Speaker 1: My friends.
Speaker 2: The next story of the day is the fact that
Speaker 2: we went into Venezuela and arrested wanted criminal, allegedly Nicholas Maduro,
Speaker 2: president of and I'm not gonna call him psident anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call him dictator of Venezuela because there was
Speaker 2: recently an election and after promising, Oh, you guys may
Speaker 2: have forgotten this. But Biden, when he was in office,
Speaker 2: this is the Biden foreign policy versus the Donald Trump
Speaker 2: forne policy. When Biden was in office, he actually offered
Speaker 2: to reduce the sanctions, eliminate the sanctions on Venezuela if
Speaker 2: they would commit to free and fair elections, and then
Speaker 2: they didn't and he released the sanctions anyway. But talking
Speaker 2: about international law with us today, as my friend from
Speaker 2: hot air dot com, David Strom, who wrote a scorcher
Speaker 2: of a column today, the headline I think says it
Speaker 2: all international law. Really you're going with that now, David,
Speaker 2: I've never asked you this before. Do you get to
Speaker 2: write your own headlines?
Speaker 1: I do, and I'm generally quite bad at it.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually have a colleague be's well born who
Speaker 3: it makes me look like I have no stark at all,
Speaker 3: and she comes up with the best headlines. In fact,
Speaker 3: I've offered her several times money to write my headlines
Speaker 3: and she says, no, this is my superpala.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you know this, but I
Speaker 2: am an extremely good headline writer. So I have a
Speaker 2: great deal of appreciation. One of my goals in life
Speaker 2: for a long time was to be a headline writer
Speaker 2: for the New York Post. And obviously I'm not doing
Speaker 2: that because I don't work in that field at all,
Speaker 2: but I feel it's a gift of mine if you
Speaker 2: ever need any help. Let's get to the column before
Speaker 2: we run out of time. Kibbittzing, you are writing about
Speaker 2: one of the objections that I'm hearing from some on
Speaker 2: the left, and that is this the violation of international law.
Speaker 2: How absurd is that?
Speaker 1: And why.
Speaker 3: Well to say that it's absurd, it's just way too
Speaker 3: kind to the whole idea of international lawn. All you
Speaker 3: need to know about international law can be boiled down
Speaker 3: to can you hear me?
Speaker 2: No, I know, I'm sorry. I'm having a very bad
Speaker 2: headphone problem right now. It sounds like the predator is
Speaker 2: in my headphones. So David I'm going to do this
Speaker 2: very quickly. It's live radio, so hang in there. Don't
Speaker 2: try this at home. I'm gonna go plug my headphones
Speaker 2: into another headphone jack and see if that works. So
Speaker 2: just bear with me, David Vamp for a moment. Give
Speaker 2: me a little bit more for like thirty more seconds
Speaker 2: on how the notion that international law could even exist
Speaker 2: in a country that has gotten rid of the rule
Speaker 2: of law. Let's do that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, all you need to know about international law
Speaker 3: can be boiled down to the fact that right now,
Speaker 3: the president of the United Nations Security Council, which is
Speaker 3: theoretically in charge of making sure that the world is
Speaker 3: safe for democracy, is Somalia, and that the Somalian ambassador
Speaker 3: to the United Nations actually owns a healthcare company in Ohio.
Speaker 3: All right, So, I mean, you know, when somebody comes
Speaker 3: out and says, well, you violated international law and the
Speaker 3: United Nations is very worried about this, it's like the
Speaker 3: President of the UN Security Council is a Tamali scammer. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's tripping off the American taxpayers. I mean, it's the
Speaker 3: most ridiculous idea. I mean, laws require a sovereign if
Speaker 3: you do not have a sovereign then it's pointless to
Speaker 3: talk about the law.
Speaker 1: And as a practical matter.
Speaker 3: The law is the law of the jungle. It's the
Speaker 3: state of nature among I mean to give you put
Speaker 3: this in another perspective. You can read The Atlantic, the
Speaker 3: oldest magazine in the United States of America, one of
Speaker 3: the most prestigious magazines in the world, and they actually
Speaker 3: had an article that argued that, well, now that Trump
Speaker 3: has done this, Jijingping and Vladimir Putin will no longer
Speaker 3: obey international law. It's like, oh, yeah, they've been they've
Speaker 3: been great up to now.
Speaker 2: I mean, nately, David, it comes down to nations like Russia,
Speaker 2: nations like you know, China, and frankly, nations like the
Speaker 2: United States are going to do exactly what they know
Speaker 2: they can get away with.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And that's the ultimate sort of revelation that we all
Speaker 2: need to have a bigger conversation. The notion that there
Speaker 2: is anybody that is going to, i mean, outside of
Speaker 2: the Hague when you have a trial for war crimes
Speaker 2: and things of that nature. That's one thing, But the
Speaker 2: reality is is that the Hague is not going to
Speaker 2: indict the entire country of the United States of America.
Speaker 2: It's not going to happen. They're not going to indict China, right,
Speaker 2: So it gets really hard to argue.
Speaker 1: That there's signatories.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that. Oh yeah, no.
Speaker 3: And in fact, there is a law on the books
Speaker 3: in the United States of America, passed it by bipartisan fashion,
Speaker 3: that says that if any American ever gets arrested by
Speaker 3: the International Criminal Court, we will invade and take them.
Speaker 3: We do not recognize the International Criminal Court.
Speaker 1: It would be a violation of our sovereignty.
Speaker 3: And I forget what it's called it maybe something, you know,
Speaker 3: it's loqually known as invade the Hague law.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, I don't mind the notion, like
Speaker 2: I would love it if the United Nations functioned in
Speaker 2: that actual fashion. But to your point, when you have
Speaker 2: a Somalian scammer from one of the most corrupt countries
Speaker 2: in the world sitting at the head of the Security Council,
Speaker 2: it really undermines your ability to have faith in that institution.
Speaker 2: And the reality is is that the United Nations would
Speaker 2: only work in my mind, if it was based on
Speaker 2: Western values, right.
Speaker 4: Well, exactly, And you know, there is something that's kind
Speaker 4: of a parallel to international law, which is agreements among
Speaker 4: free nations, or even just agreements among nations, where you know,
Speaker 4: we like to have rules of the road so that
Speaker 4: we know what can be done in order to avoid
Speaker 4: unnecessary conflicts.
Speaker 1: Not necessary, they're.
Speaker 3: Just times when our interests are fundamentally at odds with
Speaker 3: the interests of another country, and when that happens, we
Speaker 3: decide to go it alone.
Speaker 1: And that's the way that it works.
Speaker 3: And so you'll get these sort of illusions like when
Speaker 3: you know, the Korean War or the First Iraq War,
Speaker 3: where the United Nations will back something, but that's entirely
Speaker 3: based upon interests and what's happening. There is a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff happens behind the scenes where people come to
Speaker 3: various agreements. So we have laws of the sea what
Speaker 3: can be done. But that's really no different than a
Speaker 3: business arrangement that people have. You and I make a contract.
Speaker 3: You know, you provide this to me, I'll provide that
Speaker 3: to you. That's what international law in a practice senses,
Speaker 3: And when you're dealing with the fuivelent of an international scammer,
Speaker 3: you deal with them on that basis. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: do you think that Vladimir Putin was worried about international
Speaker 3: law when he invaded the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I mean it's absurd.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean there's you can we can sit here
Speaker 2: all day. We could talk about smally pirates, we could
Speaker 2: talk about Yemen firing on ships in the in the Mediterranean.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's all of these various violations of
Speaker 2: international law going on on a daily basis. But as
Speaker 2: long as they are perceived to be oppressed nations, even
Speaker 2: if they're oppressing themselves, only we are to be able
Speaker 2: to account well exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we have.
Speaker 3: You know, we like to talk about law, and we
Speaker 3: should like to talk about law, because that's how you
Speaker 3: have the development of civilized societies, economies that work. I mean,
Speaker 3: you look at lawless places, they don't.
Speaker 1: Work, right.
Speaker 3: But you know, in the real world, you know, MAO
Speaker 3: said it power comes out of the barrel of a gun,
Speaker 3: and that's even true in societies like ours. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you look, I mean, we had laws on the
Speaker 3: book saying that you could not cross the American border
Speaker 3: and stay here. But when uh, the federal government decided
Speaker 3: to open the borders, they were violating. You know, all
Speaker 3: these people were violating the law, but since no one
Speaker 3: enforced it, it really meant nothing. And now that Trump
Speaker 3: is enforcing the law, it means something.
Speaker 1: It really is underneath it all force. And you know
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: Strive to have something like law to constrain force. But
Speaker 3: you know, anyone who doesn't pay their taxes knows that.
Speaker 1: You know, if you push it far enough, you can
Speaker 1: wind up in jail.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the most heavily armed groups in
Speaker 3: the entire world is the American IRS.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2: David Strom's column you can read it at hot air
Speaker 2: dot com Today, I linked to it on the blog
Speaker 2: I joy to see you in. Happy New Year to you, David.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year to you.
Speaker 2: Whoa wow, Oh geez, I don't know what just happened.
Speaker 2: I think I ended a meeting accidentally.
Speaker 1: No, wait, what what's up?
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be right back.