1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:02,520 Welcome to Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone. 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:05,720 In the Libertarian Institute today, I'm joined by Daniel 3 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:10,280 McCarthy, the editor of Modern Age, a conservative review, and 4 00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:13,680 a contributing editor to The American Conservative. 5 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:17,360 Mr. McCarthy, where can people go to find your collection of 6 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:19,320 articles or materials you've written? 7 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:23,240 Well, you can go to modernagejournal.com if you'd 8 00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:26,480 like to see my work at modern age, which I edit as well as 9 00:00:26,480 --> 00:00:29,360 write for. You can also follow my work at 10 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:31,800 creators.com, which is the Creators Syndicate. 11 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,560 I have a weekly syndicated newspaper column and you can 12 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:36,640 find it collected on that website. 13 00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:39,880 You can also find my my syndicated column at Chronicles 14 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:42,720 magazine or at the New York Post, a number of other outlets. 15 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:45,760 And I write for here and there and everywhere. 16 00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:48,360 So the American Conservative, the University Bookman, all 17 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:50,480 kinds of outlets. But generally, if you will 18 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:55,440 follow my account on X, which is at Tory Anarchist. 19 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:58,760 So on the platform formerly known as Twitter at Tory 20 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:03,000 Anarchist, you can follow my not only Twitter feed but also all 21 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:05,920 the articles that I write and promote on that platform. 22 00:01:06,960 --> 00:01:09,840 Terrific. Can you please explain the 23 00:01:09,840 --> 00:01:12,880 principal difference between people on the left and the 24 00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:17,240 mindset of people on the right? Well, that's, you know, a nice 25 00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:21,600 big question to start off with. You know, I, I think the left of 26 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:25,920 today in the 21st century is characterized by two things. 27 00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:34,080 One of them is a belief that existing institutions of almost 28 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:36,760 all kinds, whether it's capitalism and property rights, 29 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:40,640 whether it's the inheritance of Western civilization, the 30 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:43,680 Christian religion, whatever the case may be, there's a tendency 31 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,640 on the left to believe that these elements that have come 32 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:49,840 down to us from the past are holding us back and they are 33 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:54,560 preventing us from achieving all human happiness and, you know, 34 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,560 sort of peace and love and harmony. 35 00:01:57,160 --> 00:01:59,720 And they So that's, that's, that's the premise. 36 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:01,800 The premise is that the past is a burden upon us. 37 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,760 The answer they provide to that burden is to say, well, what we 38 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:08,360 need to do is to create an institution or a set of 39 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:12,040 institutions that are able to free us, to liberate us from the 40 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,800 burden of the past. And the institutions that they 41 00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:19,000 put their support behind tend to be institutions like the federal 42 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,360 government and its regulatory apparatus, but they also tend to 43 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:24,920 be institutions like higher education, which is going to 44 00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:27,560 free our minds from all the ideas that we have inherited 45 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:30,960 from our ancestors. It's, you know, in many cases, 46 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:34,000 the mass media, especially the prestige media, the elite media, 47 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:37,560 these institutions are going to provide information which the 48 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:41,200 left expects citizens will then use to, you know, always vote 49 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:43,480 against Republicans, vote for Democrats, vote for 50 00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:45,240 progressives, vote for people from the left. 51 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:48,320 But then progressives are often, people on the left are often 52 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:52,280 shocked when it turns out that all of these institutions are 53 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:56,600 not welcomed by ordinary people and that ordinary people often 54 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:00,440 feel as if these institutions are in fact run by a new elite 55 00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:02,280 that does not have the best interests. 56 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:04,240 You know, of ordinary people at heart. 57 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:07,760 And they think that this alienation that ordinary people 58 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,640 feel towards the institutions of power that the left dominates is 59 00:03:11,640 --> 00:03:14,600 itself a by product of all of the wrong things that we have 60 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:17,560 inherited from the past. So you would think if they were 61 00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:20,240 just pure Democrats on the left, they would say, look, if the 62 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:22,400 people don't like what you're offering, then you know, you 63 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:23,960 can't continue offering the same thing. 64 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,360 But progressives, people on the left don't really have that 65 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:27,680 view. They actually think we are 66 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:29,440 correct. No matter how few of us there 67 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:31,360 are. If the if the public doesn't 68 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,000 accept our views that that's neither here nor there, that 69 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:35,400 just shows that the public is wrong. 70 00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:38,720 And really what we have to do is get the public to accept our 71 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:40,360 views. And we're going to do that 72 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:43,840 through the means of education and through a lot of nudges and 73 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:47,120 incentives and in some cases outright coercion even, which 74 00:03:47,120 --> 00:03:49,400 are going to hurt the people, change the way they think. 75 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:52,000 And then they will affirm the things you want them to affirm. 76 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:55,440 This whole picture that I painted is really, you know, 77 00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,800 it's kind of set out very effectively in Jean Jacques 78 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,000 Rousseau in The Social Contract. And I think most of, you know, 79 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,840 the left since then has been a fading echo of Rousseau and that 80 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:08,920 Rousseau is actually, he's an evil genius, but he is a genius. 81 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,400 He really does understand human nature very well. 82 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,680 And the modern left is still trying to work through some of 83 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:19,120 the insights that Rousseau had. And if you could briefly explain 84 00:04:19,120 --> 00:04:21,680 the mindset of someone on the right, how do they see the 85 00:04:21,680 --> 00:04:23,880 world? Yeah, well, the right is exactly 86 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:25,920 the opposite. The right says, actually all the 87 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:29,520 good things that we currently enjoy in life are as a result of 88 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:32,720 the things that have come down to us, that it would be, you 89 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:35,120 know, counterproductive for us to get rid of our inheritance 90 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:37,360 because, in fact, that's what makes us free. 91 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:39,840 That's what makes us prosperous. That's what makes us, you know, 92 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:41,840 people who don't know how to live good lives. 93 00:04:42,120 --> 00:04:45,360 And if we get rid of the things that have made civilization 94 00:04:45,560 --> 00:04:48,320 successful, you're going to an unsuccessful civilization. 95 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:50,320 The left says if you get rid of those old things, you're going 96 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:51,920 to have a more successful civilization. 97 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:53,680 And the right says you're actually not going to have 98 00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:55,960 you're going to have a less successful civilization or no 99 00:04:55,960 --> 00:04:58,520 civilization at all. Now, this means that the right, 100 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:01,080 you know, tends to support a whole variety of institutions 101 00:05:01,280 --> 00:05:03,440 which are besieged in the 21st century. 102 00:05:03,720 --> 00:05:05,280 Sometimes that might be the nuclear family. 103 00:05:05,280 --> 00:05:06,800 Sometimes it might be traditional religion. 104 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,760 Sometimes it will be, you know, 19th century kind of independent 105 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:15,320 proprietorship of businesses and economic activities. 106 00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:18,920 All of these things might wind up being part of a right wing 107 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:21,200 coalition because they're all trying to preserve something 108 00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:24,160 about the past that they think was absolutely essential to 109 00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:26,560 creating what's been successful about our civilization of our 110 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:30,000 country. Today we are going to discuss 111 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:34,640 Murray and Rothbard's 1992 speech, A Strategy for the 112 00:05:34,640 --> 00:05:36,760 Right. For those unfamiliar, Dr. Murray 113 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:40,880 and Rothbard was an economist at the University of Nevada, Las 114 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,440 Vegas, someone who I have learned a great deal from with 115 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:47,720 regards to philosophy, economics, and libertarianism. 116 00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:52,320 So Mr. McCarthy, who is Rothbard referring to when he says the 117 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:54,360 old right? Yeah. 118 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:57,760 Rothbard in that essay also used the phrase the original right. 119 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:02,080 And he notes that there are successive waves of movements 120 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,520 that call themselves a new right, which always makes the 121 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:06,320 previous new right, now an old right. 122 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,200 So it can be confusing if you use these relative terms of old 123 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:11,120 and new. But Rothbard argues that there 124 00:06:11,120 --> 00:06:13,520 was such a thing called the original right, by which he 125 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:17,360 means a number of intellectuals and some politicians who were 126 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:20,160 staunch opponents of the New Deal back in the 1930s. 127 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:25,680 And these original rightists, as Rothbard sees them, were, in 128 00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:28,920 many cases, folks who had started out as being somewhat 129 00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:31,240 progressive, somewhat liberal, somewhat on the left. 130 00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,400 In many cases, they were, you know, classical liberals or free 131 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:38,000 markets, you know, inclined individuals in terms of, you 132 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:39,960 know, what they appreciated philosophically. 133 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:42,680 And Rothbard says that, you know, basically, the New Deal 134 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,160 radicalized them and it made them realize, wait a minute, 135 00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:47,400 America already had a lot to conserve. 136 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:49,640 And the New Deal is actually a revolution against that. 137 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:52,320 It's a revolution against, you know, the freedoms and the 138 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:57,000 independents and the property rights that Americans had 139 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:58,880 enjoyed. And therefore the New Deal was, 140 00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:00,240 you know, a very destructive thing. 141 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,240 And these people who previously had been thought of perhaps in 142 00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:05,800 some sense as being rather progressive, or at least, you 143 00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:10,480 know, very classically liberal, they now were branded by the New 144 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:13,920 Dealers, by Roosevelt as being arch conservatives, as being 145 00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:16,600 enemies of progress. And many of them said, well, 146 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:18,200 actually, you know what there is, there is a lot that we need 147 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:20,120 to conserve. And so we are perhaps going to 148 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,360 be more comfortable with the label conservative in the 149 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:24,040 future. There's some nuances that need 150 00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:25,840 to be introduced. And then perhaps, you know, 151 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:29,600 further in our discussion, we can we can get into that. 152 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:32,760 Certainly there there are examples of various kinds of 153 00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:35,760 conservatism that go back well beyond the 1930s. 154 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:39,600 And even in the 1930s, not all of the conservatives were these 155 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:42,720 individualists and, you know, sort of old classical liberals 156 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:45,520 that Rothbard is referring to. Some of the particular 157 00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:47,920 individuals that Rothbard has in mind and that he names in his 158 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:52,120 essay are Albert J NOC, who was a sort of brilliant cantankerous 159 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:55,160 essayist and a self-proclaimed anarchist. 160 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,400 He in fact didn't even like to identify as anything like a 161 00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:58,840 liberal. He thought of himself as 162 00:07:58,840 --> 00:08:00,800 actually being in the tradition of radicalism. 163 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:03,280 And he was, you know, an individualist anarchist. 164 00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:07,160 HL Mencken, who was, you know, one of the first Americans to 165 00:08:07,160 --> 00:08:10,840 really appreciate Friedrich Nietzsche and who, you know, 166 00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:15,240 Mencken was a a great critic of mass culture and democracy in 167 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:17,800 its cultural forms as well as in its political forms. 168 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:21,360 So Menken and Knock are both very, you know, sort of 169 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:24,240 complicated figures who are not just, you know, sort of run of 170 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:26,680 the John Stuart Mill classical liberals, so to speak. 171 00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:31,320 He also mentions Garrett Garrett and John T Flynn, Isabel 172 00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:35,039 Patterson, Rose Wilder Lane. These were writers, in some 173 00:08:35,039 --> 00:08:37,960 cases novelists, in many cases journalists who had an 174 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:40,480 attachment to freedom and were strong critics of the New Deal 175 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:43,320 back in the 1930s. And we'll get into, I think in 176 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:45,240 the course of our discussion kind of what happens to this 177 00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:50,800 original, right? So they were anti welfare and 178 00:08:50,800 --> 00:08:54,440 anti warfare. Would that be a fair way to 179 00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,600 categorize Garrett, Garrett, John T Flynn and all those other 180 00:08:57,600 --> 00:08:59,040 people? Absolutely, that's exactly 181 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:00,480 right. So, you know, not only were they 182 00:09:00,480 --> 00:09:03,760 opponents of the New Deal, but they, you know, in some cases 183 00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:05,920 they, they may have supported World War One. 184 00:09:06,160 --> 00:09:08,800 But even the few who did support World War One, by the end of the 185 00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:12,760 at that war, they were extremely disillusioned and critical about 186 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:15,520 what Woodrow Wilson had done. And they were very critical of 187 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:17,160 the fact that America had gotten into the war. 188 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:19,160 They realized that they had been duped basically. 189 00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:23,280 So the old right or the original right was very anti war. 190 00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:26,360 When they saw, you know, the storm clouds leading to World 191 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:29,200 War 2 on the horizon, they said, you know what, this is going to 192 00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:32,520 be very much like World War One. This is also going to be a war 193 00:09:32,520 --> 00:09:34,240 that America can and should stay out of. 194 00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:38,480 So the old right was very anti war as well as being against the 195 00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:40,000 welfare state and against the New Deal. 196 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:44,000 And then after World War 2, many these old right figures, 197 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:46,960 especially the ones that we've named already, they continue to 198 00:09:46,960 --> 00:09:50,360 be quite skeptical of or opposed to the idea of fighting a Cold 199 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:53,040 War with the Soviet Union. And that's a point that Rothbard 200 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:57,960 thinks is highly important. Rothbard mentions friendly 201 00:09:57,960 --> 00:10:01,280 differences within the paleo movement, referring to 202 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:05,000 immigration, military isolationism, and free trade. 203 00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:08,360 What was the Paleo movement? Yeah. 204 00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:12,280 So the paleo conservatives basically emerge as a movement 205 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:16,720 in the late 1980s, and they are emerging in response to a couple 206 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:19,600 of things. By the late 1980s, there had 207 00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:21,920 been, and I apologize for the complexity of this, but you 208 00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:26,320 know, it is kind of a kind of like a series of dominoes, you 209 00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:28,320 know. So to explain one one thing 210 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,080 falling over, you have to actually go back a little bit to 211 00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:35,480 the previous development in the 1960s and 70's, the American 212 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:40,080 left basically split and there was a new left, which was, you 213 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:42,880 know, in many cases anti war, but it wasn't just anti war. 214 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:45,400 It was often anti Western. It was also anti Israel. 215 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:48,600 It it was, you know, beginning to adopt, you know, the ideas of 216 00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:52,320 kind of multiculturalism and what we would now call woke ISM 217 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:56,280 that new left started to emerge. And then a lot of the old Cold 218 00:10:56,280 --> 00:11:00,360 War left, which had supported, you know, American Cold War 219 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:04,200 actions, it became very alienated from this new left and 220 00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:07,200 decided to start migrating into the Republican Party and start 221 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:09,720 identifying itself as being more conservative. 222 00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:14,240 The interesting thing is though, these, you know, formerly Cold 223 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:17,720 War liberals who became what's called neoconservatives, they 224 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:19,320 never actually liked the old right. 225 00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:21,720 Not only did they not like the old right that Rothbard is 226 00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:25,160 talking about, they didn't even like the old right or the, you 227 00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:28,840 know, slightly less old right of the Barry Goldwater era, of 228 00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:32,640 National Review and of, you know, Russell Kirk and thinkers 229 00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:34,760 like that. The neo conservatives basically 230 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:37,440 thought that the conservatives who came before them in the 231 00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:41,400 1950s and 1960s were either too libertarian or too 232 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:45,560 traditionalist, that they were not sufficiently, you know, open 233 00:11:45,560 --> 00:11:48,600 to the possibility of a conservative welfare state and 234 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:50,920 that they also had too many isolationist or non 235 00:11:50,920 --> 00:11:53,520 interventionist instincts. The neoconservatives, because 236 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:56,760 they had been Cold War liberals all along, they wanted America 237 00:11:56,760 --> 00:12:00,360 not only to continue being a Cold War, you know, active 238 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:03,360 power, but they also at the end of the Cold War said, you know 239 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:06,280 what, let's keep going. Let's let's go on and build, you 240 00:12:06,280 --> 00:12:09,960 know, kind of worldwide, you know, liberal democracy or 241 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:12,400 social democracy. Let's export that to every 242 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:14,840 corner of the planet through military force as well as 243 00:12:14,840 --> 00:12:18,960 through regime change by means of propaganda and covert action 244 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:21,360 and other things. Well, all of this, this, you 245 00:12:21,360 --> 00:12:24,520 know, sort of neo con takeover of the American right in the 246 00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:29,400 1980s, especially by the late 1980s, this was really shocking 247 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:33,120 to anyone who remembered what the right had been before the 248 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:36,160 neocons took it over. And that included not only folks 249 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:38,680 who still were loyal to the memory of Barry Goldwater and 250 00:12:38,680 --> 00:12:41,400 folks who were loyal to the memory of, you know, Russell. 251 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:43,920 Well, Russell Kirk was still alive in the late 80s and early 252 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:45,520 90s. So the people who are still 253 00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:49,320 loyal to him were very shocked and appalled by the neocons, And 254 00:12:49,320 --> 00:12:52,400 so were folks who had started to rediscover what Murray Rothbard 255 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:53,520 calls the original. Right. 256 00:12:53,880 --> 00:12:57,760 So there were both libertarians and traditionalists who saw the 257 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:02,880 neocons as being in favor of basically worldwide, you know, 258 00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:07,280 military interventions to promote, you know, the worst 259 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:11,080 aspects of not just the American, you know, sort of 260 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,480 liberal welfare state. But in the case of the paleo 261 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,680 conservatives, they also didn't like, you know, some of the idea 262 00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:20,680 of promoting American style capitalism or corporatism really 263 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,120 to the world as well. So an issue like free trade 264 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:28,520 became one of the key, you know, hot spots or, you know, trigger 265 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:32,520 points for people like Pat Buchanan, for example, in this 266 00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:34,480 era. So the paleo conservatives, they 267 00:13:34,480 --> 00:13:37,240 tended to be opposed to globalism, by which they meant 268 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:40,200 not only foreign intervention but also free trade. 269 00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:42,720 And then they also were very restricted when it came to 270 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:44,480 immigration. So the neoconservatives thought 271 00:13:44,680 --> 00:13:47,520 everyone all around the world is basically already an American 272 00:13:47,680 --> 00:13:49,960 and is just waiting for our bombs to liberate them from 273 00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:52,480 these oppressive institutions in their, you know, their own 274 00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:54,840 countries that are preventing them from realizing their full 275 00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:57,200 Americanness. Well, if the neocons had that 276 00:13:57,200 --> 00:13:59,320 view, they also thought if we just open our borders to the 277 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:01,520 whole world, that's also just going to bring in more people 278 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:03,720 who will be good Americans. And maybe even they will be 279 00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:06,800 better Americans than these other Americans who are already 280 00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:11,040 here who have been corrupted by the legacy of American 281 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:13,680 conservatism and in some cases, the original right. 282 00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:16,560 So you can see why the neocons, why I think of them as being 283 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:19,440 just like today's left. They think that the legacy of 284 00:14:19,440 --> 00:14:23,080 the past is what's holding back the entire planet from enjoying 285 00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,000 the benefits of liberal democracy, and that force and 286 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:29,000 revolution must be used to change institutions all around 287 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:30,760 the world. And they also think that 288 00:14:30,760 --> 00:14:34,200 Americans here are guilty of wrong think that, you know, too 289 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,840 many people in small towns don't have a sufficiently progressive 290 00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:40,560 cosmopolitan attitude as the neocons would define it. 291 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:43,320 And therefore they have to be re educated, you know, and 292 00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:45,560 manipulated by the same instruments that the left uses. 293 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:51,040 Murray Rothbard asks who is the agency of social change? 294 00:14:51,160 --> 00:14:55,280 Which group may be expected to bring about the desired change 295 00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:59,360 in society? He refers to Is it 1 the 296 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:03,240 unwashed masses? Is it the proletariat as Marxist 297 00:15:03,240 --> 00:15:07,640 say, or is it the power elite, which we today call the Deep 298 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:10,040 state? Who do you think is the agency 299 00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:12,400 of social change? I'm sorry, who does Rothbard say 300 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,280 is the agency of social change and do you agree with him? 301 00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,600 Yeah, Rothbard says it is the people who are now called the 302 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:20,800 deplorables. So they are the people who are 303 00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:23,080 shut out of the institutions of power. 304 00:15:23,080 --> 00:15:25,760 And I think he's basically correct about that, at least in 305 00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:30,600 terms of the mass base or the popular base for any kind of 306 00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:34,000 resistance to not just the left, but also to the entire kind of 307 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:36,720 administrative state apparatus, the deep state and so forth. 308 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:39,640 Rothbard asks, you know, a question. 309 00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:43,600 Basically, he investigates this alternative hypothesis which FA 310 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:46,000 Hayek had endorsed. Hayek believed that if you could 311 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:49,320 just educate the ruling class in the principles of classical 312 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:52,760 liberalism or the principles of freedom, that the existing 313 00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:55,560 ruling class would kind of willingly surrender its 314 00:15:55,560 --> 00:15:58,480 privileges or would take on, you know, a kind of more selfless 315 00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:01,440 attitude towards the public and would not try to dominate them. 316 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:04,640 And I think Hayek was a little bit naive in terms of, you know, 317 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:10,040 what the actual self-interest and, you know, plausible 318 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:12,080 psychology of the ruling class was going to be. 319 00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:14,680 So yes, you can. You when you give the ruling 320 00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:17,640 class the ideas of classical liberalism, the ideas of liberty 321 00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:20,320 and libertarianism, what does the ruling class actually do 322 00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:22,320 with them? It simply finds a way to adapt 323 00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:24,920 those ideas for the service of that ruling class itself. 324 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:28,440 So Rothbard's right, you need to go for the people who are 325 00:16:28,640 --> 00:16:31,840 outsiders, the people who are, you know, actually actively 326 00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:35,560 rejected and attacked by and oppressed by the the 327 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:37,880 establishment. And he's been proved right. 328 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:41,280 I think he's been vindicated by, you know, the rise of Donald 329 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:42,800 Trump. It's not because Donald Trump is 330 00:16:42,800 --> 00:16:45,560 either a great paleo conservative philosopher or 331 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:47,720 certainly not a great, you know, sort of Roth Barty and 332 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:49,880 libertarian. But Trump is someone who 333 00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:53,200 understands instinctively that you need to connect with this, 334 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:57,320 you know, base of Americans who are being, you know, shut out 335 00:16:57,320 --> 00:16:59,400 from power and actually being demonized. 336 00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:02,560 These people are the ones who can, you know, help to elect 337 00:17:02,760 --> 00:17:04,680 someone who actually is going to disrupt the system. 338 00:17:04,880 --> 00:17:06,880 And with Trump, you know, a lot of it is an instinctual 339 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:08,680 disruption. It's not, again, that he's 340 00:17:08,680 --> 00:17:10,960 someone who studied Murray Rothbard, who studied, you know, 341 00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:14,319 Paul Gottfried or Sam Francis. He's just someone who 342 00:17:14,319 --> 00:17:16,160 instinctively understands how the power structure in 343 00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:19,119 Washington and in, you know, the financial world, how it works 344 00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:21,280 and what's necessary in order to shake it up. 345 00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:26,240 There is a general theory referred to as the iron law of 346 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:29,960 oligarchy, and I've seen people both on the left and right. 347 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:32,800 Of course, the left always talks about these institutions, 348 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:35,200 education, healthcare. This should be decided by the 349 00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:39,120 people, not just a few elite. Even Steve Bannon said the 350 00:17:39,120 --> 00:17:41,760 problem is the Federal Reserve, which piqued my interest, to 351 00:17:41,760 --> 00:17:44,720 which he said the problem is you only have a few elites running 352 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:46,400 this. It's the people who need to be 353 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:49,680 in charge of the central bank. However, there's an iron law of 354 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:53,160 oligarchy, which simply says all complex organizations, 355 00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:55,600 regardless of how democratic they are when started, 356 00:17:55,800 --> 00:17:57,720 eventually develop into oligarchies. 357 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:01,360 Since no sufficiently large and complex organization can 358 00:18:01,360 --> 00:18:04,800 function purely as a direct democracy, power within an 359 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,520 organization will always get delegated to individuals within 360 00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:11,040 that group, elected or otherwise. 361 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,880 What are your thoughts on the iron law of oligarchy? 362 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:18,320 And is this something that just makes if this law is real, then 363 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:22,400 all of leftism is completely irrelevant to anything we should 364 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:24,400 consider? What are your thoughts on this? 365 00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:28,960 Well, I think the left, you know, would find the iron law of 366 00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,720 oligarchy inconvenient in terms of its rhetoric. 367 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,080 So the left wants to say that all of its agenda is actually 368 00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:37,360 the people's agenda. And of course, this goes all the 369 00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:40,200 way back to Rousseau. Rousseau says basically all of 370 00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:42,600 these ideas that are Rousseau's own ideas about reshaping 371 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:45,680 society, He says these are going to be the ideas of the general 372 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:47,480 will. Well, you know, who speaks for 373 00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:49,120 the general will. Apparently Rousseau has 374 00:18:49,120 --> 00:18:51,240 nominated himself. It's a little more complicated 375 00:18:51,240 --> 00:18:52,760 than that, but that's that's the gist of it. 376 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:56,080 That's the bottom line. And likewise today, I think, you 377 00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:58,440 know, a lot of progressives would say, well, they do say 378 00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,200 that, you know, they want to defend democracy and that they 379 00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:03,160 stand for, you know, the people themselves. 380 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:06,800 But in fact, you know, obviously this is a self appointed left 381 00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:09,840 wing progressive elite, which, you know, has its own agenda 382 00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:12,520 that most Americans have never heard of or that most Americans 383 00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:15,040 would find bizarre, or perhaps, you know, something they want to 384 00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:17,440 oppose. But most Americans are just 385 00:19:17,440 --> 00:19:19,560 politically disengaged. They're not, you know, they're 386 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:21,400 not the ones driving all of these initiatives. 387 00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:23,480 Instead, the people who are driving these left wing 388 00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,520 progressive ideas are, you know, at the intellectual level, the 389 00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:30,600 the universities and and the law schools and at the political 390 00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:34,320 level, they are the Democratic Party itself and the various, 391 00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:37,640 you know, apparatus of the progressive movement. 392 00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:40,640 Now for the right, you know, there are problems here as well, 393 00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:43,240 because, you know, if you are a right wing populist and you're 394 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:46,080 talking about giving more power to the people, the iron law of 395 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:48,320 oligarchy would seem to say, well, you know, you can't really 396 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,640 do that. I think the one thing that does, 397 00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:54,560 you know, sort of it doesn't completely negate the iron law 398 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:57,680 of oligarchy, but it does limit the damage of the iron law of 399 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:00,000 oligarchy. The one thing that helps is 400 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,320 federalism and decentralization. So it's true that, you know, any 401 00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,720 kind of large organization is going to be run by, you know, a 402 00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,880 kind of small elite. But the answer to that is to 403 00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,200 have smaller organizations, including smaller political 404 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,920 organizations. Now, the reason why I favor, and 405 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:19,640 I like to use the word federalism rather than a kind of 406 00:20:19,640 --> 00:20:22,080 secessionism that would break everything down into the 407 00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,600 smallest possible political units is that I think there 408 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:28,480 actually is a lot of truth in, you know, to be derived from the 409 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,600 experience of the ancient city states, for example, in Greece 410 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:35,160 and also from the city states of Renaissance Italy. 411 00:20:35,680 --> 00:20:39,240 In terms of if you have too small of a political polity, 412 00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:43,920 political community, you're going to have a constant 413 00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:46,640 struggle between the few and the many, which is going to lead to, 414 00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:48,520 you know, a kind of cycle of revolutions. 415 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:52,240 Tyrants will occasionally emerge in order to side usually with 416 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:54,440 the people against the few, but sometimes the other way around. 417 00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,560 And also these, you know, very small units have a hard time 418 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,120 defending themselves if they get attacked by empires or by 419 00:21:01,120 --> 00:21:04,480 barbarian hordes from abroad or by, you know, any number of 420 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,480 larger external forces. When they succeed in defending 421 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:10,800 themselves, they do so in the way that Athens did, you know, 422 00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:16,480 kind of building a, an alliance system to fend off the Persian 423 00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:18,240 Empire. And this is told, you know, in 424 00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:21,760 Herodotus, Herodotus histories, you can build an effective 425 00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:24,640 coalition among city states that can repulse a big empire. 426 00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:27,520 But when you do that, you then wind up with another problem, 427 00:21:27,720 --> 00:21:30,120 which is that some of the powers, some of the cities that 428 00:21:30,120 --> 00:21:34,040 were most important in that old coalition, are now in a position 429 00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:36,720 to bully the people who were their junior partners in that 430 00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:38,480 coalition. And that's basically exactly 431 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,120 what the city state of Athens does after defeating the 432 00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:44,280 Persians, where, you know, suddenly the Athenians are, you 433 00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:47,000 know, demanding money from their allies. 434 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,640 And when the allies aren't paying up, they're pressuring 435 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,680 them and then attacking them. So you get into this kind of 436 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,320 civilizational war, the the Peloponnesian War in Greece as a 437 00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:59,800 result of a coalition, an alliance which starts to turn 438 00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:03,280 into an Athenian empire. It's one of the most amazing 439 00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,960 contradictions that I've come across with the left. 440 00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:08,080 They say monopolies are really bad. 441 00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:10,960 They lead to higher prices and lower quality than you would 442 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:14,000 otherwise get under more competitive circumstances. 443 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,560 Then they say Washington, DC should have a complete monopoly 444 00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,000 over the lives of 330 million strangers. 445 00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:23,520 Anyone who even talks about secession is basically George 446 00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:25,760 Lincoln, Rockwell, or Jefferson Davis. 447 00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:28,760 It's like you just said, monopolies were bad and now 448 00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:32,000 you're afraid of competitors. It's just unbelievable. 449 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:35,960 Well, I love what Rothbard does. He sort of starts introducing 450 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,920 you to this strategy when he talks about John C Calhoun's 451 00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:43,680 disquisition on government, summarizing it as the very fact 452 00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:47,200 of government and of taxation creates inherent conflict 453 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:51,400 between 2 great classes, those who pay taxes and those who live 454 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,160 off them. The net taxpayers versus the net 455 00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,760 tax consumers. The bigger government gets, 456 00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,120 Calhoun noted, the greater and more intense the conflict 457 00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:04,040 between these two social. The reason I brought this up is 458 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,160 every time we hear this is the most important election of our 459 00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:10,600 lifetime, well, as the government keeps growing, it's 460 00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,160 now the most important election ever because the government's 461 00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,600 that much bigger. And in four more years it will 462 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,480 be the most important election because the state keeps growing 463 00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:20,960 and this is increasing the conflict within society. 464 00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:25,120 My question is, when it comes to conservatives, people on the 465 00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:28,360 right who value civilization over barbarism, shouldn't they 466 00:23:28,360 --> 00:23:33,200 see the state as the central cause of conflict in society? 467 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,080 Well, if Calhoun and Rothbard were completely correct, that 468 00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,040 would be the case. The trouble is that the state 469 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,600 comes into being in the 1st place as a result of somebody's 470 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,320 interest. And at that point, we're talking 471 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,880 about before you have someone who's in a position to use the 472 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,720 apparatus of the state to take taxes, for example, from other 473 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,640 people. So the state, you know, is a 474 00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,720 thing that evolves as a result of the interest of people who 475 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,760 already have something they want to protect, usually property. 476 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,160 And you can see this historically, you know, in the 477 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:07,480 Middle Ages. You can see it in the 478 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,040 development of the modern nation state. 479 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:15,160 You know, Karl Marx talks about the state being the executive 480 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,720 committee of the bourgeoisie. He sees it as being a extension 481 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,440 of the class interest of the leading bourgeois. 482 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,280 Now, Marx, of course, is not someone with whom we typically 483 00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,520 agree, but there actually is a lot of precedent, you know, even 484 00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:29,680 in John Locke and certainly going back to the classical 485 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,920 world for saying that you're going to have a pre-existing 486 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:36,320 power elite which decides it wants to start creating a state 487 00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,520 in order to protect, first of all, the power that already has. 488 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,880 Once it's created the state, it then may have additional means 489 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,120 to be able to amplify its power. But the other thing that happens 490 00:24:47,120 --> 00:24:51,320 though, is that once a existing elite creates a state, the state 491 00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:55,760 then becomes a competitor with as well as an ally to that older 492 00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,760 elite. And I think that's what explains 493 00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:59,640 things like crony capitalism, for example. 494 00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:02,440 So yes, there are there are businesses, there are economic 495 00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,440 interests that want to maintain the state, that get a lot out of 496 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:06,640 it. But then there are others who 497 00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,600 are victimized by the state and really would like to be 498 00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,280 independent of it. One of the things Murray 499 00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:13,360 Rothbard always noted was that in fact, corporate America is 500 00:25:13,360 --> 00:25:16,800 often an enemy of American liberty, an enemy of capitalism, 501 00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,680 an enemy of free markets, precisely because this power 502 00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:22,800 elite knows how to to use the state to its own advantage. 503 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:26,480 And the the flip side to this as well, which you find is 504 00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,280 discussed by Rothbard in that essay he's talking about, you 505 00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,320 know, why is it that ordinary people who vastly outnumber the 506 00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,480 power elite, why do they go along with these things? 507 00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:37,680 If you if you think of it in terms of pure coercion, it 508 00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,560 doesn't make any sense because there are not enough, you know, 509 00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,400 members of the government, although you're right, it's 510 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,760 constantly growing. But Even so, if there are not 511 00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:48,200 enough members of the government itself to physically coerce 512 00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,000 every single person who is going along with the government into 513 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,400 going along with it. So something else has to account 514 00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:55,960 for why people are willing to continue to put up with the 515 00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,240 government that we have. Rothbard says it's as a result 516 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:03,080 of propaganda and myth making and ideological indoctrination. 517 00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:06,600 I I think Rothbard does mention briefly at least the 518 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,520 universities in his essay, but certainly they're a very large 519 00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,280 part of what's going on and making people more malleable and 520 00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:14,720 more accepting of power. But the other element of this 521 00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,640 too is that the pre state elite which creates the state in the 522 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:23,600 1st place usually has economic and other means of incentivizing 523 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:25,520 people even before the state comes into being. 524 00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:28,440 So in fact, you know, I think there are economic relationships 525 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,080 as well as the power of propaganda and the power of 526 00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,240 actual coercion that all come into play in accounting for why 527 00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,480 people go along with the state to the extent that they do. 528 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,320 Even with all of the depredations that the state is 529 00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,280 clearly guilty of, not only in terms of the taxes that it 530 00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,400 withdrawals from people, but also the interference that it 531 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:50,120 has in their lives and their families and their happiness. 532 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,960 Yes, Rothbard says. Herein lies the critical role of 533 00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:58,880 intellectuals when it comes to explaining why there's this 534 00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,040 double standard for the state and why you should uniquely obey 535 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,400 this organization. He pins it mainly on the 536 00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,000 intellectuals. I know Lick Nixon was quoted a 537 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,920 number of times as saying, well, the real power in this country 538 00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,320 is not the Congress, it's not the courts, it's the media. 539 00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,920 As far as where the power really lies in opinion moulding, where 540 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,840 do you see it as? Well, I agree with that, that 541 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,800 one of the things that's happened is that, you know, the 542 00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,960 modern state, which is different from, you know, kind of the 543 00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,680 medieval feudal state. In the medieval feudal state, 544 00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,160 you know, the, the ruling class were basically land owners. 545 00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,840 And so the state was based upon, you know, and political power 546 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,120 was based upon who was claiming to, you know, have ownership of 547 00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:41,080 the land. Their ownership was claimed, of 548 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:44,000 course, through military force. So, you know, the King of 549 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,640 England, for example, from William the Conqueror onwards, 550 00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,680 claimed to be the ultimate owner of all of the land in England. 551 00:27:50,360 --> 00:27:54,200 But then he would grant large amounts of the land to his 552 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,000 barons, the people who were, you know, kind of his chief military 553 00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,840 supporters. And they in turn would then kind 554 00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:04,600 of act as local, you know, rulers in their own districts. 555 00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:07,280 In theory, the king was over them, but in practice they were 556 00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:09,680 often, you know, so powerful themselves that they can resist 557 00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:11,880 the king or in some cases even overthrow the king. 558 00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,520 What happens as you get into the, the early modern period in 559 00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:19,040 the Renaissance and then, you know, in the 15th century, 16th 560 00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,400 century onwards, is that you have a rise of new powers that 561 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,520 kings in alliance with people who are now basically becoming 562 00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,720 the first capitalists who are able to raise money, who are 563 00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:35,040 dealing in, in credit and debt merchants who are becoming 564 00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,960 wealthier and wealthier as a result of stability. 565 00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,200 That you have, you know, the wealth which kings are then able 566 00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,080 to ally themselves with, which they're then able to purchase 567 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,200 mercenary armies and actually build up citizen armies as well. 568 00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,640 And that these larger military forces are then able to crush 569 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,680 these barons, these, you know, land owners who had previously 570 00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,760 been characteristic of feudalism, which was very 571 00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,680 fragmentary. And so, you know, in, in, in 572 00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,280 conjunction, kings and capitalists are able to create, 573 00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:04,960 you know, the first stage of the modern state. 574 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:07,520 What then happens, however, is that, you know, for the people 575 00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,920 who are, you know, from wealthy towns, they say, well, we should 576 00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,280 have more power. You know, what the heck is the 577 00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,240 king doing for us that we can't do for ourselves? 578 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,400 Therefore, parliament should be more powerful than the king. 579 00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,880 Parliament should be the one that's raising taxes and that's 580 00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,400 paying for the armies. So there's this process, you 581 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,520 know, of the creation of the modern state out of the old, you 582 00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:30,000 know, feudalism and monarchies. But once again, once the the 583 00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,200 modern state is created, the officials of the modern state, 584 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,880 the deep state, the people who are basically permanent 585 00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,960 bureaucrats, people who are lifetime military officials, 586 00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:41,360 they're able to say, wait a minute, well, maybe we do need 587 00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:43,800 these businessmen still in order to provide us with money. 588 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,000 We don't want to kill the golden goose that, you know, the gold, 589 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:47,400 the goose that's laying the golden egg. 590 00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:50,480 We still depend on them and we still have this relationship 591 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:53,120 with the economic elite. We still want them to continue 592 00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,480 to, you know, make their employees answerable to us. 593 00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,080 But we're able to assert, assert ourselves simply by the fact 594 00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:01,520 that we control the state, that we are the ones who actually 595 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:03,120 have direct control over the army. 596 00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:05,880 We're the ones who have direct control over the judges and the 597 00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,520 legal apparatus. And therefore, what starts out 598 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,160 as being perhaps the capitalist class creating the state as an 599 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,160 agent for itself. The agent then takes over from 600 00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,960 the principal and says, you know, now where does the power 601 00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:19,680 lie? And I think that's kind of 602 00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:23,720 basically what we see, you know, throughout the modern era is 603 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,440 that the the state tries to kill its own father in a way. 604 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,720 It's got an Oedipus complex. It wants to slay the capitalists 605 00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,600 who built it and, you know, create itself as an independent 606 00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:34,760 power. And of course, this 607 00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,720 recapitulates what had happened, you know, at the end of the 608 00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:41,680 Middle Ages were basically the kings destroyed their own barons 609 00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,640 and made alliances, which then ultimately proved fatal to 610 00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:46,240 themselves. That's where we are now. 611 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,080 Is that the state, especially the permanent, you know, sort of 612 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:53,520 administrative apparatus, is trying to tear itself free even 613 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,680 from the, you know, sort of centers of wealth that had once 614 00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,320 been so essential to maintaining the state's power? 615 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,640 Rothbard's final word on intellectuals is intellectuals, 616 00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:07,280 academics and the media are not all motivated by truth alone. 617 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,440 Economic interests, as well as their interests in prestige, 618 00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:14,560 power and admiration are wrapped up in the present welfare 619 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,960 warfare state system. This is his discussion on the 620 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,200 unholy alliance between intellectuals and the state. 621 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,200 The intellectuals need the reliable income and the 622 00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,240 prestige. The state needs its intellectual 623 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,880 defense. The other strategy Rothbard 624 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,320 talks about as being used, but something he doesn't support is 625 00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:36,040 the Fabian Freedom strategy, where people assume the Fabian 626 00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:39,120 socialists basically slowly nudge. 627 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,640 People like George Bernard Shaw slowly nudged the British 628 00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,800 government into growing and growing and growing. 629 00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:46,800 They didn't make their demands explicit. 630 00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:49,880 They sort of started off small and slowly but surely, as a wolf 631 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:53,240 in sheep's clothing brought the British state to socialism, 632 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,200 there are people who say, well, we should just do the same exact 633 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,840 thing in the opposite direction. What does Rothbard say is the 634 00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:02,680 shortcoming to this strategy, and what are your thoughts? 635 00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,560 Yeah, Rothbard says. There's an asymmetry here that 636 00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,480 basically, you know, people like George Bernard Shaw and the 637 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,160 Fabians, we're only trying to convince the British government 638 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,520 to do things that the British government already wanted to do. 639 00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:20,040 So the interests of the folks who already had power were 640 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,080 aligned with those of the Fabian socialists. 641 00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,880 The Fabian socialists were just a lot more sophisticated and 642 00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,400 perhaps more farsighted about where they were going to take 643 00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,880 society. But the natural, you know, 644 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,840 incentives that the ruling class already had, we're going to 645 00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:35,920 point them in the direction of consolidating and expanding 646 00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,400 their power anyway. Rothbard says the problem with 647 00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:40,960 trying to do this in reverse is that of course, those incentives 648 00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,200 are the opposite. The people who have power, they 649 00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,720 had every reason in the world to listen to the Fabian socialists 650 00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,760 who are telling them to take more and more and keep 651 00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:50,880 expanding. They have every, every reason in 652 00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,640 the world to reject the people who are telling them stop 653 00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,960 expanding and in fact, give up your I'll gotten gains, give up 654 00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,880 your power. So it doesn't work in reverse. 655 00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,720 There, there are some complexities, you know, 656 00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:08,120 intellectuals, they they want Rothbard's exactly right. 657 00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,360 They, they do want money and they do want influence. 658 00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:15,560 They really want prestige. There is libertarians and 659 00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:17,960 conservatives often talk about, you know, the natural 660 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,680 inequalities among people. People have different talents. 661 00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:23,320 Different talents lead to different performance in the 662 00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:27,120 workplace, which then leads to of different economic outcomes. 663 00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:30,240 And this would be true even in the most fair possible system. 664 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,440 So even an anarcho capitalist would say, you know, inequality 665 00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:35,400 is part of human nature in terms of outcomes. 666 00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,400 And you know, you can't complain about that. 667 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,400 That is, that's the just way things should be because people 668 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:41,840 are different. They have different interests, 669 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,360 they have different abilities. It's also the case that people 670 00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:49,960 have differences in terms of ambition. 671 00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,560 Some people, in fact I think most people want to just get on 672 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,680 with their lives, get on with the things that are important to 673 00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,400 them personally and their, their sense of well-being does not 674 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,200 depend upon being above other people. 675 00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:04,720 Or at least it minimally depends on that. 676 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,000 It's not really about that. But there are other folks who 677 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,040 just have naturally a heck of a lot more of ambition. 678 00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:15,360 And these people are always eager to find ways to combine 679 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,080 their thirst for ambition with institutions that will deliver, 680 00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,920 you know, a social status commensurate with that thirst 681 00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,719 for ambition. So that's why intellect, that's 682 00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:27,199 one reason why intellectuals love the state. 683 00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:30,760 Intellectuals already think of themselves in their own heads as 684 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,120 being the ruling class. And it really irritates them. 685 00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:36,199 And Rothbard, you know, gets at this and is quite right. 686 00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,239 Rothbard says they are. They're they're so bitter about 687 00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,080 the fact that the market does not reward them to the extent 688 00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,159 that they themselves believe they should be rewarded. 689 00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:46,679 They think everybody should be falling at their feet and 690 00:34:46,679 --> 00:34:49,360 fawning over them and saying these intellectuals are the best 691 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:51,400 thing that they've got. They're literally God's gift to 692 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,639 humanity. And yet people are not giving 693 00:34:53,639 --> 00:34:56,120 these intellectuals all the money that you would expect to 694 00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,080 come with that kind of Worshipful status. 695 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:00,960 So the intellectuals want to ally with the state. 696 00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:03,520 They want to support the state and they want to, you know, 697 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,480 insinuate themselves into the state so that they can enjoy the 698 00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:10,040 status that they think is appropriate for the ambitions 699 00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,320 that they have and for the genius they believe they 700 00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:13,920 possess. So the arrogance of 701 00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,240 intellectuals and this, you know, sometimes even libertarian 702 00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:19,120 intellectuals can be Co opted by this and they often are. 703 00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,960 And then again, you know, even the language of freedom, even 704 00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:25,240 the rhetoric of freedom can be corrupted and put to the use of 705 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:28,600 the ruling class in the state because, you know, ambition is 706 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,080 something that, you know, allows you to turn people in a very 707 00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:35,240 corrupt direction. Rothbard says therefore, in 708 00:35:35,240 --> 00:35:38,360 addition to converting intellectuals to the cause, the 709 00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,480 proper course for the right wing opposition must necessarily be a 710 00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,960 strategy of boldness and confrontation, of dynamism and 711 00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,800 excitement. A strategy, in short, of rousing 712 00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,120 the masses from their slumber and exposing the arrogant elites 713 00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,960 that are ruling them, controlling them, taxing them 714 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,240 and ripping them off. How does Rothbard say we could 715 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,360 inflamed the passions of the masses in such a direction? 716 00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,840 And this is where Rothbard is very excited by the potential 717 00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:07,440 for populist politicians, especially right wing populist 718 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:12,080 politicians, to basically galvanized a movement against 719 00:36:12,240 --> 00:36:15,840 this whole state apparatus and the whole, you know, the deep 720 00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:19,520 state, not only in government itself, but also in the Academy 721 00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,520 and in the media and sort of throughout, you know, the 722 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,560 establishment. So, you know, by having a 723 00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,760 populist politician who goes out there and the politician may not 724 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:30,680 have a theoretically very good ideas. 725 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:31,920 I mean, that's a separate question. 726 00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:35,720 But simply by, you know, saying, you know what, not only does the 727 00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:38,800 emperor have no clothes, but the emperor is actually trying to 728 00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,840 steal your clothes or is trying to kind of set fire to your own 729 00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,640 home. That kind of, you know, rhetoric 730 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,520 that connects with the people because the people already know 731 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,680 that that's true, or at least millions of them know that. 732 00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:51,880 And yet they can't find someone to express it. 733 00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,600 They certainly can't find representatives of the ruling 734 00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:56,680 class who are going to say things like that. 735 00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,440 And it's one one reason why Donald Trump is the phenomenon 736 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,320 that he is. He comes from outside of 737 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,000 politics. He's wealthy. 738 00:37:03,720 --> 00:37:06,320 You'll often see critics say, oh, Donald Trump must be a 739 00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,040 complete fraud because he's wealthy. 740 00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,920 You know, he went to the Wharton School of Business. 741 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,400 He, you know, is clearly part of the elite himself. 742 00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:19,360 That's true in certain respects, but he he is enough of, he's 743 00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:23,960 confident enough of himself that he is willing to annoy and 744 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,600 outrage and scandalize everyone within his own class. 745 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,680 And in some ways, you know, that that may be a result of a 746 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,760 certain ambition or arrogance on Trump's own part, but that's 747 00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,440 actually kind of a healthy counterpart to the whole 748 00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:43,000 systematic ambition and the whole systematic arrogance of 749 00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,240 the entire ruling class. So Trump is a mutant branch of 750 00:37:46,240 --> 00:37:50,080 the ruling class in a way that is causing trouble for all the 751 00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:52,560 rest of them by basically saying, you know what, all these 752 00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:55,680 other people who are have my kind of background, they're all 753 00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,640 frauds and they're all causing massive damage to this country. 754 00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:00,360 They're getting us into endless wars. 755 00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:01,760 They can never win any of these wars. 756 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:03,520 These wars are killing Americans. 757 00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,080 They're also killing people in other countries. 758 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,480 They are, you know, just damaging and they're they're 759 00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,320 threatening civilization itself. There's a possibility of World 760 00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,320 War three. This is stuff that the American 761 00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,320 elite, it really doesn't like to say. 762 00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,360 It never says it, and it doesn't even like to hear it. 763 00:38:16,720 --> 00:38:19,280 It is absolutely subversive to have someone like Donald Trump 764 00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,240 going out there and talking about these kinds of ultimate 765 00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:24,600 stakes involved in American politics. 766 00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:26,720 And then, of course, you know, Trump says the same thing about 767 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:28,160 how we're being ripped off by China. 768 00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:30,640 We're being ripped off by our own elites. 769 00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,560 This is revolutionary rhetoric basically coming from Donald 770 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,000 Trump. Murray Rothbard anticipated that 771 00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,200 he could see someone like Pat Buchanan as an early example of 772 00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,080 that kind of right wing populism. 773 00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,880 And Rothbard thought we need a lot more of that in the future. 774 00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:47,200 Now, admittedly, you know, Rothbard would like to see 775 00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:51,080 ultimately a libertarian populism prevail, and he would 776 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,240 like to see that right wing rhetoric combined with 777 00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,360 libertarian ideas about market freedom. 778 00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:57,800 But I think Rothbard understood, and it comes through in this 779 00:38:57,800 --> 00:38:59,960 essay, that you have to start with what you have. 780 00:38:59,960 --> 00:39:02,600 What you actually have is a right wing rhetoric that that, 781 00:39:02,720 --> 00:39:06,280 you know, speaks to the people's alienation from the centers of 782 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,720 power and the culture of the centers of power, right? 783 00:39:08,720 --> 00:39:12,560 It's not just the taxes that the big government is taking from 784 00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,080 the people. It's also the the contempt, the 785 00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,760 arrogance, the hatred that, you know, the ruling class and the 786 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,840 government exhibit towards Americans who are not part of 787 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:23,840 their club. And, you know, the word 788 00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,480 deplorable is wonderful because it it speaks precisely to the 789 00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:30,800 way, you know, the ruling class that controls government, looks 790 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,960 at ordinary people who are facing, you know, hardships in 791 00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,440 terms of fentanyl and lost jobs, lost jobs, you know, not just 792 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,920 because of competition from abroad, but because they've been 793 00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,600 told, you know, people like you are no longer wanted in this 794 00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,040 country, that people like you are just, you know, you're 795 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,880 oppressors. You are, you are a living memory 796 00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:52,200 of the America, you know, the American people of 50 years ago 797 00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,080 or, or, or 100 years ago. And we don't like that. 798 00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,200 We think that, you know, we progressives believe that, you 799 00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,640 know, liberation for all Americans and for all the world 800 00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,080 depends upon the extinction of people like you who are still an 801 00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,040 anchor to the past. It's so important to address 802 00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,440 that humiliation or the arrogance of the elites. 803 00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,560 I remember just having originally been an Obama 804 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,960 supporter. I was watching him talk about 805 00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:20,760 how inequality is really bad. And I'm doing this on my couch. 806 00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:25,200 And I'm just like, is there anything more unequal than me 807 00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:29,880 going to college exhausted, not making money, and this guy who's 808 00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,680 president of the United States has the right to make executive 809 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:36,400 orders and the right to tax. It was such a blatant like I do 810 00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,000 not think I see this. The second time was when he got 811 00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,320 in front of cameras and said, you know, the gender wage gap is 812 00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,880 not myth, it's math. Women earn $0.77 on the dollar 813 00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:51,640 for every dollar a man makes. And I just go, hold on you, Mr. 814 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,960 Columbia, graduate, Harvard graduate, president of America, 815 00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:57,440 you don't actually believe that, do you? 816 00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,040 But you're expecting me to believe it. 817 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:03,280 Those moments just stuck out in my mind as so insulting. 818 00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,320 Not to mention when Bush said September 20th of 2001, they 819 00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,760 hate us for what they see in this chamber right here, a 820 00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,280 democratically elected government. 821 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:12,760 Their leaders are self appointed. 822 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,280 They hate our freedom to vote, our freedom to disagree. 823 00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,840 That is just so insulting on every single level. 824 00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,240 Or when they say, well, this is the most divided the country's 825 00:41:23,240 --> 00:41:25,600 ever been. Well, there was a civil war 826 00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:30,160 which was about 600,000 lives. I'm constantly insulted by these 827 00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,400 people. So who does Rothbard say has so 828 00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:37,200 far done this the best when it comes to obviously Trump is the 829 00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:39,960 best example today, but he wrote this in 1992. 830 00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:44,280 Who was he saying using as evidence that this can really be 831 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,680 done? It was chiefly Pat Buchanan, and 832 00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,600 Buchanan was, you know, think about all the things that 833 00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:53,680 Buchanan talked about in 1992 when he first ran against George 834 00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:55,560 HW Bush for the Republican nomination. 835 00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,920 So many of the themes that he was speaking about back then, 836 00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,320 you know, more than 30 years ago now, are the themes that brought 837 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:05,920 Donald Trump to power in 2016. He was talking about 838 00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,560 immigration. He was talking about trade, but 839 00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,800 he was especially focused on war. 840 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,160 And, you know, America had the chance after the end of the Cold 841 00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:17,240 War, you know, regardless of whatever, you know, Cold War 842 00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:22,400 inertia had built up in 19 ninety, 1991, you now had a 843 00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,840 chance to completely change the way that America engaged with 844 00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:27,800 the world. You didn't have to have the same 845 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,480 sort of wartime mentality that the Cold War had had. 846 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,160 But what did George HW Bush do? He got us directly into, you 847 00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:40,880 know, you know, this world policing ambition, which, you 848 00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:43,600 know, you get the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 849 00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,240 You get, you know, the idea that America is going to be promoting 850 00:42:46,240 --> 00:42:49,440 regime change all around the planet and that we're going to 851 00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,080 not only keep NATO, even though the enemy that NATO was created 852 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,480 to, to block Soviet Union has now gone. 853 00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:57,960 We're not only going to keep NATO, we're going to expand 854 00:42:57,960 --> 00:42:59,560 NATO. And then we're going to be 855 00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:01,880 shocked when anyone looks at this NATO expansion and says, 856 00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:03,680 Gee, that kind of looks like aggression. 857 00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:05,760 That kind of looks like a hostile move when you're 858 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,360 continuing to build up this alliance even though the enemy 859 00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,160 that you said this alliance was meant to defeat is now gone. 860 00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,040 It reminds me a lot. Again, looking to Greek history, 861 00:43:14,720 --> 00:43:17,280 you know, the Athenians, they say, well, look, we're only, 862 00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,400 we're only building up this military alliance that we're 863 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,360 running because we need to keep all of Greece safe against the 864 00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,200 Persians. But then, you know, they keep 865 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:25,800 building it up and demanding more money. 866 00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,560 And it's like, well, wait a minute, You clearly are starting 867 00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:30,640 to assert power over your neighbors. 868 00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:33,000 This is not about protecting us from a foreign threat. 869 00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,280 This is about dominating us here at home. 870 00:43:35,720 --> 00:43:37,760 One of the key things I think you brought up that I want to 871 00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:43,440 emphasize, the progressives, the left, the statists, they think 872 00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,200 that they can just buy off discontented Americans. 873 00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,960 So, you know, when people say I'm so angry that I'm being lied 874 00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,280 to constantly by Barack Obama, by these generals who say that 875 00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,600 we're willing, we're winning in Afghanistan, you know, it's 20 876 00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,040 years. And they say, oh, yeah, we're 877 00:43:58,040 --> 00:43:59,520 winning. Next year is going to be 878 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:00,520 perfect. It's going to be over. 879 00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:01,800 We're going to have total victory. 880 00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,120 People get ticked off at being lied to. 881 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,480 And even if those people are, you know, receiving a check in 882 00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:10,800 the mail from the government, as happened during COVID, or if 883 00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:12,960 they're, you know, getting welfare benefits or whatever, 884 00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,120 they still know that their dignity as human beings is being 885 00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,880 insulted by these people who lie to them and these people who 886 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,280 really can't disguise their contempt and their hatred for 887 00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,800 them. So it's very much about not just 888 00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,800 money, which the left thinks it can solve that problem, if no 889 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:29,960 other way by just printing money and mailing it to people. 890 00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,240 Right. But but it's also about human 891 00:44:33,240 --> 00:44:35,840 relationships and the fact that the left has this, you know, 892 00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,560 such a blinding contempt and such obvious contempt for other 893 00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:42,320 people that these other people say, you know what? 894 00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,880 I don't care if, you know, if I if I need the money you're 895 00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,800 giving me through Social Security or through Medicare, 896 00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:50,640 I'm I'm going to oppose you. I'm going to vote against you 897 00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,880 because I do not like the way you talk to me and you talk 898 00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:55,640 about me. And that's why you get this 899 00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:58,280 ironic situation. You know, a lot of progressives 900 00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,280 and even some libertarians like to make fun fun of the Tea Party 901 00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:02,800 a decade ago. And they like to make fun of 902 00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:04,920 Trump voters. And they say, oh, these guys are 903 00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,440 just, you know, these voters are also big government people who 904 00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:09,840 want more Social Security. And they want to keep big 905 00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,200 government off my, you know, my Medicare or whatever. 906 00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,040 But what people are saying is that, you know, we can't be 907 00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:17,160 bought off just because we're receiving these benefits. 908 00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:18,880 Maybe we want to continue receiving them. 909 00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,720 Maybe we think we need to, but we still do not want to be 910 00:45:21,720 --> 00:45:25,120 treated the way progressives and the state basically are treating 911 00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:29,000 us. AJP Taylor wrote a book called 912 00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,640 Bismarck the Statesman in which he says that this was Bismarck's 913 00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:37,560 intention to usher in a welfare state in order to decrease the 914 00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,400 likelihood that the German population would rise against 915 00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:44,120 the Kaiser. Do you know if there's evidence 916 00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:46,520 for this? I heard even Paul Krugman in his 917 00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:48,160 book The Conscience of a Liberal says this. 918 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,280 I've never seen primary sources. Do you know if that's true? 919 00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,480 I'm not sure I can cite an ideal primary source, but it is 920 00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:58,040 something that many people, except it's a, you know, a 921 00:45:58,080 --> 00:45:59,960 pretty. I don't want to say it's the 922 00:45:59,960 --> 00:46:02,960 purely orthodox view of what Bismarck was up to, but 923 00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,640 certainly is it's well documented and lots of 924 00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,200 historians would agree with it. Bismarck basically. 925 00:46:09,240 --> 00:46:13,920 So what happens in all of Europe between the French Revolution 926 00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:18,440 and essentially World War One is that you have a constant 927 00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:23,840 pressure towards revolution. And this pressure is if it 928 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,960 confuses people in the 21st century because this 929 00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:30,320 revolutionary ferment often is a combination of four different 930 00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,280 things. It's a combination of 931 00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:37,840 nationalism and also liberalism and also socialism and democracy 932 00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:39,680 as well. And these are things that we 933 00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,160 think of as being incompatible with one another or, you know, 934 00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:43,520 they're not supposed to mix together. 935 00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,240 But basically all of these forces were against the, you 936 00:46:47,240 --> 00:46:51,320 know, sort of kings and aristocrats of the old, you 937 00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,120 know, order in Europe, the order before the French Revolution. 938 00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,840 So all four of those forces were against kings and aristocrats 939 00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,320 and, of course, the established privileges of the Catholic 940 00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:02,200 Church. So you can see why those four 941 00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:04,040 forces all seem to be revolutionary. 942 00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:09,160 And basically, by the end of the 19th century, there were 943 00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:12,400 pragmatists who said, you can't stop all four of these 944 00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:15,960 revolutionary forces, but you can choose which ones to, you 945 00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,520 know, emphasize over the others. So Bismarck was very worried 946 00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:24,280 about socialism, for example, gaining so much momentum that it 947 00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,680 would lead to, you know, the Bolshevik revolution hadn't 948 00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:29,040 happened yet. But it was clear that, you know, 949 00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:31,680 you could read Karl Marx and you can see these guys are serious 950 00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,440 about revolution. They're serious about 951 00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:35,040 expropriating all property owners. 952 00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,320 They really mean what they say. So Bismarck said, you know what, 953 00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,400 we're going to blunt the appeal of socialism and of the kind of 954 00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,680 welfarism that the the communists are promising by 955 00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,480 creating a welfare state that is not going to be socialist, or at 956 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,560 least not going to be as socialist as the hard left is 957 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,360 calling for. And that's going to, you know, 958 00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,640 sort of deprive the communists of their biggest issue. 959 00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:57,800 That's what what Bismarck was trying to do. 960 00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,120 He was trying to create. He wanted to combine, you know, 961 00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:04,280 certain amounts of limited nationalism with enough 962 00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:08,280 socialism to stave off any kind of revolutionary left wing 963 00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,360 socialist movement. Interestingly enough I was just 964 00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,600 reading recently, Bismarck was very anti imperialistic. 965 00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:17,080 He hated the idea of a more unified Germany creating 966 00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:21,120 colonies all around the world in imitation of the British Empire. 967 00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:24,200 Bismarck thought that would be a disastrous over extension. 968 00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,320 And he also thought that, you know, some degree of existing 969 00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,160 federalism, even though he was a great nationalist who was, you 970 00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,320 know, unifying Germany, he didn't want to have nationalism 971 00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:38,120 in Germany go so far as to completely obliterate some of 972 00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:41,640 the older sort of cultural units within Germany. 973 00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:44,920 So Bismarck, in a way, created a monster he could not control, 974 00:48:45,240 --> 00:48:47,760 and that wound up actually being much more dangerous than he 975 00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:53,160 himself had intended it to be. Rothbard talks about who is the 976 00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,440 most hated man in all of American history. 977 00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,040 David Duke. Nope, he says. 978 00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,400 It's not even all these terrible right wing people. 979 00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,680 It's Joseph McCarthy. That's who they really hate. 980 00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:07,880 Now, the reason this was so interesting to me is because 981 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:11,360 whenever I ask leftists, I'm like, you think you don't like 982 00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:14,160 Trump? I, I cite Connor Freeman at the 983 00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,360 Libertarian Institute. I go, here's evidence that oh, 984 00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,640 and the Watson Institute at Brown University, Donald Trump 985 00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:25,760 increased civilian deaths in Afghanistan by 330% from 2017 to 986 00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:27,800 2020. Isn't that unbelievable? 987 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:29,840 And they don't care about that at all. 988 00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,880 I'm like, well, how about this drone strike in Yemen, which 989 00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:34,200 Trump authorized, which killed people? 990 00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:36,920 How about killing Soleimani, almost provoking the war with 991 00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,280 Iran after he was on Soleimani's side fighting against ISIS? 992 00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:43,200 And they don't really care, yet they hate Trump. 993 00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:45,120 They hate McCarthy more than anything else. 994 00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:49,960 Why is it that the left hates trivial things about these 995 00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,920 people when there's so much, when there's so many better 996 00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,400 examples? Yeah, I think a lot of it does 997 00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:57,600 go back to what we were discussing earlier, that many of 998 00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:01,280 these progressives are folks who think of themselves, you know, 999 00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,200 as being intellectuals. Their credential, they went to 1000 00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:04,800 universities, they got good degrees. 1001 00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,240 They're bitter about the fact that the market by itself is not 1002 00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:10,400 rewarding them the way they feel like they should be rewarded. 1003 00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:13,680 And for that matter, they may be bitter about the fact that, you 1004 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:16,600 know, traditional institutions say, hey, you may be a clever 1005 00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:18,520 college kid, but that doesn't mean we're going to change, you 1006 00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:21,800 know, the way of life in small town Ohio or someplace else just 1007 00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,120 because you've got some clever idea about changing the world 1008 00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,280 and improving the world. So what these people, you know, 1009 00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:32,520 fixate on are the symbols of class and the symbols of who 1010 00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:33,800 you're with and who you're against. 1011 00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:37,840 And they see that Donald Trump, you know, regardless of his 1012 00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,360 actions, you know, even if his actions are similar in some 1013 00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:44,520 cases to what Barack Obama or, you know, other, you know, sort 1014 00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:48,960 of Democrats who used, you know, military force, which they all 1015 00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:50,880 do. Of course, even when when Trump 1016 00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,120 is the one, you know, who is resorting to military actions, 1017 00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:56,600 they don't focus on that which they could. 1018 00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:58,400 I mean, they certainly did with George W Bush. 1019 00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:00,520 But instead, they leave even that aside. 1020 00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:03,320 And what they want to focus on are the things that show Donald 1021 00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:07,040 Trump has a connection to these Americans were being demonized 1022 00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:09,880 and who are being said to be, you know, again, a kind of 1023 00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:11,320 living reminder. That's the thing, right? 1024 00:51:11,720 --> 00:51:15,720 The left, look at how crazy they went about statues, statues in 1025 00:51:15,720 --> 00:51:18,440 2020. Now we can talk about, you know, 1026 00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,520 police brutality. We can talk about, you know, 1027 00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,120 issues regarding, you know, policing in general. 1028 00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:26,840 I obviously, you know, I'm a I'm a right wing conservative. 1029 00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:28,840 I do not agree with the left and their view. 1030 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,640 I think, you know, most of the time these police officers were 1031 00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,200 responding to actual criminals who actually were dangerous. 1032 00:51:34,720 --> 00:51:36,120 But but there's a real issue here. 1033 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,960 Certainly real abuses of human beings by police officers are 1034 00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,960 things that have to be recognized and addressed. 1035 00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:45,320 But the, you know, sort of Black Lives Matter movement and all 1036 00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:47,760 these rioters, they started, you know, they started trashing 1037 00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:50,120 businesses, of course, but then they went after inanimate 1038 00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,400 statues as if inanimate statues were the things that were 1039 00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:54,800 oppressing them. Well, of course, what they 1040 00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,520 didn't like was what the statues could be interpreted as standing 1041 00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:01,120 for. And if a statue is bad in terms 1042 00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:04,280 of what it stands for, what about actual living human beings 1043 00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,520 who are more statues? What about, you know, the, you 1044 00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,680 know, auto worker who has politically correct views on 1045 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,520 sexuality or religion or anything else? 1046 00:52:13,720 --> 00:52:16,440 The auto worker in, you know, Ohio who has those kinds of 1047 00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:18,680 attitudes or in Pennsylvania or in Michigan. 1048 00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:22,640 You know, these people again, are they are the living statues 1049 00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,040 of these? You know, obviously it was not 1050 00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:27,720 just, you know, Confederate statues that were being torn 1051 00:52:27,720 --> 00:52:29,920 down. It was statues of, you know, all 1052 00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:32,720 sorts of people, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, 1053 00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,440 founding fathers, I mean, you know, any kind of reminder of 1054 00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,280 America having a past and having, you know, come to where 1055 00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,760 it is today through where it had been before. 1056 00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:43,840 That is something the left wants to destroy. 1057 00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,240 It really is. I mean, again, it's it seems so 1058 00:52:46,240 --> 00:52:49,520 cliche to to invoke George Orwell in 1984. 1059 00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:52,840 But look at the whole logic of the story that Orwell is telling 1060 00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,120 in that book. The thing with cliches is that 1061 00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,400 you become so used to them you forget their original truth with 1062 00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,520 1984. Go back and reread it and look 1063 00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:05,240 at how Orwell is saying the destruction of the past is the 1064 00:53:05,240 --> 00:53:08,120 key to controlling the future and basically depriving people 1065 00:53:08,480 --> 00:53:10,840 of any sense of who they are and how they can resist you. 1066 00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:13,520 And the left, you know, feels exactly that way. 1067 00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,800 And it wants to destroy not only the symbols of the past, it 1068 00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:20,000 wants to destroy the memory of the past through indoctrination. 1069 00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,560 And it also wants to destroy, you know, any populations that 1070 00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:27,280 still remind people of America, you know, with the kind of 1071 00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:30,000 workforce that it had, for example, in the mid 20th century 1072 00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,960 as opposed to the 21st century. So the working class and, you 1073 00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:37,680 know, white people, Christians, all these groups, they're hated 1074 00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:40,200 not just, you know, for, you know, what would be considered 1075 00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,000 racist reasons. That's certainly an element of 1076 00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:43,080 it. But there's also this 1077 00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:45,640 fundamental idea that these groups all represent the past. 1078 00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:48,320 And it's fundamentally the past that progressives hate. 1079 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,200 They want to destroy and they want to, you know, have a blank 1080 00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,200 slate with which to create something new that they think is 1081 00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,800 going to be much better. But in fact, what they're what 1082 00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:59,200 they're driving us to is, you know, not a left wing utopia, 1083 00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:03,720 but a condition of, you know, sort of chaos, crime, 1084 00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:08,320 unhappiness on the part not only of the people who are being, you 1085 00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:11,960 know, taxed and who are being, you know, called oppressors, but 1086 00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,400 also, you know, it's funny how much unhappiness there is even 1087 00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:18,120 in the ruling class. You look at how many, you know, 1088 00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,840 progressive women who vote for the Democratic Party, how many 1089 00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,800 of them are on powerful psychoactive medications because 1090 00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,680 they're so personally unhappy and so personally disturbed. 1091 00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:30,120 The left wing is creating, I think, you know, a a state and a 1092 00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:33,440 society that is profoundly unhappy, profoundly troubled, 1093 00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:37,560 profoundly wracked by divisions, by crime, and yet they want to 1094 00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,640 create even more of that by getting rid of the old sources 1095 00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:43,400 of stability. Yes, and for all the BLM 1096 00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:46,720 advocates watching trying to expand their worldview. 1097 00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:51,240 I keep trying to ask you guys men are 95% of those killed by 1098 00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:53,880 police doesn't disprove discrimination. 1099 00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:57,400 Please I'm begging for an answer for you people to enlighten me. 1100 00:54:57,840 --> 00:55:02,360 Final thing that Rothbard discusses in his speech here is 1101 00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:05,640 how the old right was Co opted. He says it was by William F 1102 00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:09,520 Buckley and the National Review infiltrating making it 1103 00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,680 neoconservative. Rothbardians frequently cite the 1104 00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:16,600 Party in the Deep Blue Sea 1952 article by Buckley where he says 1105 00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,440 we have got to accept big government for the duration for 1106 00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:22,800 neither an offensive nor a defensive war can be waged given 1107 00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:25,880 our present government skills except through the instrument of 1108 00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,600 a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores. 1109 00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:31,120 The question is raised, Does it make a great deal of difference 1110 00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:34,840 if we lose our freedom to a Georgian bandit or a Missouri 1111 00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,160 ignorance? What is it that we should know 1112 00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:40,600 about how National Review and the neocons replace the old 1113 00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:41,880 right? Yeah. 1114 00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:45,600 So the story that Rothbard tells is rather oversimplified. 1115 00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:49,640 And here I have. I've come to discover a lot of 1116 00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,360 nuances or a lot of facts that I think, you know, somewhat alter 1117 00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:56,000 the picture. So Rothbard says that there is a 1118 00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:59,240 sharp discontinuity between what he calls the original right and 1119 00:55:59,240 --> 00:56:01,800 then the Cold War, right. That was, you know, largely 1120 00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:04,000 coalesced around National Review. 1121 00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:06,880 There actually, however, was an organic transition. 1122 00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:09,840 You had a lot of figures who were not interventionists during 1123 00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,840 World War Two who later became much more supportive of the Cold 1124 00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,480 War and of interventionism when facing exclusively the Soviet 1125 00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:19,040 Union and the idea of an expanding communism, especially 1126 00:56:19,240 --> 00:56:22,520 an expanding communism in China. So people like Henry Regnury, 1127 00:56:22,520 --> 00:56:24,400 for example, would fall into that category. 1128 00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:27,280 There were even people who were closely associated with HL 1129 00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:30,400 Mencken and with Albert Che NOC who had the same sort of 1130 00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:32,560 evolution. There's a guy that no one's ever 1131 00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:35,400 heard of called Paul Palmer, who is actually referred to a couple 1132 00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:36,920 of times in some of Rothbard's work. 1133 00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:40,520 And Rothbard praises him because basically he was kind of a, you 1134 00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,120 know, a lesser known member of the old right or the original 1135 00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:46,240 right. But Palmer actually even before, 1136 00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:50,440 even before the end of World War 2, is starting to become a Cold 1137 00:56:50,440 --> 00:56:53,640 Warrior and is starting to see say that, you know, the Soviet 1138 00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,520 Union is a different kind of threat than just, you know, sort 1139 00:56:56,520 --> 00:57:00,400 of national, you know, border disputes and invasions going on, 1140 00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:02,440 you know, in Europe or elsewhere. 1141 00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:05,960 So there are a lot of people who treat the Cold War quite 1142 00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,000 differently from, you know, World War 2 or and certainly 1143 00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,160 World War One. By the way, I do think there is 1144 00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,840 some, you know, and it's too much of A discussion for today's 1145 00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:16,680 podcast. But I do think there are some 1146 00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,000 valid reasons for treating Soviet communism differently 1147 00:57:20,320 --> 00:57:22,520 generally. You know, I think that a Cold 1148 00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,840 War that emphasized not a military approach, but the idea 1149 00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:28,080 that you have to really call out the Soviet Union for exactly the 1150 00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:30,680 kind of tyranny that it is. That's the right approach. 1151 00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,600 And that, you know, you may, in fact, need to strengthen Western 1152 00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:36,440 Europe and prevent it from becoming prey to, you know, 1153 00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,200 Soviet intimidation. There's a lot that needs to be 1154 00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:40,440 done. So the defensive part of the 1155 00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:43,760 Cold War, I think, is very well justified, as is sort of the 1156 00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:47,160 propaganda war, you know, in Europe, at least during the Cold 1157 00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:49,160 War. But then the Cold War also 1158 00:57:49,160 --> 00:57:52,680 becomes military adventurism and nation building in Vietnam and a 1159 00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:55,920 number of other interventions which are disastrous. 1160 00:57:56,320 --> 00:58:00,240 Rothbard says that the Cold War right was a completely new 1161 00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:02,000 thing. It is partly new because a lot 1162 00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,080 of the Cold War right was drawn from ex communists who had left 1163 00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:08,160 behind communism. They said communism is evil. 1164 00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,560 You know, it's taken me a long time to recognize this, but now 1165 00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,240 I do and that I want to impose, oppose communism no matter what. 1166 00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:18,160 So because communism continued to be such a large part of their 1167 00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:20,600 worldview previously it was the thing they supported. 1168 00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:21,840 Now it's the thing that they oppose. 1169 00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:26,760 Some of these, you know, anti communist ex communists remain 1170 00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:30,680 obsessed with communism and they're not as acutely aware of 1171 00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:35,920 the dangers to American liberty and American traditions that are 1172 00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:39,640 involved in embracing a very hawkish Cold War foreign policy. 1173 00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,760 So this influx of, you know, new ex communists into the right 1174 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:45,360 does start to change things as well. 1175 00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:48,760 Rothbard puts a lot of emphasis. And here, ironically enough, 1176 00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:52,480 Rothbard actually agrees with Bill Buckley's self estimation. 1177 00:58:52,840 --> 00:58:56,040 Buckley was proud of at times. He was proud of having 1178 00:58:56,520 --> 00:58:59,640 supposedly exiled and excommunicated various groups 1179 00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:01,720 from the Cold War conservative coalition. 1180 00:59:02,040 --> 00:59:03,640 And Rothbard actually agrees with that. 1181 00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:05,240 He only, he says it was a bad thing. 1182 00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:08,120 He says, you know, Buckley got rid of the John Birch Society. 1183 00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:10,160 Buckley got rid of Iran supporters. 1184 00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:12,400 Buckley got rid of the non interventionists. 1185 00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:15,920 But actually that story is not as true as Bill Buckley wanted 1186 00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,120 it to be. And it's not as true as Rothbard 1187 00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:20,960 thought it was either. So certainly within National 1188 00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:24,280 Review, Buckley was not quite alone, but he was, I think, 1189 00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:26,840 pretty much in the minority in terms of wanting to get rid of 1190 00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:30,080 the John Birch Society. And, you know, they tried to do 1191 00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:33,040 this to get the John Birch Society to have less leverage 1192 00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:34,920 over the Barry Goldwater campaign, for example. 1193 00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:37,480 They sort of failed. Goldwater and his campaign were 1194 00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,840 by no means, you know, simply a tool of the John Birch Society. 1195 00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:42,840 But there were a lot of John Birch people who were involved 1196 00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:45,160 in the Goldwater campaign. And the John Birch Society 1197 00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:48,040 continued to be a very, you know, important component of the 1198 00:59:48,040 --> 00:59:51,920 grassroots American right until the death of its founder. 1199 00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:54,600 And then subsequently the death of Larry McDonald, who takes 1200 00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,200 over the John Birch Society afterwards and is killed in a 1201 00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:00,240 very strange incident in which he is in a civilian aircraft 1202 01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:02,080 that has shot down over Soviet airspace. 1203 01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:04,560 So again, that's a whole story for another podcast. 1204 01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:08,760 But the John Birch Society was not really destroyed in the way 1205 01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:11,760 that Buckley and Rothbard both would talk about it as a result 1206 01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:14,800 of Buckley's attack on. Robert Welch, who was the leader 1207 01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,400 of the John Birch Society and then about the society itself. 1208 01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:18,960 So there's a more complicated story there. 1209 01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:21,440 I'm Rand, of course, never thought of herself as a 1210 01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:23,760 conservative. That was not a word that she 1211 01:00:23,760 --> 01:00:26,320 would ever use. She was not necessarily eager to 1212 01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,720 be part of the National Review Coalition, you know, at any 1213 01:00:29,720 --> 01:00:32,320 point. So to say that Buckley exiled 1214 01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,920 her or excommunicated her, that's also not really true. 1215 01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:38,240 She was she was a product into herself, a brand and a set of 1216 01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:40,680 ideas into herself. And then with the non 1217 01:00:40,680 --> 01:00:45,240 interventionist right, again, there is a curious and very odd 1218 01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:49,560 transition phase between the non interventionist right and the 1219 01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,000 Cold War right. And Buckley himself is actually 1220 01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:54,520 part of this. Buckley's father, Will Buckley 1221 01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:56,160 was a very strong non interventionist. 1222 01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:58,640 Buckley was very strongly shaped by his father. 1223 01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:02,480 So Buckley's Catholicism and Buckley's commitment to free 1224 01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:05,480 markets and even a a certain element of libertarianism to be 1225 01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:08,360 found in Bill Buckley are all inheritances from his father. 1226 01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:11,560 And his father had all those elements to an even stronger 1227 01:01:11,560 --> 01:01:13,880 degree plus than under interventionism. 1228 01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:18,520 So, you know, Will Buckley, Bill Buckley senior was actually, you 1229 01:01:18,520 --> 01:01:21,360 know, precisely one of these original right folks that 1230 01:01:21,480 --> 01:01:24,640 Rothbard talks about, one of the first people to publish Bill 1231 01:01:24,640 --> 01:01:28,840 Buckley as a as a paid author. One of the first people to put 1232 01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:32,880 Bill Buckley's name into print nationally was Frank Chatorov. 1233 01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,320 And Frank Chatorov was a radical individualist. 1234 01:01:36,600 --> 01:01:38,440 He said he would punch in the nose of anyone who called to 1235 01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:42,000 make conservative. Chatorov was so much part of the 1236 01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:46,280 old non interventionist right that Chatorov even opposed World 1237 01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:50,240 War 2 after Pearl Harbor. So Chatorov had been the 1238 01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:54,160 president or the director of the Henry George School in in New 1239 01:01:54,160 --> 01:01:56,360 York City, which is still around. 1240 01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,760 And Chodorov was actually fired by the Henry George School 1241 01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:02,600 because he continued to be an opponent of World War 2. 1242 01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:06,400 And yet after World War 2, when Chodorov is still a radical 1243 01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:08,320 individualist, he's still very anti war. 1244 01:02:08,640 --> 01:02:11,400 Chodorov says that, look, if you want to defeat communism, you're 1245 01:02:11,400 --> 01:02:14,040 not going to do it by building as many bombs as the communists 1246 01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:15,440 built. You're going to do it by 1247 01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:19,040 basically teaching Americans the ideas of liberty, the ideas of 1248 01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:22,640 the Western tradition, and why Marxism and communism are wrong. 1249 01:02:23,160 --> 01:02:27,000 So that's why Chodorov actually is the impetus to founding an 1250 01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:29,240 organization that's originally called the Intercollegiate 1251 01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:31,560 Society of Individualists. It later becomes the 1252 01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:34,880 Intercollegiate Intercollegiate Studies Institute, which is my 1253 01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:37,560 employer today. But Chodorov is is the founder 1254 01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,760 of ISI. Bill Buckley is the person he 1255 01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:44,320 hires to be ISIS 1st president. And of course, Chaturov, as I 1256 01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:48,120 said, is also, you know, he's someone who publishes Buckley's 1257 01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:50,960 first paid work. So he's really a mentor of sorts 1258 01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:53,600 to Bill Buckley, even though he and Buckley come to have very 1259 01:02:53,600 --> 01:02:57,200 different views about the Cold War and Buckley continue to 1260 01:02:57,200 --> 01:02:58,760 honor Chaturov for quite a long time. 1261 01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:02,440 Buckley also, you know, this was not really well known in 1992 1262 01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:05,240 when when Rothbard wrote this essay and gave the speech that 1263 01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:07,400 the essay was originally delivered as. 1264 01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:10,240 But Buckley was also someone who, you know, he often would 1265 01:03:10,240 --> 01:03:14,360 publish members of the old original right in the pages of 1266 01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:16,520 National Review. The trouble is a lot of these 1267 01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:19,040 members of the old original right were much older by the 1268 01:03:19,040 --> 01:03:21,920 time National Review Review was founded in 1955. 1269 01:03:22,240 --> 01:03:25,040 S you know, Albert J Nacca died in 1945. 1270 01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:27,880 He was already gone. HL Mencken had had a stroke. 1271 01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:31,640 So he was not publishing very much in the 1950s or really 1272 01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,800 anything. A lot of folks like John T Flynn 1273 01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,160 were very much, you know, quite old by that point. 1274 01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:40,160 Buckley, you know, publish them sometimes, you know, other times 1275 01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:43,040 he would not publish them because of this disagreements on 1276 01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:46,560 on, you know, foreign policy during the Cold War. 1277 01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:49,920 But Buckley did not try to purge them or dishonor them or get rid 1278 01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:51,640 of them. And in fact, Buckley actually 1279 01:03:51,640 --> 01:03:54,080 continued to provide as much income, as much, you know, money 1280 01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:58,400 as he could to sustain a lot of these, you know, old members of 1281 01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,520 the original right who in many cases were quite economically 1282 01:04:01,520 --> 01:04:04,880 impoverished by the 1950s. I mean, the old right was so 1283 01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:09,280 principled that they would not cash Social Security checks. 1284 01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:11,640 So even though people like Isabel Patterson and Rose Wilder 1285 01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:14,240 Lane were being taxed by the new Social Security system and 1286 01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:16,800 having money taken away from them, they refused to cash the 1287 01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:19,320 checks when the money was sent back, you know, in the form of 1288 01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:21,560 Social Security payments. I Rand, of course, rather 1289 01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:23,600 infamously made the opposite decision. 1290 01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:26,400 She she said, hey, if I paid my taxes and I get to accept the 1291 01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:28,600 government checks that are sent to me, Well, some of the other 1292 01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:30,800 individual has said, you know, we will not cross that bridge. 1293 01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:33,880 We do not want to be seen taking government money because sets a 1294 01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:36,400 very bad example and it's morally corrupting even if 1295 01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:38,480 government has tax this money from us to begin with. 1296 01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:44,160 Yes, I got to say I would like to get some restitution from 1297 01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:46,600 these people. It would be hard to put that 1298 01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:50,960 check in the paper shredder. Check out the links in the 1299 01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,360 description. I was amazed I was really 1300 01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:58,600 brought the Mr. MacArthur was brought to my attention in July, 1301 01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:03,280 July 11th of this year when he made the case for JD Vance. 1302 01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:05,640 A lot of people said is it going to be Ramaswamy? 1303 01:05:05,640 --> 01:05:08,120 Is it going to be RFK? Who is Trump going to pick? 1304 01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:12,920 And days before Trump picks Vance, Mr. McCarthy had 1305 01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:16,520 predicted it and gives extensive reasoning in this excellent 1306 01:05:16,760 --> 01:05:18,680 article at the American Conservative. 1307 01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:22,400 Links to this as well as Mr. McCarthy's Twitter will be in 1308 01:05:22,400 --> 01:05:25,040 the description below. Thanks to everyone for watching 1309 01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:27,800 Keith Knight, Don't Tread on Anyone and the Libertarian 1310 01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:30,480 Institute. Mr. McCarthy, it has been a 1311 01:05:30,480 --> 01:05:32,080 pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. 1312 01:05:32,640 --> 01:05:34,040 Well, thank you. Not only have I enjoyed this 1313 01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:36,840 conversation, but you've actually helped me out a lot by 1314 01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:40,360 spurring me to go and revisit this classic Rothbard essay. 1315 01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:43,720 I was working on something recently about class theory and 1316 01:05:43,720 --> 01:05:48,840 libertarianism and right wing populism, and this essay, which 1317 01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:51,240 I've read before but hadn't revisited in about a decade or 1318 01:05:51,240 --> 01:05:54,640 so, is actually it provides me with a reminder of some of the 1319 01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:57,320 key components that I need to include in the essay I'm working 1320 01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,240 on right now. So I'm very grateful to you for 1321 01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:02,080 inviting me on the show and for causing me to revisit that 1322 01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:02,360 essay.