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Speaker 1: I can't believe that Trump hasn't thought of doing Trump

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branded social Security bracelets. That would be the authors next step. Right,

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I got it.

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Speaker 2: So you've fallen, you can't get up. So okay, are

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we ready?

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Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask

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what you can do for your country.

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Speaker 3: Mister Gorbachow, tear down this wall.

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Speaker 2: It's the Rocchet Podcast with Charles C. W. Cook and

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Stephen Hayward, James Lelex David. We talked to Doah Rothman

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about well basically the world. So let's have reselves a podcast.

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Speaker 4: Under the authorities vested in me as the President of

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the United States, I'm officially invoking Section seventy forty of

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the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. You know what

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that is.

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Speaker 5: I stand with the people of Washington, d C.

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Speaker 3: I stand with Mayor Bowdler, and we are strongly supporting

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their efforts to stop this scheme.

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Speaker 4: This is Liberation Day in DC, and we're going to

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take our cat capital back. We're taking it back.

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Speaker 2: Welcome everybody to the Ricochet Podcast and which one is it?

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Why You're right? It is Episode seven hundred and fifty three.

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You can join us at Ricochet dot com. You really can,

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and you can be part of the most stimulating conversations

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in community on the web, the place you've been looking

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for all these years. Forget Twitter, forget x forget facebooks.

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You'll find your friends at ricochet dot com. I'm James Alex.

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I am joined as ever by Stephen Hayward in California,

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I presume, and Charles Setel you cook in Florida, I presume,

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And gentlemen, all eyes in the nation are turned to

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d C, where the continuing withard atarian fascist takeover continues

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to this day, with people being arrested. So the interesting

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thing about this to me is that there are, as

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we keep saying, there's a big middle lane there for

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somebody to drive through when it comes to all of

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these social issues, and the Democrats can insist on going

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to the narrowest part on the left, like the like

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the gutter in a bowling alley, and staking out their

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claim there. It appears now that you've got to in

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order to be anti Trump, you have to be pro

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the crime in DC, which isn't that bad, mind you,

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It's not that bad. It's really not that bad, and

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we've got the figures to show it. Well, you juke

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the figures, but it's not that bad. So let's uh, Stephen,

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you want to take this first. And then Charles respond

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to what our friend says.

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Speaker 1: Well, it is Trump has a genius for this, of

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making the Democrats overreact and try and persuade us of

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what our own eyes tell us is not the case.

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Forget the official statistics, which like the Feerau of Labor

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statistics job figures, which are now very contentious. The statistics

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being reported are very iffy these days. I mean the

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DC actually put on leave someone credibly accused of faking

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some of the statistics. But I say forget those statistics.

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Everyone who walks into a CBS or a Walgreens in

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an urban area and everything is behind a locked case,

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or people who see all the videos of shoplifting going

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uninterrupted and unpunished, that may into climb, but it's still happening.

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I think it's hard to persuade the general public that

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there isn't a general problem of disorder and crime. So

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what what did I hear? James? I think you had

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something like was it one hundred and twenty four car

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break ins? Or is carjackings last weekend or something? Or

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a few nights ago, something crazy.

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Speaker 2: You know what's been happening all over the city. One

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hundred and twenty here, one hundred and twenty another ninety

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is that they go through the neighborhoods and they just

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break the window of every single car in the street,

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and then they rifle through it looking for rifles or

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cards or door openers or anything, and then they move along.

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The police are under orders not to pursue them, so

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even if they see them doing this, the guys getting

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their cars and race off and the police say, well,

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what are we gonna do? Hands are tied. And it

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hit our neighborhood two three nights ago or so. We

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had about ten windows on the street shattered, and everybody

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the next morning with you know, the tape up and

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the plastic and the rest of it. It's just grand,

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absolutely griand so yeah, and does that thing. Does that

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qualify as murdered and assault in the rest of it? No,

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But it's quality of life. Everybody look over their shoulder

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and grind their teeth and be angry at the officials

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who do nothing.

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Speaker 6: Charles, I have many thoughts. Where to even start, that's

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always yeah, I was going to start with a song.

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I usually start with structure, how the constitution works, and

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this is a slam dunk.

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Speaker 5: DC is a federal district.

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Speaker 6: D C is no more able to resist the authority

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of the federal government than was the Northwest Territory. It

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can if it wants to have a council or a mayor,

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but Congress can.

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Speaker 5: Take those away. That is a delegation of choice.

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Speaker 6: So the idea that this is somehow an imposition for

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the federal government to run the federal district, it's completely ridiculous.

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That's not authoitonism. If this were happening in Louisiana, then

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those who were griping would have a case. If President

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Trump work up tomorrow and said I am so worried

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about crime New Orleans or Baton Rouges that I will

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send in federal troops and we now have martial law,

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well yeah, okay, that's a state. It has sovereign claims.

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We have a federal system. The federal government has numerated powers,

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et cetera, et cetera. But that's just not the case here.

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And on the material point, I just don't think the

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good question is is crime coming down? Even if you

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believe the statistics, and I agree that a lot of

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them are duked. But even if you think that that's true,

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the question is yes, but is crime tolerable? Now, sure

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people will say no crime is tolerable, but we live

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in a free country. You're never going to have no crime.

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I don't know anyone on the left or the right,

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and I know both in Washington, d C. Who thinks

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that crime is tolerable, especially women. It just seems to

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be a terrible place for women to exist. And if

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that is the case, then the federal government is totally

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within its rights to look at the existing mechanisms for

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dealing with crime and to say you're not doing your job.

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We are ultimately responsible, especially when the last two or

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three weeks have brought crimes that are connected intrinsically to

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the functioning of the federal government. We had an intern

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in Congress, the Article one branch murdered while going to McDonald's.

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And then we had this doge employee known as Big Balls,

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who got himself into a fight through no fault of

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his own because he was trying to help someone who

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had been assaulted. So you don't even need to fall

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back on the can. That's an ought sort of question.

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If Congress's interns and federal bureaucrats are being routinely assaulted

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in the federal district, then I think it is not

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only reasonable, but imperative for the federal government to do

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something about it. So I'm very much in favor of this.

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What I'm not in favor of, just as a caveat,

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is what James Comas had on Cable News yesterday, which is, well,

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this is a great recipe for the rest of the country.

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Maybe we'll start doing some other cities.

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Speaker 5: No, you won't.

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Speaker 6: Those other cities are not federal districts have a different responsibility.

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But this fine with me.

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Speaker 2: So I'll put you out down as a qualified Okay,

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then when you talk about being a horrible place for women,

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I mean you have anchors on television talking about how

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they have been assaulted outside their studio, how there are

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weedy waggers in the stairwells of the Metro. I mean, yes,

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When I moved to DC in the early nineties, it

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was it was bad. It was very bad, and I'd

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come from a place that was not characterized at all

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by this kind of disorder. By the murders, so many

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murders and so many potholes, and so many vagrants, and

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and I looked at this place as with horror. That

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was my initial impression of DC. I didn't like it.

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I didn't like it at all, and I got out

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after three years. But I went back in the teens

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when I was doing some books for Encounter books, and

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I would stay up late and walk back from the

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tabern into my hotel at two o'clock in the morning

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with the totter and my step and it was absolutely fine.

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I mean, it really got good. It got good for

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a while because they were doing something and the something

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was working. Now, the interesting thing about it, though, is

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that while they were doing something and achieving results and

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getting a safer street by many metrics, they weren't addressing

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any of the root causes. But now, of course, what

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we're always told is that it's pointless to do enforcement

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and all the rest of these things, because what really

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matters is our old friend, root causes, and that unless

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you adjust the sociolomic problems socioeconomic problems that causes in

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the first place, you're doing a bad thing. I mean,

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you can't do anything unless you address these things, which

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of course we've been addressing for fifty sixty years. And

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that's why. One of the reasons that the Lift seems

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paralyzed about this is that even though they would kind

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of like to walk into a CVS or people's drug

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as we used to call and get some tied without

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having to call somebody over and run the tumblers what

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it would take to do that, they really are kind

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of squeamish about that. And besides the people who are

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stealing these things, or Jean Valjean's who just just need

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to wash their drawers.

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Speaker 6: I think root causes are generally nonsense in crime. I

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just think this is such guff. I mean a, it's

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incredibly patronizing. My family historically was very poor. They didn't

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commit crimes. They were not looked upon favorably in the

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social class system of Great Britain. They didn't commit crimes.

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I don't know what that's supposed to imply it. But second,

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it doesn't work. Even if you feel bad for the

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people who commit crimes, that's your prerogative, it doesn't work.

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To go after the root causes. You have to do

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something about it. You have to put cops on the street,

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you have to arrest them, and you have to give

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them sentences. I'm a squish on this question when it

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comes to procedure. I am very much a small L

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liberal when it comes to the due process part of

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the equation. But that doesn't mean that you can't have

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rigorous policing, and it certainly doesn't mean that once you

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have satisfied all the due process steps, you can't punish

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people harshly. You just have to make sure they did it.

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You have to make sure that the accusations are correct,

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that the jury is convened, that the promises that we

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make constitutionally, and half the Bill of Rice is about this,

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are satisfied. But once you've done that, there's no obligation

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just because you have a liberal, small L liberal attitude

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towards due process, to say, oh, let him off then,

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or let him out after a week, or it doesn't

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really matter.

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Speaker 5: Nonsense. But none of this works. We know how to

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fix this. It's so annoying.

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Speaker 1: We know how to fix this, and we don't do it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm reminded of one of Reagan's great lines when

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he was governor of California in the sixties. He says,

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a liberal's idea of being tough on crime is giving

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a longer suspended sentence.

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Speaker 5: That was right.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that typical? Right? I'm sure it's one of its originals. Yes,

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And you know, I grew up in those years as

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so you did to James, and root causes was the

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great banner of reform liberalism in the Great Society and

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so forth. And I don't know if it was Juliani

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or who back in the nineties when we were getting

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a handle on it, said we finally figured out that

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the root cause of crime is criminals. And you know,

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while the left has sort of learned nothing and forgotten everything.

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I mean, I go back to twenty nineteen when presidential

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candidate Kamala Harris was talking about one how great bussing

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was and the need to get back to finding the

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root causes of illegal immigration and so forth. So the

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left still says that the root cause of crime is poverty,

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except most poor people, the overwhelming majority, are not criminals.

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And on the other hand, and no one's ever been

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able to do even one of those fancy regression models

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to demonstrate that you know what level of poverty or

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where our so forth. On the other hand, we do

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know the data now goes back decades that these are

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rough numbers, but it's something like, you know, eighty percent

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of crimes are committed by about twenty percent of the

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criminal population. And one of the things that did work,

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Charles mentions, we know what works was identifying and giving

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sentences to those people, and we stopped doing that. And

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partly again, this is the academic left pushing democrats. If

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you are an inmate in higher education, as I unfortunately

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have in for a while now, one of the big phrases,

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and maybe Charles you've heard this is the carceral state. Yes,

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America is the carceral state. And the decarcoral movement, which

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I think never makes the sort of mainstream press very much,

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but boy, it's huge in the academic journals and classes

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and so forth, has been very big and influential, and

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so you know, the Democrats have gone with that, and

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here we are the.

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Speaker 2: Decarceral movement, which is very very noisy online, eventually devolves

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down to this is that while we shouldn't put anybody

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in prison, if somebody does commit a horrible rape or murder,

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they will be dealt with in other ways by society.

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And basically it comes down to vigilanteism. In the end,

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with all of these things, instead of having somebody go

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to a place where they're children and fed and clothes

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for the rest of their life, I will just beat

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them to death with sticks on the outskirts of town.

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Great Charles are gonna say.

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Speaker 6: Well, I've always thought that the decastoral people missed the

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follow up question. So one thing that they like to

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say is the United States has a greater percentage of

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its population in jail van and then they insert.

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Speaker 5: Whatever, Italy, Europe, the West.

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Speaker 6: And my follow up question that never gets asked is

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always Okay, what do they do? Because if the answer

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is they jaywalked, then I have a problem with it.

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If the answer is, which it's not, by the way,

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they smoked marijuana, then I have a problem with it.

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But the answer actually is that they did back things.

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Because America is a more violent and lawless place than Europe,

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especially Western Europe.

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Speaker 5: I don't think that is a good thing.

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Speaker 6: I do think it's a fact of our history that

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has obtained since the colonial period. Americans were more lawless,

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and I think it's related to our being more freedom

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loving in a perverse and than Europeans. And if you're

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going to have a more lawless society, You're going to

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end up with more people in jail. You can't just

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focus on the consequence of it as if it's bad. So,

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you know, yes, in that sense, like you need to

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look at the root causes, which are that we are

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more lawless. But once you've established that, you just got

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to lock people up and become circular, right, I know.

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Speaker 2: My favorite thing to be said the end of the

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argument about root causes comes from West Side story, which

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I believe came out in nineteen sixty one, in which

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the Jets are sitting around and singing off as a

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Krupky signs and they no, it's not that one. They're

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explaining exactly. They're progress of the social welfare system. And

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when they learn or that they do what they do

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because of their origins, they say, you know, sarcastically.

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Speaker 7: I'm depraved on a com undeprived. They knew it as

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a punchline in a joke the criminals. Then no, I'm

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not confusing, of course the Jets with actual criminals, but

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the line was there, and I have no doubt whatsoever

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that it reflected a true reality. I'm not deprived, though,

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when it comes though to sleep, and I'll tell you why,

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because I believe in sleeping comfortably, and I'm going to

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tell you exactly how you can do.

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Speaker 2: Good sheets are essential to good sleep. They are. Now

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life gets hectic, right, finding comfort and calm in this

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00:15:34,559 --> 00:15:37,559
world is essential. We need time for relaxation, for recharging,

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00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:40,440
and for soaking in a sense of peace. Well, with

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cozy Earth, you can create a space that feels like

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a personal retreat or comfort and serenity come together naturally.

305
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Now who better to tell you that than the avatar,

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00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:52,840
the adjudicator of all things comfortable and natural, Charles C. W.

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Cook himself, who I understand has been sleeping on these

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00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:57,639
sheets for many a moon.

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Speaker 6: For years, and sleeping comfortably and sleeping in what can

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00:16:02,559 --> 00:16:06,799
be difficult circumstances weatherwise. I mean, we always start this

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00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:08,600
podcast right and you say, what's the weather like? Can

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00:16:08,639 --> 00:16:10,960
I say it's hot? Oh, it's thunderstorms. But either way

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00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:13,720
it's humid, and that can be difficult. And these sheets

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00:16:13,799 --> 00:16:16,399
are really good if you live in a hot climate.

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00:16:16,399 --> 00:16:17,960
They're also good if you don't live in a hot climate,

316
00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:21,639
because they're incredibly comfortable and as I always say, they

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have the approval of my wife, James, and that is

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00:16:24,200 --> 00:16:27,200
the one thing that matters. She chose them, she continues

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00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:30,000
to endorse them. I'm sure if they ever run out,

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00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:33,919
which they haven't, if they have a break or no

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00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:36,919
longer usable, then we will immediately buy another set. Because

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00:16:36,919 --> 00:16:39,080
when you find good sheets, you keep them.

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00:16:39,399 --> 00:16:41,679
Speaker 2: Chances of your sheets being sundered are probably nil. But

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00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:44,840
again there's that guarantee, and there's that reputation that once

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you have them and you want them in every room

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00:16:47,399 --> 00:16:49,919
and every night, and if Charless, maybe completely convinced, we'll

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listen to this because so confident you're gonna love your sheets.

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They have a one hundred night's sleep trial and a

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ten year warranty. Yeah, like you're going to send them

330
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back after Dina nine nights. You won't try them, wear them,

331
00:17:01,399 --> 00:17:03,720
love them, or send them back, but you know, trust us,

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Cozy Earth for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast, And now

341
00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:32,279
we welcome back to the podcast. Noah Rothman, senior writer

342
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at the National Review, author of Rise of the New Puritans,

343
00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:40,240
Fighting Back against Progressives, War on fun, It must follow,

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00:17:40,279 --> 00:17:43,720
Foreign policy columnists, and we, uh, well, today there might

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be some developments because we're the President is meeting Putin

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in formerly Russian territory, which I'm glad we have and

347
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bought and all the rest of it. All right now,

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press conference coming up. What do you expect?

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Speaker 3: I have no idea I really happen.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, we'll talk to you later. We're going to

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go to our next gist.

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Speaker 3: I mean, these are very bad pundit answers, but they're

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also honest pundit answers. And anybody who says otherwise, I

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think either has access to a crystal ball or is

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leaning too hard into their own priors and assumptions. I

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don't know what to expect from this. The President is

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very has been very mercurial when it comes to his

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understanding of this conflict. His navigation of this conflict, and

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I don't know where his head is at at any

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given moment. The Russians, on the other hand, are telegraphing

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to the extent we can understand what their strategy is,

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and their strategy maybe to pull a crazy eyev In

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at the negotiating table, But what we understand their strategy

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is is really transparent. It is to provide the President

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with every opportunity to talk about everything other than the

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Ukraine conflict. They're going to offer him deals. They're going

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to offer him the prospect of economic integration and joint

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infrastructure projects in the Arctic. They're going to talk about

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future security arrangements and security cooperation in Europe, and all

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this is going to prove very enticing. I suspect to

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the President. To his credit, he has said it's great.

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All that's great, but none of that's going to happen

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unless we get this war stopped concluded. But my fear

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is that there's a real imbalance when it comes to

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objectives here. The President and his subordinates seem to want peace,

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and that's noble, but peace and what terms And there's

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a big internal argument within the administration over this conflict,

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And I'm frequently asked, why are you a little down

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on this summit? What do you think is not going

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to happen or is not going to go very well?

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First of all, the history of semetry with the Russians

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is a fraud study. And the second is that you know,

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these people will say, well, the President's negotiated conflict settlements

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or at least ceasefires in Sub Saharan Africa, in Southern

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South Asia and the Caucuses. What makes this one different?

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And what I would say is that the the administration

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doesn't seem to be of two minds on those conflicts. Indeed,

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they seem to understand those conflicts within the parameters of

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the conflict itself. When it comes to Ukraine Russia, there

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is a big internal war over the very nature of

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that conflict, who who the parties are, the belligerents are,

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and what their motives are, and how deserving they are

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of American support. And it has much more to do

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with domestic politics than it has to do with the

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actual conflict on the situation on the ground. Russia's grand

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strategic interests in the region, NATO, all that seems to

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be secondary and subordinate to the domestic interests that are

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on one side of this conflict or the other, and

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that's why it's been a very confused process. And then

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they're going into anchorage with this confusion as opposed to

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Russia's which is singularly focused on its objectives, which is

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taking Ukraine either today, tomorrow, ten years from now. But

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that is their grand strategic goal and they're pursuing it

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with monomania in a way that I don't think this

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administration quite is when it comes to it's a coach

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to securing peace.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they wanted to end because warbad, et cetera. I

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get that. But the thing of it is is you

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give putin this slice of the Ukraine that he already occupies,

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then think he just resets his clock and waits until

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the next time that he can invalidate or renee gun

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whatever he said before and give it another shot. And

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Ukraine is reeling after years and years of this. What

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do you think what do you think is going to happen? Is?

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Is it?

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Speaker 7: Is it unrealistic to think, as so many did a while.

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Speaker 2: Ago, that the Ukraine was going to actually was going

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to win, this was going to push Russia out, was

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going to get crime up. I mean, there's a lot

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to talk about that they're going to blow up the

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cursed bridge and they're going to get it back, and

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they're gonna cripple. I mean, Ukraine has done some absolutely

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fantastic things in this war, and I've always been a

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supporter of them always. But are we getting to the

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point where the reality of Russian occupation is just simply

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going to have to be what is accepted going forward

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because the alternative is just bleeding the country white and

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endless war. I don't know. Well.

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Speaker 3: I certainly reject the premise that acceptance is something the

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United States or the West must acquiesce to. We didn't

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recognize formally the Soviet occupation of the Baltics. At no

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point we recognize governments in exile. That was an illegitimate

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occupation from nineteen forty one, I believe nineteen forty rather

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to nineteen ninety one. It would be a shift in

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American foreign policy to acknowledge, as Stephen Wikoff was playing

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with earlier this year, the notion that the illegally annexed

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territories Crimea or the other four oblasts would be functionally

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Russian territory at no point should we acknowledge the legitimacy

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of those gains. Occupation maybe a de facto premise, but

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it is not one we should certainly should accept. And

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there's also those who are who are frankly, willfully ignorant

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of diplomacy to the degree to which they say, what's

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the big deal here? They're just talking, They're just sitting down.

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What are the material consequence is from that, you war

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mongering lunatic. The material consequences of it are that the

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Russian government now sitting on American soil, enjoying the legitimacy

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conveyed to the Russian government by the American presidency, says

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and will say that it's diplomatic isolation as a result

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of the second invasion of Ukraine is over. And when

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they say stuff like that, it indicates to the Russian

451
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markets that their long period in the cold is going

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to be over pretty soon and we're going to be

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re into our economic segregation is over. When that happens,

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the Russian markets explode. They generate a lot of capital

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capital that the Russian government can borrow against and undermine

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the sanctions regime. So you're functionally contributing to the Russian coffers.

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By doing stuff like this, which has a material impact

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on the battlefield, we will see it. And that's the

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sort of thing that they just gloss over because they

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don't understand the subject on which they're opining. And I

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suspect that a lot of people are invested in that

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sort of ignorance. Those who want to see peace come

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whatever the cost agree.

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Speaker 2: But last question, I mean, I'm not sure there's so

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many people who are just what's the word I'm looking for.

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They don't care exactly about the nationhood of Ukraine. They

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don't care, they don't Why are we even talking about this?

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Why is this conflict important? And I think it's important

469
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because of Russian ambitions. I think it's important because of

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looking at what Russia is casting its eye elsewhere, and

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they hasn't been able to do so because they've been

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tied down. And I think it's also strange to grant them,

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as you say, the diplomatic legitimacy at a point where

474
00:24:26,799 --> 00:24:29,880
it becomes apparent that yeah, we can do business. Why

475
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:32,839
would you want to integrate Russia back into the European economy?

476
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,000
Why would you want to make Europe more dependent dependent

477
00:24:36,039 --> 00:24:40,359
again on Russian fuel. What is the disadvantage to freezing

478
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,240
them out at every possible opportunity as a display of

479
00:24:43,279 --> 00:24:47,480
American soft power and economic power. Why cozy up now

480
00:24:47,759 --> 00:24:50,400
and I'll stop them. I'm not a question, I'm just ranting.

481
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:51,920
So maybe I should give it to somebody else.

482
00:24:52,519 --> 00:24:57,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't quite know. I mean, the scenario here

483
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:01,880
that makes me nervous is that the prelude to Ukraine

484
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,839
War III consists of something like the Mensk Agreements. These

485
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,000
two agreements, the first of which wasn't worth the paper

486
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,519
it was written on. The Russians never observed it and

487
00:25:10,599 --> 00:25:13,119
kept taking territory afterwards, the second of which was also

488
00:25:13,279 --> 00:25:15,440
never observed, but at least the line of contact held.

489
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:17,880
It was never quiet, it was always hot all the

490
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,319
way up into twenty twenty two. But that's the condition

491
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,279
that we would see, and that resulted in a more

492
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,599
security guarantees to Europe, not less. I mean that was

493
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:29,640
preceded the Crimean invasion in twenty fourteen was preceded months

494
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,519
earlier by Obama removing the very last armored division from

495
00:25:33,559 --> 00:25:36,359
European soil since World War Two, as well as many

496
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,039
other divisions we had just been withdrawing from Europe in

497
00:25:39,079 --> 00:25:42,160
our forever quest to pivot to Asia. The desire to

498
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,559
pivot to Asia at the expense of the European theater

499
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:47,599
makes the European theater more hot and results in more

500
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:50,759
commitments to Europe's security, not less, And that's what we

501
00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:53,759
would see. We would see a NATO alliance, particularly members

502
00:25:53,759 --> 00:25:55,920
on the frontier, get very very nervous, very very jumpy

503
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,000
about their security and keeping the thirty three member states

504
00:25:59,039 --> 00:26:01,799
in line is the or most job of prima enter paris,

505
00:26:01,839 --> 00:26:04,440
the United States the first among equals in the NATO Alliance,

506
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,160
and so we would see a lot of disunion and

507
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,400
perhaps a little bit of adventurism on the part of

508
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:11,960
some of our allies on the NATO frontier, which would

509
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,599
force us to put more troops into the NATO frontier

510
00:26:14,599 --> 00:26:17,720
to satisfy our NATO allies. But the big scenario that

511
00:26:17,759 --> 00:26:20,119
really keeps me up at night is not a fold

512
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:23,359
a gap style invasion of Europe. I don't think Russia

513
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,799
has that capacity. What they could do make an attempt

514
00:26:27,519 --> 00:26:30,839
is to destabilize Estonia. Take a little chunk of Estonia

515
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,480
and say de facto situation on the ground, deal with it,

516
00:26:33,759 --> 00:26:36,400
or maybe even get more ambitious and attempt to establish

517
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,920
a land bridge between Russia proper and Kaliningrad, East Prussia

518
00:26:41,039 --> 00:26:45,799
as we all remember it. And that's the sort of

519
00:26:45,799 --> 00:26:48,559
thing that's really scary because they could very well do that,

520
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:54,200
and then Berlin and Paris and Ottawa and Washington and

521
00:26:54,279 --> 00:26:56,880
London are all confronted with the die for Danzig scenario.

522
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,640
Do you really want to risk no conflict with a

523
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,000
nuclear on power over tiny tollin.

524
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 2: Like an origami lesson? Right?

525
00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 1: So Noah, it's Steve Hayward out in Gavin Newsom stand

526
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:13,039
as I call my miserable home state. Look, here's the

527
00:27:13,039 --> 00:27:16,839
difficulty is that most people who will be listening to

528
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,519
this podcast, after we know the results, or least some

529
00:27:19,599 --> 00:27:22,359
of the results, it may be literally years before we

530
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,160
know everything that passes behind closed doors today. So I

531
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,519
want to use the Ukraine situation today to draw you

532
00:27:28,559 --> 00:27:30,480
out onto a broader scene of the world and about

533
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,960
Trump too. This caused a little bit of setup. When

534
00:27:34,039 --> 00:27:37,759
I heard that they were going to be meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

535
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,519
I go in maybe too much for historical analogies, but

536
00:27:40,599 --> 00:27:43,359
I immediately thought of the hastily arranged summit which was

537
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,279
not a summit between Reagan and Garbachov in nineteen eighty

538
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:50,480
six in Reikubc, and of course you remember there Reagan

539
00:27:50,519 --> 00:27:55,279
walked out against the intransit demands of the Soviet leaders

540
00:27:56,039 --> 00:27:59,000
when they offered him a deal that he really wanted,

541
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,039
you know, deep cuts in nuclear weapons. There are a

542
00:28:02,079 --> 00:28:05,880
couple of differences. One of them is this time unlike Reagan, Remember,

543
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,759
Reagan really blindsided our allies, especially Margaret Thatcher. They were

544
00:28:09,839 --> 00:28:13,359
very upset that that deal nearly happened without consulting them.

545
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:15,319
We know that Trump spent a lot of time on

546
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,359
the phone with the NATO leaders in the last few

547
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:21,119
days working out red lines and so forth. We know

548
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,680
that very interesting Wall Street Journal story that I don't

549
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,799
know if you saw, about how Trump is very close

550
00:28:25,839 --> 00:28:29,039
to the president of Finland, who seems to be a

551
00:28:29,039 --> 00:28:31,440
pretty solid guy, a right of center person, which I

552
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,680
didn't know Scandinavia had in any case. So I am

553
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,680
hoping and now again people will know, maybe by the

554
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,599
time they're listening to us, that if Putin tries to

555
00:28:42,599 --> 00:28:45,680
play Trump the way Gorbachev did Reagan, that Trump will

556
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,359
do the same thing. He will walk out also angry

557
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,519
like Reagan did, but who knows, there are some other

558
00:28:51,599 --> 00:28:54,240
aspects that encourage me a little bit, And that's what

559
00:28:54,319 --> 00:28:57,519
gets me to a broader question. You know, just watching Trump,

560
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,119
he's still Trump. He's very mercurial. As you say, he

561
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,599
still fit to contradictory outbursts. You know, one day you're

562
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,480
the worst person in the world and the next day

563
00:29:06,519 --> 00:29:10,039
you're the second coming of Gandhi. But on the whole,

564
00:29:10,079 --> 00:29:13,880
he seems generally more comfortable in his own skin, a

565
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,200
little more tempered, I guess, i'd say about our relations

566
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,160
with our allies, it just seems he has act more together.

567
00:29:20,599 --> 00:29:22,799
So I love if you comment on what your impressions

568
00:29:22,799 --> 00:29:24,839
are of Trump too generally, and then from there I'd

569
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:26,160
like to move on to the Middle East.

570
00:29:27,079 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 3: Sure, so Trump too in his second term when it

571
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,440
comes to foreign policy is hard to gauge because the

572
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,960
first two months I was horrified frankly by his performance,

573
00:29:40,359 --> 00:29:44,119
and then the subsequent several months we're very encouraging and

574
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:49,000
diametrically opposed to the administration's approach to our adversaries and

575
00:29:49,039 --> 00:29:53,839
allies in those initial two months, So you have to

576
00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:57,599
take it all with all in total, in some and

577
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,359
sort of that prevents me from issue grander verdicts because

578
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:03,559
I just need more inputs, I need more information before

579
00:30:03,559 --> 00:30:05,839
I were to render a verdict. Then when we talk

580
00:30:05,839 --> 00:30:07,599
about the Middle East, I suspect they'll be far more

581
00:30:07,839 --> 00:30:13,839
complimentary to the administration's approach when it comes to this conflict.

582
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,839
In particular, the Putin regime and the negotiators are going

583
00:30:17,839 --> 00:30:20,160
to put a variety of scenarios to the President. There

584
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:24,400
could be a ceasefire with some modest land swaps that

585
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:26,640
Russians don't want a modest landslap, they want a huge

586
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,400
one at landswap. They want a part of don Bass

587
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,000
which is very heavily fortified, including some industrial towns that

588
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:33,720
they couldn't take on the battlefield and would be very

589
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:36,079
difficult to take back. But also something along the lines

590
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:39,359
of an air cease fire, which would also beneficial to

591
00:30:39,799 --> 00:30:42,640
Moscow because while it's raining rockets and drones down on

592
00:30:42,759 --> 00:30:47,240
Ukrainian population centers, Ukraine is targeting infrastructure sites like Russia's

593
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:52,200
petroleum processing facilities, which are very difficult to put back together.

594
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,079
You can build an apartment building in a year, it's

595
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,640
not that easy to rebuild a petroleum refining facility. So

596
00:30:58,079 --> 00:31:00,759
all these are all things that sound really reasonable, but

597
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:04,440
would also advantage the Russian position more than the Ukrainian position.

598
00:31:04,839 --> 00:31:06,519
And that's the sort of thing that I'm worried. The

599
00:31:06,519 --> 00:31:10,119
Reikievik scenario. I mean, Ronald Reagan was just frankly frustrated

600
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:11,680
and very mad when he had to walk away from

601
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,920
the table. It was one of his best moments. But

602
00:31:14,279 --> 00:31:16,720
I submit that he shouldn't been approaching the Russians with

603
00:31:16,799 --> 00:31:19,480
the kind of disarmament agreements that he was seeking. He

604
00:31:19,559 --> 00:31:22,279
was very wide eyed and ideological about disarmament, and he

605
00:31:22,359 --> 00:31:25,880
was also attached to SDI and missile defense technologies, and

606
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,119
when the Russians said, don't research that sort of thing,

607
00:31:28,119 --> 00:31:30,200
he got up and walked away. Good for him, But

608
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:31,640
the very virtue of the fact that he had that

609
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:33,480
summit in the first place was an embarrassment that, as

610
00:31:33,519 --> 00:31:36,400
you said, the Europeans came down on him, the press

611
00:31:36,519 --> 00:31:39,519
came down on him, and cemetry with the Russians is

612
00:31:39,519 --> 00:31:41,640
fraught in that way. Joe Biden was burned in the

613
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,440
same way. Russian troops were building up on Ukraine's borders

614
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:46,319
in twenty twenty one. He said, let's have a summit,

615
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:50,200
and then four months later, Buttna'm sorry. Eight months later

616
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,119
the Russians invaded. Make Putin look like an idiot or

617
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,640
Biden looked like an idiot? Nineteen sixty both of them.

618
00:31:56,759 --> 00:32:01,200
Nineteen sixty one, Kennedy goes to Vienna and is land

619
00:32:01,279 --> 00:32:05,480
basted by Khrushcheff gets into this high minded ideological argument

620
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:08,680
about the tenets of Marxism, is on his back foot,

621
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,680
and then concedes that the Sino Soviet Alliance ISS functionally

622
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,160
has military parody with the United States. And then three

623
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,119
months later the Berlin Wall goes up, and a year

624
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,000
later we have offensive nuclear weapons in Cuba. These sort

625
00:32:19,039 --> 00:32:22,119
of things matter if they go wrong. They matter historically.

626
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,880
And I wonder if this administration is as of single

627
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,400
minded when it goes to the negotiating table as the

628
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,160
Russians will be.

629
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 5: I suspect not.

630
00:32:30,799 --> 00:32:33,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll just have to see what happens, and

631
00:32:33,759 --> 00:32:35,559
thank you for your attention to this matter. As Trump

632
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,079
likes to say, let's switch to the Middle East a bit,

633
00:32:38,119 --> 00:32:41,000
because I know, I know you follow that closer than

634
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,839
just about anybody. I guess. I'd say as a general

635
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,720
proposition that Trump has been pretty robust and consistent in

636
00:32:47,759 --> 00:32:50,680
the support with Israel, with of course the occasional outburst

637
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:52,680
at net and Yahoo, because that's just what Trump is.

638
00:32:52,759 --> 00:32:52,839
Speaker 5: Like.

639
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:56,599
Speaker 1: What I worry about right now is two things. One

640
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:02,720
is there's this massive propaganda campaign about starvation and genocide

641
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,039
in Gaza, all of which is nonsense, but which a

642
00:33:05,039 --> 00:33:07,480
lot of conservatives are buying into, or maybe not a lot,

643
00:33:07,519 --> 00:33:10,559
but too many. You know, the American Conservative magazine, which

644
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,640
I used to read because I thought had interesting stuff,

645
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,160
has gone full anti Israel in the last couple of months.

646
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:18,200
And then you have a couple of our key allies

647
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:21,720
saying we're going to recognize a Palestinian state. And I

648
00:33:21,759 --> 00:33:24,359
haven't followed whether Trump has said anything about that. I'm

649
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,599
kind of disappointed. If he hasn't that that maybe I

650
00:33:27,599 --> 00:33:29,960
missed it, but it seems to me that that ought

651
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,720
to call for some pretty direct and forceful condemnation by

652
00:33:33,759 --> 00:33:36,839
our government with some consequences. I think, I mean, we're

653
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,759
threatening people in the UN who don't take anti American positions.

654
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:44,680
I think this merits at least equivalent treatment. But so

655
00:33:45,119 --> 00:33:47,200
give us your grade or give us a two or three.

656
00:33:47,359 --> 00:33:51,680
Noah Rothman Summary Assessments of where that scene stands right now.

657
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 3: Well, just a quick note on the recognition of a

658
00:33:55,039 --> 00:34:02,440
Palestinian state? Which Palestinian state? Right are we recognizing? These

659
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:06,400
are non contiguous territories with very distinct governments, which, by

660
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,159
the way, are at one another's throat when they get

661
00:34:08,159 --> 00:34:12,360
the opportunity. They have different foreign policies, different economies, different

662
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,360
relations with Israel. So which one are we recognizing? And

663
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:18,000
if you're recognizing the whole of these territories as one

664
00:34:18,119 --> 00:34:22,480
single Palestinian entity, are we then immediately sanctioning that recognized

665
00:34:22,519 --> 00:34:25,559
Palestinian entity for being governed by a lawless terrorist group,

666
00:34:25,559 --> 00:34:27,599
which you acknowledge is a terrorist group with European and

667
00:34:27,599 --> 00:34:31,320
American blood on its hands. It's a very foolish proposition.

668
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,039
It's not a foreign policy it's a temper tantrum, and

669
00:34:34,119 --> 00:34:35,920
it is one I agree s tot even that should

670
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,480
be met with condemnation from the US government and probably

671
00:34:38,559 --> 00:34:41,400
a few disincentives to engage in this sort of thing.

672
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,119
The President's conduct when it comes to foreign policy in

673
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:49,039
the Middle East has been generally laudatory from my perspective.

674
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,440
The attack on Iranian nuclear sites was we were told

675
00:34:53,519 --> 00:34:58,599
supposed to beget gottardam Room, and we have not seen that,

676
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,039
perhaps because as the conditions on the ground had changed

677
00:35:02,119 --> 00:35:06,360
so dramatically over the course of Russia rather Israel's war

678
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,920
against the Seven Armies that ringed Israel. The ring of

679
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:15,880
fire that was the Iranian military proxy network decimated systematically

680
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,360
over the course of the war that Hamas started on

681
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,119
ten to seven, and as such we had a much

682
00:35:22,159 --> 00:35:26,679
more limited capacity for Iran to engage in retaliatory strikes.

683
00:35:26,679 --> 00:35:29,079
This was the window of opportunity, and the President took

684
00:35:29,119 --> 00:35:32,360
the absolute made the most of it in ways that

685
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:35,440
are very salutary, I think. And the very fact that

686
00:35:35,559 --> 00:35:37,880
it has not begat the kind of response that a

687
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,400
lot of the handwringers expected, or perhaps even hoped for

688
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:43,880
in a perverse way, if only to justify their opposition

689
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,320
to this sort of thing, is an example of the

690
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:53,360
kind of intuitively I'm sorry, not intuitive, the opposite of intuitive,

691
00:35:53,559 --> 00:35:58,079
non intuitive approach to foreign policy that has been discouraged

692
00:35:58,119 --> 00:36:02,239
by the Foreign Policy Apparatus and Abraham Accords are also

693
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,679
illustrative of that didn't exactly spring from Donald Trump's forehead,

694
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:07,760
and there have been think tanks that have been working

695
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,239
on this for a long time, but the notion that

696
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,400
you could do one of tooth. You could do two

697
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,440
things to unlock a new dynamic in the Middle East.

698
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,039
The first is to push the Palestinian issue to the

699
00:36:18,079 --> 00:36:20,679
back burner. Don't deal with that first, as the peace

700
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,760
protestors insist, you had to deal with it last, and

701
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:27,360
then refocus the entire region, especially the Sunni States, on

702
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:32,719
the threat posed by Iran and it's Scheite militias, which Egypt,

703
00:36:33,039 --> 00:36:36,079
the UAE, Saudi Arabia, all of which we're engaged in

704
00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:40,920
this somewhat quiet cold war hot conflict, and all that

705
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,239
sort of unlocked this diplomatic and military cooperation with Israel.

706
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,719
It created a new dynamic in this region that would

707
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,320
not have been realized in the absence of American leadership.

708
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:51,719
I think we're seeing some of that here with the

709
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,000
dynamic between Israel and Iran and the United States. There's

710
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,320
a lot of political pressure, as you say, on the

711
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,119
West in particular, as a result of this propagand and

712
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:03,719
distic campaign which alleges that Israel engage is engaged in

713
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:09,800
the most cartoonishly evil campaign of em miseration and genocidal

714
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,280
reprisals against civilians that you could imagine, the motives for

715
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:18,880
this are allided. Nobody ever really describes what Israel gets

716
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:21,639
out of the deal. How does how does it end

717
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:25,639
up with this, you know, placid condition in which everybody's

718
00:37:25,679 --> 00:37:28,760
ethnically cleansed because they've starved and murdered them all. I mean,

719
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,599
the population seems rather stable, so they're doing a terrible job,

720
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:36,079
as Genisi dares. But nevertheless, I mean, it's just assumed

721
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:38,559
on the part of people who assume the worst of Israel,

722
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,440
that that this is what's going on. It's taken at

723
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,199
face value, and it's an extraordinary claim that lacks the

724
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,079
extraordinary evidence you should have to support it. And the

725
00:37:47,119 --> 00:37:50,880
president deserves a lot of credit for just bucking And

726
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:52,360
this is one of the things that he does very

727
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:54,480
well because he is he's so on the outside when

728
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,119
it comes to the conventional wisdom, be it cultural or

729
00:37:57,119 --> 00:38:00,039
political or foreign policy's, he's rather suspicious of it and

730
00:38:00,079 --> 00:38:02,639
often contemptuous of it, and sometimes it serves him well,

731
00:38:02,679 --> 00:38:04,599
and in particularly the Middle East, it has served him

732
00:38:04,679 --> 00:38:07,000
very well. Donald Trump will go down in history as

733
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:11,519
someone who presided over a revolutionary change in the geopolitical

734
00:38:11,519 --> 00:38:14,280
situation in the Middle East for good or for ill,

735
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,519
and I think mostly for good. But it's all because

736
00:38:16,519 --> 00:38:18,880
he approached it in a way that was really contemptuous

737
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:24,599
of the staid and unchallenged assumptions that had calcified in

738
00:38:24,639 --> 00:38:26,960
the American foreign policy establishment over decades.

739
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:33,119
Speaker 2: Okay, I give up, Charles. You try to draw this

740
00:38:33,159 --> 00:38:36,079
guy out because we're coming up with nothing.

741
00:38:36,519 --> 00:38:39,119
Speaker 3: Am I not performing to expectations here?

742
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:40,559
Speaker 5: I know you know who I am.

743
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,280
Speaker 6: I've heard of you because we work together, and in

744
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,880
fact to hung out together forty five minutes ago to

745
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,559
do the other podcast, which you should listen to. I

746
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:54,559
have a question that is broad and we can zoom

747
00:38:54,599 --> 00:38:59,480
all the way out into spice. Tim Curry would say,

748
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:06,840
I don't obscure rep I get it. How dangerous is

749
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:15,039
the world because the prevailing view of younger people seems

750
00:39:15,079 --> 00:39:17,480
to be that everything is.

751
00:39:17,519 --> 00:39:20,119
Speaker 5: Very dramatic at the moment and.

752
00:39:20,039 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 6: America has never been like this, and the world has

753
00:39:23,519 --> 00:39:29,320
never been like this. And I'm habitually and reflexively hostile

754
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:32,880
to these claims because my great grandfather fought in World

755
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,039
War One and then lived through the depression that my

756
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,079
other grandfather's fought in World War two.

757
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 5: And then they live through.

758
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 6: The people of the fifties and sixties, and I just

759
00:39:41,079 --> 00:39:46,039
am not persuaded. On the other hand, we have got

760
00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:48,880
wars going on, and there is a situation in Israel,

761
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,320
and that's the prospect in the Pacific of an invasion

762
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,239
of Taiwan and China really is a threat. So and

763
00:39:55,559 --> 00:40:01,199
how dangerous are things relative to any point you want.

764
00:40:01,159 --> 00:40:05,320
Speaker 3: To pick in history, Well, let's start one hundred and

765
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:06,840
twenty five years ago. Let's just start at the turn

766
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:11,679
of the century. The if you look on you know,

767
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:13,639
if everything's relative. But if you were to plot on

768
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,480
a graph casualties from warfare, you would find the prior

769
00:40:16,519 --> 00:40:19,559
to October seventh, the wars in October seventh that began then,

770
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,280
or let's say, prior to to the Ukrainian invasion of

771
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:26,400
twenty twenty two, you've seen fewer casualties from warfare and

772
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:32,039
battlefield conflict. Then in the whole of going back into

773
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:34,800
you know, the treaty was failure to the extent that

774
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,159
we have actual numbers, and we do to a certain

775
00:40:37,199 --> 00:40:42,960
degree about battlefield casualties. The condition that was that arose

776
00:40:43,599 --> 00:40:48,920
amid American hegemony, unquestioned superpower status across the planet Earth

777
00:40:49,599 --> 00:40:53,920
was one of unparalleled peace, unparalleled safety and security. The

778
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,079
human species had never known that kind of security. And

779
00:40:58,119 --> 00:41:04,480
there are basically three dynamics that typify the geopolitical landscape

780
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,960
since that period. The first is the one that we're

781
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,800
experiencing now, US hegemony the United States. For all of

782
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:15,480
China's rising power capacity and what have you, it cannot yet,

783
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:18,519
to the extent that we understand it project power across

784
00:41:18,559 --> 00:41:22,039
its borders in a sustained way. We haven't seen that yet.

785
00:41:22,199 --> 00:41:25,440
It might, but it hasn't attempted that. It certainly can't

786
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:28,079
project power across the other side of the planet Earth

787
00:41:28,119 --> 00:41:30,400
in a sustained way. No other power on Earth can

788
00:41:30,559 --> 00:41:34,880
but us. The second dynamic is bipolarity, which is roughly

789
00:41:35,079 --> 00:41:40,480
what defined the Cold War period between roughly equal superpowers,

790
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,280
the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union

791
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:45,760
and its allies. And that was a very bloody time.

792
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:47,960
It was a very dangerous time. That's not to say

793
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,639
it was unstable, and I think that stability is largely

794
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,960
a result of the existence of our respective nuclear arsenals.

795
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,199
But to the degree to which the United States and

796
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,239
Soviet Union fought proxy battles across the planet Earth, many

797
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:04,400
of which were very bloody, many of which had absolutely

798
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:09,239
no concern for the individual civilians and the proxy forces

799
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,599
that were fighting on our behalves, and Cuba to a

800
00:42:12,679 --> 00:42:16,119
lesser extent, if you look at Angola, that was a

801
00:42:16,199 --> 00:42:20,320
far more unstable condition if you want to just measure

802
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,599
a geopolitical stability in terms of the number of people

803
00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:25,280
dying in the number of wars that were being fought.

804
00:42:25,599 --> 00:42:28,519
And the third dynamic is multipolarity, and that's when you

805
00:42:28,599 --> 00:42:33,280
have multiple geopolitical polls that have rough a parody between

806
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,440
each other militarily, economically. That is the least stable dynamic,

807
00:42:37,679 --> 00:42:41,119
but it is the least predictable dynamic. And to the

808
00:42:41,199 --> 00:42:44,360
degree that we're entering into a multipolar world when it

809
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,559
comes to nuclear power, that is one that is that's

810
00:42:47,559 --> 00:42:51,880
a very disconcerting dynamic because there are just more variables

811
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,360
at play and more powers that have the capacity to

812
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:59,599
alter their geopolitical environments. But we've experienced nothing like even

813
00:42:59,679 --> 00:43:03,679
during the Cold War period. Well, we've experienced nothing like

814
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,280
the kind of violence and the prospect for violence that

815
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,119
we had during the multipolar period, in which you had

816
00:43:10,159 --> 00:43:14,719
a variety of states that had inviolable spheres of influence

817
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:19,159
that were policed and that you could not penetrate. For example.

818
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,360
Now just say this, the global economic marketplace that we

819
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,519
have now is a pretty new invention. It actually coincided

820
00:43:27,679 --> 00:43:32,199
with another new invention, which is roughly Hyeki and Milton

821
00:43:32,199 --> 00:43:36,679
Friedman's conception of what should be market economics. These are

822
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,599
all pretty new things. We talk about these things like

823
00:43:39,599 --> 00:43:42,719
they're ancient ideas that were just you know that the

824
00:43:43,039 --> 00:43:47,800
wisdom of Adam Smith and you know Montesquieu, was this

825
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,000
this vision of the world that we're living in today.

826
00:43:50,079 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 2: It was not.

827
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:53,840
Speaker 3: It was basically built in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,

828
00:43:54,199 --> 00:43:58,119
but within my lifetime it's pretty new. The old condition

829
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:03,960
is state control of economics, state intervention in cultural affairs,

830
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:08,280
and a variety of spheres of influence that locked powers

831
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:12,280
out of their their backyards, of a great powers backyard.

832
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:16,679
So we had something like a global economic system in

833
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,280
nineteen fourteen close to it, and it was basically just

834
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,199
European colonial possessions trading with one another, as well as

835
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,119
the United States and Canada, and then we didn't have

836
00:44:26,559 --> 00:44:30,679
that until nineteen ninety one. There was no mark global

837
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,039
market until for the most of the twentieth century. So

838
00:44:34,119 --> 00:44:37,039
all this stuff is pretty new and very fragile. But

839
00:44:37,159 --> 00:44:39,159
it is the case that the world that we're living

840
00:44:39,199 --> 00:44:42,960
in today is relative in relative terms, the safest, the

841
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,519
most stable, the most predictable, and therefore was something that

842
00:44:46,559 --> 00:44:51,519
you should just fall on your knees and thank the

843
00:44:51,519 --> 00:44:54,239
fates that delivered you into this time and history, and

844
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,280
in my view, have some gratitude for it and work

845
00:44:56,320 --> 00:44:58,519
to preserve it. And I see quite a lot of

846
00:44:58,519 --> 00:45:00,599
people who just look upon this as though it was

847
00:45:01,639 --> 00:45:05,639
this condition that our grandfathers and fathers fought and died

848
00:45:05,639 --> 00:45:07,639
for in order to bequeath it to us. There's just

849
00:45:07,679 --> 00:45:10,119
a lot of ingratitude for it and the assumption that

850
00:45:10,199 --> 00:45:13,599
something better is available on the horizon. I just don't

851
00:45:13,639 --> 00:45:16,000
know what that is, and I fear that toying with

852
00:45:16,199 --> 00:45:20,440
the status quo, as the revisionist powers are, and as

853
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,119
some people who want to retreat behind American shores would

854
00:45:23,159 --> 00:45:26,559
like to do themselves, we'll just beget a more unstable

855
00:45:26,559 --> 00:45:29,880
world and hasten our descent into a multipolar world in

856
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:33,400
which spheres of influencer once again the dominant condition and

857
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:34,719
the geopolitical landscape.

858
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 2: Ahistorical ingratitude is one of the things I hate the most,

859
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:39,039
and there's so much of it today. But on the

860
00:45:39,079 --> 00:45:41,719
other hand, I was watching Twitter today. I'm sorry X.

861
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,360
There was an appalling video of somebody who traveled a

862
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,599
very long distance to go to a conference an outdoor celebration.

863
00:45:47,679 --> 00:45:51,039
It was even LGBTQ plus to a spirit friendly, but

864
00:45:51,079 --> 00:45:53,840
they've been denied entrance because the people at the gate

865
00:45:54,039 --> 00:45:58,239
had deemed her braid to be a cultural appropriation. She

866
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:00,599
insisted that actually know it was Viking. They said, no,

867
00:46:00,639 --> 00:46:03,679
it's Rostafarian, and since we're all about having a welcoming

868
00:46:03,679 --> 00:46:05,880
and inclusive thing here, we cannot allow you to enter

869
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,280
with the braids that some people might regard as a

870
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:11,400
cultural appropriation. Oddly enough, none of these people looked like

871
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:13,960
they'd be any fun to be around ever, aside from

872
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,039
the here and the septum rings. But it reminded me

873
00:46:17,039 --> 00:46:18,320
that there's a man who wrote a book called The

874
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,519
Rise of the New Puritans and fighting back at the

875
00:46:20,559 --> 00:46:22,599
Progressives war on fund and if I were to have

876
00:46:22,679 --> 00:46:25,239
him on the show, he might give a preseason this book.

877
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:26,960
They would encourage people to go out and bite it

878
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,159
in the very global marketplace at which he had spoken.

879
00:46:29,159 --> 00:46:29,559
Could that be?

880
00:46:29,599 --> 00:46:31,199
Speaker 5: You know, it could be.

881
00:46:32,199 --> 00:46:35,079
Speaker 3: I can either confirm nor deny, but do seem to

882
00:46:35,079 --> 00:46:36,599
have a lot of information to this effect.

883
00:46:36,679 --> 00:46:37,599
Speaker 5: So will I do?

884
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 6: Well?

885
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: Noah, you wrote that book at the high tide of wokeness.

886
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:42,760
I think. Didn't it come out in twenty twenty one

887
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:43,559
or twenty twenty.

888
00:46:43,719 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 3: It came out in the summer of twenty twenty two,

889
00:46:46,039 --> 00:46:48,159
and I will tell you the fates conspired against it

890
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:50,800
because just about two weeks or a week and a

891
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,840
half before release date, the Dobbs decision was leaked. The

892
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,760
entire media apparatus was on fire with the notion that

893
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,960
the Republicans were trying to force you do not have sex,

894
00:47:01,519 --> 00:47:04,000
as though that had anything to do with the decision.

895
00:47:04,039 --> 00:47:06,559
But this was this was what the media was saying

896
00:47:06,599 --> 00:47:10,599
on MSNBCS, which made my book tour rather difficult. So

897
00:47:11,039 --> 00:47:13,519
my third is it will encounter fewer headwinds.

898
00:47:13,639 --> 00:47:16,519
Speaker 1: Well, my quick question, which I say quick question, it's

899
00:47:16,599 --> 00:47:19,360
not we're running short of time, so it calls for

900
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,480
a brief answer. But it does seem to me that

901
00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:24,559
the tide has turned notably generally. But because Trump is

902
00:47:24,639 --> 00:47:28,599
leading a ferocious counter attack against Woker in general. What

903
00:47:28,679 --> 00:47:30,679
kind of grade you give him on that or how

904
00:47:30,679 --> 00:47:31,360
things are going.

905
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:34,039
Speaker 3: I'll give him a very high grade on antio cookery,

906
00:47:34,079 --> 00:47:37,559
in particular, the attack on meritocracy and his efforts to

907
00:47:37,599 --> 00:47:42,239
restore meritocracy, and some of the heavy handed interventions into

908
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:44,880
the cultural spheres in which the executive branch has a

909
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:49,639
statutory and cultural role or constitutional role, those I think

910
00:47:49,639 --> 00:47:52,480
are salutary. They're a backlash to a backlash, and they

911
00:47:52,519 --> 00:47:55,559
deserve to have the effects that they're having on the

912
00:47:55,559 --> 00:47:59,400
opposition because the opposition is finally willing to acknowledge the

913
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,079
degree to which they had been led astray by the

914
00:48:01,079 --> 00:48:01,880
activist class.

915
00:48:02,039 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 1: Not do much.

916
00:48:02,639 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 3: About it, mind you, but at least acknowledge it and

917
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,800
sort of express quiet frustrations about it when they're in

918
00:48:09,079 --> 00:48:11,719
closed doors and among like minded company.

919
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:12,039
Speaker 2: Yeah.

920
00:48:12,079 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: I'll just say, you look more cheerful than I'm used

921
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:16,360
to seeing you. Noah. I like your grumpiness, which seems

922
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:17,800
to be largely absent today.

923
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,519
Speaker 3: So I was so grumpy earlier, Steve. I was grumpified

924
00:48:21,519 --> 00:48:23,639
by the Russian the Russian talk, and then you got

925
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:26,039
okay ungrumped.

926
00:48:26,079 --> 00:48:28,079
Speaker 2: Noah, we like, and you should buy his book, The

927
00:48:28,159 --> 00:48:31,039
Rise of the New Puritans and just read it conspicuously

928
00:48:31,079 --> 00:48:33,440
in public places because the Puritans of the left hate

929
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,760
to be called Puritans because they associate that with God.

930
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:40,519
Brothers like Cotton Mather and Increase for that matter. So yeah,

931
00:48:40,639 --> 00:48:43,519
great book, great conversation. Glad to have you back, and

932
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:45,079
it's always interesting when we do.

933
00:48:45,199 --> 00:48:47,199
Speaker 3: And can't wait until the next time we have you

934
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:48,920
on Noah, my pleasure, guys, Thank.

935
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,639
Speaker 2: You, bye bye. One of the things though, that I

936
00:48:51,639 --> 00:48:54,599
got to mention and I should, is that after this

937
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:56,519
I'm going to the gym. I used to do that

938
00:48:56,559 --> 00:48:58,199
when I was at the office. I would have my

939
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:00,800
brought worths for lunchton had to the gym. But I

940
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:04,119
don't work in an office anymore. I'm retired. Eh, I'm retired.

941
00:49:04,119 --> 00:49:06,199
I just quit my job, so I have to go

942
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:08,920
elsewhere for a gym. And the thing is if I don't,

943
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,960
I feel old and I feel creaky. So you've got

944
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:12,679
to limber up. You get to keep things working, but

945
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:14,239
you also have to make sure that you're not full

946
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,800
of dead cells zombies. Well that's why we're here to

947
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,440
tell you again about Qualitia Senualytic, the first of its

948
00:49:21,599 --> 00:49:24,559
kind of formula designed to help your body naturally eliminate

949
00:49:24,679 --> 00:49:28,360
senescence cells. A big culper behind that. You know, middle

950
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aged feeling can be sinesseen cells also known as zombie cells,

951
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and linger in your body after their useful function is

952
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finished and they waste your energy. They waste your resources.

953
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Let me break it down for you. The accumulation of

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zombie cells can lead to less energy, slower workout recovery,

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take it just too days a month, helping your body

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naturally eliminate zombie sales. You know, age you better at

961
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:07,519
the cellular level. I gotta tell you one of the

962
00:50:07,599 --> 00:50:10,000
things I appreciate about the most is that just two

963
00:50:10,079 --> 00:50:12,039
days a month, you know, not popping something every day

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you got to put in your box with the letters

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970
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Your older self will thank you before we goo, gentlemen,

971
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:36,920
we have a fantasy football update. I know ye, I

972
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,960
watched the Vikings play their first preseason game last week.

973
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:43,880
It's it's begun and I love football because it begins

974
00:50:44,159 --> 00:50:46,119
on a hot August day and it ends in the

975
00:50:46,199 --> 00:50:51,679
absolute cold seller of winter with disappointment and bitterness. Fifty dollars. However,

976
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,039
cash prize cash money to the league winners. Charles tell

977
00:50:55,119 --> 00:50:55,800
us about this.

978
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:59,320
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, not any can you come play and have

979
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,039
fun with other Ricochet members, but you can.

980
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,320
Speaker 5: Earn some dollars dollar bills if you win.

981
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 6: And that's per league because there's a maximum number of

982
00:51:08,679 --> 00:51:12,840
people in each league, but we are willing to create

983
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:15,840
as many leagues as necessary. We have two hundred sign ups.

984
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:18,280
We will create ten leagues of twenty people each, and

985
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,920
each winner of those leagues will receive fifty dollars no

986
00:51:22,039 --> 00:51:24,880
strings attached, except that you have to be a Ricochet

987
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,400
member for the duration, so you can't join, then play

988
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,159
fantasy football, then rejoin and say where's my fifty bucks?

989
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:32,599
You have to be a part of the community. That's

990
00:51:32,639 --> 00:51:36,440
the only rule, and we hope you will sign up

991
00:51:36,519 --> 00:51:38,800
if you want to do that. You'll notice on the

992
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,079
site if you look to the right, there is a

993
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:46,400
little link on the homepage has a football leather backdrop

994
00:51:46,559 --> 00:51:49,480
and it says play fantasy football, win some money or

995
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:49,880
some such.

996
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 5: Click the link, follow the instructions and you're in.

997
00:51:53,639 --> 00:51:55,519
Speaker 2: You know, you think about joining and signing up and

998
00:51:55,559 --> 00:51:57,599
then quitting and doing that. Yeah, it presupposes a level

999
00:51:57,599 --> 00:52:01,559
of craftiness that I don't think characterizes the average No.

1000
00:52:01,559 --> 00:52:03,519
Speaker 6: No, I didn't think anyone would actually do it. I

1001
00:52:03,639 --> 00:52:05,719
just said no strings attached, and then I'd rather it

1002
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:08,119
was one before we go.

1003
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:15,119
Speaker 2: I heard this that Trump is reconsidering, not reconsidering considering,

1004
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,480
reclassifying marijuana to a Schedule three controlled substance, and a

1005
00:52:18,519 --> 00:52:20,679
lot of people sat up when they heard that. I

1006
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:22,719
didn't because I don't know what a Schedule three is.

1007
00:52:23,679 --> 00:52:26,119
I'm not exactly sure what this means. Have either of

1008
00:52:26,119 --> 00:52:29,679
you followed this story, and I mean AI overview from

1009
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:32,719
Google says Schedule three are substances that have a moderate

1010
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,519
potential for abuse and addiction, as well as they currently

1011
00:52:35,559 --> 00:52:37,280
accepted medical use in treatment. So I don't know if

1012
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:41,719
this is an upgrade or a downgrade. Downgrade, it's a downgrade.

1013
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:42,480
It's a four. Now.

1014
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:52,519
Speaker 6: Well, the classification system I think sets the most dangerous

1015
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:54,320
drugs one.

1016
00:52:55,079 --> 00:52:58,599
Speaker 2: It's schedule one. Now, yes, is schedule one, and the

1017
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:03,119
who has recommended moving it, and so we are going

1018
00:53:03,199 --> 00:53:05,239
to be I don't know. It's like it's like Defcon.

1019
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:07,719
Which order does it go? And the magnitude of stars

1020
00:53:08,039 --> 00:53:11,480
point is I think the entire country, well not the

1021
00:53:11,599 --> 00:53:13,760
entire country. I think a lot of people are rethinking

1022
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:16,320
the whole Oh, just decriminalize it. I'll let people smoke

1023
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:18,000
it wherever they want to do, because it leads to

1024
00:53:19,679 --> 00:53:22,400
a stinky streets. Then people say, oh, what's the what

1025
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:24,920
do you care? Come on living in a city, you know,

1026
00:53:25,079 --> 00:53:26,159
just I'm sorry.

1027
00:53:26,199 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 1: I was working on.

1028
00:53:27,440 --> 00:53:32,199
Speaker 2: My outdoor lighting system at my house. Somebody walked past

1029
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:35,599
smoking something and it was at the bottom of a

1030
00:53:35,679 --> 00:53:38,320
hill and it wafted up all the way to me

1031
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:40,280
and it was this potent when they got to my nostrils.

1032
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:42,480
I don't know when they changed the aroma of marijuana,

1033
00:53:42,519 --> 00:53:44,719
which my college days was not this so difference. But

1034
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:47,079
it's just like I hated and I walked walked to

1035
00:53:47,119 --> 00:53:49,800
New York and other streets and it's just choking clouds

1036
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:51,519
of it. Can't stand it.

1037
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 5: But go on, can I give a limited defense of this?

1038
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:55,760
Go ahead?

1039
00:53:56,119 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 6: Well, first off, I don't think the federal government is

1040
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:03,079
allowed to prohibit marijuana constitutionaling, so I would like to

1041
00:54:03,119 --> 00:54:05,559
see them out of it. Irrespective of what the policy

1042
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:07,800
was to be, you could then have prohibition in the

1043
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:08,880
States if you wanted it.

1044
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 5: I just don't.

1045
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:14,280
Speaker 6: Understand why we needed a constitutional amendment to allow the

1046
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:16,400
prohibition of alcohol. But then a few years later the

1047
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:20,159
government said drugs, let's do that. The enumerted powers doctrine

1048
00:54:20,199 --> 00:54:22,360
is still there. It's still in there. You can read it.

1049
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,000
But in terms of the smell on the street, I

1050
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,000
one hundred percent agree with you, James. What I don't

1051
00:54:27,039 --> 00:54:34,760
understand is how smoking it in public became an intrinsic

1052
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,039
part of decriminalization.

1053
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:41,280
Speaker 2: What happened is sitting around the dorm room and listening

1054
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:42,719
to Genesis.

1055
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,199
Speaker 6: But the thing is right is you could have a

1056
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:48,079
situation in which a state says we are not going

1057
00:54:48,079 --> 00:54:51,559
to criminalize marijuana, but also you are not allowed to

1058
00:54:51,559 --> 00:54:53,440
smoke it on the street. And I don't think this

1059
00:54:53,519 --> 00:54:56,840
is a weird view because a we already do this

1060
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:01,880
with drinking. Most states have some restrictions or cities on

1061
00:55:02,519 --> 00:55:04,960
whether you're allowed to drink in public. For example, in Jacksonville,

1062
00:55:05,519 --> 00:55:07,639
you are not allowed to drink on the street except

1063
00:55:07,679 --> 00:55:10,280
on game day and between certain hours within a certain

1064
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:13,400
part of the city, which makes total sense for tailgating. Second,

1065
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:16,519
we have now reached the point with progressives at which

1066
00:55:16,559 --> 00:55:19,880
they think that if somebody smokes tobacco on the street

1067
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:23,320
they should be instantly executed. Yes, but that smoking marijuana

1068
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:27,079
on the street is a normal part of a functioning

1069
00:55:27,119 --> 00:55:29,960
civil society. And I don't understand why more people who

1070
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,840
are more libertarian minded have not taken the view decriminalize

1071
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,280
marijuana and ban smoking it in public.

1072
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:37,599
Speaker 5: Because that's the bit that everyone hates.

1073
00:55:38,079 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 6: But we already do it for drinking, So just do it, Like,

1074
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:44,880
why does this become the hell that these people want

1075
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:45,199
to die?

1076
00:55:45,199 --> 00:55:47,519
Speaker 5: On the A would probably lead.

1077
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 2: To a disparate impact argument at some point. I know rubbish.

1078
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:54,760
I'm with you there, but I completely agree, Stephen. We

1079
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:56,559
know that you're the kind of guy who just gets

1080
00:55:56,559 --> 00:56:00,239
out his gandof bond and rips them off on the

1081
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:02,800
weekend while listening to some King Crimson. But whats you

1082
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:03,480
take on the mon thing.

1083
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,599
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, you mentioned one of you mentioned prohibition,

1084
00:56:07,679 --> 00:56:10,000
which brought me the frame of mind of Will Rogers

1085
00:56:10,079 --> 00:56:12,280
great remark that well, at least prohibition is better than

1086
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:15,599
no liquor at all, and I wish we could go

1087
00:56:15,639 --> 00:56:17,599
back to something like that. Actually, I think the terms

1088
00:56:17,679 --> 00:56:20,440
Charlie laid out or right, And I've joked for a

1089
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,039
long time that the way the left operates is tobacco

1090
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,480
is illegal and carries a death sentence, but marijuana smoking

1091
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:30,079
will become mandatory. I do think, though I haven't followed

1092
00:56:30,079 --> 00:56:32,400
the medical literature closely, but I do think we're going

1093
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:34,320
to end up having a lot of second thoughts about

1094
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:37,280
our rush to legalize it. So one thing about decriminalizing it,

1095
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:41,119
I'm all for that, but I do think that commercializing it,

1096
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:45,320
legalizing it, giving it a social approval is a bad idea.

1097
00:56:46,679 --> 00:56:49,920
And you know it was true that, you know, before prohibition,

1098
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:52,280
we really did have a serious problem with alcohol consumption

1099
00:56:52,400 --> 00:56:55,840
and alcoholism and it went way down under prohibition. It

1100
00:56:55,880 --> 00:56:58,320
never came back to quite the level it was beforehand.

1101
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:00,440
But we still have a lot of problem people who

1102
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:03,079
have alcohol problems and treatment programs and AA and all

1103
00:57:03,119 --> 00:57:06,440
the rest of that, and my ideal world would be

1104
00:57:06,519 --> 00:57:10,280
finding that kind of stable equilibrium for marijuana as well.

1105
00:57:10,760 --> 00:57:12,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the thing is is that a lot of

1106
00:57:12,599 --> 00:57:14,400
the people who were voting for this were remembering back

1107
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:17,039
to their healthy on commedy college days when the stuff

1108
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:20,480
they're buying ditchweed from somebody who was essentially getting it

1109
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:22,719
from the guy down out in the country who would

1110
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,400
sell it in giant hefty bags and beat like tumble.

1111
00:57:25,119 --> 00:57:28,280
Speaker 1: Rights for Friday. I think stuff today is more powerful, right,

1112
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:29,159
I think it stuff today?

1113
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:29,599
Speaker 2: Right?

1114
00:57:29,639 --> 00:57:32,199
Speaker 1: And although James, I have to say, I do resemble

1115
00:57:32,239 --> 00:57:34,280
that remark of sitting around a dorm room listening to

1116
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:35,360
Genesis with our.

1117
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,679
Speaker 2: Okay, well, why did I say that? What do you think?

1118
00:57:38,599 --> 00:57:38,719
Speaker 7: Right?

1119
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 2: I know exactly I resembled it. I embodied it. I

1120
00:57:42,039 --> 00:57:44,360
just know that there's something that it's just very on

1121
00:57:44,519 --> 00:57:47,360
to walk into my high class grocery store, ultra high

1122
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,480
class and they've got a whole section for THHC. And

1123
00:57:50,519 --> 00:57:52,280
again if you want to have, and they have a

1124
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:54,280
liquor section of course too, because you can drink some

1125
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:56,920
of these things and become sparklingly interesting people after half

1126
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:58,920
a glass. But you drink this and you become an

1127
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:03,159
insensate moron who has absolutely nothing of no merit to say.

1128
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:06,280
But that's my old biases coming there. I suppose I'm old,

1129
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,559
I'm a boomer, and I prefer the fine products of

1130
00:58:09,199 --> 00:58:12,599
the Scottish Highlands when it comes to an amber liquid.

1131
00:58:13,079 --> 00:58:14,639
As a matter of fact, I've got a space side

1132
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:18,519
lined up for myself tonight, but that's hours away. Right now,

1133
00:58:18,599 --> 00:58:20,719
I got to say thank you podcast brought to you

1134
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,199
by Cozy Earth and by Quality of s Analytics support

1135
00:58:23,280 --> 00:58:25,239
us by becoming part of the best place for civil

1136
00:58:25,239 --> 00:58:27,880
center right conversation and joining up at Ricochet. And of

1137
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:30,079
course I would like you to leave a four star

1138
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:32,760
review on Apple Podcast, not a five star. No no,

1139
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:34,440
I've been asking for that for years and move the

1140
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:36,480
need a little bit. So I'm saying four star and

1141
00:58:36,519 --> 00:58:38,920
maybe you will, out of just sheer stupporness give us

1142
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,320
a five because I didn't ask for it. But what

1143
00:58:41,519 --> 00:58:43,960
we mostly ask for you to do is come back

1144
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:46,880
next week, when Charlie and Stephen been another guest, I

1145
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:51,599
hope will entertain you with insight, amusement, observations, and everything

1146
00:58:51,599 --> 00:58:53,800
else you've come to expect from the Ricochet Podcast over

1147
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:56,880
these seven hundred and fifty three episodes. Gentlemen, it's been

1148
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:59,320
a pleasure, and we'll see everybody in the comments at

1149
00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:01,280
Ricochet or Point up. Bye bye,