there about we're gonna purchase Greenland or something I'm sorry, I had to laugh There was one really clever meme or joke oh, yeah is a Trump is planning on buying Greenland

proving the hardwood floors, improving the fixtures, and flipping it for a profit. You know, because he's a wheeler-dealer real estate guy. Perhaps he's got a flip in mind, you know, fix the hardwood floors, put in some new fixtures, and flip the house. So I, yesterday, I'm out on Twitter, and Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro tweets something like, if you are against United States buying Greenland, or if you're against us buying Greenland, you hate America. I didn't know quite what to make of it because

He defends Trump, you know, kind of more than I would. But in this case, it turned out, I figured out within about a minute or so that he was clearly joking, but I had to just pause for a minute. I really want to check with the Danish government of the Greenland population. You know, I have such a soft spot for Denmark and Copenhagen in particular. It's like, but

But let me tell you, okay, so I went through the whole discussion with people. It's not a proper function of government to be a real estate developer. Yes, okay, maybe you have to start a country by buying a certain amount of territory, but this is not contiguous. And we can go through all of those different things. But let me give you, I'll give you devil's advocate sort of argument. We are in a horrible situation right now

Not one that Trump is helping, mind you, but it was also contributed to by all of his predecessors, and it is the national debt. National debt is huge. Now, one argument is, given that we have all this debt, even if he's got all this mad money to play with from the tariffs, he shouldn't be spending it buying Greenland, right?

Right. However, absolutely. My God, look at the national debt. And he's been even more reckless than Obama on spending. We have billions, but I'm not going to throw it in to pay any part of the national debt. But so here's the thought, right? This is the sort of devil's advocate argument for buying Greenland, which is just otherwise ridiculous. What if

He is going to then develop all the oil and gas that I hear that there's these oil and gas reserves and that the Danish are not developing them and there's all this money to be made. What if he says, okay, if Trump did this, if Trump did this, I might support it. You can argue against me. Here we go. Okay. Suppose, suppose I'm coming out for Trump by a Greenland debit. Okay. So here it goes. Suppose Trump says,

I'm sorry. Amy, it's manifest destiny. God meant America to the West Coast. I'm going to try to make the argument. Arctic Circle. I'm going to try to make the argument without laughing. Okay, here it is. Right. Because I would. I swear on anything you give me, I would maybe support this.

Right.

I, as a consummate real estate developer, see a way that we can buy Greenland, make the best of the natural resources during X period of time. And, you know, yeah, it's not good for government to be nationalizing natural resources and the oil and gas and the whatever. I'm going to do it for this limited period of time, pay off the debt.

and then sell it off. I'm not sure even the profits or taxing the profits from energy resources in Greenland. You would come anywhere near to paying off our national debt, assuming it would be a net gain.

to America. Let's assume that. Let's assume they have mineral resources. It wouldn't be the government's job to do that. I hope they would. No, but you know, the government is already deeply involved in the leasing of, I mean, so much of energy is take coal and oil comes from government owned lands that energy companies are simply leasing, renting, or have some agreement with the government to take.

And I suspect that if the government did take over Greenland, the government will be in charge of who, how, when, that sort of thing on any energy resources. But backing up further,

I would first try to work with the Danish government and the people of Greenland to develop an agreement to do that. If their own environmental concerns, which would probably be unreasonable, prevent that, I see nothing wrong with, say, making an offer, you know, if there was some kind of calculation. But

it doesn't look like Denmark is eager to sell. It's not like it's on the market. Hostile takeover. Sorry, go ahead. No, I just don't see it as worth expansionism on the part of America. Right. You know, and I don't even know enough to have a great discussion about it, but maybe at the beginning of the founding of a country, there is some proper role for expansionism

a government to buy a certain amount of territory and then do the Homesteading Act and you know. - Right, Homesteading Act was great. And I basically agreed with the principle of westward expansion. France had an only a nominal claim over the Louisiana territory, Mexico and before that Spain had still less, more tenuous hold on the west of the United States. And

That really wasn't a clear instance in either case of sovereignty. Both Texas, for example, and California before their independence from Mexico had a majority

American population just from the immigration, which puts it in a totally different light in my view. Imagine that the population of Greenland was mostly American immigrants right now who wanted independence from Denmark. Right. And Denmark was an authoritarian state. Well, I would be far more sympathetic to absorbing Greenland under those circumstances. That's not the case as in the Louisiana Purchase or, but you know, even Louisiana Purchase

One of my heroes Thomas Jefferson as mixed a bag as he sometimes was this was one of his more mixed bag moments The purchase of Louisiana it was outside of his constitutional ability it worked out for America because France lost its claim to Territories that America was starting to settle anyway And they lost their artificial claim it seems to me to the middle third of America, but nonetheless

Jefferson dramatically stepped out of the Constitution and he was a constitutionalist. So if Jefferson, you know, what's good for Jefferson is good for Trump.

if he could only be like Jefferson and every other one. - Well, as I said, I had my huge preamble to under what conditions I might support this, but you're basically bursting the bubble that there wouldn't be enough money there to make a significant dent in the debt. - Wouldn't Denmark ask for whatever profits we could get from it to a large extent as the price? I mean, what is the price of Greenland, but the natural resources that are there?

I'm not sure it would be even a net plus, but Trump is such a great wheeler and dealer. I don't know. And real estate wheeler and dealer. Like I said, could be a successful flip. There is no better real estate developer. He is the only one who can do this.

You know it, right? Obviously. Okay. Well, I tried. Can you think of another argument for it? Oh, I had another one, which was if you could tell me that there was a national security interest in us having Greenland. But what would the national security interest be? I mean, it's not contiguous. It's kind of between us and some people over there. And it's owned by a NATO ally of ours, Denmark.

Yeah. I mean, I don't see any threat there. Denmark cooperates with us. They'll let us put whatever bases we want there if we compensate them or whatever, right? Right. I

I don't theoretically get the idea at all because I don't see Denmark. See, in the other cases, Napoleon was desperate for money during the Napoleonic Wars and wanted to unload his ownership of North America. When Lincoln bought Alaska, again, Russia wanted to unload Alaska where they didn't have a lot of settlers.

This is not a situation where Denmark, a peaceful ally of ours, a cooperating ally of ours, wants to dump Denmark or Greenland. So I don't see the point. Yeah, I'd much rather like we just kind of

transport a lot of Copenhagen over here. Well, if we could only have as free market an economy as they do in most Scandinavian countries would be a dramatic step in the direction of capitalism. Oh my gosh, so crazy, so crazy. So let me get back. The myth that Scandinavia is somehow this ideal socialist world is just that, a total myth anyway.

places like Norway and Denmark apparently have some of the freest economies in the world, in some respects, freer than more capitalistic than the United States's economy. Yeah, which is kind of nuts. I mean, it's always disheartening when you look at those rankings that they put out, you know, the freest economically or, you know, freedom index sort of thing. And America has been dropping and dropping and dropping. What are we? Are we in the top 20 still?

Last I checked, I think we were in the top 20. But the Scandinavian countries beat us. Hong Kong beats us. New Zealand beats us. So there are several countries in the world now that apparently are much easier to do business in and have lower business costs. And speaking of government spending, a more responsible fiscal policy. We should buy Hong Kong. Hey.

That is actually a pretty good idea. Those are people who identify with us. Those are people who want independence from there. The native population is calling for independence from their technical sovereign mainland China. That would be actually a good place for us to say, hey, we'll take over management so that they get the freedom they apparently want as they're waving American flags.

That would make far more moral sense to me than the purchase of Greenland. Well, so then maybe he's floating Greenland, but really what he's going to do is he's going to buy Hong Kong and make nice with his friend Xi. Right. No, but OK, so I thought, oh, this is perfect, right? United States buys Hong Kong. But are we going to keep Hong Kong free?

even wow wow what a good question would we have a a two systems one country approach like china agreed to hong kong you don't have to we would have to right now obviously the freedom index tells you that we would have to have a two systems right just as just as the british worked out with china

Because we are not the America that Hong Kong- That's the sad thing. That really is the sad thing. Wouldn't it be lovely if we became more capitalist, if we started adopting more Hong Kong policies? I think I'd advocate two countries, one system, the Hong Kong economic system.

Yeah, I mean, the point I was going to make really, someone was talking about, well, you know, yeah, we have equal right to go in and help people in Hong Kong, you know, kind of push back against China, just as much as we would have the moral right to invade Venezuela. Venezuela has got a lot of good people. I'm not sure if they are as...

principled ideologically as the people in Hong Kong. I'm pretty sure they're not. Even the opposition groups in Venezuela are pretty well socialist. I don't think they're as authoritarian as the current regime, but they don't inspire a lot of confidence in terms of bringing back individual rights, capitalism, and basic freedoms.

Yeah, so for me the argument, so Hong Kong over Venezuela, I think just because they're more principled. Also, one of the main arguments for, for example, getting involved in buying Greenland or getting involved in Venezuela is supposed to be the resources, the oil and gas resources. But to me,

Human capital over resources. Yeah. And the people of Hong Kong and their freedom over some trade deal. Should I not even use that term, though, human capital? Is that a really bad Marxist term? Well, that does either...

You know, left-wing economists have long since regarded people as sort of a natural resource. That is deeply offensive. They are the source of creative productivity. They're not just a resource. And to treat them like some form of capital, like some farm tool, is, I think, to fall into the language of the left treating people like, you know, material resources.

Yeah. So people over material resources. People even doesn't sound nice enough. Human beings. Individuals who long for liberty, who lived under liberty and who are longing for liberty and are willing to take risks for that liberty. We're going to turn our back on them. Yeah. So we should buy Hong Kong. That's what we should do. Right. Right.

You gave me a story that to me sounds extremely interesting and it to me I think it also has some implications for other things that we can flex our obelectivist muscles about so we may as well go for it here. The Reason.com article that you sent, the headline is "Why Governments Should Not Bar Entry Based on Political Views" and it's spurred by this recent story where there's a couple congresswomen who were

being denied or have they still been denied entry to Israel because of their political views? Last I heard, there have been discussions back and forth, but last I heard they are still banned. Trump said he thought it would be weakness on the part of Israel to allow them in. And when it looked like one of the Muslim congresswomen, she has family there, was just trying to visit a grandmother or something, there was a lot of hemming and hawing. But Israel, I think,

had a good response. I'm not sure a sufficient response, but a good response. They weren't coming there to visit grandma or to have a vacation in Tel Aviv. They were there to rabble rouse among the Palestinians in occupied territories. Now remember, Palestinians, when you're on with me, James, I've got to set the rules here. You just do this each time. Palestinians, yes. That's the rules, okay? Right, right, right. You're absolutely right. It is an artificial term, but...

the term that's most commonly used, let's put it this way, the people in the occupied areas in Gaza and the West Bank, if they were there to just try and

you know, get support for their effort, because both of them have stated a desire to ban Israel, to ban Israel as if they were a communist dictatorship or the apartheid in South Africa. These congressmen want to ban Israel, the most civilized country by far in the Middle East, despite the fact, of course, that these occupied territories have been offered their independence some 20 years ago and rejected it because they don't want Israel to exist at all.

and somehow Israel are the bad guys, and they were there basically to rabble-rous. And rabble-rousing among the population in the occupied territories means violence and death to Israelis. So there's sort of a good point that the Israeli government raises. If you're here simply to cause trouble, to encourage a ban on our country, Israel, or to stimulate more violence among those in the occupied territories, please don't come.

Right. And so, so this is the thing. So what's your sense, right? Because that was where the, I wanted to get the discussion going was,

When would you bar somebody? It's not just if they hold particular views, but it's that you think that they're going to take concrete actions based on those views that are threatening to the rights of your people, your interests, right? It's a complex question. For example,

The general rule, which should apply 99% of the time, in my view, is that ideology should have nothing to do with who gets in or is able to come and go from your country. A political difference, a mere political difference. It's exactly when people wanted to ban Trump from certain events in England.

If you want to ban the guy from a country simply because you disagree with his politics, I think that's wrong. It's wrong whether it's tourism, immigration, or permanent immigration. Ideology is no business, generally speaking, of the government. There are exceptions.

Take, for example, World War II. Once we were engaged in a war with Nazi Germany, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to exclude Nazi immigration to the United States. Why should we allow them to recruit for the enemy here in our country as our young people are dying fighting the Nazis? But only in such cases.

One could argue in this case that Israel is in a state of permanent war with those in the occupied territories. And because of that, Israel has a right to exclude those who are ideologically sympathetic to those that are killing Israelis from those occupied territories.

Yes. So in this case, you would disagree with reason. I do. I do. I think there are limited instances in which ideology can at least play a factor in the exclusion of someone when there's actual war, actual fighting, actual harm that could come from that rabble-rousing. Right. Imagine, you know, Tlaib going to Israel and

demanding to get into the occupied territories and then holding a rally in favor of banning, U.S. banning all business with Israel. That could cause a violent demonstration and that certainly would be ideological help to people who are doing violence to the state of Israel. Yes, so I agree with you completely there. We're not... I guess Trump should get some credit in the sense that

that's his side. And I wouldn't, you know, I'm sure that no Democrat president would have taken that side. Okay, but to me, it's not surprising. To me, it's not surprising that he does that, because then he and his supporters are going to equate this instance with the other one that I'm going to throw at you now. And, but, you know, just now,

you know, Jim, you're not sounding very a bleft of this. So I'm going to take your card back. I'm going to take your card back. But no, sorry. I agree with you there. So, but here's the nuance. And now we're going to get our left of his credentials back again. The next example is somebody who is going to immigrate here and vote Democrat. That is never a valid concern.

If Republicans are concerned that the reason why we should exclude people from Latin America is that they would change the electoral demographics, that is a totally invalid argument. If these are peaceful people, non-terrorists, they don't have a criminal record, there's no indication they'll do violence or physical harm to Americans, and they just want to come to America to get a better life and to get a job, their ideology should be utterly irrelevant. But they're going to vote for the party that is going to increase...

supposedly over the Republicans. Again, I don't think there's really a difference anymore, but let's grant they're going to vote for the party that is going to, when they're in office, increase the amount of rights violations that Americans are going to have at the hands of government. I'm not sure about that. Probably the electoral demographics of immigrants has more to do with the fact that it's Democrats who are willing to let them in

It's Trump's own policies against immigrants that may be alienating Latin American immigrants. Imagine a Republican president saying, we welcome peaceful immigrants. We welcome peaceful immigrants who just want to have a job and a better life in this country. It's only terrorists and criminals that we'd keep out in effect. If that were the case, if Trump were embracing of immigration, I suspect the immigrants themselves would have an entirely different

attitude about it. I have seen the numbers and these immigrants are not mostly coming here to get on the American dole. And we have laws that prevent recent legal immigrants from getting on the dole for a number of years after they come here. Yeah.

So if they came legally, they'd actually be unable legally to get federal support. This thing that Trump's guy, I forget what office he holds on immigration, but they had announced this policy about you can come, but not if you're going to be on the dole, et cetera. Is that new? Is there something new? No, this is a longstanding law.

In fact, your immigration... It's been a news item as if it's new. Say you're a temporary legal resident and you want to get permanent legal residency status or you're a permanent legal resident and you want to get citizenship status. One of the things that can prevent that from happening is whether or not you ever received federal aid of any kind.

And the government regulations as they exist right now prevent people from having an improved immigration status if they have accepted government help. And that's just one of the rules about legal immigrants not being able to obtain welfare for five years or so forth, unless it's catastrophic medical aid.

Things like Medicaid and so forth. Recent immigrants, if they're legally here, are excluded from getting any government dole. So it's the fact that illegals are here that allows them to take advantage of the system. Had Trump's changed the status and made them legal residents, we could much more easily prevent them from going on the dole the minute they get to America.

- Hmm, okay. - It's filled with all kinds of irony here as far as I'm concerned. It's Trump's own attitudes that I think conditioned the attitudes of immigrants politically. And then if they were here legally, we would have legal means to prevent them from going on the dole for a number of years.

Okay, so that's interesting. And then so the thought that came to comes to my mind was, of course, you know, you don't want to offer freebies to people to come in the country, you just just come here, and then you can get freebies. That's a bad thing. So it's good to cut that off. At the same time, right now, because there is so much statism, and there is so much entrenchment of government, the

You know, you have to be so much more wealthy and productive to be an immigrant who's going to come here and avoid all resource to different types of benefits. That is true. I'm not unmindful of the fact that we have a welfare state, and that is...

in direct policy conflict, in my view, with the idea of being more open to more peaceful immigrants, which is unfortunate. There is such a conflict and maybe we need to amplify the laws that would prevent immigrants from receiving government dole or help of any kind. Right. But I guess I was saying more. OK, so, you know, in in a certain context where

government is just sucking up so much of productivity in our country now you blame less somebody who has recourse to government aid than if that hadn't been the case right so in a normal situation is you know if you're just going to come here and be on the dole you know we don't don't you know that that's not our responsibility right uh

As and when just, you know, so many more people don't have other options available to them because government has taken them away. You tend not to blame so much so, you know, whereas, you know, again, normally, I'm saying, no, you know, it's sort of like, um,

People say, oh, well, we're going to Trump is going to keep some version of Obamacare. Right. Right. Keep some version. It's going to be Trump care. It's going to be Trump Pelosi care, whatever it's going to be. And he's going to say abortions won't be covered.

Right. Now, I don't think government should be providing abortions for people. But but in the context where they've taken over the whole health care system, that they've made health insurance so much more expensive and Trump is just going to continue that process. And then he's saying, well, here's this one thing that's not going to be covered.

- Right, and it is a sort of intellectual hypocrisy, I think on both sides frankly, on both sides frankly. If you have the democratic candidates saying that illegals should get free medical care and free education

and all the social services, and anyone can come through, and we should abolish ICE at the same time. It seems to me as critical as I am of ICE's current policy. It's not the ICE, and that's the other thing. It's not the ICE officers. It's not the immigration border patrol officers who are the bad guys. The left is turning them into Nazis when they're just enforcing existing law, however bad that law is. Right.

So the left is filled with hypocrisy, but Trump is also filled with hypocrisy. We got to take care of our own. We got to provide everyone with health insurance here. And one of the great obstacles in his mind to that is allowing unlimited immigration. No, they're both inconsistent, I think, in their policies. Yes. Logically. Definitely. So I guess really my kind of niggling sense is

I'm not so hostile to immigrants who resort to some public aid in the overall context of government having messed up everything and making it harder for people to be productive and just go on their own steam. Absolutely. That's absolutely correct. We hold it against the immigrants for our policy anyway. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. Um,

I think we've said all of our stuff about- Well, the point I would make too is that Trump's proposed Muslim ban way back when, when he came into office, there was a certain logic to not allowing unrestricted immigration from certain Muslim countries. And some of the countries on the list weren't even Muslim countries. It was identified countries

that he had an immigration ban on the thought that we were having military problems from terrorists and others coming from those countries. That is an entirely different logical argument than say, let's keep out Latin Americans who just want a job here. I don't get the connection. Not at all. Not at all. So

I think I had the so the the follow up question for you was, you are not then in favor of some sort of ideological screening of people coming in. No, no, quite the opposite. In fact, if if the Republicans had a benevolent policy towards peaceful immigrants, I think that the political issue would mostly go away. Yes.

Yes, I think that's right as well. But we do need to clean up all of those things that make these issues messy. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Why is prayer in school such a big issue? Because government runs the school, you know, all of those very messy issues.

abortion funded by under Trump care or whatever, you know. The minute government provides health care, it enters a world of moral questions that are none of the government's business, such as abortion, assisted suicide, who should get the most expensive medical treatments right now in terms of priorities, prioritizing life and death. So the minute the government takes over health care, it's involved in moral issues that should be none of the government's business.

It's the same with education. The minute they open their mouth to start educating our children, then, of course, everything they do. If you're an atheist parent, you have a right to complain if they do pray. And if you're a Christian parent, you can say, hey, I want my kid to pray every day in school. But the government is taking a stand because it's running the schools. Yes. And any stand the government takes.

takes at that point is wrong. It shouldn't take a stand at all about the moral education of children or whether abortions are done at this hospital. Those are just not the government's business. But once it enters those businesses, it must invade personal freedom. It must make anti-abortion people either pay for abortion or pro-abortion people not. It must make important decisions that are moral and none of the state's business. Exactly.

That's where we are. Bri over here in the YouTube chat says both sides would agree to ban objectivist immigrants.

I think that's true. In fact, Trump would probably have someone at Google and Facebook making sure the conservatives got representation, but that objectivists were identified as a bannable hate group. Did I tell you that I think I'm on some list for monitoring on Twitter?

That wouldn't surprise me at all, Amy. I mean, I've been talking about, you know... You've got to be at least shadowbanned there, baby. I think I'm probably shadowbanned, but... Okay, bulk metadata collection, right? Right.

I have been an outspoken critic of it forever. You know, I'm-

To which I quickly responded, no, thank you for the offer, though, but would you be willing to join us in a petition to abolish antitrust laws? To which he responded, are you insane? I'm going after one of the, quote, biggest effing companies in the universe. To which I responded, well, universe is a big place. And it is bigness.

bigness should not be either a crime or a tort. So that's my only response to him. What's their colluding with government though? It's a problem. Google isn't doing things worth criticizing. How they're cooperating with China is unspeakable.

But antitrust isn't the solution any more than usually tariffs are a solution to anything. No, no. Yeah, no. We'll ask them if they want to join me when I'm going to go after challenging the FTC Facebook

- Right, right. - That's still ongoing. I'm still working on that. - And good for you. - Well, it's gotta be done. I think it's a way to take advantage of the one wonderful thing that Trump has done, but I'm told that it's something that any Republican who was elected would have done, but maybe the only Republican that could have been elected. - Well, and to question my own leftist credentials again,

I have to concede that if Hillary Clinton had were the president right now, I didn't vote for her any more than I voted for Trump, we would have

unspeakable Supreme Court nominations that would be all in favor of, say, creating welfare rights, positive welfare rights for people and so forth, that absolutely terrifies me as a possibility. So while I totally disagree with, say, Kavanaugh's jurisprudence, I kind of like Gorsuch's jurisprudence from what I see, but I really don't like it. I had to come to Kavanaugh's defense when he was being smeared during the

you know, the nomination process. But even Kavanaugh is better than what I suspect a Democrat would have put on the Supreme Court, even though I strongly disagree with Kavanaugh's jurisprudence.

Yeah. I wonder if Kavanaugh is sort of like the Supreme court's version of Trump as a Republican though. Right. Right. Morally neutral, very pragmatic. What does the law actually stay say? And how closely can I stick to that? Yeah. That's my analogy. Yeah. Gorsuch I love, but Gorsuch has said some really good things. He's, he's becoming even better in some ways than Thomas who'd been my favorite. Yes. Yes. And I mean, you know, I'm,

I'm nodding. I'm again, you're a scholar. Are you? I'm, you know, pick and choose when something really. No, you're a passionate. You are a brilliant scholar on privacy law, by the way. No, no. I am a, I am a tremendous value or on privacy and I've gotten in there and put my brain around it because I thought it was interesting. And I had a solution to a problem, but I looked at the two opinions, Thomas versus Gorsuch in the carpenter case. Exactly. And I,

Gorsuch is much more receptive to the idea that there can be a property interest involved in protecting this information. I think if I sat with Gorsuch for five minutes, no, if I had two minutes with Gorsuch, I think,

I could tell him my solution and he would get it. Right. Like that. We've got to arrange a private lunch between you and Justice Gorsuch. This is part of the whole FTC Facebook thing that I want to get this up there eventually, right? I think Gorsuch seems to be actually more open-minded to ideas about individual rights and freedom and property rights and privacy. Um,

in a principled way, the limits of government than just about any justice we've seen in a little while. - Yeah, no, excellent. So we have to give credit where it's due for that. - I think Trump gets at least some credit. You know, that was a brilliant move on his part during the campaign. Everyone could see that he wasn't a free market Republican.

Everyone could see that he wasn't a principled Republican like Goldwater or even Reagan. So he had to reassure the Republican base. And the way he principally did that was to provide the list that the Federalist Society had provided for potential nominees. And he's basically picked his judges from that list.

And in doing that and in keeping that promise, he's dramatically secured, strangely enough, the evangelical base when Trump is nothing like an evangelical right winger or a principled right winger of any kind, whether libertarian or Christian. Right. So federal society, they're the ones we get to blame. Is that it? Yes. What credit there is and what blame there is. Let's see. It seems that I have Trump supporters already.

Coming to my Facebook page to argue against me. And I have, of course there are my mouse frozen. I want to, I want to pick out some other stories that are, you know, let me, let me ask you this. You know, I had a little bit of discussion with you on Facebook this morning about this. I post this GFDA stuff. Good effing, I'm not going to say it. Yeah.

we have to categorize our YouTube video in some category if I say the word here, design advice, you know, GFDA. And the story is again that I discovered these people because Johnny Ive, the brilliant designer from Apple, they did a little story on him, actually a big long article on him. And they observed that in his office at Apple,

he had a gfda poster and what gfda does is they provide advice just like you know sort of motivational advice motivational advice just like so many other people do ever you know there's tons of outlets for motivational advice but theirs is often funny and it's laced with profanity and

And I've had discussions- - You used the F word and the S word, but the wisdom they give there, the real solid psychological advice that a lot of people need is really worthwhile. It's motivational, it's insightful. - Sometimes it's wrong and I don't repost the ones that I think are- - Right. - You know, I- - No, no, no, I'll post a quote from the Dalai Lama or the Pope if it supports my view, or Immanuel Kant if it supports my view. But they are actually,

very consistently posting a lot of good stuff, even if we don't agree with all of it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the premise should be that when you post something from somebody else who is clearly not an objectivist, it's not that you're saying you agree with every last thing that they say and whatever.

But the one thing that, you know, is this really a value to use profanity in this? Is this just kind of there being sort of edgy? But I made this really just kind of thought in my mind this morning that, you know, why do I like these people so much? And I was thinking, okay, well, here I am. So many people post whatever piece of

mushy motivational advice, you know, that gets to them in that moment that they needed to hear it. And so they figured everybody else needed to hear it too. I'm guilty, I do that. Put it out there, right? I confront our issues directly with the person involved when we can post it passive aggressively on Facebook.

No, but it's not even that. It's like confessional too, right? Yes, of course. No. Seriously, like seriously, you know, a lot of the stuff is like, yeah, this resonated with me. Not necessarily because I have something I have, because, you know, believe me, all of us who are adults of a certain age have gotten to the point where we realize we do have to go talk to that person.

right? Yes, hopefully. You're not going to put laundry out on Facebook, you know, this dirty laundry stuff. You're not going to do it, right? But, um,

this, you know, to me, again, it's, this is, this resonates with me. And a lot of it is just benign stuff. It's, you know, just don't procrastinate is one of them, right? Don't effing procrastinate. So, you know, it's, it's, it's not. If they're saying, get over something and move on, or if they're saying, be yourself, and, or if they're saying, don't care what others are doing, if you really believe in what you're doing, just do it. Stuff like that. Then it's motivation for our independence. It's motivation. Yeah.

resist social pressure. And I get that a lot from them. And that's a very positive message to be sending out, generally speaking. So tell me if you think I'm right, because this came to me today. So maybe I like this because...

It allows me to sort of be the mushy person that shares. But hide behind them. They said the F word. They said it offensively. I kind of agree with what they're saying. But it's like, if I put it out there with all the F word stuff, the focus is more on it's the F word and it's edgy and it's funny. And it's like, not me actually saying it.

here's this thing that resonated with me. I don't have to, I'm hiding a little is all I'm saying. Is that right? That's it.

I don't think you would use the F word if you were to compose. No, but I don't. That's the only thing I don't. Now, I used it this morning because of that guy who I saw is threatening me. Well, yes. If he's threatening, then a sharp response is appropriate. But if you're making some general advice, you know, be yourself or don't compromise and you use the F word in the process, I don't think you would do that in a general meme. So it's not so much hiding as it's just agreeing with the sentiment forcefully put and pay attention.

The F word is simply sort of like an exclamation point to say, and I really mean this and don't be trapped by this. So, you know, and profanity, I don't have much of a problem with profanity. I mean, I usually agree that it's bad writing. There's usually a better word. If that's the appropriate word, use it.

I'm not a big profanity fan, but I also don't think that we should be censoring or concerned about, I mean, I hear from eight-year-old kids profanity that I've never heard from my male buddies when they were drinking. So today, so standards do change linguistically as well. I guess the sense with the advice about whether it's effective to use it in this context is that

that it's supposed to kind of jar the brain a little bit and help this sort of message. Because again, the kind of motivational messages that they give are not so different from anybody else. Sometimes we could say that they seem to really get it more than a lot of other outlets for motivational messages. There's some nice stuff there, nice formulations that aren't necessarily profane, particularly in this one that I had today on Instagram. People can go check it out. But yeah,

that it maybe helps it penetrate the brain a little bit differently than all the other millions of times that you've heard whatever that message is. Well, you know what General Patton said? He was asked why he sweared so much when he gave speeches to his soldiers. And he said he wanted to get the message through good and strong and so that everyone understood that he meant it, even the folks in the back who weren't kind of paying attention. So he would, you know, throw a GD at them or something, you know,

call them bastards or something and get their attention. And today I think more and more linguistic standards have changed that if you really wanna get someone's attention,

That's a way of doing it, especially in a one-liner meme. But it is also true, though, that if you use the terms too much, then it loses all effect. Absolutely. And plus, it just makes you a potty mouth and gross. It's not always necessary. I mean, on the rare occasion, use it. You said it very well there. It's overused, and that's what diminishes its impact. I want those words to have impact so that on the rare occasion when I do use them, it gets the person's attention.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like this morning, I'm just, I was using so much profanity on that one thread about the threat as well, you know, threatening and he's holding a gun. So yeah, so that's, so yeah, it's, it's not me, but I still think that's part of what I'm doing. I'm kind of,

it's it's a diversion it's a distraction as well yeah in that context of me sharing look this resonated with me today i really needed to hear this today that's what the straightforward person would post here i'm like yeah i'm so cool i'm posting this edgy thing so yeah um

all of every awesome edgy aspect I had to me is now gone, James. Why are you on the air with me? I'm so bored now. All of my tricks have now been revealed.

Well, the best trick of all, of course, is to know what you're talking about and come from a principled, consistent stand. The language is optional and contextual. I think I do that. And really, that's, you know, integrity was a part of this this morning. And there's just so much of integrity. I keep having this ongoing discussion with people on Twitter and elsewhere about, you

which is worse, Trump versus Hillary? And, you know, what is all the pushback that you get when you criticize Trump really mean? And no, you're going to be principled and you're going to name things as you see them, call them as you see them, if you...

you know, see yourself as a person who finds a value in that, whose job it is to do that. We're talking about not just principled Republicans, but let's say principled objectivists who do not see that Trump, for example, is the least free market Republican, at least in his language.

that we've had ever maybe, for the last 100 years at least. And if they can't see that his tariff policies, his approach to dictatorship, his immigration policies haven't hurt the Republicans and changed the character of the principled nature of the Republican Party, at least in its nominal values, and they can't see Trump as that, and that any criticism of Trump, therefore,

is wrong. They're not the ones who are being principled. They have to identify that Trump is not an advocate of freedom, rights, or the free market. Yes, yes. And so the thing that I've been trying to formulate, and I don't know if I've done a great job of it in the last couple days or so when you talk about, well, so which is the biggest threat? Is it the Democrats or the Trump Republicans?

And one thing that I say is the Trump Republicans, not just because of that substantive issue right there's that substantive issue of this is supposed to be the party of more limited government and some people say he's a businessman capitalist or, you know, even an objectivist which is just crazy.

He's doing all of these status policies under that label, which is damaging everything. It's damaging the Republican Party in terms of policy. There's all that. But the thing that makes it more dangerous in my mind in a scarier way is that whenever I put a cogent criticism out there of a Trump policy,

People who you would have thought would be my allies are attacking me. And sometimes the attack is, well, but Hillary, but why is it wrong for me to name these criticisms? Why is it so wrong with respect to Trump?

No, no, you're maintaining context. They're the ones who are dropping any principles, any facade of having principle advocacy of freedom rights of the free market. And that's why I think he's more dangerous. The reason I think he's more dangerous is because-

He's changing the Republican Party into what used to be, as far as I can see, the old labor Democrat position, tariffs on immigration, economic nationalism. He's speaking the language of labor union Democrats of 30 years ago. He's converted the Republican Party from the party of Goldwater and Reagan or even Gerald Ford into the party of what used to be, you know, Gephardt and Joe Biden.

Now Joe Biden is moving over to a more socialist left because after all, Trump's outflanked him on the left. He's outflanked him with the labor vote in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Right. But moreover, and I'm going to go ahead and name the A word, the authoritarian word here. It's the sense that I'm getting is that criticism of him on

is not allowed, prohibited. Right. It's criticism of freedom. It's defense of the Democrats.

Any criticism of Trump must indicate that you are an advocate of maybe not just Hillary Clinton, but Bernie Sanders economic approach. Any criticism of Trump means you are QED, a Democrat, an advocate of Democrats and their policies and their economic policies, which is absurd. We have to be able to criticize either party when they're in power for what they're doing wrong. If you say, hey, are you advocating than the other side?

How awful the other side is? That's ridiculous. You have to be able to criticize each side for both. And what's disturbing is that the left is moving dramatically far in the socialist direction. They've thrown in any defense of free speech they used to be famous for. The right is dramatically moving in the direction of the left on economic issues. And they've thrown in any defense of the free, at least nominal defense of the free market they once had.

So neither side is defending freedom anymore. You don't have free speech leftists and you don't have free market rightists anymore. What you've got are pragmatists who are trying to seek power on the left, trying to appeal to certain groups to increase government power over the economy, and with the right throwing in the towel completely on the free market.

I mean, when Antifa does their demonstrations, the left does nothing. The government of Portland, the city of Portland, Oregon does nothing. So on both sides, it seems to me they've chucked in any principle, at least tenuous connection each side had to some kind of freedom earlier in our lifetime. Exactly, exactly.

You want to do something completely different before we end? Okay. So we'll do the money and now for something completely different. Okay, here we go. It's the story that I saw about Facebook, right? This one. So Facebook,

Facebook has reportedly used third party contractors to transcribe private messages on. I think you had to hit a button where you say it was OK to transcribe my messages. Right. So there there's the proviso. Right. So, you know,

a lot of people just read the headline and then they share it around. And then I read the article. And so what it said is that Facebook was trying to see how accurate the artificial intelligence that they use to transcribe those messages is. And they were using as, you know, the test data anonymized messages, but from real users of Facebook,

and real users of Facebook who had opted in in a certain way by saying, hey, I want you to do a text to, or excuse me, audio to text, you know. Right. You can text, you can listen to my private message and do a text transcription of it. Yeah. Now, I guess the assumption by the user is that it's a computer that's doing, they're listening. But it's all on their computer.

And isn't it a dry run for being able to transcribe any private message? And since the government is getting access to Facebook's information, then can Facebook say, hey, I want those transcripts, or can the government say to Facebook, the government say to Facebook, I want transcriptions of private conversations that you have? Yes. That's scary. That's very...

Well, and I know that not always, but some of my messages on Facebook, you know, they're private. I mean, I wouldn't be embarrassed if others found out about them because I think I'm a good person, but it's my private business. And I don't want the government being able to look into a private conversation that I'm having with my wife or my oldest friend. I mean, that's an invasion of my privacy. Yes. No. And that should not not be at all. And that's the sort of thing that I want to go ahead and fight with this.

So here's the thing. So if you say, okay, those people opted in, maybe it's better in that sense and that Facebook is trying to improve its services and stuff. But it seems to me that if Facebook was just wanting to know how well the technology worked, which is a valid business purpose, that they could have...

just phony conversations audio that they have their AI transfer. Why use anonymized real use? They could have tested that without using real conversations, couldn't they? They could have created their own dummy conversations from a dummy account and see how it worked. But they chose to ask

thousands of real Facebook users to be able to peep into their private messages, not just their public postings. And as I say, now the government apparently will have access to all that data. So they, yeah, they, they, they might. So the way that I see Facebook in this regard, I don't see them as blameless because I think, you know,

sure, Facebook, you could have done this better. Maybe it's cheaper to not have to hire people to make phony audio messages of various kinds that you want to test the AI on, right? But they have to hire actors. You know how horrible it is that they have to hire actors as opposed to using testing on just real messages. They could have used mid-level employees at the company. They could have gotten a janitor or a secretary. Why have all some people that have to sit there and have conversations?

fun, right? Talk about you pretend you're Cinderella and you pretend you're the Wicked Witch and have a phony conversation and we'll see how we can transcribe it. Great. Yeah. They could have done it that way, which would have been so clean and nice. Right. But instead, you know, let's take them at their word that they just did it this way for their business purpose. It's a fumble, right? And it's something that gives the FTC leverage

To say, oh, we have to regulate you because you did. Now, I still I'm going to say at the end of the day, I hate that phrase that, you know, they shouldn't be regulating Facebook. There could be compensation to anybody who could be identified as having been harmed by this, et cetera. I mean, it's embarrassing to have. Well, Facebook has an agreement already transcribed agreement with me.

When I do Facebook, I'm submitting and agreeing to the agreement that Facebook has with its users. If Facebook is just doing what they said they were going to do in the agreement, I agreed to. That's one thing. But I didn't agree to have a government monitor come in and check what Facebook was doing about sharing information.

Yeah, there's that too. And then the second issue is, even if it doesn't involve a government monitor, which right now they're on the verge of creating that danger explicitly, at least. Even if there's not a government monitor, did a person knowingly consent to that third party actual human monitor?

sitting there listening to they even know it was a human being listening to their private messages yeah they thought it was just some computer doing it or something so i don't know where that story is going to go the other thought that came to my mind when i saw that story is it just came out this story and the consent order that they've put together it has this strict date of i think june 24th or something or 27 something like that that

Only the, you know, everything up to that time, whatever Facebook did up to that time, it's going to be held blameless for. So there's going to be a huge incentive for Facebook to want that order. Oh, yeah. Okay. Avoid any Cambridge Analytica suits at all in the future now or any individual suits or class action suits at all now.

Yeah, so the thought that came to my mind is this conduct that's just been the subject of a news story in the last couple days. Is it something that Facebook would be absolved of any blame for thanks to this order under the FTC? And if so, that's going to make Facebook want to fight me in trying to oppose the government takeover of Facebook. Right, and they'll have a legal argument.

Awesome, right? Lovely.

Well, not a legal argument, but they have an incentive. I don't think they have an incentive to make the legal argument at the least. Yes. Incentive to make whatever. Well, given the fact that they were just exempted from this agreement, they could, you know, and that's very often what government regulations do. It'll create an artificial standard and all the company or the, you know, defendant in a civil suit has to do is say, hey, I was complying with the government regulations. Yes. It doesn't matter the harm I caused or the dishonesty that I used.

so long as I complied with the government regulations. And then, of course, there's the other side of it, which doesn't really care about corporate fault and imposes strict liability if there's any harm, whatever, whatever the company's fault. So companies are sort of got sort of have two guns to their heads and are basically agents for the government when both guns are pointed at them.

Yes. And the order, if it stands, does one thing along those lines that you're saying in terms of giving Facebook a pass for doing something that you and I might not like, which is this issue of metadata. So it explicitly gives permission for Facebook to retain all the metadata for communications, anything you post on Facebook, whatever you delete, right?

So long as you don't deactivate and delete your whole account. So if you decided, say, Jim, you say you said, okay, well, I know it's coming, you know, you've got, you know, FTC and DOJ are going to be having access to all my Facebook data because of this order. It's coming down the pipe.

And, you know, I don't want to get rid of Facebook. Facebook's a tremendous value to me. But I want to go in there and just get rid of some things selectively that are just really private to me. It's not like they're incriminating, but it's like, you know, like you said, I've got some private conversation with my wife or whatever in there. And I don't want the government. Why should they know about my kids' health or my economic issues with my boss or my personal issues with my wife? I mean, wait a minute here. Those are really personal issues. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's just metadata. They're finding out the clicks that I'm clicking on, the people I'm talking to, how many messages I'm making. Even that is an invasion of my privacy. But it's also the foot in the door. If not, if metadata, why not others? Why not the content? Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So the order says explicitly Facebook can retain privacy.

that metadata if you don't delete your whole account. That is ridiculous. And that is an alteration, of course, of the agreement that I started with Facebook on. Well, of course, they say they can change the terms of service at any time. Sure, sure, sure. And I'm the one who's got to opt out. But when it involves the government in a suit of the government and government agents coming in there, there's really, I have the choice of either

take Facebook's agreement with the government or leave it and the government shouldn't have been there at all. No, exactly. And that's one way in which if this order is imposed without the opportunity to challenge it at least, our interests have not been adequately represented one bit. As users, our interests have not been adequately represented and that's something that needs to be made clear. One kind of a nerdy

point that I have in my mind is whether that provision in the order conflicts with under the GDPR. And I think even before the GDPR, you know, as part of European law, generally, they have a right to be forgotten that they say that, you know, that you could go to a company who's got this data about you. And then, you know, as long as there's not some sort of legal action pending or, you know,

potential for legal action. If you say go and delete all my data, then they're supposed to, you're supposed to have this right to be forgotten, or, you know, maybe they retain some, but it's fair. There is no right to be forgotten. If Facebook is told it can retain this metadata and that

on demand without further process from court, without a warrant, et cetera, FTC and DOJ can obtain other information from a photograph. I may have deleted a private message. I may have deleted. Wait a minute. Yeah, that's kind of creepy. And part of Facebook's metadata could include what the photograph is of. Right. Because one thing we know about Facebook

is, for example, that Facebook, the AI, seems to be pretty good at identifying nudity. Right? Right. You're not allowed to post. It's supposed to be the things they key in on, right? So part of the metadata might be, well, there was some nudity in this picture. Right.

You mean you dared to show some photograph of some Renaissance statue of Venus or David? Yeah, beautiful nude sculpture or painting or whatever it is, right? Okay. So you get the picture of what they're doing to us. I have literally had friends that have posted classical art, famous art in the Western world, and they've been banned because there was nudity in it. Yes.

Crazy. And the Corderas, right? The Corderas with their wonderful gallery. Sometimes they're trying to share sculpture, paintings that they have. And that's weird because it's now limiting artistic free expression. Well, okay. So, you know, again,

If Facebook wants to have that as a content policy, I'm not going to have the obscenity rules. They want the nudity rules. If they could distinguish fine art from a porn picture exhibition, some creepy perverts dick picture.

versus a you know a painting by michelangelo or something the other day i was complaining it was like all these women go out there they're like oh i get all these unsolicited dick pictures and i don't get those what is up you know but then i remembered you know i've had to tell my wife shawley distressingly that i have obtained unsolicited dick pics i have

I don't want to go into any kind of commentary on each of us and what that makes mean about our fans perception of us but I have and it was unsolicited and kind of shocking okay well okay so maybe I have gotten them

There's one place where you can get sort of, you know, messages that you haven't asked to receive. Right. And that may, they may have come through here, but I wouldn't know. Because on Instagram, I believe, when you get a message request or whatever the equivalent is there, it can have an image in it. But in order to see the image in a message request, you have to click on the image. Right.

I don't click on the images. Some of those images are probably best left on see, I don't know the person why would I click on a picture. Why.

maybe I'm not as neglected. You probably get a lot more attention that way than I do. But you know what, in a way that's good, right? Because people better not send me crap now. Don't send me anything. I don't want them. I don't want them.

No, but, you know, myself and a lot of guy friends, you get unsolicited friend requests from women who are... Scantily clad. Well...

Eastern Europeans who are looking for a guy to help them get over here, escorts. You know, I don't regard Facebook as a dating service. I'm a happily married man in any case. But I am, I do often wonder about the sort of friend requests I get and the photographs that I get unsolicited and the creepy. You know what, women get the equivalent friend requests that we get.

So it'll be, you know, some guy and he's standing in front of a big yacht or a big military ship or, you know, so it's either the guy who, you know, he makes himself look like some rich professional jet setter or he's some accomplished military five-star general or something. And

Obviously, if you're a woman, you're just supposed to click accept on that. Yeah. Total stranger. Don't see. For instance, I love it. You know, sometimes the, you know, the badge that'll say the name of whoever this member of the military is. Right. Won't even match the name of the person in the friend request. Yeah. Oh, that's always the scary thing, too. You know, we could all be being catfished.

you know, there's that MTV TV show where, you know, people, and there are government agents on there, you know, too. Oh yeah. So they figure if, and you know, I'm, I'm okay with government agents. So, you know, if they want to go and, you know, try or whatever, that's, I don't think that,

One thing my third party doctrine theory won't do is get rid of secret agents. I think secret agents are fine, but just be aware. So, you know, there's people out there who are representatives of the government and they'll friend request you. And then the idea is whatever you share with your friends, therefore, whatever. People don't realize, in fact, the degree to which undercover FBI agents have infiltrated so many parts of our society.

There'll be people in various places that you wouldn't think would have FBI agents that actually do not just newspapers, media outlets and so forth, you know, private security groups, but bookstores and all sorts of organizations where some of the employees literally I know as a fact are also not only, you know, legitimate employees, but also FBI agents or CIA agents providing the government information.

And that I do not agree with. And, you know, again, we'll go back my third party doctrine solution. It makes an exception for a criminal enterprise. So for instance, there was a story recently about there was some online group and the online group was, it was understood by everybody who was in the group was for the purpose of sharing child pornography.

So this was a case, this was a case in Arizona, but I think I was talking about this case with Tim Sandefur. So if you have that where the entire group is formed for a criminal purpose, and that's one of the most disgusting criminal purposes you can have, child pornography and the sharing of child pornography is disgusting. Short of murder, it's just about the worst crime. Yeah.

Maybe it's worse, right? Yeah. Well, you've ruined an entire life. I've done as a prosecutor, I have enough experience with child molest to know that what you've done is you've permanently damaged the child involved. Yes. You've taken so much of their life away. Yes. Yes. So given that, if you have a government agent infiltrating that, then sharing from that without a warrant, whatever, because that's,

Any agreement amongst those people, hey, let's all indulge in this disgusting stuff and keep it private. Right. Not enforceable at common law. Illegal contract gone out. No privacy. But a bookstore or a Facebook profile where I'm just out there trying to

socialize and educate or promote our podcast exactly right yeah that's all we're doing we're not doing anything wrong so if i you know i don't know i might have a government agent or two as friends on facebook i i'm pretty careful and i don't think i do but maybe there's somebody there they're not entitled no i'm not doing anything criminal you haven't violated the law you're not up to any criminal or terrorist activities why the heck are they looking at that yeah so you know

They don't have even a threat of a justification for why they would be looking into it yet. So, I mean, where's the crime? Where's the physical threat to Americans? And if that's not there, why the heck are they looking at all? Exactly. So, boy, have we geeked out now. I want to go to the message that you sent me and see if I'm missing any one of the stories that you wanted to discuss, because I just kind of went on a tangent there.

And I'm feeling guilty. - Aw, you have no basis to feel guilty. - Well, but I am. Okay, so let me see if I can scroll up in this. Am I gonna be able to scroll? My computer is not-- - I think I may have mentioned the shootings. - Yeah, so what did you wanna say about the shootings? - Well,

I was disgusted at the immediate way it was politicized, the shootings, the horrible shootings, both in El Paso and in Dayton. I was distressed at the way the two, the difference in the way the two were discussed. And I was further distressed at the complete dropping of context when it comes to gun violence.

you know, the amount of shootings that occurred just in St. Louis or Baltimore or Chicago, the course of a single weekend eclipsed the number of shootings and both mass shootings put together. And you just take, you know, the 50 some shootings that occurred in Chicago the same weekend as both mass shootings.

Take, for example, too, the ineffectiveness of gun control as such. London has basically got the same violent crime rate, murder rate that New York City does now. London has some of the most strict gun control laws in the world, of course. And yet, though their murder rate was greater than that of New York City, this year it's on schedule to be about the same.

Gun control has zero to do with violent crime directly. In fact, for the last 20, 30 years, as gun ownership has increased, gun crimes have significantly decreased overall, and gun accidents have even significantly decreased over time.

And on the other hand, the presence of guns, I think, is the one thing that could end and prevent. I mean, just the presence of an armed guard usually prevents gun violence. But it's the presence of that armed guard that could possibly stop it.

I'm not a big fan of either side's approach. Trump will complain about video games. Trump will complain about the lack of moral character and so forth, talk about psychological red. He'll even say that we should lock up more crazy people.

just for being crazy, which I'm really opposed to. So let's lock up a bunch more crazy people because we have a gun issue. I mean, involuntarily incarcerate people because they are alleged to have some psychological illness. I don't think that's the correct approach any more than I think gun control is the correct approach. So the politicization on both sides has me rather disgusted. Yes.

Yeah. Some kind of background check is appropriate, but then where you draw the line. Well, forgetting guns. If, for example, someone has a psychiatric problem or has stated threats that the police know about, restricting them from having guns is one thing. Putting them into a facility involuntarily. Exactly.

is what Trump advocated in the day after these shootings. We need to lock up more nuts. Yes. Wow, it's not just taking their guns away, it's taking their total freedom away because the government assesses someone as having a psychological problem. That scares me at least as much as gun control does. But you know, they could sure use some guns in Hong Kong right now, eh?

They could. It was interesting. One of the complaints that I got when I was out there on Twitter, you know, I got a lot because I had that one tweet that Shapiro retweeted. So I was getting a lot of pushback from pro Chinese and stuff. Yeah. And they were saying, well, at least we don't have the shootings and stuff that you've got over there. Okay. Yeah, I see. Here's one. So what about Tucker Carlson saying that,

Was it like the white racist problem or whatever is a hoax? Is that the...

Let me get it more accurately. For decades, America has had a violent right-wasis problem. It's part of our history. The KKK, the neo-Nazis, the skinheads. White supremacy is a hoax is what he says. For 18 years, I was a prosecutor before Trump ever came along. And we had white nationalists and KKK members and skinheads who were a violent threat of a problem.

Like the mafia, like Al Capone, the KKK was properly infiltrated by the federal government because they advocated violence and they were a systematically violent organization. The government isn't treating Antifa at all like that yet, but how far are we away from people getting their freedoms at least taken away for purely ideological reasons because somehow their ideology is scary or inappropriate? Yeah.

So, but the idea of the hoax in some sense, you don't necessarily think it's not a hoax. We just had someone during Trump's first two years in office. We had a synagogue shot up by an anti-Semite. We had a white nationalist in El Paso have a shoot up. In New Zealand, we had a right wing crazed idiot doing that. To say that white nationalism is not a violent problem right now is to stick your head in the sand like an ostrich.

Trump at least acknowledged it as a problem in the wake of these shootings and deserves some credit for that. But to minimize the idea that we have a white national problem. Now, if I were to compare it to say to the Islamic threat, the threat from Islamic violence, I'd make the comparison fairly. I mean, thousands of people were killed in a single day in 9-11.

I don't know any mass shooter, white nationalist mass shooter who's killed over 2,000 people in one day because of their ideology. So if I were to compare it, say, to Islamic violence, I'd be rational and compare the two fairly. I think one is a greater problem. On the other hand, to say that white nationalism is in tokes, totally made up, that is dangerous. Yes.

So I'm going to check one thing with you earlier. The person who posted the image that I think reasonably construe as a threat, and I haven't said the person's name and I won't say the person's name. Let's not, yeah. You said you understood that person as having said that Trump was an objectivist. Right. A good objectivist, an American like Trump.

Dot, dot, dot was one of the memes, one of the posts, the pictures he posted, I think within the last day or two. Yeah. So I would say that's a real thing. You know, Trump's an objectivist. I didn't see it. I was talking about the thing that I have seen for myself and talked about my opinion with regard to it. Well, I think the basic criticism of us as a left of us is that we are critical of Trump.

It's not that we're advocating tariffs and immigration restrictions like they do, because Trump can do that and still be an objectivist in their mind. It's that we criticize Trump at all, which must make us socialist progressive leftists, advocates of Bernie Sanders or something.

Yeah. Where's my card carrying socialist card here? I don't remember signing up. I got to have it somewhere. And, you know, I am constantly being critical of the left. I was harshly critical of Hillary Clinton during the campaign, as you know. But that doesn't buy you any credit with these, you know, Trump fanatics who claim to be friends of Ayn Rand, who will not permit any criticism of Trump.

Or you're some kind of Marxist. My answering AOC and I've made fun of Bernie Sanders here and there and this stuff. No, you know. No, no, no. Or last time we had the podcast, I was saying, yeah, these Congresswomen are anti-Semites and Trump is an anti-immigrant bigot. So...

Well, and you just now came out against reason in the non-ableft of this way. So the message is to everybody, because we should wrap up now anyway, but the message is, and I think you can get it from today's show if you watch the whole show and got the variety of opinions that we expressed on all the different non-integrated topics. So sorry, everybody. It was a bit scattered. All over the place. But you can't really put us in a box. You can't pitch in a hole where we are.

as if we're supposed to be a leftist, we're supposed to be leftists of some kind, then why would we disagree with reason, for example, on that issue about... No, we are none of the above, proudly so. Definitely.

So thank you so much. And as I said, I don't think I'm going to be able to do a show next week, but can we please do one the week after, sir? Yes, please. And the rest of the time that your own's out, let's make sure we fill the week with something. Yes, definitely. Oh no, every single week, let's do it. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So two weeks, not from today, but probably the Wednesday. Wednesday, probably. Okay. Nearly two weeks from now, we'll do it. No, this is great.

This is always such fun, Amy. Thank you so much. Thanks, everybody. We're going to go. Take care. Thanks.