Part Of The Problem - Terrorism and Censorship

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave discusses the terror attack in New Orleans and how it connects to the post 9/11 war on terror, the recent spree of demonetizing accounts on Twitter and more. Support Our Sponsors:Sheath - https://sheathunderwear.com use promo code PROBLEM20Upgrade your wardrobe instantly and save20% off with the code [PROBLEM] at https://www.publicrec.com/PROBLEM #publicrecpodPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!Get your tickets to Porch Tour here:https://porchtour.comFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, hello, what's up everybody welcome to the first part of the problem of 2025 it is New Year's Day as I am recording this I am going solo for this episode Rob is out Yeah, but sound it even saying it's 2025's going to take a little getting used to. Sounds a little bit strange coming off the tongue. This might be a little bit of a shorter episode, because number one, I'm solo, and number two, I'm an old man and I'm tired from New Year's Eve last night. Thank you very much to everybody who came out for the shows here at the Dojo of Comedy. Great venue, this is my first time there and we loved it.

Had a great time, saw some great people and it was a nice New Year's Eve. And now that we are in the new year, go check out my website comicdavesmith.com because I'm going to be on the road all throughout the year coming to a city near you with Robbie the fire Bernstein coming with me on I think almost all of these gigs. So comic Dave Smith dot com for for all of the ticket links. Some of them are some of the links are up. There's a few that still need to be added. But check that out.

I will be coming to a city near you at some point this year. I'm sure. be coming to a city near you at some point this year, I'm sure. Okay, so I have a couple things that I wanted to talk about today. And then if we have time, I will I will take some questions from the chat. I guess number one, we should we should talk about there was this horrible, last night. It's it's being reported right now that I think I believe 15 people were killed. Many more were injured. A few police officers were shot.

Apparently this guy drove a truck into a crowded street in New Orleans. And as we've seen over The last decade or so there's in Europe there's been a few of these but this is a new Attack of choice by terrorists, you know in in crowded streets cars can do a lot of damage and There's you know, post nine 11, there's been some very simple changes that were made that made it very difficult for another nine 11 to happen. And I don't, I'm not referring to anything like the department of Homeland security being created or the TSA grope and grandma's or anything like that. Simply, um,

like they locked the cockpit door now now like just little things like that where it's like oh it's gonna be really hard and then one of the major major things that allowed 9-eleven to happen that just simply was was over after 9 11 is that the old and I'm you know old enough to remember this, but the old thinking, the wisdom pre nine 11 was that if there is a hostage type situation, a plane being hijacked or something like that, what you want to do is stay calm and do, do what they say and hopefully a negotiator is going to get on the phone or whatever with them and then they'll be able to work out some type of deal and land the

plane and convince that it wasn't really in the popular consciousness that this was going to be a suicide mission where they were going to turn this plane into a missile in effect. And so essentially if you were to ever try to hijack a plane again, one of the major problems you'd have is that, I mean, again, the nine 11 hijackers, I believe had like box cutters and things like that. It's not like they were, you know, had machine guns or something and people aren't just going to sit there and take it anymore because they know they're going to die anyway. So they might as well try. So good luck, you know, getting a plane again,

it's going to be very difficult. However, how the hell do you stop people from plowing into a group of people in a car? I mean, that's just very, very difficult to do. And this is one of the reasons why there there have been several attacks of this nature in Europe. And we just had this, this horrible one last night on new year's Eve, obviously that, I mean information is still coming out, but pretty clearly seems to be the day was chosen for a symbolic reason.

And that is one of the major points of terrorism is to, to affect psychologically the way people live their lives and to, to create a situation where you don't feel comfortable to go out in crowds and on a holiday or something like that. Um, this just happened obviously, uh, last night, what's being reported right now is that evidently they, the claim is that the guy had, um, like an ISIS flag. Uh, then I, I, I did see, um, some other people reporting that he was, uh, you know, I'm, um, let me look back up at this cause I saw it here, but it would,

that he was either, I can't remember if it was a former police or former military. One of, uh, one of those. Okay. Yeah. According, uh Mar Marco. It's I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong Carol because I know you and we've done a few cable news shows together. car into people in New Orleans last night is named, uh, Shams said Din Jabbar born and raised in Texas, served in the U S army. Um, so, you know, this is, if the reports of him flying an ISIS flag are true, then it would seem like what we're looking at is one of these, um, you know, home bread, uh, was the term I'm looking for is eluding me at the moment But essentially one of these people who took up the cause like a like a Muslim who's American who took up the cause and

sided with Isis Look I'll just say this I You know what actually Natalie if you wouldn't mind if you could just if you could pull up this clip pull up the Which is I love any excuse to play this but if you just YouTube Ron Paul Giuliani moment And then I'll play that clip here in a way because I do think it is relevant to this conversation so what I was just gonna say is that I

And I I apologize for for regular listeners who have seen you know heard this before I'm gonna make you watch it again conversation. So what I was just going to say is that I, and I, I apologize for, for regular listeners who have seen, you know, heard this before, I'm going to make you watch it again, but it's, it's okay. You can never, you can never watch the great Ron Paul too much, but you know, I have been saying now for quite a while on the show that I am really concerned about the risk of terrorism going forward and al-qaeda ISIS like operations again I don't think they're gonna be able to pull off 9-eleven style things, but There's a lot, you know, I'm not trying to give anyone any ideas

but there's just a lot of other things that you can do and it is it is next to impossible to constantly be on guard against any act of terrorism to constantly be on guard against any act of terrorism, especially when you have a situation like what appears to be the case with this guy, where you have an American who is, you know, who sides with ISIS or Al-Qaeda. And I think, you know, the reason why I've been saying this for a while, and I'm not saying that this is true in 100% of the cases, or even in this most recent one

I mean, we really don't know we don't have a lot of a lot of information, but I'm sorry one second To do oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead show me It's anyone that says Ron Paul Giuliani moment should be the right one Yeah, that one hold on if you go up right there that that one right there. Yes, that's perfect So you get that right here. Hold on one second. We'll play but that's that's perfect. So I the the point is that What motivates terrorism? it is the is an important factor and

Is that is an important factor and it's always very tricky when you talk about this because what? What people who don't want to hear this will do is they will just drive the IQ of the conversation down the same thing when you're talking about the the war in Ukraine like if you say As as is the title of Scott Horton's great new book it provoked if you say that the West provoked the war in Ukraine Then everybody who doesn't want to hear that their counter is always so you're saying it's justified which is just like two completely different claims and Understanding what motivates An evil act does not mean that you don't think the act is evil.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to pull up this Ron Paul clip just in because I think it's super relevant to this conversation but also that part of the reason why I'm always kind of aware of this stuff is that this was my moment. Now it's not unique to me there were a lot of people who found Ron Paul from this moment, but literally I would this was in 2007 so 18 years ago and I Was just a kid. They when I say kid I was you know, 23 or whatever

I Was a young person and I was not Very interested in politics. I was somebody I didn't know a lot about this stuff. I had never, it wasn't like I grew up like immersed in all of the stuff that I'm obsessed with now. I was just a kid. I mean, I was kind of loosely interested in some things. It was an interesting time in the country.

It was 9-11 had happened six years earlier. We were already in the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. Both wars were going very, very bad. And I just happened to be, I remember I went to my mother's house and I happened, I don't know if we had dinner or something like that, but I went to my mother's house and we happened to be watching the Republican primary debate and this was the the year that ultimately Barack Obama became president, but I happened to be watching this debate and I saw this moment and I was like whoa who the fuck is that guy? That's really interesting and and what was so much more interesting to me people today maybe can't appreciate this, but at the time the Republicans

were the were the war party and the Democrats at least posed as the anti-war party. And so the fact that this was a Republican from Texas, like the sitting president George W. Bush, a Republican from Texas who was making this point to me was just fascinating. I couldn't, you know, now that I mentioned I couldn't think of a better way to start the new year than to play this. So let's just, let's play the Ron Paul, what got dubbed ultimately the Giuliani moment. And here's the point Ron Paul was making 18 years ago.

Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination? Well, I think the party has lost its way because the conservative wing of the Republican Party

always advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy. Senator Robert Taft didn't want to be in NATO. George Bush won the election in year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy. No nation building, no policing of the world. Republicans were elected to end the Korean War. The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War. There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican Party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy. Stay out of entangling alliances. Be friends with countries. Negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.

So you can already see, look, there's, if you could imagine, right, because this is a debate, I think there's like nine or ten people on the stage and every one of them is just being a politician you know they're just like talking in dumb slogans and whatever and so already in this moment I was just fascinated like I was like oh this guy's like actually just a wise older guy who's like talking about history and making compelling arguments and like I just so already I was just kind of interested. It was like, well, this is different.

Like one of these things is not like the other. So anyway, keep playing. Just think of the tremendous improvement relationship with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men, we came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the founders in following the Constitution. And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly.

When we do, the wars don't end. Congressman, you don't think that changed with the 9-11 attack, sir? What changed? The non-interventionist policies. No, non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We've been in the Middle East. I think Reagan was right. We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent

bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. Are you suggesting we invited the 9-11 attack, sir? Let's pause it right here. So again, what was so stark to me about this, it's weird. I haven't watched this in a while, but as I watch it back, it's like I completely understand why I got sucked in.

And I was so fascinated by this moment. It's not over yet. We'll get to some of the really interesting parts here. But literally, I just got obsessed. I was like, who is this guy? I have to know everything about him. And I ended up like, I, I think I went and bought one of his books, which was like at the time it was revolution was, was the first Ron Paul book that I bought.

And I got it. I think at Barnes and Nobles or something like that. Um, and I was just it. And then I just like literally just fell down the rabbit hole and became the, uh, libertarian autist, you know and love today, but it was one of the things that was so interesting is that this this point was so Overwhelmingly compelling like it was like oh my god. Yeah, you know like that's really interesting and it's hard I think for younger people to even understand because if you weren't around in that time that the entire Line which was accepted by everyone by the way to even understand, because if you weren't around in that time, that the entire line,

which was accepted by everyone, by the way, but the entire line that the Bush administration was pushing since 9-11, this is now, that was in 2001, this is six years later in 2007, was that they hate us for our freedom. That's why they attacked us on 9-11. So they hate us for our freedom. And that, if that's your operating system then you're like well I guess there's no other option than to kill all these people I mean what they want to come kill us just because we're free what are you gonna do and

then Ron Paul's up here just making the point that okay listen no that's not it they hate us for what we're doing to them and how would we feel if anyone was doing that to us we'd probably be ready to go kill them, too Now again, that's not none of the is justifying Terrorism is just saying look we got to be smart about what we're doing and the reaction that is fairly predictable That comes with that the other thing that was already so stark and believe me It's about to get a lot dumber But the follow-up questions from the moderators were so I mean they're just like 40 IQ points

below Ron Paul's point he's saying hey listen you know this was the advice of the founders this is what the conservative wing of the Republicans always believed that entangling alliances and and looking for monsters to destroy around the world would end up having all of these negative outcomes and then the response from the moderator is you don't think that all looking for monsters to destroy around the world would end up having all of these negative outcomes. And then the response from the moderator is, you don't think that all change with 9-11? Like the laws of logic no longer exist or something like that because we got hit on 9-11?

And even the follow up question, then the second follow up question is, so you're saying we invited the attack? That's like, what? what like it's just it's just always trying to dumb down the point because nobody really wants to grapple with what he's saying all right let's let's keep playing are you suggesting we invited the 9-eleven attack sir i'm i'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it. And they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.

They have already now since that time killed 3,400 of our men and I don't think it was necessary. May I make a comment on that? That's really an extraordinary statement. That's an extraordinary statement as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations

for September 11. Okay, so pause it here. This is just, I mean, it's just, everything about this is so beautiful. It's really bringing me back to my roots here. So Rudy Giuliani then of course now at it's hard to remember this at the time, but Rudy Giuliani was actually I don't remember if dirt At this debate, but Rudy Giuliani was leading in the polls for quite a while He was the favorite to be the Republican nominee for quite a while. He ended up falling apart

I think in part because of this moment, but not entirely. And John McCain ended up ultimately winning the, the nominee. He was not the favorite at all until like very late into the primary. But anyway, so Rudy Giuliani takes this moment to go to say, you know, did he just say they did 9-11 because we were attacking Iraq? I've, you know, I've never heard that before are his words and I've heard some pretty ridiculous explanations for 9-11. Now what is so amazing about this, if you know anything, which by the way, I did not know at the time, but then, you know, as I said, I fell down the rabbit hole and got obsessed with this stuff. But, um, literally this was the in Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on

America in Osama bin Laden's open letter to America in almost every interview that he was in and it was this was one of his stated grievances constantly. It was always the grievances that Osama bin Laden state, like it was a bunch of jihadist stuff, you know, Allah Akbar and, and you know, Sharia law and you know, all the, all the Islamist stuff. And then it was like, okay, why are we at war with you? Because you are at war with us. And here's what you've done. And the list was, you have military bases in our Holy Land in Saudi Arabia. You

support Israel in their ethnic cleansing and slaughtering of the Palestinians. Yeah, it was going on before just this year. Um, and, um, and you saw you, you prop up dictators, uh, in the region. It was just filled with American sock puppets and that you were slow at that. You slaughter Muslim, you know, innocent men, women and children and specifically in Iraq. Now, just to be clear here, the bases that are in Saudi Arabia that he's complaining about were put there for what was called the dual containment strategy to contain both Iraq and Iran. And they were what was used, those bases were used not only in the first war in Iraq under George H.W. Bush,

but then also in the Bill Clinton years when they put the full blockade around the country and they had massive bombing campaigns And killed many many people I don't know You know there was the UN estimated that five hundred thousand children had died as a result of the the blockade around the country Children dying from starvation and malnutrition. I've seen many people argue and I think quite convincingly that that number was was drastically inflated so I don't know exactly what the numbers are but like it was at minimum in the tens of thousands of children who died there and and quite possibly in the hundreds of thousands and Regardless it's just for Rudy Giuliani to be bragging that he's never heard this before All he's saying is he's never read or listened to

anything Osama bin Laden said. It's like it's stunning the ignorance that he's so proud of. By the way, I'm not saying because Osama bin Laden said it's right, you could have an argument, but for your argument to be I've never heard this before is absurd. However, because this is the Republic, this is the George W. Bush Republican primary, this gets a thunderous round of applause. Like the crowd goes crazy for this because they were all just so stupid and drunk on war on terrorism nonsense. And so Ron Paul's like over here giving a history lesson or making this philosophical argument. And then Rudy Giuliani goes, you know, I've heard some ridiculous stuff, but I've never heard no nothing like that before.

And the crowd goes nuts. And now, because Rudy Giuliani is a politician, he's like, ooh, the crowd just went nuts for my reaction. I just smacked this guy down. So he takes it a step further. And this moment to me, I literally, I mean, I'm not exaggerating when I say this moment changed my life. And let's play the rest of it. And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.

Congressman? I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, yes, there was blowback. The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages, and that persists. If we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They attack us because we're over there.

I mean, what would we think if other foreign countries were doing that to us? Can I have 30 seconds, please? No, no, wait a second. Let's. So that was the moment there. If we were if other foreign countries were doing that to us, and I have 30 seconds So that's that was the moment there I just thought I remember and again, I think it's kind of hard Maybe some of this is lost on like younger people who weren't there for that time But there was something about when he goes and by the way the audio on that clip was not great but the the applause for Giuliani in the room was thunderous. And when he goes, I demand that Ron Paul apologize for that and say he didn't really mean that.

What you just expected out of any politician, especially when they've lost the crowd, is to apologize. Or at least in some sense, walk it back or go kind of like well Well, well, no, I didn't really mean it like that And of course we're the good guys and they're the bad guys and of course, but you know and Ron Paul just his response was I very sincerely believe that when the CIA talks about blowback They are correct by the way blowback was a term coined by the CIA Which is just an interesting little, you know, bit of information on top of this, because they're very well aware that their

covert actions have unintended consequences. They're very aware of that. And of course, by the way, and then he just gives a history lesson, which was amazing. The job that was news to me at the time that we in 1953, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the Shaw and that you're like, Oh, that's why Iran hates us. That's why they still hate us. Cause they lived for, what was it from 53 to 1979 under a dictatorship that was imposed on them by a

foreign country. And when Ron Paul goes like, how would we feel, how would we feel about that? You think about like all the Russiagate nonsense when they tried to say that Donald Trump was like a Russian spy. Just try to imagine for a second he really was. Like try to imagine that it really just was the truth that Russia came over here and overthrew our government

and installed their chosen government. You imagine the type of like hatred that we would have toward them. And so anyway, I just, this moment to me was amazing and it, it really had a huge impact on my life. And then of course, I dove deep and read all the Ron Paul's books. And then I read Rothbard and Mises and Tom woods and Peter Schiff and like all these guys and The anyway essentially the point is here is the reason that I've been very concerned about

Terrorism here in America is that If Ron Paul's right about this, which I sure think he is I just think it's like an overwhelming. And there's been great books written about this stuff. But like the thing, whatever, even if you want to say that like Osama bin Laden himself was just a mad man and was just, you know, which clearly he was and he was evil and he was quite willing to kill innocent people. But the point is that in order for him to recruit people who were actually willing to give their own lives in order for him to recruit people who were actually willing to give their own lives in order to hurt somebody else,

you got to think like what makes somebody do that? Like what? And this was never that hard for me to like wrap my head around, but like what would push someone to the point where they were willing to give their own life just to maybe hurt you. And it's real easy to sit there and say, Oh, it's their religion. It's cause they're, they're such religious fanatics saying, yeah, there's a lot of religious fanatics throughout the world, including Muslims, you know, um, who just don't do that.

They just don't do that. I think Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population in the world. We're not getting a lot of Indonesian terrorists and where were the terrorists from? They were Saudis and Egyptians. They lived in two countries under American sock puppet dictators. You know, they hid out in Afghanistan, but none of them were, were from there. And you know, look, you, this was another point that Papu Cannon made. I remember there's this video of Papu Cannon that was like, the timing really lines up.

It was right around 15 years before October 7th. And he was talking about some Israeli, I can't remember which one, but some Israeli operation that killed like a few hundred Palestinians, including like a bunch of children. And he was like, where do you think the brothers of those like girls who got killed, where are they going to be in 15 years? What do you think they're going to be doing? Cause if you're really asking yourself what would get you to that point, no matter what your religion is,

what would get you to that point where you're you're happy to die to maybe go kill some of them try watching your little sister get killed in front of you try watching your kids or your mother or your grandmother or someone you really care about watch them get slaughtered by some some other country that might be the thing that gets you there anyway the point is that for the entire last year, America has been, I don't even, I was gonna say propping up, but it's really much more than that.

I mean, America has been facilitating the slaughter of the Palestinians for well over a year now. Absolutely just simply would not, could not happen without US support. And that is exactly the thing that motivates these guys and like I do think this is a real concern Going forward and it is you know Michael Schumer Might be saying that his last name wrong, but something real close to that short schoemer

He was the CIA the head of the bin Laden Unit in the CIA and I believe he went a little bit nutty More recently. I'm not sure about that. I shouldn't say that without really remembering I remember thinking he became a little bit of a kook I could be wrong, but he wrote a couple books on this topic He testified before Congress about it I mean he was he was the head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA, right? Like he was the guy who was in charge of dealing with terrorism before 9-11 and

He flat-out testified before Congress and wrote in his book that he was just like look We got to be honest with the American people here And he was like look that our military presence in the Middle East and our support of Israel comes with this cost. The cost is terrorism. And if we don't wish to pay that cost, then OK. And if we do wish to pay that cost, then OK. Like if you if you're saying that the cost is worth it or something like that, then

all right. But let's be honest about that. Let's be honest about what is going on here. And it's like Pap you kind of always said terrorism is the price of empire. And if you don't wish to pay that price, you got to get rid of the empire. And we're we haven't done that. And Donald Trump and his his foreign policy picks certainly don't seem to be moving in that direction at all. If anything, it's going to be moving in that direction at all if anything

It's going to be more and more Unconditional support for Israel and I do think that this is the cost that is going to be associated with that. So Sorry, if that's not a very cheery optimistic message for for the first podcast of the year But that is that is how I feel I am really concerned about this stuff and I do think You know Scott That is how I feel. I am really concerned about this stuff. And I do think, you know, Scott, Scott Horton has said, who's, you know, the best foreign policy expert in the country. He has said many times that it is like, thank God, Osama bin Laden is dead because the like he really was. I don't think there's anyone else in the, you know, radical Sunni world who has quite the cache that he had. Um,

we'll see, you know, who knows, but he really was the guy who would have been able to like organize and inspire these types of attacks, but that doesn't mean they can't happen without him. And as we've seen in, um, in Europe and the United States of America, even since Osama bin Laden's death, there have been pretty awful terrorist attacks and it appears we just got another one last night. Alright guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is sheathunderwear.com the underwear of legends and the official boxer brief of the part of the problem podcast they

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Like three pairs that they sent me when they first came on as a sponsor Which is going on four years ago now, and they're still as comfortable as the first day I got them so support the sponsor who supports our show and get yourself a great product while you're at it. Go to sheathunderwear.com. Use the promo code problem20. That will get you 20% off your entire order. sheathunderwear.com. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay. Switching gears here a little bit. I do, there's one other topic that I did want to discuss that I am loosely following. I'm not like super up to, up on the exact details, but it seems as if yesterday on New Year's Eve,

over on Twitter, there was a little bit of drama where there seems to have been not I was going to say the word deplatforming but I don't think that's actually correct. From what I understand I don't think anybody's actually been kicked off the platform but evidently there was a group of Twitter accounts X accounts that got demonetized and had their blue checks taken away from them. The people here, hold on, I think I have some of the lists here. Sorry, let me just pull this up. So I have, it looks like Myron Gaines from the Fresh and Fit podcast, Jake Shields,

Suleiman Ahmed, Stu Peters, Dr. Lupus, and I think a few others. I believe I thought Nick Fuentes might have lost his blue check too, but I'm not seeing his name on this particular tweet. Let me check that right now Yeah, well, he doesn't have a blue check mark on there. So yeah, it might have been him too in there So a bunch of people and now it seems although it hasn't exactly been made clear, but it seems like there was It was people basically, you know for you guys who't know, of course we did an episode on this before, but there was a huge dust up on Twitter over this

H1B visa program. And the, you know, the Vivek Ramaswamy tweet and a couple things that Elon Musk said really drew, I mean mean a tremendous amount of Higher a lot of people were very upset about their position on on this stuff and You know there was a Lot of people were being let's just say very critical of them now all of these people I believe who have lost have been demonetized and lost their blue check and all of this, were all people who were very adamantly against, on the other side of the HB1 visa policy.

These were people who were very critical of the program, that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Well, I shouldn't even say they were defending it because that's not exactly right. As I said on the episode, both of them kind of said the thing should be gutted and overhauled. But anyway, this was what the big Twitter storm was about. However, all of the people who ended up being demonetized or losing their blue check marks were not only people who were critical of the visa program Because there's many people who are critical of that who did not get demonetized or lose their blue check mark But they would they're also all let's say I want to put this in a way. That's the most

Charitable, let's say they're all pretty critical of not only Israel, but also of Jews Because I also don't think I saw some of them saying that it's like oh, it's not really about that It's because we're critical of Israel But if I'm being honest, there's also a lot of people who are critical of Israel, you know Like I'm critical of the visa program and of Israel. I have not lost My my checkmark or I'm not actually monetized on Twitter. But so I guess I guess they can't take that away from me because I've never actually monetized the damn thing.

I think I'm probably leaving money on the table for not doing that. Maybe I should. But I'm not. But no, it's it's people who are also critical of Jews in general. And, you know, I don't know, I just I wanted to give a few thoughts on this because I do think this is a bad path to go down. I think this is not a wise decision by Elon Musk. And I think if he is making this decision, he should be transparent and clear about it.

To be 100% clear, just disclosing my own bias or whatever. I, the people who have been have been deplatformed and de-monitized, not deplatformed I'm sorry, but demonetized and lost their blue check mark and all of this. They range, I know some of them and I've done some of their shows and then some of them I've also had some fairly unpleasant interactions with. So like a few of them have been particularly shitty to me. And a few of them have been very nothing but kind and respectful to me.

I also, you know, full bias, like I'm Jewish and I don't like the anti-Jewish stuff. So that's my bias, but in some ways that almost makes it a more interesting situation because if you really do, you know, when you get into conversations about free speech and free speech platforms the stuff that you don't like is actually a better test of your commitment to that value than the stuff you do like because of course we all want the stuff that we do like and do agree with To be you know, we don't want any of them to be silenced or demonetized

I there's a great old gnome chomsky line where he said something like, you don't believe in free speech unless you believe in free speech that you hate. Because everybody believes in free speech that they love. He said Hitler and Stalin both believed in free speech that they agreed with. Like they weren't trying to shut you down if you said what they wanted you to say. The whole point of freedom of speech is that you're allowed to say the things that other people really don't want you to say. That's the real test of it. Now, just a couple thoughts that I have on this.

Number one, I am somebody who very much believes about free speech though, I think a lot of times it's free speech, freedom of speech is kind of like freedom of movement or the freedom of religion or what they're, they're kind of abstractions. They're not exactly tangible. So like I'm not true. Like people claim there are free speech absolutists. I don't know if that's actually the technically correct term. I'm much more of a property rights absolutist than I am a free speech absolutist. And this is something that most of us are without ever really thinking about it.

It's just it's kind of it's the de facto state of belief in a Western civilized society. So when I say property rights and not just speech rights, I mean that, you know, you don't actually have the right to say whatever you want to say in somebody else's home, right? Like, so, uh, uh, Natalie, who's our, uh, our producer who's here running the show right now, we do, I mean, we're remote today, but Natalie and Rob come to my house to record the show regularly.

Now, technically speaking, I could kind of dictate what you're allowed to say or not say in my house. Now, I could be really arbitrary and tyrannical, if you want to call it that, with it. I could say, you're not allowed to use any words that end in the letter A and if you do you have to get out of my house. Technically I have

the right to do that. It would be pretty stupid but like I have the right to do that because it's my house so I can decide now okay if you're gonna proceed in your life that way good luck getting along with other people and maintaining relationships and things like that but technically we would all kind of agree that like you do have a right to tell someone to leave your house. It's your house. No, they still have their freedom of speech, but they're going to have to take that speech somewhere else. So that that's kind of like the base of how. Now there also are lots of rules. None of them have ever been spoken out loud,

but they're always implied because everyone just knows it. But like there are things you're not allowed to say in my house like you you can't curse out my wife while you're here or you know, like Natalie if next time you come over you curse out my wife and be like, I don't know if this is going to work out with us, you know, because that's kind of a deal breaker for me, but so there is I just think it's important just to make this point to understand that it's like Whenever we talk about these things, it's always really about property rights. Now, it technically, I'll say this, what happened with Twitter in the old Twitter was not simply that the people who

owned Twitter decided what you were and weren't allowed to say on Twitter. What happened was the government got involved and heavily pressured and really kind of threatened these tech companies to crack down on speech. So that to me is like a blatant first amendment violation and anti-free speech because it's not that that's a very, it's a very different thing. If like, I were to say, Hey, you can't curse out my wife in my house or you got to get out of my house. Then if the government were to come in and say,

you can't criticize the government in your house, right? That those are just different in kind. And so anyway, I, what Elon Musk came in and he said he was going to make a Twitter, a free speech platform. And I also, I want to give them a lot of credit here. You know, I may I may have some disagreements with Elon Musk and even with the vague Rameswami about some of the things they were saying about American culture, what Rameswami was saying about American culture. And I'm a critic of the HB1 visa program.

I do also want to say, I don think either I think both of them have been like tremendously forces for good in America over the last year two years particularly and I think Elon Musk he he bought Twitter and said he was gonna make it a free speech platform and I think he certainly has made it much more of one than it used to be and so I think he's overall done a pretty good job Now he has fallen a little bit short of the goal that or of the the promise I guess you could say that he made there was a good example of this was when Kanye West got kicked off of Twitter I think he he posted a swastika or something like that. It wasn't just a regular swastika, it was like some version of a swastika

or whatever, but he got kicked off Twitter for this. And this creates a problem because Elon Musk came in and what he said, and he was very clear about this, he explicitly stated this on many different occasions, he said this is a free speech platform and as long as you're not breaking the law you're not going to get kicked off. Now it is not against the law for Kanye to tweet a swastika, okay? That's it's just not. And so you could understand we're like okay yeah like threatening somebody or something like that okay if that's illegal then you can't do that on Twitter so that would be like what Elon stated limit was but

Once you're kicking people off for hate speech you're no longer doing what you said you were gonna do and That listen this happens a lot in life people say they're gonna do something They fall a little bit short of that But maybe it's still better that they said they were gonna do that and they fall a little bit short of that, but maybe it's still better that they said they were going to do that and they fall a little bit short rather than falling a lot of it short. Okay. But here's, here's how I actually feel about this. I my major beef with the old censorship regime was that it was actually done by the government,

which is like an institution of force and that that it wasn't like just somebody deciding what they wanted to do with their platform. So that was my major issue with it. And I've talked about this at length many times. It's not just arbitrarily, because I don't like the government. But it's OK if a private company does it. There's many reasons to want to draw a line there and say

that, no, the government can't come in and start regulating speech um but on top of that the major issue for me was always that People were getting kicked off of twitter for telling the truth I mean this was like uh and and telling the truth that opposed the tyrannical regimes policies

There are people like alex baronson were getting kicked off twitter for just telling the truth about kovat and this happened to lots of people I mean, and I've witnessed a lot of it during the the kovat years and of course not just on on twitter on Facebook and instagram and all of these places YouTube all of them and on Facebook and Instagram and all of these places, YouTube, all of them. And so this was a major problem. Now I will say that I don't, like when it comes to these platforms, I don't necessarily think that there have to be no rules or there have to be no things that you're not allowed to say on the platform.

In other words, what I'm saying saying is like my concern is that people are allowed to tell the truth if you were gonna say the rules of Twitter are like you're not allowed there's words you're not allowed to Say like you can't say You know, whatever we have to bleep all the words out on YouTube anyway, so just think of all the Fucked up words, you know, you're not supposed to say okay If the rule was like you can't say that I don't really like my my thing isn't like no you have to be allowed to go call people on Twitter or something like that if it was just like hey you can't say that word here that wouldn't be the biggest deal to me the issue

comes when it's like number one you're saying you're gonna be a free speech platform you are saying that anything that doesn't violate the law you are allowed to say here, but then that's not true now you got an issue because you're selling a product is something and it's not that and if Elon Musk's goal which he's said many times his goal is to make X the everything app the app where you can do your banking and pay your bills and the everything app, the app where you can do your banking and pay your bills and communicate and research and fact check and everything, particularly the banking aspect of it.

If you want that, then you have to build up a level of trust where like, look, it doesn't mean there have to be no rules. I'll say this very clearly. If I owned a giant tech platform, I'm not sure there wouldn't be any rules about what you're allowed and not allowed to say. I mean, there are certain things to me that I just find a porrent. There's a whole really weird strain of leftist intersectional critical theory type people who actually coined the term

minor attracted person because they didn't feel that like, that they felt like pedophile had like a negative connotation to it as it kind of does, right? You know, it's like that's kind of turned into a pejorative and they were like, hey, it's just a sexual preference at the end of the day so we should call you minor attracted person, not pedophile. If I owned a big tech, big tech platform,

I could very likely see myself saying, Nope, you're not allowed to do that. You get kicked off. If you were trying to rehabilitate the image of pedophilia, you get kicked off of my platform. I, I'm not against there being rules. Maybe there should, even if you want to say, again, I know it to be clear here, I wouldn't kick people off for, for, for hating Jews or something like that. But I could, I'll, I'll get into that in a second. But the real issue is not that there can't be any rules. The real issue is not that the rule has to be, you're allowed to say anything as long as it doesn't break the law

The issue is that that's what Elon Musk said multiple times explicitly I think that's the issue here like if you want to my own and I think this is reasonable. Okay, my only real Demand not that I'm in a position to make demands of Elon Musk guys got a few bucks and a bit of influence but I Would just say I think this is a reasonable request is that be trans be transparent about what the rules are Explain what the rules are and then apply them equally across the board I think if you do that you're gonna clean up a lot of these problems

Like if you want to say you're not allowed to post swastikas, then fine, but say that and make it very clear. If you want to say you're not allowed to use this word or that word or say this, okay. Now, again, I'm not saying I support that. I'm saying it is your right to do that with your property, which is this platform. Now, I think if you did that,

you'd avoid a lot of the issues a lot of the issues now also I want to be somewhat charitable here to Elon Musk and and just say that I think he has done a lot of good over the last few years and I'm sure there are struggles that come with running such a gigantic thing that I just can't imagine, you know, I have I have Struggles just running the the couple podcasts that I just can't imagine. You know, I have I have struggles just running the couple podcasts that I do and, you know, taking care of my kids and managing my schedule. And that that feels like a lot to me. So I'm sure there are a lot of challenges with like running. How many companies does Elon Musk have at this point that are all multibillion dollar companies? You know, like there, I get that I'm sure there's a lot of challenges challenges to that and I don't think he should be written off. I don't think you know, the vague should be written off or anything like that. I think they're really important, brilliant voices right now. But I do think there's something here that you kind of got to deal with. It's like what are the rules man, because the rules clearly aren't what you just said. Now it it is also true that he didn't kick people off at least again, by the way, correct me if I'm wrong, fence, if somebody did get kicked off, uh, of there, but I don't, from what I've seen, I haven't seen that anybody actually, um, any actually,

anyone actually got, uh, got booted off of there. And so, okay, listen, I'm trying to be reasonable and charitable here. That's an improvement. That's an improvement from just booting people off. Certainly an improvement from like kicking people off for simply saying that like lockdowns are ineffective or the vaccine doesn't work the way that these guys are telling you it does work. Um, but I do think you got it. You gotta like be transparent about what the rules are and then apply them equally because the problem is when you start to,

when you don't do that, you can find yourself in a situation like this where it sure does have the appearance that you're like lowering the signal or depriving people's ability to make money on your platform because they were on a different side of an issue than you or they made you look bad, you know, and you don't want to have that. That is a really good way to lose your credibility and lose the credibility of X becoming what you want it to become, the everything app. Okay, so that's that's one thing and then I would just say on top of that and I say this again just to be clear with my bias here. I don't like the anti-jewish stuff. I am Jewish

I don't particularly like seeing that and I think it's um, I think it's not good. I don't think it's right and You know as I've that we did a whole episode on this just recently I also think it hurts. I think it is very damaging to the cause that I Believe in and I don't think it's like um, you know If the argument is like that I only go to the surface level when i'm criticizing israel and the neocons But these guys get right to the heart of it, which is Jews I think that's wrong and I also think that many Americans

many people can be persuaded to believe that What Israel is doing is really fucked up and that our country shouldn't be Funding and arming what they're doing that they shouldn't get an unconditional blank check from the United States of America I think people can also be persuaded to believe that like the neocons and the corporate media and the banking industry are all Incredibly corrupt and damaging to the country But if you're just trying to attach it to like hating Jews I do think that you're gonna lose a lot of people because a lot of people correctly recognize that as being ugly and kind of stupid and not

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Demonetize any of those people because it's just a bad path to go down and it does not solve the problem It does not solve the problem at all. Then when I say solve the problem from my perspective, for someone who doesn't believe that hating Jews is the correct answer. Listen, man, I know it's that kind of old classical liberal slogan or whatever, sunlight is the best disinfectant,

or you fight bad ideas with good ideas The answer to hate speech is more speech, but I do think that's all true. I really do I don't think driving Attempting to drive things into a dark corner does not make them better and Shouldn't we all know this at this point? I mean look even if even if you are, cause you know, I do see, I see a lot of people, um, some other people who have not been very friendly to me, um, but who are like celebrating, just openly celebrating on X that all these accounts got demonetized,

lost their blue check mark. Um, I think that's very short-sighted. I mean, look, think back. If you are one of the people who really goes like, anti-Semitism is out of control and there's all of this vile Jew hatred on Twitter or something like that. Think about the censorship regime that really started in 2016. There were some people who were censored before that, but it really started in mass in 2016 and went all the way up until Elon Musk bought Twitter So it was at least what I think he bought it in 22

So, you know it was from 2016 to 2022 Every one of them was kicked off. All of them were booted from all platforms, you know and All of them were booted from all platforms, you know? And if you're saying anti-Semitism is worse than ever, well then I mean clearly we could deduce that that didn't work. So it's not even effective for your cause, I think I would argue. It's kind of in a... maybe there's a... I didn't plan on making a connection between these two, but maybe there's even a similarity to the blowback stuff that like, you know, it actually ends up having this reverse unintended consequence of a lot of people end up going like, oh, well, how come you have to silence this guy? Well, of thinking, I just think this is the worst way to do it. So what I, you know, I don't support any of these guys getting demonetized or getting their blue checks taken away.

Obviously, like I said before, there's a range in that group of people who have been nothing but cool to me and some people who have been pretty shitty to me. But it doesn't matter, you know, like it shouldn't matter whether you were shitty to me or you were cool to me and some people who have been pretty shitty to me, but it doesn't matter. You know, like it shouldn't matter whether you were shitty to me or you were cool to me or whether I agree with your view or whether I vehemently disagree with your view. What are we doing here with X? Are we saying we, you know, for years, and I think this is something that for a radical libertarian like myself, there's always been this kind of question mark. It's like for years now, since Donald Trump was president the first time really the talking point has become well now free speech is a right-wing value

and when did that happen why does that that should be something we all agree on but you know there's this dynamic and I've talked about this many many times in the past but when you're okay. So if you're getting mugged at gunpoint and you, you got a gun pointed at you, you're unarmed. The guy mugging you has a gun that's pointed at you and you go, Hey, I don't believe in violence. I don't believe we should point guns at people and take their money.

Now that is the correct position, but it's also a very easy position to have when someone else has the gun and they're pointing it at you. When you have the gun, that's the real test of whether you believe in violence or not, right? Then it really means something. And so I think there are some people who have been making the case through the years where the woke progressives had dominant control over big tech and the corporate media and the political class and and hollywood and academia and all the rest when the woke progressives had control of all of that and they say hey we're for

free speech and this was said by a lot of people but like if you really are for free speech then the test kind of comes when you actually have some control over that and when you have control and things you don't like are being said then I do just think that um And I guess I've always believed this since the the Ron Paul days that we People if you believe you have the truth on your side and you're fighting for what's right Then you should be on the side of opposing censorship particularly on the internet because it's our only shot to ever like get the truth out there and Again, again, this is all kind of like classical liberal, you know

Wisdom but You know be be careful of a tool like this man. I mean even if you think just for now It's like well, maybe you really don't like those people very much who are getting demonetized. Okay But you once you accept that premise once you accept that precedent You may have an opinion that's really seen as pretty vile by some people at some point too. You may have an opinion that opposes the regime in some way. And that is when you're really not gonna want censorship

to be around. Think it's something to think about. All right, listen, I gotta wrap the show up there. I'm gonna go spend the rest of New Year's Day with the family. Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you everyone who's a subscriber at partoftheproblem.com for subscribing.

I really appreciate all of you and I'm looking forward to a great year with all of you. All right, take it easy, peace. Thanks for watching!