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Speaker 1: It's always a successful podcast, James, when you managed to

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work in the word flounce?

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Speaker 2: Did I get in flounce?

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Speaker 1: Did I get there fence?

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Speaker 2: Yeah I do too.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Okay, next week we won't flaunce will swan about.

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Speaker 3: That's the good one too.

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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 Gorbucha.

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Speaker 1: Tear down this wall.

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Speaker 2: It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lanks, and we have

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Stephen Aingward and Charles and C. W. Cook and we're

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going to be talking to Daniel McCarthy about tearuffs, Trump

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and other things. So let's have resup the podcast. Other

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federal workers not revealing their names because of concern over retribution,

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described to NBC News fear and panic and Orwellian nightmare.

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Speaker 4: Seventy thousand for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland,

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forty seven thousand for a transgender opera in Colombia, thirty

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thousand for a transgender comic book in Peru.

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Speaker 1: This is what they're mad about.

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Speaker 2: Welcome Everybody Eats. The Ricochet Podcast part of our Boeing

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series this year. It's number seven hundred and twenty seven.

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James lolaxs in Minneapolis, which is due to get about

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ten inches of snow in the next couple of days

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or so. And I'm talking to Stephen Heyward and Charles C. W. Cook,

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who I assume are at their polar opposites, one in Florida,

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one perhaps in Well. Where are you, Stephen? I know

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this is a great interest everybody.

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Speaker 1: Well, I don't know about that. I'm in California, out

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of the coast, but it is raining, so it's got snow,

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but we are getting some rain.

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Speaker 2: There's that. Well, wherever you are in this country, I'm

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sure that you've heard, of course, the nailing, washing and gnashing, gunashing,

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and rending of garments that is attending day eighteen of

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the of the you know, the Tasmanian devil like activity

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going on from the Trumpe administration, a doge and whatnot.

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And I'm here to tell you I spend a lot

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of time in a lot of time, but I go

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to Reddit a lot because it's interesting. It used to

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be one of those places where, oh, here's a niche

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community that I like. Let's let's talk with some like

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minded fellow citizens about this, that and the other. But

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every single subreddit has been infected by a level of

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craziness I haven't seen before. There is an utter conviction

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that we are basically in nineteen thirty four Germany. It's

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going to get worse. We are under the boot of

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fascism at the moment, and it's interesting how it manifests itself.

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In one subreddit, they were noting that a whole bunch

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of subreddits had been turned off, had been banned. Now

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they were porn subreddits, you know, r R slash feet,

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our slash teens, stuff like that. But the general consensus

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was was this was a switch that had been installed

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by the administration or the Reddit administrators on the orders

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of the administration, to test how easy it would simply

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be to just shut Reddit down. Because, as we all know,

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Donald Trump paces you know, the Oval Office at two

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o'clock in the morning worrying about what Reddit is doing. Think, well,

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that's paranoid nonsense. Let's go over here to where we're

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talking about the best ways to store all of the

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videos and books and things that we've downloaded, and there

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they are talking about the fact that it is necessary

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for everybody with a conscience to download as much information

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as possible from federal government websites, because it's all going

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to be taken down in the interests of installing the

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imminent fascists. I'm I don't want to go to the

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comic strip history one because I am relatively certain that

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there will be an argument about banning Twitter links. It's crazy.

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Speaker 1: Well, now, hold on a minute, James, I had this

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more than vague recollection of a few years ago, either

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during Obama or during Biden, there was all this talk

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of the federal government having available to it a kill

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switch for the Internet so they could turn off the

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whole thing and for some national emergency, and gee, you know, boy,

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a good thing. I didn't get that because Trump would

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use it, of course, on twelve oh one, eighteen days.

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Only eighteen days, by the way, it seems so much longer,

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which is what's so glorious about it, Charles.

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Speaker 2: It seemed like a year, right, some highlights perhaps, if

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you will. What's instructive about all this is, I don't

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know if you guys know what the state of Minnesota

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looks like when you think of Minnesota, do you do

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you have a picture of it in your mind?

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Speaker 3: Charles, Tim Walls my favorite.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's an image I mean geographically of what would

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look like. We know that there's that pointy edge. We

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know that there's that sort of irregular edge that nestles

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and cuddles with Wisconsin and a fairly sharp and discernible

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border with Iowa. But way up in the north, there's

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this little promontory that pops up, some remnant of an

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ancient map making dispute. It's a little tiny part that

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pokes up into the butt of Canada. And I like

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to think that USAID is like that. It's a very

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small thing, but yet how illustrative and defining of the

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entire organization the government. It truly is. What we are

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seeing is the tip of the iceberg, the Minnesota part

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that juts indicators.

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Speaker 1: We're seeing.

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Speaker 2: The curtain has been pulled back on the smallest of

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plays and all the things. We're finding.

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Speaker 3: Where to start, James, anywhere to start. It's difficult with

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this because it is being talked about, as you have noted,

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in these hyperbolic terms, and yet it is extremely complicated.

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It's extremely complicated on the merits, it's extremely complicated constitutionally,

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it's extremely complicated even within the executive branch. And people

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keep asking these questions that are simple. Do you think

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it should exist? Well, which bits do you think Elon

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Mash should be able to audit? It probably depends what

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you mean. Do you think that this is the beginning

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of a constitutional crisis? No, but it would be if

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the president were doing things that it doesn't look as

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if he's doing. And then you've got some of the

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illustrative elements, as you noted, where whatever is found, however

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stupid it is, the rejoinder is, well, it's only x

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percent of the federal budget, which is not a defense.

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It's just not an defense.

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Speaker 1: For a start.

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Speaker 3: If you took that as your excuse every time, you'd

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never cut anything ever, because you would say, well, this

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is not very much. Okay, fine, Second, the fact that

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it's not very much doesn't necessarily matter, because aside from

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what things cost, there is the question of should the

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United States be doing it at all, even if it

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were free, even if it made money, and some of

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the things that we're uncovering the United States should just

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not be doing.

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Speaker 5: Now.

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Speaker 3: I'm not including in that pepfar, which I think is

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a good program, but I don't care if the encouragement

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of Papua New Guinean tribesmen to become transgender makes the

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United States a billion dollars a year. I don't want

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the federal government to it, and so this is getting obfuscated.

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I think in this broad now this is partly the

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fault of the people who are investigating it, because they

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have quite rightly made a big deal out of how

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much money they're going to save. And that's all very good,

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but they should have said at the same time, I

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think in marketing terms, they should have said, we have

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a dual mandate, one to find waste and fraud and

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abuse and corruption, and some of this really is basically

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log rolling for progressives, and we're going to find things

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that America should not be doing at all. And you

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know that the excuse, oh well, it's not very much

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money just doesn't address that side of this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great distraction to focused on the amount

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of money involved. You know, I've been hearing for years,

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going all the way back to the Reagan years from

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appointees to usaid that it was not so much corrupt

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and a slush on for liberal activist groups. I think

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that's been growing in probably sens Obama is my hunch

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about this but that it was just ineffective, wasteful, not

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thought through, and so forth. I have a hunch that

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what happened here is there may be some career people

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inside USAID who raised the flag for the incoming Trumpers

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that you really ought to look closely at how some

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of these AID slush funds are going to activist groups.

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By the way, I think most Americans have probably never

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heard of USAID until five days ago. What they're hearing,

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I think they don't like. But last thing for as

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an opener, is the latest figure I saw just this

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morning from the Columbia Journalism Review. Certainly not a member

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of the right, vast right wing conspiracy, that AID grants

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supported over six thousand journalists, over seven hundred different news outlets,

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and as the way they put it, two hundred and

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seventy nine media sectors, civil society organizations. That's a euphemism

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for something bad, more than thirty countries. One of the

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publications we've heard about Politico and a few others, but

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I'm shocked to learn that one of the publications that

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has somehow gotten some of USAID money is Christianity. Today.

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It's a whole separate story that they've sort of been

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moving left for quite a while. But you know a

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lot of them is how in the world is Christianity

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today getting money from the USAID. I want to learn

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more about that. But this looks like they've really and

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there's gonna be more of these kinds of things in

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other agencies EPA regular state department. I remember going through

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the COVID relief bill in twenty twenty one, that was

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your past in haste, and I found in there, you know,

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a grant of three million dollars for gender education in Pakistan.

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So it's not just USAID, it's everywhere, and good for

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them for rooting this out. And I don't care if

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it only saves a dime.

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Speaker 2: It's the things we used to make fun of. Yeah,

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we're spending a lot of money for trends gender operas

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in Ireland. You know, we make these ridiculous examples and

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then they turn on to be exactly what they were doing.

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You mentioned the Politico thing, of course, I think it

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is interesting. It's been defended by a lot of people

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who say, well, no, they need access to this. Interesting

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that people in government in Washington need to pay money

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to learn what's happening in Washington and government. But set

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that aside, if you will, Charles Wright does. This is

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the part that fascinates me, and you mentioned slush funds

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is there's a Twitter account x called data Republican I

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think is her handle, and she's developed all kinds of

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tools that allow you to drill down. You enter in

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various codes and whatnot, and it spits out thanks to AI,

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these marvelous little grafts that tell you exactly how the

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money flows. And the boxes that are marked red are

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the ones that receive federal government money. And the almost

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every single instance here it's all read on the left

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and then on the right where the money eventually ends up.

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It's some NGO, it's some private enterprise or the likes.

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And you see how these institutions are. These organizations angos

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get grants and then sort of wash them through other

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through an educational facility so that they you know, Ford

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gets the money and gives it to Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt

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then gives it to uh, you know, Tides Foundation, which

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pops up a lot and Tides gives it to some

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local entity, which sounds perfectly wonderful doing marvelous things for

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the people and the rest of it. But you just

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see this money as it flows from the state to

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the to the to the private enterprises, getting less and

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less as it goes along, of course, because everybody's got

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to take their cut. And when this is when, when

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this visual is repeated over and over and over again,

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it is hard not to assume that there's just a

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tremendous amount of inefficiency going on here. And I think, yes,

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the idea is to zero it out and build it

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from scratch and justify anew every single one of these things.

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Now you can say that's just simply too much work.

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I think we got enough people in Washington who are

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who could probably work nine to five figuring out exactly

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how to do this and put it into a bill

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so that instead of having is big slashing that money

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that goes everywhere, that you have specific lines and specific

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laws that empower and instruct instead of the blob And Charles,

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I know you're with me on this, and Stephen too,

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that it's not that we're opposed necessarily to spending United

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States government money on philanthropic efforts. We just want something rigorous,

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something codified, so that there are actuals so that Congress

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does its job that we have a budget, not a

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continuing resolution, but a budget. And do you think we

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might actually get a budget out of this after two years?

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Or does Trump lack the discipline to actually keep going

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and follow this to its natural conclusion?

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Speaker 3: Can I rant about something for a second that's making.

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Speaker 1: Rant? Okay?

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Speaker 3: So I have for the last thirteen or fourteen years

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written over and over again that we need Congress to

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take back its powers, that delegation to the administrative state

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is a problem. That the back and forth we get

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every time we have a new president, because so many

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of the decisions that should be made by Congress have

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been farmed out, is unstable. And I've done this irrespective

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of whether the president was a Republican or a Democrat,

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because it's a structural question, not a partisan question. Most notably,

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I think given the scale of the usurpation, I spent

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a couple of years shouting at Joe Biden for trying

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to spend four hundred trillion dollars billion dollars, not four

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hundred trillion that's next time, four hundred billion dollars bailing

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out student loans with public money that he was not

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allowed to do. And I did not see this as

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a partisan question, and I opened my arms and asked

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other people to come in with me on the endeavor

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and say, no, the president's not allowed to do this. Democrats, Republicans, independence, whatever,

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just please accept that Congress is supposed to it is.

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And you know what I got. I got nothing. I

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got absolutely nothing. In fact, you've got the usual suspects

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either stayed quiet about it or said no, he can

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do it, or well, it's nice. We have had a

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Republican president for what is it, fifteen days sixteen days now,

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and that Republican president, as far as I can see,

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is exercising powers that were delegated by Congress.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 3: I don't want them to be delegated. I don't think

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it is a good idea for Congress to say, here

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is a massive change of money, you go spend it

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as use effect. I'm totally with you, James. If Congress

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has done that on any of these issues, I will

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be the first person to stand up and say, I'm sorry,

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President Trump, but you can't cancel it. But thus far

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we seem to be in a situation in which the

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president is just auditing what he is able to spend,

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and in some cases saying I'm no longer going to

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spend it, I'm no longer going to use the discre

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that I have been given, that every president has been given.

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And what is the press saying? It's a constitutional crisis.

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So what we have is a scenario in which when

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presidents Barack Obama did it with DHAKA, Joe Biden did

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it with student loans, where the executive branch is literally

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stealing the power of Congress, is literally usurping the constitutional

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authority that has been given to Congress. These people are

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silent or endorse it. And the second that a president

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starts to use the delegated authority that they have actually

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been given in a way that they don't like, they're say,

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this is the coming of Hitler, this is the end

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of the republic. This is a constitutional crisis. Is this

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is insane. This is making me so cross because I've

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been standing asking these people to come help for ten

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fifteen years and they won't do it. And then the

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second the president is actually doing what he's been allowed

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to do. Agreed, he shouldn't be allowed to do it,

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but he is. It's a constitutional You have got to

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be kidding me. You have just got to be kidding me.

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Speaker 2: The Constitution. The Constitution matters when it matters, and it

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doesn't matter when it doesn't. And if the President on

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the way out can just say, oh, by the way,

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this amendment is part of the Constitution, now, he can

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do that. Although we've forgot about Joe, but I doesn't.

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The Constitution is living and breathing, or is you know,

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if they want to graft another limb on to it

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in the sternam, then they'll do so. If they want

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to hack off a foot, they'll do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I take all of their protestations of constitutionality with a

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bag of Morton salt. But I don't have an awful

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lot of salt actually, because salt, I understand, isn't good

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for you. I'm one of those people who's crazy about it, like, oh,

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don't have salt. I love salt. I love fact. I

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love all kinds of things as a matter of fact.

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And you know what, I'm going to be heading to

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the gym for a little while and I'm going to

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00:16:40,799 --> 00:16:42,519
be hoisting a lot of metal, and I feel good

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00:16:42,519 --> 00:16:45,679
about that for my age and all that. But one

317
00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:47,279
of the things that I do make sure that I

318
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:50,159
know about is what my metabolism is doing because your

319
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metabolism has got to work properly and you will feel

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00:16:52,399 --> 00:16:54,600
the benefits in every aspect of your life if it does.

321
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322
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create a healthy metabolism for my corpus and it's called Lumen.

323
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device that measures your metabolism through your breath and on

325
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the app and it's this device into which you blow

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that connects with the app on your phone. Very cool,

327
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329
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333
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rest of the day. It's like a little menu planner. Ooh,

334
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I can have lots of carbs. I love carbs. All

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your part of your daily life, you'll realize, Wow, this

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for sponsoring this the Ricochet Podcast and now were welcome

360
00:18:45,519 --> 00:18:48,880
to the podcast. Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age, the

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00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:52,599
vice president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and contributing editor

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00:18:52,599 --> 00:18:56,000
to American Conservative and The Spectator. You can find his

363
00:18:56,079 --> 00:18:58,359
writings in countless of the publications. You can find him

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00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:02,720
on x at Tory Anarchist. Daniel, Welcome, Thank you, delighted

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to be here. Well, Monday, you had a piece in

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the Post New York called Trump's Canada tariff tiff, and

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I think there should have just been Trump's tariff tiff

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for alliterative purposes, tells America's friends to get real on

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defense spending. We don't usually think of Canada when it

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comes to defense spending. We're looking at Europe at what

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they are or are not doing. Explain exactly how that relates,

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because a lot of people may have looked at that

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and said, why Canada. Maybe it's fentanyl, but there's something

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else going on.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a whole constellation of issues that we

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have with Canada, one of them being Canada's role in

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NATO and the fact that it's one of the relatively

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few NATO members. Now that is still lagging behind its

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defense commitment. So NATO members are supposed to commit to

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spending two percent of their GDP on defense. That's obviously

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for their own defense, it's also making sure that you know,

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the entire alliance is financed, and Canada is lagging significantly

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behind that. Canada spends about I think one point three

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percent one point seven percent where between those figures on

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its defense right now. I think it's actually one point

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three it's significantly less than two. And Pierre Trudeau is

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just not serious about meeting his obligations, and he said

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it's actually going to take until the twenty thirties before

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Canada is able to reach the mark that we expect

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from our allies in NATO. So I think Donald Trump

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is using tariffs here to put pressure on Trudeau, pressure

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on Canada on a whole number of issues, including this

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one of Canada being a free rider on national security

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coming from the United States and the NATO Alliance.

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Speaker 1: Dan it's Steve Hayward out in California, by the way,

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you could have just stopped a moment ago by saying

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Pierre Trudeau is sorry. Justin Trudeau is not serious. I mean,

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he's such an un serious person. Look, I want to

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ask you three or four things. You have for quite

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a long time staked out a position on the I

401
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think the non interventionist camp, i'll call it that way

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right and against it. I have a lot of sympathy

403
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for this, against foreign entanglements and military events overseas. I

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think that viewpoint has caught on with a lot of people.

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But two things in particular. Right now, what, Well, let's

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start in reverse order, reverse chronology. So the last couple

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of days, Trump has let fly with this idea that

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we ought to take a role in rebuilding Gaza and

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moving people out, and you know, we'll have a I

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don't know, it's like a real estate deal, an ownership

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stake and the resource that will be built. What do

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you think of this prospective entanglement? Do you like this?

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How do you are you enthusiastic for it? Or does

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this violate the McCarthy proviso?

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Speaker 5: Well, I think Trump likes to state a maximalist position,

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and oftentimes a shocking position, right from the beginning of

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a negotiation, in order to completely shake up the existing position.

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So you know, I mean there's a kind of almost

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ritualistic element to the way foreign policy negotiations are typically

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conducted everybody knows exactly where everyone else stands, and all

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the maneuvering involves a lot of not saying what everybody knows.

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In this case, Trump has, you know, of thrown the

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chess pieces in the air. Nobody knows whether they're going

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to land or what's going to happen. Now that said,

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I really don't think Trump is going to send troops

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to Gaza. I don't think we're going to have a

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military occupation. I do think he's saying, you know what.

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First of all, I mean, it's been interesting to see

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typical hawks like Lindsey Graham now suddenly having to sound

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like doves as they say, wait a minute, this proposal

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goes too far. So okay, Now he's, you know, sort

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of testing the limits of where the morehawker side of

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his own party will stand. Second, he's also telling the gozens,

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wait a minute, why the heck do you want to

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come back to this, you know, land of yours, which

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has been reduced to brubble. And if you do come back,

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how is it going to be any different than last

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time when you guys launched an attack on Israel. So

439
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I think that too, is again getting to the core

440
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of the dispute here and is kind of forcing negotiators

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to be more honest about what they actually want and

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are willing to do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it calls the bluff of

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all the Arab countries who say they're pro Palestinian and

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won't ever do anything to lift a thing. I like

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that aspect of it. The nier one, perhaps for you,

447
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I think, is a prospective attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

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And I can't remember if you've written on that or not.

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I know Tucker Carlson and other people are saying absolutely no, no,

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we should you know, we should not go along with

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Israel and any kind of military action against Iran. Where

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do you land on that?

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Speaker 5: I think Israel's quite capable, as it has before, of

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taking out Iran's nuclear capability by itself. So I'm not

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too worried about the United States having to be involved

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in that. And it really is a matter for Israel

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to decide what's appropriate for its security. Obviously, as a

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neighbor of Iran, it's got the most skin in the

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game here, and so I think the United States should,

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you know, not be actively involved in that. But also

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should not be telling Israel that this is something they

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can't do. We're not Israel's keeper. They are a sovereign nation.

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They can act according to their own interests.

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Speaker 1: Well, but isn't it an our interest? I mean, Iran

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has declared that the two great enemies of the world

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are Israel and the Great Satan. That's US. I mean,

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you know, they threatened US, we know they sponsored lots

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of terrorism. Leave aside the question of whether Israel can

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do it alone. I know there's disagreement among military experts

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on that, but it seems to me that Trump might

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do it. And if Trump do do it, what does

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Dan McCarthy say.

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Speaker 5: Well, I don't think Trump's going to, you know, be

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having the United States take the leading role here. And

475
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:08,640
I don't think the United States is going to be

476
00:24:09,319 --> 00:24:13,279
acting directly with Israel in order to take out Iran's

477
00:24:13,319 --> 00:24:16,799
nuclear capability that they're trying to develop. I think, you know, again,

478
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:19,200
Israel has a very good track record of being able

479
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:21,759
to keep Iran in check, and so I expect that

480
00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:24,440
to continue. Now if that's not the case, you know,

481
00:24:24,559 --> 00:24:26,279
then again it's a different chess board, and you have

482
00:24:26,279 --> 00:24:28,519
to actually look at what's happening. I would be very

483
00:24:28,559 --> 00:24:31,319
skeptical of the ability. I mean, we can certainly, you know,

484
00:24:31,319 --> 00:24:33,119
have missile strikes, we can do a number of things.

485
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:35,559
I think if we get into regime change and occupations,

486
00:24:35,599 --> 00:24:37,799
then we'd have a real nightmare on our hands. So

487
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,240
it's all. And the other thing too, is that it's

488
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,880
very hard to tell. Obviously, there are signs that the

489
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:47,240
Iranian regime is weakening. There are signs that, you know,

490
00:24:47,319 --> 00:24:49,720
it is indeed, its oppressions have reached a point where

491
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,759
the people are showing their discontent. On the other hand,

492
00:24:52,799 --> 00:24:54,599
it's hard to know exactly, you know, how deep that

493
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,599
reaches into the countryside in Iran. So I'm kind of

494
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:01,079
optimistic actually that you know, Iran's regime, like the Soviet

495
00:25:01,079 --> 00:25:03,519
regime you know in the nineteen eighties, is not necessarily

496
00:25:03,519 --> 00:25:05,759
going to be around for that much longer. But that said,

497
00:25:05,759 --> 00:25:07,559
I mean, containment, I think is the white policy for

498
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,039
the US there, And if something more than containments needed,

499
00:25:10,079 --> 00:25:12,079
I would think Israel is the best person, the best

500
00:25:12,079 --> 00:25:13,039
state to undertake that.

501
00:25:13,519 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, I certainly agree with you that we

502
00:25:15,279 --> 00:25:17,519
don't want to be contemplating boots on the ground or

503
00:25:17,519 --> 00:25:21,640
in Iraq type regime change strategy. I think we've learned

504
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,279
our lesson about that. I've got one more sort of

505
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,039
challenge to you before I turned it over to Charles.

506
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:31,319
So I'm enjoying your most recent article in the Dispatch,

507
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,480
where I didn't think I would see Dan McCarthy writing

508
00:25:33,519 --> 00:25:36,559
anytime soon. But you're paired off with the Andy Smarrick

509
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:42,759
on Trump's appointments, especially of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Junior,

510
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,519
and you give a good spirited defense of those. I

511
00:25:45,559 --> 00:25:47,839
could pick some knits with the way you characterize Reagan,

512
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:49,799
but I don't want to bore listeners for that. But

513
00:25:49,839 --> 00:25:53,039
I do want to pick one knit. You mentioned briefly that, oh,

514
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:56,680
National Review, in the old days of Fusionism went tilted

515
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,319
too far in accepting expert social science, and don't think

516
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,440
that's correct. I mean, I mean, yeah, they used to

517
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,759
have Ernest vonden Hogg, but he was usually trashing the

518
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:09,079
established social science. So I thought you were being a

519
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:11,039
little mean to National Review there, which seems to be

520
00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:13,400
a popular sport these days. And I'm doing this for

521
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,319
Charles benefits, so he doesn't have to be put on

522
00:26:15,319 --> 00:26:17,559
the spot. But I'm an old guy's been reading it forever.

523
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,680
But maybe the last point is, or maybe could turn

524
00:26:20,759 --> 00:26:24,440
this into a question is Yeah, I share all of

525
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,319
the sort of Russell Kirk and other conservatives disdain for

526
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:31,519
social science on very deep levels, but I'm also a

527
00:26:31,559 --> 00:26:33,440
consumer of it. And there's you know, some of the

528
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,680
best social science the last generation has been by people

529
00:26:36,759 --> 00:26:39,839
like Charles Murray and James Q. Wilson. And you know,

530
00:26:39,839 --> 00:26:42,079
when our guys do it well, or back to Ernest

531
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,440
Vonden Hogg forty years ago, when our guys do it well,

532
00:26:44,799 --> 00:26:47,640
we clapper the heck out of the left. So maybe

533
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:50,160
maybe can I get Dan McCarthy to say just the

534
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,240
kindest little thing in favor of decent social science? Or

535
00:26:53,279 --> 00:26:54,240
is that a bridge too far?

536
00:26:54,759 --> 00:26:54,920
Speaker 3: Well?

537
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:56,839
Speaker 5: I wonder if I came off the wrong way in

538
00:26:56,839 --> 00:26:59,400
that article, because I wasn't trying to say that social

539
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:01,319
science doesn't have a place on the right, and in fact,

540
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:03,720
I wasn't even trying to say that National Review had

541
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:05,759
tilted too far towards social science. I have a line

542
00:27:05,799 --> 00:27:08,680
in there. I think about James Burnham having a problem

543
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,480
with Richard Weaver, thinking that Weaver was too literary to philosophical.

544
00:27:13,039 --> 00:27:15,279
You know, perhaps too southern. Even so, that was the

545
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:17,039
kind of contention that I wanted to get at. Also,

546
00:27:17,079 --> 00:27:19,720
the other thing being that obviously James Burnham had a

547
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:23,119
long standing feud with Frank Meyer. Meyer thought, you know,

548
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,000
conservatism needed to be an ideology or kind of you know,

549
00:27:26,559 --> 00:27:30,759
a well articulated philosophy. Burnham thought that conservatives should be

550
00:27:30,799 --> 00:27:34,400
more empirical, more machiavelian. Even so, that's the kind of

551
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:36,519
dispute I was getting at. And in fact National Review

552
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:38,519
was a lot of fun, and I think, you know,

553
00:27:38,599 --> 00:27:40,839
to the extent that comes through today can still be

554
00:27:40,839 --> 00:27:43,160
a lot of fun when these kinds of clashes between

555
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:47,440
different methodologies among conservatives arise. That said, I do think

556
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,920
that the vast majority of social science is absolutely worthless.

557
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:56,279
And the idea, the fundamental idea that if only you know,

558
00:27:56,319 --> 00:27:58,599
we put science in government, that if we have the

559
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,000
right technocrats large of our bureaucracy, we're going to get

560
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,599
wonderful outcomes. I think that's wrong. And even conservative you know,

561
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,599
conservatives from think tanks and you know, who have social

562
00:28:08,599 --> 00:28:12,160
science credentials or you know, credentials in you know, even

563
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:15,079
economics and things that are relatively more grounded than most

564
00:28:15,079 --> 00:28:17,799
social science. I'm just skeptical of their ability to actually

565
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,400
govern and maneuver the country in the direction they want

566
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,039
to go. I think there's actually and that's you know,

567
00:28:23,079 --> 00:28:25,920
one reason why I favor a much more decentralization and

568
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,400
also just you know, more of a sense of dealing

569
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,000
with human beings as the essence of politics rather than

570
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,559
dealing with sort of Benthamite abstractions of maximum utility.

571
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'ren' heated agreement on that.

572
00:28:36,759 --> 00:28:40,039
Speaker 2: Dan Benthamite abstractions, I believe is going to be the

573
00:28:40,119 --> 00:28:43,920
name of this particular podcast for mass Appeal, although I

574
00:28:44,559 --> 00:28:45,480
love that locusion.

575
00:28:46,759 --> 00:28:53,039
Speaker 3: So what interests me is defining success for this Trump administration.

576
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:54,880
And I think, Daniel, you and I don't have the

577
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:59,160
same politics, although it overlaps in some areas. I have

578
00:28:59,319 --> 00:29:02,920
confused I think some readers recently, because you know, on

579
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,680
day one I will say, well, Trump's done this great thing,

580
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,200
and I really like it and I'm so glad that

581
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,039
he did it, and then on a d two I say, ah,

582
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,359
don't do that. And because we're in this honeymoon period

583
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:17,759
for Trump, it is sort of looks odd to some

584
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,640
because they want to be all in right, so I

585
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:30,599
wonder what, from your perspective would a successful second Trump

586
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:34,160
presidency look like. Right, neither of us is in a cult,

587
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,200
so neither of us is sort of tied to Trump

588
00:29:36,279 --> 00:29:38,920
or so angry with Trump that we will reject it

589
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,200
when he does things that we like. So if you

590
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,240
were to look forward four years, what would he have

591
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,720
to achieve maybe two or three things in the next

592
00:29:47,079 --> 00:29:48,440
four years for you to say, well, that was a

593
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,519
really good presidency and he moved the country and the

594
00:29:51,599 --> 00:29:54,160
right and the Republican Party in the direction that I

595
00:29:54,279 --> 00:29:55,240
Daniel McCarthy like.

596
00:29:55,599 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: Sure.

597
00:29:56,079 --> 00:29:59,839
Speaker 5: So in terms of foreign policy, what I would say

598
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:02,960
is that you need to have our allies being capable

599
00:30:03,039 --> 00:30:05,599
of providing more of their own security, more of their

600
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:08,200
own defense. So I'd like to see NATO members Trump

601
00:30:08,279 --> 00:30:10,440
is said, perhaps NATO members should be contributing five percent

602
00:30:10,559 --> 00:30:13,079
rather than two percent of their GDP towards their defense.

603
00:30:13,559 --> 00:30:15,599
I think it can be a mistake to look purely

604
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,839
at those percentages. It's really a matter of the threat environment,

605
00:30:19,839 --> 00:30:22,279
and when you have Russia engaged in an invasion of

606
00:30:22,359 --> 00:30:24,880
Ukraine right now, obviously Europe should be spending not just

607
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,160
two percent, but a lot more trying to keep their

608
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,960
neighborhood as peaceful as possible. So one thing I want

609
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,119
to see is more of a kind of tiered defense

610
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:36,079
system where our allies are contributing more for themselves. We

611
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:38,279
are still there, but we are the provider of security

612
00:30:38,279 --> 00:30:40,359
of last resort, rather than what we are now, which

613
00:30:40,359 --> 00:30:42,319
is more or less the kind of sugar daddy that

614
00:30:42,319 --> 00:30:45,519
everybody goes to for their first line of support. In

615
00:30:45,599 --> 00:30:47,599
terms of social policy, I think Trump is already making

616
00:30:47,599 --> 00:30:50,720
tremendous advances, So getting rid of the federal government's role

617
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:53,680
in affirmative action, DEI, all these other things, that's exactly

618
00:30:53,759 --> 00:30:55,920
the right move. I tend to think that Trump is

619
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,359
actually right strategically for the pro life movement in terms

620
00:30:59,359 --> 00:31:01,000
of saying that you have to focus on the local

621
00:31:01,039 --> 00:31:03,440
before you can hope to do anything at the national level.

622
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,720
So I think Trump is correct to keep abortion as

623
00:31:05,799 --> 00:31:07,920
much as possible in the States rather than trying to

624
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,000
make a federal issue of it right now, where pro

625
00:31:10,039 --> 00:31:13,759
lifers would certainly lose. And then in terms of taxes

626
00:31:13,759 --> 00:31:17,559
and domestic issues, you know, economics. I want to see

627
00:31:17,599 --> 00:31:19,960
first of all that Doge continues to do the fantastic

628
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:24,440
work it's doing right now, stripping out this entire ecosystem,

629
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,960
this class system whereby the federal government takes our taxpayer

630
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,240
dollars gives them to mostly left wing NGOs. These left

631
00:31:31,279 --> 00:31:33,680
wing NGOs, of course, then take that money and spread

632
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,960
it around their friends. It upholds an entire ecosystem of

633
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,039
progressivism that I'm very happy to see defunded. I like

634
00:31:42,079 --> 00:31:43,759
to see tax cuts, you know, I'm not one of

635
00:31:43,759 --> 00:31:46,839
these conservatives who thinks that suddenly there's something virtuous about

636
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,240
taxing the American people more. We're taxed enough already. In

637
00:31:50,319 --> 00:31:52,960
terms of trade policy, I kind of like what I

638
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,960
see from Trump so far, where he's willing to use,

639
00:31:56,079 --> 00:31:58,720
you know, the threat of tariffs to get you know,

640
00:31:58,839 --> 00:32:02,359
various kinds of concession, just open negotiations, you know, from

641
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,279
a position of strength. I do you know, think that

642
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,119
if he suddenly slapped you know, twenty five percent tariffs

643
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,720
on Canada and Mexico, maybe on Europe. I mean, who

644
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,519
knows who else would get those kinds of tariffs. If

645
00:32:14,559 --> 00:32:16,799
you do that too, suddenly you're going to have price shocks,

646
00:32:16,799 --> 00:32:20,920
You're going to have supply problems, all all sorts of issues. Now,

647
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,160
whether you could have a more gradually implemented, large scale

648
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,119
tear of plan that I think, you know is probably

649
00:32:26,119 --> 00:32:28,440
something you and I would disagree on. Yeah, but I'm

650
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,960
a gradualist, I'm a conservative. I'm someone who tends to

651
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:34,720
look with a certain degree of anxiety upon sudden drastic

652
00:32:34,759 --> 00:32:37,079
shifts from one direction to another. That said, I think

653
00:32:37,119 --> 00:32:39,759
Trump so far is not so much trying to do something,

654
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:42,960
you know, grabbing the steering wheel and suddenly turning the

655
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:44,920
car one hundred and eighty degrees. I think what he's

656
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,160
actually doing here is setting up a very interesting set

657
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:48,640
of moves for negotiations.

658
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:49,359
Speaker 1: That's fine.

659
00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 3: I agree almost everything you just said. I think we

660
00:32:51,559 --> 00:32:54,599
probably do disagree on tariffs in your last point, but

661
00:32:55,279 --> 00:32:57,640
that's pretty much what success would look like to me

662
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:59,920
as well. It's interesting though you didn't mention the border.

663
00:33:01,319 --> 00:33:04,599
Speaker 5: Yeah, I take that for granted. Perhaps that obviously cutting down,

664
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:06,480
you know, not just illegal immigration. But I think Trump

665
00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:09,440
is exactly right. We need to first of all, the

666
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,519
way in which so called birthright citizenship has been interpreted

667
00:33:12,519 --> 00:33:15,319
by Supreme Court and is defended by all the progressives.

668
00:33:15,759 --> 00:33:17,839
It really has a very flimsy grounding. And we know

669
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:19,960
the Supreme Court has made, you know, mistakes in the past,

670
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:21,720
so I think it's time that we get the Supreme

671
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,480
Court to revisit the idea of birthright citizenship and give

672
00:33:24,519 --> 00:33:27,960
it a more constrained definition. Clearly, you know, the notion

673
00:33:28,039 --> 00:33:31,319
of what it constitutes to be subject to America's jurisdiction,

674
00:33:31,759 --> 00:33:34,400
which is the you know, the wording that is used

675
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,799
to say, well, look, anyone you know on our territory

676
00:33:36,839 --> 00:33:40,480
subject to our jurisdiction, including illegal immigrants, including legal immigrants,

677
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,960
therefore they must be covered by birthright citizenship as well.

678
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,680
But you know, being subject to the jurisdiction actually means

679
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,319
different things for American citizens because we're still subject to

680
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:51,160
the United States and jurisdiction even when we don't live

681
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:53,440
in the United States, because we are taxed even if

682
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,559
we're living abroad. And obviously no Mexican citizen, either a

683
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,039
legal immigrant or an illegal one, is subject to that

684
00:33:59,119 --> 00:34:01,480
kind of jurisdiction. So I think there's you know, Trump

685
00:34:01,519 --> 00:34:04,359
is doing the right thing to question this building block

686
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,640
of kind of illegal immigration and of leftist you know,

687
00:34:07,759 --> 00:34:10,400
promotion of mass immigration in general. And then you know,

688
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:12,599
I do want to see legal immigration limited as well

689
00:34:12,639 --> 00:34:15,960
as illegal immigration, and I think that, you know, I

690
00:34:16,039 --> 00:34:18,559
tend to side more with the critics of the vig

691
00:34:18,639 --> 00:34:21,199
Ramaswami on H one B visas than I do with

692
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,280
you know, Ramaswami himself, although I acknowledge, you know, certainly,

693
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,039
when you have absolute, you know, Olympian level talents, when

694
00:34:27,039 --> 00:34:29,599
you have Einstein level geniuses, yes you want to bring

695
00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:31,400
them into your country, but you don't want to have,

696
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:33,679
you know, a kind of indentured servitude for tech workers

697
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:34,639
with H one v's.

698
00:34:35,079 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 2: I want to get back to tariff for a second,

699
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,159
because I don't like them. But that's just me. We

700
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,599
talked before about what he wants out of Canada. It's

701
00:34:41,639 --> 00:34:43,480
kind of obvious what he wants out of Mexico, which

702
00:34:43,519 --> 00:34:50,000
is do something about the cartels and immigration. But China

703
00:34:50,199 --> 00:34:53,199
we have, if I understand this correctly, the riivocation of

704
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:56,599
the the Minimus, the the idea that they can just

705
00:34:57,119 --> 00:34:58,760
dump a whole lot of stuff here directly into the

706
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:00,519
country and they don't have to pay any tear on it.

707
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:02,800
The other day, I was making eggs for breakfast, as

708
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,079
is my wont and I have this wonderful little this

709
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,280
egg beater. You push down on it and it whips

710
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:10,840
your eggs. It's the second one I bought, because the

711
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,679
first one, after two or three months, started leaking black

712
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,880
oil into my eggs I bought. I bought another one

713
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,679
within two or three from a different and mind you,

714
00:35:20,119 --> 00:35:23,159
this was a different one from a different company on

715
00:35:23,199 --> 00:35:26,320
Amazon that had a list of consonants for its name

716
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:29,000
that you know XK five three seven two, as opposed

717
00:35:29,039 --> 00:35:30,519
to the other one, which was nine three you know,

718
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:32,880
made up brand names. It's all coming from the same

719
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,280
Chinese factory, and I'm using it, and it dumps black

720
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:37,039
oil into my eggs, And I said, all right, that's it,

721
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,079
you know, twice bit and thrice whatever. Stupid me, but

722
00:35:41,159 --> 00:35:45,079
I'm kind of used to like buying cheap junk from China,

723
00:35:45,599 --> 00:35:48,840
and it's like, I'd rather pay a little bit more

724
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:52,760
and have quality goods made right here that employ American citizens,

725
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,800
if such a thing is possible these days? Is that

726
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,199
what Trump is trying to do? What does he want

727
00:35:58,199 --> 00:36:01,599
out of China from the terra Does he want disengagement?

728
00:36:01,679 --> 00:36:04,639
Does does he want, you know, for the people to

729
00:36:04,679 --> 00:36:06,840
just simply move their factories elsewhere to India or Vietnam

730
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:10,719
or heaven forfend Indiana. What's the endgame with the with

731
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:11,719
the Chinese tariffs.

732
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,679
Speaker 5: Well, it's always difficult to predict an endgame for Donald Trump,

733
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,320
because you know, he's a strategist who has, you know,

734
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,840
kind of natural genius that does not necessarily, you know,

735
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,880
follow either ideological tracks or you know, predictable ones that

736
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,360
you know, other folks might envision. He's an entrepreneur. An

737
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,039
entrepreneur has to be able to kind of envision and

738
00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:33,880
make a future that doesn't even exist yet. I think

739
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,880
decoupling is clearly a major component, however, of what Trump's

740
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,400
trying to do here. He wants to encourage, you know,

741
00:36:39,519 --> 00:36:42,360
the taking of industry and of trade away from China

742
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,519
and putting it anywhere else possible, ideally here in the

743
00:36:46,599 --> 00:36:50,559
United States with more manufacturing. But friend shoring is better

744
00:36:50,599 --> 00:36:54,119
than having, you know, a trade dependency on China, so

745
00:36:54,679 --> 00:36:57,679
you know, I think one of Secretary Rubio's accomplishments in

746
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,800
visiting the Caribbean and Central America in the past week

747
00:37:01,119 --> 00:37:04,639
has been to try to deepen trade friendships and relationships

748
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,079
with the nations of Central America and the Caribbean in

749
00:37:08,199 --> 00:37:11,039
order to try to you know, create more of an

750
00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:14,760
industrial capacity more of a trade base here in the Americas,

751
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:16,920
for both the goods we want to sell to them

752
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,280
and also for their ability to develop and sell to us.

753
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 2: And of course, to interrupt you for a second, because

754
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,280
you mentioned the Caribbean in the area Panama declining to

755
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:29,199
re up with Belton Road, I'm waiting for somebody to say, well,

756
00:37:29,199 --> 00:37:30,480
they weren't going to do it anyway, and Ruby it

757
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,280
didn't get anything out of them. Is this significant? I

758
00:37:34,519 --> 00:37:37,599
think it is. I mean, countries eventually wake up to

759
00:37:37,639 --> 00:37:39,400
the fact that this is not a good deal for

760
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,679
them in the long run. Do you think that others

761
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,440
that this is the beginning of a diminution of Chinese

762
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:46,360
influence in that a way.

763
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,639
Speaker 5: Well, I do. But you know, Belton Road is the

764
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:52,440
you know, symbolic headline item. But the more important thing

765
00:37:52,519 --> 00:37:56,239
behind the scenes is simply the level of economic penetration

766
00:37:56,519 --> 00:38:01,480
power and especially technological infrastructure influence that China is able

767
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,800
to wield over our nearest neighbors, the Caribbean and Central America.

768
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,159
And I think one of the successes of Secretary of

769
00:38:08,199 --> 00:38:10,719
Rubio's visit has been to work on a lot of

770
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,400
those things that are further down the agenda saying that,

771
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,960
you know, we need to have you know, supplies, especially

772
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,800
for you know, high technology coming from America. Five G

773
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,280
networks for example, we want those to be American based

774
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,679
five G networks. We do not want Huawei to be

775
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,960
you know, the primary communications NOE for Central America and

776
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:31,320
the Caribbean. So I think there's been significant progress there

777
00:38:31,679 --> 00:38:33,559
and I'm hoping that's going to continue. And I think

778
00:38:33,559 --> 00:38:35,559
that you know, most of the nations of the region

779
00:38:35,599 --> 00:38:38,000
do understand that it's much better to be you know,

780
00:38:38,039 --> 00:38:40,880
America's friend, much better to have these dependencies if you're

781
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,360
going to have them on America, don't have them on

782
00:38:43,519 --> 00:38:46,840
communist China, because Communist China really you know, is going

783
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:48,079
to use that in ways that are going to be

784
00:38:48,119 --> 00:38:50,079
harmful to the US. Then the US is going to

785
00:38:50,119 --> 00:38:53,039
have to retaliate by you know, limiting perhaps our trade

786
00:38:53,079 --> 00:38:56,079
and relations with people would like to be our friends,

787
00:38:56,119 --> 00:38:58,679
because there are neighbors. A whole number of bad things

788
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:01,880
will happen if China is economic influence grows in Latin

789
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,639
America in general, but in the Central America and the Caribbean.

790
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,280
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I don't know why anybody would would buy their

791
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:09,559
I mean, I am reasonably certain that the egg beater

792
00:39:09,679 --> 00:39:12,559
I described that broke has an RFID backdoor into it

793
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,679
that China comes down to access my smart home network.

794
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 1: Stephen, Well, well, actually, James, what we learn from your

795
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:20,679
example is that you're a very rich man if you're

796
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,360
using leg egg beaters, because eggs are now you know,

797
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:27,079
a million dollars apart. Whatever it is, Dan, I got

798
00:39:27,079 --> 00:39:30,119
one last question for you. You referenced early on what

799
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,599
has been obvious to me for a long time, and

800
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:36,480
that Trump likes to make these outrageous seemingly outrageous and

801
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,480
completely beyond the pale suggestions on Gaza or the tariffs

802
00:39:40,519 --> 00:39:41,800
and all the rest of that. And you point out

803
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,880
rightly that this is a long standing negotiating tactic of Trump,

804
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,159
and I wonder if you're going to reach the point

805
00:39:48,159 --> 00:39:51,400
of diminishing returns right. It is amazing to me that

806
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,159
people have not figured this out about Trump, but it's

807
00:39:54,199 --> 00:39:57,119
still working for him like a charm. But reach a

808
00:39:57,119 --> 00:40:00,039
point of diminishing returns, doesn't he At some point you

809
00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:02,880
really have to draw the line and really follow through.

810
00:40:03,559 --> 00:40:06,159
I mean, I don't know whether it's invading Panama or

811
00:40:06,199 --> 00:40:08,719
seizing Greenland. I mean I think those are crazy ideas,

812
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,159
but it does seem to be getting it does seem

813
00:40:11,159 --> 00:40:13,840
to be getting results. Like you say, but what happens

814
00:40:14,039 --> 00:40:17,039
if he doesn't? Where do you think Trump needs to

815
00:40:17,079 --> 00:40:18,960
draw a line? I'll do the question that way.

816
00:40:19,039 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

817
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 5: I mean, at some point somebody is going to call

818
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:22,400
his bluff and say, hey, I'm not going to give

819
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:24,239
you any concessions because I know you're actually not going

820
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:27,000
to follow through and slap us with tariffs. And I think,

821
00:40:27,039 --> 00:40:31,320
you know, Trump, he's certainly created a persona for himself,

822
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:33,960
a public identity in the past several years here as

823
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,320
a tariff man. He says, it's the most beautiful word

824
00:40:36,559 --> 00:40:38,239
in the English language. I mean, that's something you didn't

825
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,480
even hear from Pat Buchanan back in the nineties. This

826
00:40:40,639 --> 00:40:44,639
is this is you know, certainly creating a public impression

827
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:48,039
of being quite not just willing, but eager to employ

828
00:40:48,079 --> 00:40:50,920
tariffs in a big way. So I think, you know,

829
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:53,519
there will come a time when someone's going to call

830
00:40:53,559 --> 00:40:57,000
his bluff. And you know, I think Trump is quite

831
00:40:57,039 --> 00:40:59,559
willing to use tariffs. Now he probably doesn't want to

832
00:40:59,559 --> 00:41:01,559
do it. You know, if you have twenty five percent

833
00:41:01,599 --> 00:41:04,079
on Mexico, twenty five percent on Canada, all going into

834
00:41:04,079 --> 00:41:06,960
effect the same moment. That's a big disruption. On the

835
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,719
other hand, if Canada doesn't get serious about what he's

836
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,119
asking of Trudeau, it's entirely possible. Maybe we have a

837
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:16,079
deal with Mexico, but we don't have a deal with Canada. Immediately,

838
00:41:16,119 --> 00:41:18,159
Tariff's going to effect for a while, and then the

839
00:41:18,199 --> 00:41:20,159
Canadians come back and say, oh gosh, we should have

840
00:41:20,199 --> 00:41:22,679
taken you seriously the first time. Now we're willing to

841
00:41:22,679 --> 00:41:25,000
make a deal about fisheries or NATO or other things.

842
00:41:26,679 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 2: Daniel McCarthy, we thank you for joining us again. You

843
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,639
can catch him on x at Tory Anarchist, where you

844
00:41:32,679 --> 00:41:35,920
can find that zest accommination of words explained to you

845
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,639
in a variety of tweets. How often do you? Are

846
00:41:38,679 --> 00:41:40,800
you one of those sitting on the sitting on the

847
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:45,119
app all day, or are you doling out a gem

848
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,800
every fortnight or what exactly is you?

849
00:41:48,199 --> 00:41:51,119
Speaker 5: I do look at it rather more often than is healthy,

850
00:41:51,159 --> 00:41:55,800
I think, and I certainly participate to the extent that's reasonable.

851
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: So yeah, wait a minute, Dan, I mean, you've got

852
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:02,639
the down, but you're the least anarchistic person I can

853
00:42:02,679 --> 00:42:03,039
think of.

854
00:42:05,039 --> 00:42:07,679
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm bit just stating on Twitter a fair bit. Yes,

855
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:09,440
I think it's it's reasonable to say.

856
00:42:09,679 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 2: But good well, we'll see you there and uh and

857
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,599
ketchup and your insights and your observations. Thank you Daniel

858
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:16,239
for joining us in the podcast today.

859
00:42:16,599 --> 00:42:17,760
Speaker 5: Thank you.

860
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 2: You know. The one thing that we haven't heard from

861
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,599
Donald Trump actually is that he sent out his minions

862
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,440
to do his bidding, fly my pretties and the rest

863
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,440
of it. Right, But we when we hear about layoffs

864
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,840
at the EPA or a thousand people landing up something

865
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:32,639
like that, a whole bunch of the at the I

866
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,320
R s and in the works. But we haven't actually

867
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:38,039
heard Trump say you're fired yet. That's his classic line,

868
00:42:38,039 --> 00:42:40,639
that's his tagline. We need him to say it. But

869
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,679
if you're an HR person, or if you're somebody who

870
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,000
needs an HR person, you know, those are hard words

871
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,159
to say. They're tough human being at the end of

872
00:42:48,159 --> 00:42:51,280
the end of that sentiment. So if you're a business owner,

873
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,400
have you ever felt actually kind of lost when it

874
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,599
comes to HR? You know, it's okay, it's okay, it's

875
00:42:58,039 --> 00:42:59,599
it's not what you do best. I mean, it's not

876
00:42:59,639 --> 00:43:03,199
suppose to you to your business. But what business people

877
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,559
do well is find solutions, and the solution to your

878
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:10,559
HR problem is Bamboo HR. Bamboo HR is a powerful,

879
00:43:10,639 --> 00:43:14,039
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880
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,840
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881
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,280
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882
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:20,480
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883
00:43:20,639 --> 00:43:24,239
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884
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885
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886
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887
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888
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889
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890
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:48,440
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891
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893
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894
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895
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,320
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896
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897
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898
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899
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:17,199
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900
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901
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,000
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902
00:44:23,079 --> 00:44:26,519
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903
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,960
Well here we are again, closing up another episode, but

904
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,559
plenty of time to chat amongst ourselves. There was a

905
00:44:33,599 --> 00:44:35,320
description of Twitter that I saw the other day. A

906
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:41,239
wonderful little exchange included a news report, then John from

907
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:45,039
Commentary weighing in, and then Selina Zito, and it all began,

908
00:44:45,199 --> 00:44:47,639
I think with somebody who was saying that they were

909
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,400
facing quote and Orwellian Knightmarre. I believe that wasn't what

910
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:52,880
it was because they no longer knew whether or not

911
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,480
they had the lifetime protection that a federal job afforded

912
00:44:56,519 --> 00:45:01,280
them hm. And was pointed out to this person that

913
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:06,960
actually this is what most people called real life in

914
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,159
a dynamic economy. And also the people the federal government

915
00:45:10,159 --> 00:45:12,599
didn't seem particularly interested in the plight of the people

916
00:45:12,639 --> 00:45:15,760
who were having their industries destroyed, downsized, or it made

917
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,760
irrelevant by various government decisions. Nobody asked to call. Everybody

918
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:21,599
told the coal miners to learn to coal, but nobody

919
00:45:21,639 --> 00:45:25,079
seems to be We're supposed to have sympathy for the

920
00:45:25,519 --> 00:45:28,760
somebody who lives in suburban DC and has been sitting

921
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,760
at home for four years, tapping away with a cat

922
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:32,280
in their lap.

923
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,039
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I remember a story. It's not quite

924
00:45:37,079 --> 00:45:39,480
about federal employees. But I don't think federal employees losing

925
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,199
their job will create mass sympathy with the American people.

926
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:44,679
But if you go all the way back to Proposition

927
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:46,960
thirteen in California in the seventies, that was the big

928
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,840
property tax cut measure, that was the signal opening salvo

929
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:55,280
of the tax revolt. And I remember someone quoted the

930
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,280
newspaper a local government person saying, if this passes, it's

931
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,599
going to devastate our budgets. It's gonna require huge spending cuts.

932
00:46:02,599 --> 00:46:06,440
It's gonna be terrible for government in California. And the

933
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,760
person said he looked out at the audiences at rotary

934
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:11,840
clubs and wherever, and always saw were people smiling. And

935
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:13,960
of course Prop thirteen passed by a nearly two to

936
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:16,239
one margin, And it was that point that guy said,

937
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,920
I changed my mind about Proposition thirteen. Well, I think

938
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:22,039
something similar is going on now. I think there's no

939
00:46:22,159 --> 00:46:25,679
sympathy for people who well, the bargain's always been kind

940
00:46:25,679 --> 00:46:27,880
of phony. We need to have higher salaries and lavish

941
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:31,079
pensions for public employees at the state and federal level

942
00:46:31,119 --> 00:46:33,800
because they don't have, you know, to compensate for the

943
00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:37,559
lack of you know, pensions and stock options and things

944
00:46:37,639 --> 00:46:39,599
like that. But of course when you look into these things,

945
00:46:39,599 --> 00:46:43,280
you find that the pensions it's bankrupt in Chicago and

946
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,119
Illinois and so forth, and California is also way behind.

947
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,960
And so this is long overdue. And it amazes me

948
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,079
how Democrats want to die on all these hills. They

949
00:46:53,079 --> 00:46:56,000
want to just end the transgender business, you know, aid

950
00:46:56,079 --> 00:46:59,199
to media groups and all the rest. And I'll land

951
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:03,400
here Democrats revealing that they really are the most incompetent

952
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,719
political party. Republicans maybe the stupid party, but Democrats seem incompetent.

953
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:14,599
Speaker 3: It's also now a violation of the original deal. You

954
00:47:14,679 --> 00:47:19,280
go back one hundred years to when the federal government

955
00:47:20,079 --> 00:47:23,239
was hiring. In this case, because the prohibition, the Treasury

956
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:28,039
Department had to hire two thousand staff to enforce the

957
00:47:28,119 --> 00:47:34,719
Volsteed Act. The deal, the explicitly advertised deal was you

958
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:37,400
will make less money than you would in the private sector,

959
00:47:37,639 --> 00:47:39,800
you will get less benefits than you would get in

960
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,400
the private sector, but you have better job security. Now

961
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,480
government workers, especially at the federal level, have both the

962
00:47:47,559 --> 00:47:51,760
job security insane levels of job security and pensions that

963
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:55,960
can't be matched in the private sector and salaries that

964
00:47:56,039 --> 00:47:58,400
are on average hire. Now you have to be careful

965
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,000
how you passe that between me and and so forth.

966
00:48:01,079 --> 00:48:08,079
But the deal that was once offered has been essentially

967
00:48:08,159 --> 00:48:12,440
reworked so that government employees win on both sides of

968
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,079
the coin. And one of the reasons for that is

969
00:48:15,119 --> 00:48:20,800
that the public sector unions have put themselves in a

970
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:26,960
position in which they get to play both the employee

971
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:32,440
and employer. Under Franklin Roosevelt, who was hardly a mean

972
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:37,400
right winger, the idea of a public sector union was

973
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,760
deemed to be ridiculous. It was only in the sixties

974
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:45,159
under Kennedy via an executive order, that public sector unions

975
00:48:45,199 --> 00:48:47,679
became permissible. And the reason was obvious is that if

976
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:51,320
you have a private sector union, and I think the

977
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:53,800
way the government puts his thumb on the skills is outrageous,

978
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:56,119
but just in theory, if you have a public sector

979
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,519
a private sector union, then you have two people in

980
00:48:59,559 --> 00:49:03,320
the equation that have an interest in meeting one another

981
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,280
in the middle. Because you have a guy who owns

982
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,079
a business and he needs things to be done, and

983
00:49:07,079 --> 00:49:09,880
if he doesn't get his employees or employees on side,

984
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:11,400
then he'll go out of business. But you also have

985
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:13,320
people who have jobs and they don't want to lose them.

986
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:15,280
They don't want the company to go out of business either.

987
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:17,440
I don't think it always works exactly like that. I'm

988
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:19,920
not that naive, but the idea makes sense in theory.

989
00:49:20,119 --> 00:49:23,280
You have these two, So that's not true here. So

990
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:28,000
we've ended up with this absurdly sprawling, largely useless federal

991
00:49:28,079 --> 00:49:31,159
workforce that gets to set the terms of its own

992
00:49:31,199 --> 00:49:35,280
employment by bullying the people who employ them with its votes.

993
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:37,800
That should never have existed in the first place in

994
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,880
that setup, and that violate the original deal, which was

995
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,239
come here for the job security. But you'll make less money.

996
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:44,840
I mean, it's just something that's got to be done

997
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:45,320
about it.

998
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:51,039
Speaker 2: Well, it may take somebody to cut through the Gordian knot.

999
00:49:52,079 --> 00:49:54,880
Is Elon Musk our dollar a year man as they

1000
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:56,760
used to call them, because you remember back in the

1001
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:58,760
I think in World War two, they would hate they

1002
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:01,079
would bring in a dollar a year somebody from private

1003
00:50:01,119 --> 00:50:04,039
industry who would take no compensation, but do this because

1004
00:50:04,079 --> 00:50:05,559
he had to know how, and because he had the

1005
00:50:05,559 --> 00:50:09,519
patriotic spirit. Patriotic if you wish to do the right thing.

1006
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,199
What I'm looking forward to because all of what we've

1007
00:50:13,199 --> 00:50:15,079
been seeing with the USA idea is just to tune up.

1008
00:50:15,119 --> 00:50:20,760
It's just it's it's you know, it's the overture. It's

1009
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:22,960
giving us the themes that we're going to be hearing

1010
00:50:23,079 --> 00:50:28,199
the operator to come. But the Department of Education is

1011
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:30,400
in the sites now because every day it seems like

1012
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:32,599
the administration wakes up and says, all right, we need

1013
00:50:32,639 --> 00:50:38,800
another galvaniced seismic, tectonic shift shock. You know, nobody's talking

1014
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:44,360
about Greenland anymore because invading, occupying, and rebuilding Greenland is

1015
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,400
like that, that's so a fortnight ago. We're so far

1016
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:51,079
beyond that. These things will be dropped depth charges and

1017
00:50:51,079 --> 00:50:53,480
then everybody will absolutely freak out about them, and then

1018
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,159
necessarily something has to be done about them, and perhaps

1019
00:50:56,199 --> 00:51:00,840
necessarily something will be the Department of Education. The I

1020
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:04,320
began this hour by talking about the shrieking Unreddit and

1021
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:08,519
the rending of garments. The reaction on Reddit to the

1022
00:51:08,559 --> 00:51:11,199
elimination of the Department of Education or even just pairing

1023
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,840
it back to its statutory confines, which I believe that

1024
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:16,639
they can do by executive action. You have to get

1025
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,679
Congress to get rid of the cabinet. Is uniform in

1026
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:26,400
that this is a concerted effort to stupefy the American

1027
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,440
people and make them dumb, so that I don't know,

1028
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:32,719
I guess ten eighteen years hence they willingly accept the

1029
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,079
fascism in which they've grown up, that they're not critical

1030
00:51:35,119 --> 00:51:38,480
thinkers anymore. That the idea that if the Department of

1031
00:51:38,599 --> 00:51:42,599
Education does not exist, there is no education in America.

1032
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:43,199
Speaker 1: That's it.

1033
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 2: That's kind of what they believe, which does not speak

1034
00:51:46,280 --> 00:51:48,679
well for all these kids who grew up under the

1035
00:51:48,679 --> 00:51:52,519
Department of Education and didn't get the basic civics listed,

1036
00:51:52,559 --> 00:51:56,199
because that's not the point. And then simultaneously, some of

1037
00:51:56,199 --> 00:51:58,840
these people will be coming in from our slash teachers

1038
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,480
or public school credits, where people are talking about the

1039
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,400
inanities and the horrors that they face trying to teach

1040
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:09,000
an uneducatable generation, which has nothing to do with the

1041
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:10,920
amount of federal spinning and has everything to do with

1042
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:13,039
cultural events and the rest of it. So, I mean,

1043
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,039
the idea that education right now is dependent upon A

1044
00:52:17,159 --> 00:52:20,440
the federal teat and b federal instruction is nonsense because

1045
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:23,599
we've lived under this and we've seen what's happened. We've cratered,

1046
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:25,559
we could be better.

1047
00:52:25,639 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: We saw the latest reading scores came out what ten

1048
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:33,119
days ago with dismal results. And yeah, I mean, I've

1049
00:52:33,159 --> 00:52:35,119
been raised the question here on Twitter and elsewhere. Can

1050
00:52:35,159 --> 00:52:39,679
anyone point to any international development trends that USAID has

1051
00:52:40,199 --> 00:52:43,320
been a principal agent of? And likewise, can anybody point

1052
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,920
to any improvements in public education since the department was

1053
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:48,760
founded in nineteen seventy nine, And if you look at

1054
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,000
the data, the answer is resounding no. The problem is

1055
00:52:52,119 --> 00:52:55,079
too many Americans are sentimental. And I think, how the

1056
00:52:55,119 --> 00:52:59,320
part it's about education, the EPA's environmental protection and we

1057
00:52:59,519 --> 00:53:02,199
like all those things, and so sort of a labeling thing.

1058
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:05,559
But yeah, it's add this other thought, which is I

1059
00:53:05,599 --> 00:53:09,599
am watching again another perhaps example of democratic incompetence on this.

1060
00:53:10,159 --> 00:53:13,679
They're all attacking Musk. Who elected Musk, to which you

1061
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:17,559
ask who elected all these bureaucrats that he's reviewing right now.

1062
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:20,840
And people have also saying at some point Trump's big

1063
00:53:20,880 --> 00:53:23,239
ego and narcissism will cause him to have to break

1064
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,239
with Trump because Trump's richer and getting all this press,

1065
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:28,840
and I think you're missing that Trump is sorry. The

1066
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,519
Musk is such a useful lightning rod for Trump, and

1067
00:53:32,559 --> 00:53:35,519
he's confusing and dividing the opposition that otherwise would be

1068
00:53:35,519 --> 00:53:38,360
focused wholly on Trump and Trump alone. And so I'm

1069
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,639
just sitting back and popping more popcorn and enjoying the

1070
00:53:41,679 --> 00:53:42,400
whole spectacle.

1071
00:53:43,159 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 3: Again, leaving inside the constitutional questions, it does take Congress

1072
00:53:47,039 --> 00:53:50,119
to abolish the Department of Education, although not, as you say, James,

1073
00:53:50,119 --> 00:53:53,039
to make it sit within its statutory limits, which it doesn't.

1074
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:57,599
If the Department of Education were to disappear tomorrow, I

1075
00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:01,599
truly believe that nothing of value would be lost. This

1076
00:54:01,679 --> 00:54:05,480
is why there is this great disconnect in politics at

1077
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:10,599
the moment, because, leaving aside again the debate over structure,

1078
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,639
the people you're discussing on Reddit, and many people within

1079
00:54:14,639 --> 00:54:17,320
the Democratic Party honestly seem to believe that if you

1080
00:54:17,519 --> 00:54:20,440
even let one bureaucrat go, the whole thing will fall apart.

1081
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:22,599
And I think the opposite is true. I think you

1082
00:54:22,679 --> 00:54:26,639
could fire half of the federal workforce and no one

1083
00:54:26,679 --> 00:54:31,199
would notice. It would make the country better to do that.

1084
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,280
And you know, this is the problem that the Democrats have.

1085
00:54:37,039 --> 00:54:39,880
Republicans will suffer if they if they seem callous or

1086
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:43,000
they go too fast. But the problem that the Democrats

1087
00:54:43,039 --> 00:54:47,199
have is that reaction that was just mentioned with the proposition.

1088
00:54:48,199 --> 00:54:51,079
Remind me which one it is, Steve in California thirteen.

1089
00:54:53,199 --> 00:54:55,519
It's that reaction is that if you look at polling

1090
00:54:55,559 --> 00:54:58,119
on this the sob stories that I keep reading in

1091
00:54:58,159 --> 00:55:00,239
the New York Times that people say I have took

1092
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,199
her and for a third day of the week, I

1093
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,840
can't even imagine it. I cried myself to sleep this morning.

1094
00:55:06,199 --> 00:55:10,320
Just sounds completely insane to people. Yeah, but they don't

1095
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,880
know that because they don't talk to anyone outside of

1096
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:13,320
that group.

1097
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:16,800
Speaker 2: During the height of the last tech bubble, when there

1098
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,119
was just so much money slashing around and everybody had

1099
00:55:19,159 --> 00:55:21,760
their nice little show place office buildings, one of the

1100
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,159
things you used to see a lot on Twitter as

1101
00:55:24,159 --> 00:55:27,159
it was known, or reels perhaps or vine even was

1102
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:31,880
my day at the Twitter office, in which some young

1103
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:34,719
twenty something would show up with the you know and

1104
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,800
and flounce through the wonderfully appointed atrium and go to

1105
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:40,920
their desk and get their get the cappuccino and a

1106
00:55:40,519 --> 00:55:43,960
little Claire, and then have a meaningless meeting with a

1107
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:45,960
couple of other people. They're staring at screens and talking

1108
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,320
about something, and then lunch on the deck in the

1109
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:51,239
sun with the sprouts and the and then it would

1110
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:53,360
be some other pointless and then it'd be yoga, and

1111
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:55,199
then it would be then they would take their dinner

1112
00:55:55,199 --> 00:55:57,320
home and the rest of it. And it all looked

1113
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:00,519
like this ridiculous experience, I mean, very very nice to live,

1114
00:56:00,559 --> 00:56:05,639
I suppose, but producing exactly what Twitter did. One thing.

1115
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:08,280
It took in tweets, it gave out tweets. It was

1116
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:10,880
back and forth. What they were talking about. I don't know.

1117
00:56:11,039 --> 00:56:13,760
Musk comes in and fires eighty five percent of them,

1118
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:20,239
and Twitter somehow staggers on someone. You could get rid

1119
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:21,920
of all of those people who are having all day

1120
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:24,320
meetings about this, that or the other thing, and and

1121
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:28,400
it turned out not to be essential to the thing

1122
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:29,280
that they were doing.

1123
00:56:29,559 --> 00:56:32,079
Speaker 3: So how far is this profitable? Did you see this'?

1124
00:56:32,199 --> 00:56:34,599
Its revenues have been cut in half, but its expenses

1125
00:56:34,679 --> 00:56:37,440
have been cut to a quarter of what they were.

1126
00:56:37,559 --> 00:56:39,519
Speaker 2: Right right, which you know is the model that he

1127
00:56:39,599 --> 00:56:43,000
was seeking. And now I will grant that the advertising

1128
00:56:43,159 --> 00:56:46,960
on Twitter is extremely low compared to quality, compared to

1129
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:48,079
what it used to be. And it used to be

1130
00:56:48,119 --> 00:56:50,239
all the big brand names, right, they were all out there,

1131
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:54,559
and then they all pulled back because because Muscus a

1132
00:56:54,559 --> 00:56:56,519
fascist and turned it into a right wing sess pool,

1133
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,840
which I find into an interesting comment because I am

1134
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:02,320
on Twitter a great deal, as our previous guest said,

1135
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:04,679
more than I should be, and I find the amount

1136
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:09,960
of left wing invective or arguments is precisely what it

1137
00:57:10,039 --> 00:57:12,679
was before. What I don't find are the throttling of

1138
00:57:13,199 --> 00:57:16,239
ideas and opinions that are at the moment unpopular and

1139
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,079
deemed to be hurtful disinformation that we have to do

1140
00:57:19,119 --> 00:57:21,760
something about. That's the other part about this. One of

1141
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:23,480
the notes that we have here for the podcast is

1142
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:28,840
how basically the resistance appears to be rudderless that you

1143
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,840
have a democratic party having learned nothing. Putting David Hogg

1144
00:57:34,119 --> 00:57:37,039
as the vice chair of the DNC, that you have

1145
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:42,199
these rallies where people are waving the flags of other nations,

1146
00:57:42,239 --> 00:57:45,679
which does not necessarily endear them to the population amongst

1147
00:57:45,719 --> 00:57:48,559
which they wish to live, and that you have all

1148
00:57:48,599 --> 00:57:50,840
of these, you know, people hyperventilating in the steps of

1149
00:57:50,920 --> 00:57:55,280
various state capitals insisting that fascism is on the way

1150
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:58,239
or here as in Minnesota, one of the placards said,

1151
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:01,639
there are no illegals on stolen Okay, make that argument

1152
00:58:01,679 --> 00:58:04,000
and see how that goes for you. So you want

1153
00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:06,719
to say, well, you know what got them on the run.

1154
00:58:06,719 --> 00:58:08,199
They'll never be able to pick it up and figure

1155
00:58:08,199 --> 00:58:12,280
it out. But of course perhaps they will or can they?

1156
00:58:12,719 --> 00:58:15,400
Is there a Clinton out there waiting to be born

1157
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:19,599
who can triangulate and get them back? That may be

1158
00:58:19,599 --> 00:58:21,679
a whole another podcast that we should have. We kind

1159
00:58:21,679 --> 00:58:23,800
of gotta go, it's been an hour. I gotta hit lunch,

1160
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,880
I gotta go to the gym, anything else, guys, or

1161
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:29,920
you just contend to let me go with a self

1162
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:31,559
indulgent peroration and leave it at that.

1163
00:58:32,239 --> 00:58:33,519
Speaker 1: No, that was a good one. I don't want to

1164
00:58:33,519 --> 00:58:36,639
try and top that. Who's been great talking with you, James.

1165
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:38,719
Speaker 2: As every general it has been fun talking to you too.

1166
00:58:39,039 --> 00:58:42,000
We remind you that Luman, of course, and Bamboo HR

1167
00:58:42,039 --> 00:58:44,079
were our sponsor's the great product. Use Luma to get

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00:58:44,119 --> 00:58:46,639
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HR in shape, and between the two of them, you'll

1170
00:58:49,519 --> 00:58:52,119
feel better. We hope you feel better after listening to

1171
00:58:52,159 --> 00:58:54,360
this and are emboldened to give us a five star

1172
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:56,360
review wherever you happen to be able to do so.

1173
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:59,000
We also want you to go to ricochet dot com

1174
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:02,239
if you manage to listen to seven hundred and twenty

1175
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:06,760
six podcasts without figuring that out. Ricochet dot com is

1176
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:08,719
the well spring from which we come, and you would

1177
00:59:08,719 --> 00:59:12,400
love to dip your cup in there and imbibe of

1178
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:18,079
its fresh, clean, artisanal waters. Same civil debate. Mostly thanks

1179
00:59:18,119 --> 00:59:21,239
for joining us, folks. We'll see you, Charlie Stephen, We'll

1180
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:23,639
see you next week, and we'll see everybody in the comment,

1181
00:59:23,679 --> 00:59:25,559
said Ricochet four point.

1182
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 1: Zero Ricochet who join the conversation