Speaker 1: Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly flapping
his wing big down in a forest.
Speaker 2: Man, it gonna cause the tree fall, letting five thousand
miles away. Man, you think nobody seen, nobody else see.
You don't need to know. Man, Like you followed another
story and you got back like that.
Speaker 1: I still win. Man.
Speaker 2: Don't blackly dag on the panel. Man, Man, you don't
don't matter. Man, I don't pay anyway.
Speaker 1: So, uh, Lee, is is we getting World War three?
Speaker 2: I certainly hope so, Man.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one of those things where it's like
my feelings on this have really been uh compromised, Uh
you know, not by my own principles, not by my
own body of work, but mainly by the fact that
everyone on any side of this issue has become so
irritating that I just simply do not want to discuss
it at all. Yeah, it's like the obviously you have
the the the big fans of the war, who you know,
almost immediately after basically being given like you know, uh,
their version of Christmas and I don't know what that
holiday is in that religion, but you got them right,
you got Kamaedie. And then like four hours later, they're like, now,
what we really need to do is get Turkey. You're like, guys,
come on, man, jeez, yeah, come on the hutzpah if
you will. But also, uh, every one of these sort
of like you know, quote unquote kind of based you know,
and desionists is just a imediately reverting to the most
kind of cartoonish anti colonial, anti Western stuff. You're like,
I is it possible for both of you to lose?
Because really, I guess the side I'm pulling for now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's been an unfortunate, you know, series of
events on the timeline. And while I do agree, Uh,
for instance, I would have I would have much rather
glassed Turkey long before I ran, just just as retribution
for them flooding the US firearms market with really bad shotguns.
Speaker 1: Look, look, we can't glass Turkey too soon because I
haven't actually figured out if my Turkish MP five works yet,
and I'd at least like to get through one RMA
cycle before that entire country's PREDU stashes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, that's yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, that's a special level of cope where you're not
even arguing that you won't have to, you're just hoping
to get the gun fixed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just exactly yeah, yeah, yeah, you need to
send it back for finishing and the corrections and then
then maybe it'll run.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I feel like this is the it's a much
more honest version of politics, which is just setting aside
any pretense at principles, really whatsoever, taking everything back to
how does this affect me? And really, you know, I
consider myself now heavily vested in the future of the
Turkish government because of a singular consumer purchase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jay Burdon, Turkey's number one guy.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things to do with really any
any foreign people at all is to learn just enough
about their nation to make sweeping and offensive generalized statements
with little to no backing. So hanging out with a
bunch of guys right from various Balkans countries, I be
honestly still don't understand. I'm with one of my buddies
who's like, his family's been here forever, his farm is
deeded by the king, right, like the most American person
on the planet, and he doesn't know these guys. So
he's like, hey, you know, just like be cool, don't
say anything weird, Like yeah, sure, I'll introduce you to everyone.
I walk in them like, hey, yeah, this is my buddy.
He's an arch Albanian nationalist, and then just leave the room,
just throw them into Yeah exactly. Do I know which
one of them hate Albanians? No, are any of the
Albanian Quite possibly, But I do know. I've used social
media to know that someone will get mad about that,
and that's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, No, I don't. I
don't know. Man. The the timeline, The trouble with a
lot of this is the timeline was on a pretty
rapid decline really ever since the Charlie Kirk shooting and
and like all these events obviously Charlie Kirk shooting, the
war in Iran, I mean, these things. The nature of
these things is unpleasant and unfortunate. So I'm speaking as
it relates specifically to my unregretted user. Second, on the
X application, it's the quality of things has really been
going downhill as people become further and further detached from reality.
And when you're when you're talking about like like a war,
it's particularly difficult for people because you of course have
a high degree of uncertainty like that, you know, things
are unfolding very quickly. Things. You know, many things are
clandestine in nature, and the information that is made public,
you know, always has an angle to it, like like
nothing coming out of any non US based accounts has
any there's just no reason to believe any of it.
And there's there's only a little bit of reason to
believe the stuff that comes out of American based accounts,
and so you know, people just get out over their
skis and they start, uh, you know, you get a
fair mix of like, oh, well, there's no way this
could go wrong. It's just gonna be no big deal.
It is what it is, like, it's going to be awesome.
And then you know there's people like, oh, it's all over,
Like it's just this is the end, this is it.
The midterms are over, the maga is over, the country
is over, you know, all that kind of thing, and it's, uh,
it's very it's very frustrating to just consume while scrolling
because so little of it is actually based in any
any type of discernment. And I know there's a you know,
I'm not exactly when to talk because most of my
stuff is just inflammatory shit posting, but it's kind of
you know, that's kind of the mode of the Twitter account.
I'm not pertaining to be like an O s end
account or something like that. And so it is annoying
watching people who are generally posting better takes or otherwise
intelligent just absolutely coming unglued one way or another over
things that are by definition unfolding in real time and
very open ended and uncertain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you really have to. You have to
give the Iranians credit because for seemingly no reason, like
I haven't quite figured out the strategic desire here, but
they have done something that I have long wanted to do,
which is to uh send highly explosive ordinance into Dubai
uh much much like the Iranian regime. I don't have
a great reason either, but it just sort of offends
me as a city. So you know, if we're we're
assigning you know, who's who's you know, your team in
this obviously like okay, yeah, my government's involved, So that's
something you know, they're there are people like me who've
been you know, forced into this, So that's that's one
part of it. But also, I mean, you know, if
if I had explosive drones, what would I be doing
with them, So you know, I have to admit at
least that that kind of bias going into it.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and it's uh, you know, every time I
stop to get a monster or you know, protein bar
or something, the counter at every gas station in the
fucking country has a little section of fake like Dubai chocolate,
which I don't you know, euphemism aside, I don't really
know what that means. Like I see the rapper and
it's like, it looks like this is a small chocolate
bar with like some green shit on the inside of it,
and I don't like it at all. It's it's new.
I don't like new things, especially you know when they
come from places like Dubai, and it makes my already
bad gas station experience even worse. And so if they
have to eat a couple of strays, you know they
going to charge that one to the game.
Speaker 1: Well in addition, because I actually you bring that up
in complete agreements, I'm confused by the presence of this
to buy chocolate, because I don't know if I've ever
seen anyone buy it. It just seems to stay there forever.
I think it's the result of some sort of like
a TikTok trend Yester month or something like that. Uh,
but for some reason, every seven eleven in America has
just decided to take up like fifty percent of their
counterspace with this one product.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and it has the same like spiritual vibe as.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: How how a fair portion of like the American the
African American community seems to really enjoy having food brought
to them that is just extremely elaborate for no reason,
Like like they'll go out to a steakhouse and pay
like five hundred dollars to have a shitty steak brought
to them because it's in like golden tinfoil or something.
It feels to me like that's the same consumer experience
where it's like I don't think, like what was wrong
with just a regular ash hershe's more or something like
I think the chocolate bar was fine. Now it's on
the counter next to like CBD gummies and you know
it's got a vegetable inside of it for some reason
or whatever that is, and I don't like it. I
could do without it. And so if Dubai you know,
goes down, yeah, a fiery storm of fucking swarming death
drones yeah, it's fair enough, fair enough that you know
these things. Everything, everything has a price.
Speaker 1: Well look, uh Lee, you're a gym goer, a fitnessman,
so maybe you can explain this today. When and why
did every kind of low rent fitness influencer decide to
move to Dubai all at once? Because I don't pretend
to really pay attention to that world, I find it, uh,
sort of bizarre. It seems to me to be kind
of solved science, and yet we are still creating new
jacked guys and giving them millions of dollars for being
jacked guys, and then you know, selling supplements or whatever.
H But in my very brief research, it did seem
to be like that Dubai was the kind of mecca
iraqically enough for that that's where you went, sort of
like Miami is for like really irritating uh streamers or
uh yeah sure yeah, looks maxers. I don't know what
we're calling them now, people who get frame mugged and
Cortisol Spike. Do you have any do you have any
insights to offer early now?
Speaker 2: I mean I presume it's money. There's been some type
of you know, renewed or or buddying interest in like.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's the same thing as the you know,
the Instagram models getting the dubai jo will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, uh, there there's some Yeah, it's like
a mix. There's some some organic interest from the like
wealthy faction of the Arab world to get into like
Western style athletics, like the like golf for combat sports,
uh you know, Instagram fitness influencing that kind of thing.
And then of course there's you know the more uh
more base uh Arabian desire to defecate on Caucasian females
in exchange for what to them is tremendous amounts of
money and what to the Arab guy is a tiny,
you know, pittance. So I think that's basically it.
Speaker 1: Which I mean, you know, you came up through the
uh libertarian space, or at least you did for this
for the purposes of this next joke. So I mean, really,
it's just an efficient market, right, we have uh you know,
uh very wealthy men uh just you know, looking for
a dissolution, and uh who are we to in any
way object to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean everyone needs a place to ship
and uh, you know, the Anglo uses the toilet, the
Indian uses the street, and uh, wealthy Arabs use girls
on Instagram, and so you know, it just kind of
is what it is, but you know, it just makes
it tough to cry over a couple of drones that go,
of course, well and.
Speaker 1: To your to your point about the whole uh you know,
kind of weird deck into the chocolate thing. It's you know,
one of these things that you know, I feel like
if you're on social media, you've seen which is just
the kind of like bizarre excessive displays of wealth from
from the kind of emirate states. You know, like you
always see this of like oh, you know, all the
police cars and Dubai are just you know, Gottis and Porschas,
and you're like, well, I mean that's that's neat. I guess,
like that's kind of cool. And then you you know,
you dig into all of these kind of like you know,
incredibly you know, over the top building projects which seem
to be just sort of some elaborate kind of money
laundering scheme, and then you realize like, oh wait, like
eighty percent of the population just lives on welfare. It's
like this is a very bizarre society. Yeah, obviously you
have the kind of like obligatory like oh this you know,
late stage, late stage capitalism type of type of you know,
analysis on it. But I just do not understand it fundamentally.
Speaker 2: I think it's funny. It's like I enjoy it because
unlike and maybe this is you know, like a shitty
thing to say, but I feel like from like very
wealthy people in America, Like I look at people who
you know, are just orders of magnitude better off financially
that I am, and I think to myself, like, well,
what do they do? Like what can I learn from
their you know, their habits or their pattern of behavior,
the way that they solve problems or consider things or
that type of deal. But when I see, like, you know,
some guy with like a fucking leopard in a Ferrari,
just like I feel the same way about that guy
as I do about seeing George Floyd driving around in
a Nissan CenTra, and I feel like that's why they
do it over there, because they think that it is
like viewed with respect or admiration, and at least for me,
it's not, you know, it's just like this is the
is fucking retarded to have a for a police car
like this is this is like the most hood rich,
like the thing that you could ever you could ever
dream up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good way to describe. It's sort of
like you took an entire you basically took an entire
country and just let them win the lottery. Yeah, yeah,
somehow it's still going on, right, Yeah, there's some like
yeah that the the like the the nation state version
of winning the lottery.
Speaker 2: Well that's why they call it black goal is because
if you have a bunch of it, you just act
like a black guy who want a bunch of scrash
off tickets.
Speaker 1: And the worst part is, at least allegedly, right, it's that,
you know, the Arabs can't drink and can't smoke, so
it's like all of that all that wealth with no
you don't know Henny and Swishers, Right, it's like you
don't what's the brother to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just just play pimping, that's uh, you know,
and it's a yeah, it's a weird. It's a weird thing,
you know. And viewed through that lens, I think it's
obvious that I ran was the wrong target. Uh, you know,
like it would have been. It would have been way
funnier if we had just randomly just really fucking hit
Dubai just for like no real reason at all other
than just they're they're like, uh, extreme opulence. Like if
we just did it to just like knock them down
a peg, like, it would be really funny to watch
a tens doing gun runs on like rows of police ferraris.
You know that would that would have been much better.
I mean, and they, as far as I know, they
have no real way of fighting that off like it
at least as poorly as it has performed. At least
Iran had the common sense to have some type of
military posture. I don't even know that Debai has anything
like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that this is, you know, because
there's a lot of conversations going around like, oh, you know,
why did this happen? I said, we know why, you know,
really you know, gazing into the crystal ball. And I
think that, you know, as our new strategic footing needs
to just be the you know, to to really kind
of bamboozle everyone by just doing things because they're funny.
So yeah, you know, we have this strong precedent with
the Maduro raid, you know, hitting him with with the
goy beam, just reducing like forty Cuban guys to like
a bowl full of spaghetti. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Yeah,
but who else is on your doesn't make sense, but
it would be funny. List I'm going to go out
on a limb and say, Cherokee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: We obviously there's some unfinished business there, but they've been
complaining a lot or yeah, I don't know. Let's say
that they have, you know, just you know, put up
another easy win on the board.
Speaker 2: It would be funny if they did. Who's the Who's
the Twitter guy? Dakota Lakota Man? That would be a
good one for the FBI. It's just him in person
like Pere Uh yeah, I mean as far as Nation
state actors. I don't know though.
Speaker 1: We got to send like, you know, like a Delta
Force or Seal Team six in but with like Sharp's
car beams and swords, just to like, you know, world
time sake, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be funny, uh to like hit France
and capture Emmanuel Macrone and just give him like an
atomic wedgie, you know, and just like live stream it
and then just leave. You don't kill him or anything
like that. You just really humane.
Speaker 1: Pimply give him sex reassignment surgery just to make candas
o One's right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, you know that would be that would be funny.
I do think Turkey would make sense to attack just
by merit of being Turkish. Like, think of it this way,
if we had handled the Turkey problem fifty years ago,
the young Turks never would have streamed like that show
would not have happened.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and we could get all the all the
millennial types on it or like on side, just by
using the justification of Hassan Piker. It was sending his
dog to like conversion therapy. God, it's for the dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, She's like really no, but you know we needs Yeah,
it would be funny to strap Hassan Piker to a missile.
Can you say? I don't know if I don't he's
that's I think.
Speaker 1: What you're so, I don't know if this is true.
I'm not editing it out anyway. I think that you're
safe with cartoonish, like wily coyote esque threats.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you're like I, I you know, I want to
drop like an acb uh and on his head. Yeah,
you know, like paint to paint a vista onto a
you know, a cliff face outside his house and have
a run into it, or you know, pull out a
bridge underneath him and and you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah fall until he looks down and and that would
stuff like that would make like think about how much
more popular Massad would be if instead of doing ship
like blowing up people's pagers or you know all the
other stuff, if they just did like funny pranks like
like what if they like it's just like Jim from
the Office style pranks like Israel Stock would go way up,
especially with with with young people. Like if if Massad
agents went into like Iran or you know whatever and
just like strategically placed like I don't know, like a
rake outside of Comane's front door so that he stepped
on it and just like smacked him in the face,
and then like every time a bodyguard ran out to
save him, there was another rake smacking you know, and
it just kept happening just like a cartoon. That would
be much better for Massade. The whole conflict would be over,
everyone would get along, they'd all be friends.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean maybe that's why they they you know,
the footage of Epstein didn't sell. It's gone missing. This
is because he did a you know Jim Helper stare
at the camera and then Dooj's like he's just too charismatic.
Speaker 2: We could Yeah, yeah, Massade comes in. They sneak into
the prison, They slide him his food and it's just
a noose that's fully fully encased in jello.
Speaker 1: It cuts back to jeff to Jeffrey Epstein talking to
the camera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just looks up at the prison camera with
the Jim Halpert look, you know, he's like, it's just
fucking news to doing. It was a giant thing of jello.
Speaker 1: Just laying back full walks in with an entire pot
or like a full of chili just drops. I mean,
who knows. Maybe that's how the koib actually works, right,
is that the Delta forest just walked in with the
thing full of chili and then they have to play
the little urns.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after it, they say you're either coming with us
or we're gonna publish the video of you falling into
this giant puddle of chili struggling to get out of it.
Speaker 1: Was like I had no choice. Now I'm getting getting
paraded through New York like it's a Roman cry up.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, it's uh, I don't know it is.
It is kind of an interesting, uh situation. I mean,
I don't I don't know when you're planning on releasing this.
Things could have taken it.
Speaker 1: Well. I am planning on releasing this almost immediately, okay, yeah,
because I severely behind on content.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if this comes out more than probably two hours
after re record it, all of this information you know
well expired.
Speaker 1: But you know, how awful are we gonna feel if
like I go to bed, you know, and I set
this to come out, you know, tomorrow at eight and
at like seven thirty, I get on the computer and
I see du Bai reduced to ashes hit by Iranian duke.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, like like like we're here talking about how
this whole thing would be better if it was just funny.
You know. You schedule it for eight am, and at
like four am, like seven nukes go off around the country,
just like massive dirty bomb attacks.
Speaker 1: It's just a horrible radiation poisoning. And the last thing
I think before I you know, gray out, my hair
falls out, is like, should have hit released just a
few minutes early.
Speaker 2: You know, right, you know it should have been more whimsical. Yeah, no,
it is. Uh.
Speaker 1: Actually, if we're speaking about the real consequences of you know,
this war or whatever, you've spoken about the very real
timeline informations. But uh, I think our leaders really need
to be much more considerate of how much of a
bummer this could be for the podcast Americans, which like,
look like, I don't know, Donald, I've only got but
so much material on this If you could wrap it
up quickly, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, A protracted engagement is of course difficult for
content producers, you know, which which is war as hell.
That's uh, you know how it goes.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh boo hoo, my my legs got blown off.
I'll never walk again. Yeah, well I had to think
of what to say for several weeks on end, So
let's let's keep your problems in perspective.
Speaker 2: Well, I do think, uh, I don't know, I mean
in terms of like actual stuff. I think it's kind
of interesting that Marco Rubio came out what a few
hours ago and basically said, yeah, we had to do
this because of Israel like that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty anti Semitic of him to say.
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's kind of intriguing in a way because
it's like, on one hand, a lot of people like
going into it. It's just like a yeah, it's kind
of like, uh, you know, I don't know, kind of
an unspoken or at least a something that only gets
discussed in like a roundabout manner. So it is interesting
for someone to just come out and be like, yeah,
we did this because Israel like they were going to
do it, because I mean, he basically made comments to
the effect that Israel was going to attack I ran regardless,
and if they carry that out while we were not
in the current posture that we're in, Uh, our casualties
would have been significant, our ability to you know, defend
would have been less than what it is. Uh. I
don't really I don't know, I don't really know. Uh why.
I guess like that just seems like one of those
one of those comments that maybe you save for like
a hot mic moment or something like that, Like that's
an interesting public comment to make, I guess, uh, because
it's obviously going to be extremely unpopular and for good reason.
But you know, it's it's kind of like well, this
is I guess it's the first very clear rift too,
and like messaging, because the messaging on this has been
pretty tight where it's just like, Okay, we're doing a
limited engagement, you know whatever, regime change war because this
is like an imminent threat to the United States, and
then like two or three days later in the Secondary
States like, oh, you know Israel like the and uh,
I don't know, you know, that's that's an interesting shift.
On one hand, it's like I don't think we're used
to that level of just candor about the nature of
our relationship in the Middle East with Israel people. Of course,
it's not like an unpopular topic in our circles on Twitter,
but I am I don't know. I mean, can you
think of the time we're like an actual, you know,
cabinet level official was just like, yeah, Israel's going to
do this either way, so we kind of had to
I mean, I think.
Speaker 1: Especially from Marco Rubio, right, who's not exactly an.
Speaker 2: Outsider, right, yeah, yeah, right, So you know that's interesting
at least that definitely changes because you know, there's like
there's a lot of complexity you know, to the situation,
Like it is true, like you could make. So I
think you can make a pretty reasonable case that it
is in the US interests to change through the regime
and Iran, like I think given their history in the
Middle East post revolution, like that, that they have consistently
been hostile to America. They have had several notable incidents
where that they've killed American service members, disrupted the entire region,
supplied people who have tried to kill and succeeded killing
American service members. You know, they're they're basic basic premise
of of like you know, uh, statehood is death to America.
So from a purely like empire standpoint, like if if
you if this were something that you read about, uh
you know, from from like like Imperial Rome or something
like if if you you know, crack a history book
and it's like, yeah, well the goals position was death
to Rome, and uh, you know, they've been launching a
number of attacks and so Rome finally went in and
like you know said, you know, fuck it, we ball.
You know, from that standpoint, it's it's reasonable. I don't
I don't know that there's a case to be made
for this being urgent, Like I think you, like I said,
you could make the case, like, yeah, these guys are
just open enemies of the United States. They're openly hostile,
and uh, you know, so there's just objectively like, if
if your fucking next door neighbors stated goal is I'm
going to fucking kill you the next time I see you,
you would have to be concerned about that. Uh. And
so if you have a country who is you know,
overtly hostile, you have to be concerned with that as well.
But I don't know that there is any real urgency
to merit this type of build up, and then responds
I caveat that with of course, I don't have access
to the same information that Donald Trump does, so who knows.
You know, maybe there's an off chance that there was
actually some type of eminent threat. It seems more likely
that the imminent threat was Iran's inevitable retaliatory response after
an Israeli strike, you know, So that again, from like
a like a realistic standpoint, you do have to account
for that, Like if you know that you're going to
have US personnel in harm's way and you're in charge
of the military, like, you do have to choose a
course of action on that. You cannot ignore that and
so you do have to do something. Now, whether that
something is like you know, a large build up followed
by you know, massive air campaigns or that kind of thing,
the time will tell whether that bears out as being
like a wise thing. But it is interesting and a
little i don't know, almost risky for Rubio to come
out and just blatantly just say like, yeah, this this
was some of the circumstances involving this is that we
kind of got roped into this because a regional uh
you know, partner that that we have like you know,
security agreements with was going to do this unilaterally and
that was going to put us at risk, and so
we had to basically absorb that risk by overwhelming force
to to mitigate the risk of that post. Because then
you you obviously run into the question of like, well,
it is the US military's activity, uh, you know, or
why would that be downstream of consequences at Israel imposes
rather uh than self determined by you know, by US.
That's you know, like no ships. That's the obvious problem.
And so I don't see I don't see the upshot
to Rubio just coming round out and saying that basically
because that's obviously going to be very unpopular, and he
could have just easily, you know, kept up the facade
of just like, oh, well, you know, we had information
there was going to be an attack or something to
maintain some degree of like deniability there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, one of the other things that I
I'm thinking about a lot with this is that, compared
to the kind of general electorately, you and I are
in a pretty ferociously anti bore An, anti Israel bubble.
And look, those positions are more mainstream than they have
historically been, and just because their minority opinions doesn't mean
they're wrong are from it. But one of the things
that I think about a lot is that for a
lot of kind of normal people, this stuff is not
as big of an issue in and of itself as
it is to us. And so you know, you saw
this with the you know, the Operation mid Night Hammer.
You know that a bunch of people were saying like, oh,
you know, this will be the thing that supplits MAGA,
this will be the thing that you know, since the
Trump administration that didn't happen, that still may happen in
the future. But I think one of the important things
to look at with this is that you know, oftentimes
something that is you know neutral to slightly unpopular can
become a big problem due to opportunity cost. Right, this
is what you chose to do instead of X, Y
or Z right. And you know, really the narrative of
in my mind the last year to year and a half,
like really, you know, kind of after the point at
which Dot with elon left and Doge kind of petered out,
is they like, hey, look like nothing's happening, and you
know I and you can look into this.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know Mark Mitchell Resmusin's done a great deal of
reporting on this, is that there's you know, growing dissatisfaction
with you know, any number of issues, whether it's you know, affordability,
you know, the judiciary, the fact that the Save or
the Save America Act whatever they're calling it now is
kind of you know stuck. Is basically this feeling of like,
hey guys, uh one, it is kind of weird. As
you've said that, Rubo was like, yeah, this wasn't really
our call. We were kind of forced into this because
of you know, another group. But also it's like wait
a minute, okay, So it's like the the thing you
can get done. Is this right? Like what about what
about all the stuff for us? And you know, like
I said, I'm not a huge electoral politics guy, but
I think that that sentiment is growing. You see it
in the you know, the data, and this is something
that came up, you know, before the you know, the
attacks kicked off with the you know, Huckabee's appearance on
Tucker where he you know, asked him the very simple
question was like, look like, you know, do do we
live in a democracy? He's like, yeah, of course we do.
It's like, all right, well, I mean, you know, eighty
percent of people oppose you know, strikes on O rant
and you know, the response is sort of this disciance genue,
Oh well, we can't, let you know, polls make policy.
It's like, yeah, okay, sure, guys. But seemingly this is
the one issue for which there is the political will
to get something done. And I'm not entirely sure how
you get out of that narrative when everything on the
domestic front seems to be just like gummed up forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's complicated by the fact that, uh, you know,
you see you see this commentary about oh well, we
better get the save Act out of this. And while
I think that the Save Act should pass, like I
think that the voting system in the United States is
you know, horrible, like it's it's I think it's very
obviously compromised, and I think at a minimum, it absolutely
makes sense to have in person voting with proof of
citizenship and photo id uh and and much of that
is is provisioned SAVE Act. So I want that to pass.
But the problem is if if the only way for
American politicians to like begrudgingly agree to stop letting illegal
aliens vote for their own infinite free money is to
like do is all this huge solid of uh, you know,
wiping out the regime in Iran, that only exacerbates the
situation in my assessment, where it's like, yeah, the only
way you can actually even like have a secure voting like,
we will trade you this this is this is a
quid pro quo where you're going to have to kill
you know, a small but growing number of American service members, uh,
in order to do Israel like this you know, favor
and in exchange, they will let the politicians in the
in the Senate, in the House that they have a
disproportioned amount of influence over they will let them actually
give you like a crumb of your own national self
interest like that is that is concerning to me to
put it mildly, like Okay, why can't you know, why
why can't the American Senate like we really can't get
more than fifty percent support for just making sure that
only Americans vote, Like you know, this is not controversial
at all, you know, to your point, like the I
mean that that's an eighty twenty issue. That's more than
an eighty twenty issue. But you know, not randomly attacking
Iran is also very unpopular. So you have you have
two things that have very clear like polling preferences that
you're contraposed. And it's like, well, the only way you
can you can have a treat is if you undertake
this military action. Now, Like I that to me, like
from where I'm sitting, as just being a random guy
who stays up on politics, that seems to be the case.
I'm open to being wrong on that. I don't know
that I am I hope that I am wrong. I
don't want that to be the case, you know, but
that does seem to be the case. It's it's difficult
to lay that out, especially because much of the uh,
much of the like social media anti Semitism at this
point is just like very cringe third world like conspiracy TRD,
like real low budget, low IQ stuff that is just
it's just not serious. But this the situation as it
is developing right now, like as what we saw with
you know, Marco Rubio's comments earlier today, this does of
course continue, It doesn't doesn't do anything to like uh,
as the kids would say, beat the allegations, I guess,
And so.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: You know, this is what I'm saying. I don't consider
it to be a nuanced take. I consider that to
be just the flat reality. And I've seen a lot
of people trying to you know, both under and under
and overstate that on the timeline. I if but if
it does bear out, if it is true that like
this massive engagement which has caused American lives was undertaken
primarily because Israel was going to do it regardless, and
we needed to step in to make sure it was
successful otherwise face graver risk to our own personnel that
would be very bad. And it further raises the question
of like what I mean, why even fucking bother having
like a government, why bother having a Republican party, why
bother with any of this stuff? I mean, these are
common critiques in our circles. Like obviously the GOP is
you know, it needs to be defeated, Like there's no
point in having a GOP when stuff like this is
you know, what's going to happen. So uh, you know,
if there is uh like the other side of the
coin on that, of course, is it Israel is uh
like a regional ally, we do have security agreements in
place with Israel, uh, and it is possible for Israeli
interests in American interest to genuinely overlap. And so from
like a state craft standpoint, you know, and again not
having access to all of the information that you know,
the people who make decisions presumably have access to, uh,
you know, perhaps there there is like a non zero
chance that in a long view, this serves both of
our interests and so maybe it just makes sense to
get it done even if it's unpopular, and so, you know,
God willing, the engagement will be as short as it
can be to have any type of meaningful long term
effect on things. But I don't know, it's it's unclear
that you know that is the case. So it's not
that there are situations where American and Israeli interests can
never align and we're just like, I don't know, you know,
people say, oh, you know, America is Israel's lap dog
and stuff like that, and I understand, I see how
people come to that conclusion. I don't know that that
is is like the fully like the best way to
characterize the relationship. But there's obviously some some undoe influence
in Marco Rubio's comments definitely may make that that pretty obvious,
I guess, So we'll kind of see what goes on,
uh from there, because if anything, that will be what
you know, kind of kind of causes more of a
fracture on the right, just just coming right out and
plain English and saying that. And then I don't know
if there's any any calculation behind his choice in doing
that too. Rubio is not like a careless speaker, He's
not a flippant guy, and so part of me wonders
if if that there is if he's saying that specifically
for a for a reason, with with other goals in mind.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Well, honestly, like I think one of
the irritating things about this is that it is sort
of completely and totally opaque, I mean not really right,
not not to people like us. But if there there
was just the like, all right, guys, look, this is
how it works. You have to you have to do
something for us to get what you want. It's like, okay, well,
you know it's not a great situation. You know, you
like to live in a country where you know, the
purpose of your military and your you know, elected government
was to actually do things for you. But at least
then it'd be like, all right, like, okay, uh, you
know how many give many children do I have to
kill personally before you guys let me, I don't know,
uh import a Toyota high lux or something like that.
And you know, I'm not saying I do it, but
it would put things into perspective, right, You could sort
of form some sort of economy around this. You know what,
what kind of gifts are you know, worth a certain
amount because the you hear the allegation of shill thrown around,
and you know there's something to that. But there's almost
something more galling about the fact that, like a lot
of these guys seem to just be doing it for free,
you know, just for for love of the game. Sure,
and uh, you know, if you if you're going to
be in a you know what what some should I say,
critics would call it a kind of like occupied government,
if you will. Guys like it just you know, pull
the Jim Carrey masks off already, and just to be
honest about it, you know, it at least make a
little more sense, you know, because the kind of current
situation just turning everyone insane. Yeah, and I get it, right,
Like I've read the Epstein files. I've come to the
conclusion that effectively everything is just the work of you know,
the lizard people, the rothschilds that. Yeah, I don't know
whoever else you want. It's like, I get it. But
at the same time, I'd appreciate a little bit of honesty,
I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And you know, uh, the other concern, I guess,
like there's there's a lot of freetards who, uh you
hear the criticism of like third worldism and stuff like
that come up, and it sometimes it's very valid. I
think it's very annoying to go on the timeline and
see you know, like a first generation black sick and teenager,
you know, saying that like I don't know, like you're
a goy slave something like that, because you know, I
don't know, you ate like a hamburger or something. You know,
Like there's there is that like in the in the
longer term, we're gonna have to figure something out here
with this where it's like, yeah, let's let's kind of
I don't know, get a little bit serious here, uh
and not not fully go off the deep end into
being like fully detached from reality, because that's that's the
difficult thing. It seems like, uh, for a lot of
much of like the internet space and our our part
of the Internet has you know, I think the the
you know, the best thinkers you know, and I certainly
don't count myself in there. I'm stupid, but they're like
like the people in our sphere that are have influence
usually have things to say that are at least thoughtful.
So I'm not really trying to throw shade, you know,
is it any one in particular? I'm more talking about, like,
you know, the TikTok slop that you see on the timeline,
Like there there is a whole world of like elder
millennials there are women with purple hair who are making
videos about uh, you know, Jim Carrey is a shape
shifter and Israel controls the fl at Earth, and you know, uh,
Donald Trump is has this, you know as barbecuing babies
and stuff like that, where there there are a lot
of people who are just kind of its kind of
checked out, where it's just like, well, I don't know,
I'm just not really going to engage with reality anymore.
I'm just going to engage with whatever, whatever produces clicks
and attention and you know, things like that. Uh. And
so that's that's a weird thing to exist, Like, that's
a weird social layer to exist in a war because
if if you think about think of the think about
this particular conflict thus far in a historical context, we've
uh so we're recording this on a Monday evening and
this started what Friday morning, all right, so something like that.
So we're like four days into it basically, and in
those four days, according to what the publicly available information
is at the time of this recording, the leader of
Iran has been killed, most of the Iranian military leadership
has been killed. The you know, Kamane's successor was killed.
The previous president was killed. I think his successor's successor
was killed. Their military has engaged now, I guess, and
what has been coined the Mosaic defense, which is where
they're just letting mid level commanders just kind of choose
their own adventure as far as what they're going to do.
So there's no central command structure guiding the Iranian military
that is known publicly right now. The Iranian navy, at
least as far as what was present in the Straits
of Oremus, has been destroyed. So that's eleven surface ships
that have been sung. You know, a very large portion
of their ability to wage war has been effectively neutralized. Uh.
You know this this is very one sided right now.
And as the United States, like, time is our enemy
in conflict, right like that's that is the relationship that
we have with with success is that the longer it takes,
the less successful it will be. So Time is obviously
our enemy. But four days into it, you know, this
war is pretty unpopular because of this social layer of
social media, much of which is operated by people who
are stupid and who are not engaging with reality whatsoever,
but do have the ability to shape social consensus and
political outcomes at the ballot box. Uh. So you know, obviously,
like you, you are not a democracy enjoyer. Neither am
I I think this This is just showing that you know,
there there are some serious flaws with this system. Uh. However,
you know, by all historical accounts, this is this is
an overwhelming tactical military victory. Like there's no question of
who who has been winning this engagement right now? The
US military at this time. Uh, there are six known
American personnel killed in action and three F fifteens that
were shot down over Kuwait where the crew survived. So
we've lost you know, three you know, big ticket items
as far as hardware and you know, six personnel, which
this is a tragedy, but by the cold metric of
just you know, tactical success, like Iran is on the
very very very shit end of this stick, and at
any other time in history like this probably would have
been been a winning thing to do. Like if if
you you know, take it back two thousand years, if
the king was like, oh yeah, we waged a war,
we knocked all their shit out in four days, we
lost six guys, we're coming home. You know, that would
have been very popular domestically in you know, like Roman
society or Spartan society or something like that, But in
twenty twenty six, it's very you know, not popular. And
not only that, but people who are otherwise intelligent are
actively panicking about how it's all over where it's it's
you know, there are people who are like, oh, this
is this is the end, and I I love these
counts where there's people's this that that's it for America.
You know, the the meme posts about fill up your tanks,
like the fucking it's the end of America. The dollars
it's going to collapse tomorrow and no one's gonna be
able to get fuel and there's going to be massive
civil unrest and that's the end of the administration. And
none of that, you know, is happening right now, Like
that's not even close to happening. Like and you see
this kind of stuff and it's like, dude, there are
some real problems, it seems like in in the fundamental
incentives that that precipitated this military action. However, you know,
we don't source uh, you know, like like much of
our fucking oil from the hostile Iranian regime. You know,
I don't like this is not a realistic assessment of
what's going to happen. And uh, Further, Iran poses no
existential threat to the United States at all. They don't
have an expeditionary military, like they have no ability to
project force on our country, like they cannot do anything
like this. This is, you know, a country that's largely
walled in by God to stop them from fucking spreading.
So you know, it's like, let's like there are some
very valid criticism of this, but you know, there's no
reason to be like shitting your pants, pissing your pants
and crying about how it's the it's all over, because
there's no indicationion of this like that that you know,
at least not as as of this time. You know,
this would this would really be the part that that
schedule podcast release button could fuck up. But you know,
there's really not all that much that could happen in
terms of like direct military outcomes. Now we've been very
lucky so far, like like the the there's not been
an element of like quagmire at this time. Knock on wood,
anything can happen. What's going on is a very complex
operation involving several countries over hostile skies, Like it is
entirely possible that some shit really goes off the rails,
and you know, I hope that doesn't happen because I
want my country to win. That's the other thing that
not everyone seems to be able to mentally handle is
that it's like, yeah, man, you can disagree with this
going on and like still want it to work out.
You know, there's a there's a term for that. It's
it's called loyalty. Like that that's what that means. You know,
like you should be rooting for your own and side.
You know, it's like if you you know, like if
your wife is going to do something fucking dumb and
you're like, hey, look I don't think you should do that.
I think it's a bad idea, and she's like, well,
look it's really important to me, you know, let me
ride this out. Well, you know, sometimes you got to
back that up. And you know, being loyal to something,
it can only apply under duress and when you're not
entirely comfortable with the situation, you know what I mean, Like,
it's not possible to show loyalty under convenient circumstances. So
there's a bunch of fucking retards on Twitter, who's like,
you know, what do you get Jackson Hinkle, who I
long live Iran, we support Iran. And there's a bunch
of recent immigrants who are just you know, posting NonStop
about well, if we lose, you know, that's fun. We've
we've got to come in. I hope whatever all these
soldiers or whatever retards and I hope they die. That
would be better than fucking doing something to help Israel,
you know, YadA, YadA. There's the whole thing. And that's
also you know, indicative of a problem. It's like, yeah, man,
it's like that is also a perspective that is divorced
from from reality, Like you should not want your country
to fail, like just point blank like that that's fucking stupid,
Like you shouldn't want people from your country to die,
Like why do you think that would be good? You
know what I mean? Like, so, so what you're telling
me is that it would be bad, uh and good
simultaneously to die for Israel. Like you know, Uh, it's
not a coherent position that a lot of these accounts
have have managed to like convince themselves to adopt, and
that that's an annoying aspect of this as well.
Speaker 1: No, certainly, And it's one of those things. Well where
and this is sort of the danger of anything as
it becomes popular, right, is your sort of become you're
always at the mercy of that bottom quintile. And would
we talk about you know, an awareness of what meer
Scheimer would have called, like the Israel lobby or anything.
When that was a minority position, it was easier to
have an intelligent conversation. But as you know, due to
is it has become more and more plain, you know,
it has become more and more a part of you know,
everyday conversation on both the left and the right. It
is sort of you've become a stupider conversation and there's
no way around that, right that, there's no way around
you know that that kind of negative side of you know, popularization.
But it still is incredibly irritating because to your point,
you know, the idea that you should you know, root
against your own nation or you know, hope for people
like you to die because you disagree with executive policy.
It's like, well, okay, no, like I don't agree with that,
and does that mean that I, you know, like our
government's allegiances. Far from it. But at a certain point
it seems as if many people are allowing themselves to
be driven crazy by this, and I understand it, like
it's crazy making. But uh, I don't know. I think
it's a step too far. But Lee, it's it's getting late, man.
This has been honestly a much more educational conversation than
I think I was expecting. But dude, where could people
find you?
Speaker 2: Mostly on Twitter? Right now? It's that short mag sml E. Yeah,
it's basically for now. I haven't laid it on a
name for a substack. I'm still trying to figure something out,
you know. But you just follow me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: As far as my stuff Ja Burdan Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
throw me a few bucks a month the episodes early
and ad free, Patreon, substack, and gum Road. I think
it's a ton of fun, man, I appreciate it. I'll
be in touch, dude,