Richard Salsman & Robert Tracinski - An Objectivist Perspective on the Election

Speaker 0 00:00:00 We can go ahead and get started. Uh, we're probably gonna have a lot to talk about, a lot of, uh, questions. So, uh, thanks so much for joining this objective perspective on the election with Atla Society Scholars, Richard Salzman and Rob Truns. Uh, you know, we have two Objectivists with two different takes on the elections and, and the political choices before us, but I think this is a perfect example of open objectiveism in action with civil debate and discussion between diverging views. I mean, it, it's, uh, it's open objectivism where, uh, you know, disagreements can be discussed with, uh, benevolence and toleration instead of someone wailing. You know, you're not a real objective <laugh>. So, Speaker 1 00:00:50 Uh, I I, I'm the one who gets called an an an because I'm not, you know, on the on, because I'm not on the far you, I'm not agreeing with the far right. Um, well, but yeah, I wanna say, so, you know, this is called an, an objective perspective on the election, but it's probably gonna be more than one objective perspective on the election. And, you know, political parties are not philosophies, right? <laugh> elections are not philosophical. Well, they have philosophical issues involved in them, but they, you know, they are concrete events that can be interpreted in different ways. And, you know, there's a lot of dis, a lot of scope for disagreement about what the context is and what the significance of something is. Speaker 0 00:01:28 Good. Well, so then that's, Speaker 1 00:01:31 Go ahead. Speaker 0 00:01:32 I was just gonna say in that spirit, I, I appreciate you both offering your perspectives. Uh, I was gonna suggest each of you make an opening statement and then we'll open it up to questions and even let you two, uh, interact your, your differences. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:01:46 Uh, okay. So if it's okay with, with Richard, I'd kinda like to take the, take the point on this going out first because Sure. You know, I'm the guy who covers elections, I think more so than anybody else here. So I would just wanna do a little overview of what I see as the results and then give some context behind that. All right. So if no objections, so ordered, um, so I wanna start with the what, what the object, what the auction result was, and the result as I see it, as nobody really won. Now, a lot of people think, oh, it's a big, you know, it's a big, uh, uh, victory that a lot of people on the, uh, of the democratic side are very jubilant, but it's only a victory for them in the context of the fact that they were expecting creamed, right? Speaker 1 00:02:31 They were expecting a massive loss. And so not losing seems like a victory. And this is sort of the expectations game that you have in, um, in politics, right? That if, if everybody expects you to lose and you barely hang on by your fingernails, that seems like, oh, a great win for you. Um, or, but, but if everybody expects you to win and you win by a tiny little margin, then it makes you look bad. So it, it, this, this makes Democrats look good only by contrast to this is a great result for them. Only by contrast to the fact that everybody, you know, a day or so two ago was talking about the idea there was gonna be a red wave, and there's gonna be, it was gonna be like 2010 where like think 60, uh, new Republican congressmen were elected to the House of Representatives. Speaker 1 00:03:17 This is gonna be like, what, 10, 15 new Republicans in the House of Representatives. So let me go over what those results are actually so we can get a sense of that. Um, so it's looking right now, now there's a few things sort of still hanging out there in Arizona. It, it looks like it's not going the Republican way of Arizona. It might go the Republican way in Nevada. It's gonna be a runoff in Georgia. So there's some stuff still up in the air, but the overall picture that's looking like the most likely result from all of this is that in the Senate, we're gonna go back to exactly where we were before. It's looking like it's gonna end up being a 50 50 Senate 50 Democratic votes. And, you know, they get to control the Senate with the absolute bear, literal bare minimum necessary to control the Senate, which is 50 votes plus the tie vote tiebreaking vote from the vice president. Speaker 1 00:04:07 So they end up pretty much where they've been, which is barely having enough people to pass legislation, uh, and not be able to pass anything too controversial or too different because they have to appease the two most conservative members of the Democratic caucus in, in the Senate, you know, Joe Mansion and, and Kirsten Sanita. So they, they have very little ability to do anything, and it's gonna be even less like the Republicans are now going to have control of the house, but the has just a small gain. Uh, the latest projection I saw people were saying the most likely result is they'll have 222 votes in the house, uh, 222 seats in the house. And to put that in perspective, a majority in the house, you know, the simple bare majority necessary to get to, to have more votes than the other guy is 218. Speaker 1 00:05:01 So they, it's only like four votes to spare that they got the majority. And you know what it's like in Congress is if you need, if you've got a half dozen congressmen that you need to get on your side to pass anything, you know, it's really easy to find a half dozen guys who are mavericks or dependent or who think they're gonna be in trouble in their district. If you pass something, it gets very hard for you to pass any legislation. So what you have is you have one part of Congress in the hands of one party that has a tiny bear minimum majority, another party that has the other house of cong of, of the legislature that also has a tiny bare, bare bones majority that can't really do anything. And that's why I think the, the, the, the real upshot of this is, is on the national level at least nobody won. Speaker 1 00:05:52 Everybody got just enough power to block the other guy, but not enough power to actually do anything. And I think that's awesome. I think that's almost an ideal response. Uh, I think gridlock is a great idea. And the reason I think is awesome, and I wanna return to this in a bit, is that I think it's awesome because I don't trust either party to do the right thing. I don't trust either party to have a pro Liberty agenda. So I think it's great in a way that they'll be sitting around there, you know, they'll be making speeches that can hold hearings, uh, they can do uncontroversial stuff that gets, you know, broad bipartisan support. But any, any big new thing they wanna do is basically they're doomed. They can't do it because they don't have that kind of majority. And I think that's great cuz neither side has a pro liberty agenda. And I think the big question I'd like us, uh, Richard and I to discuss the one, I think where we're gonna be most in agreement is on the question of, well, why not? Why don't we have, um, a pro, uh, why isn't there a side that we can really undeservedly root for as having a pro liberty agenda Speaker 2 00:07:00 Just to register? Yeah, that's not my view. So Uhhuh, you should just present your view and not guess. All right, well guess what we'll agree on or not. So just, Okay. I don't wanna misrepresent people, you know, during your sessions. Yeah, Speaker 1 00:07:14 Okay. Okay, That's fine. That's fine. Um, alright, so the, one of the big stories as I see of this election is that this was an election full of bad choices, right? So, um, I think the, the one that sticks in my mind is, is Dr. Oz versus Federman in, in Pennsylvania where you had this, you know, federman, this guy who has fairly far left views, but also, you know, suffered as a stroke right at the beginning of the General Lu campaign. Uh, I don't, I don't think there's evidence that he's cognitively impaired, but he, you know, difficulty speaking. So he is kind of like a guy recovering from a stroke, trying to run for office, which is kind of, there's almost a comical aspect to that. But at the same time, you got the other guy as this, you know, guy who's been this whole 20 year career of basically hawking fake Miracle Cures on daytime television. Speaker 1 00:08:01 So you have these two extremely uninspiring candidates, uh, similar I think in Georgia, uh, where they're gonna have a runoff, they're gonna have the same matchup between the two uninspiring candidates in, in a couple of weeks. And that is where you have, uh, uh, the, uh, warnock, the, uh, the Democrat as a guy who's, um, his background is in sort of black liberation theology. It's very far left, uh, religious Christian view, but this guy be, Herschel Walker is a guy who, you know, was found to be, he, he's, he's taking the Republican line on abortion and, and having a, you know, we should, we should make abortion illegal. And it turns out that he has, you know, paid for one of his many mistresses to abort a child. So, you know, total, total, uh, hypocrisy, uh, a totally, you know, in any reasonable matchup, this guy, neither, neither one of these guys would be an acceptable, uh, uh, alternative. Speaker 1 00:09:00 And I think that sort of sums up a lot of what happened in this election. There were a lot of ones where you had people, you know, there was never, there was no really good, there was, there were a lot of really un unpalatable, unsavory matchups. Uh, and that's one the issue that I at least would like to discuss, which is why is it that we don't have a pro liberty party? And why is it that we don't have, why is it we have such a terrible politics where we get these sort of ambitious hookers who get put forward as, uh, the the potential representatives and the potential candidates and not people who are, you know, we don't get anybody on even within the same universe as the founding fathers. You know, we don't get Thomas, it's not Thomas Jefferson versus John Adams, right? To take a, to take a a match up that, you know, is, is too, too great men and powerful intellect who are both extremely dedicated to liberty. Speaker 1 00:09:56 They had knocked down drag out disagreements, but, you know, as, as human beings and as thinkers and as, um, uh, on a moral level, they're, they're in a different universe, uh, compared to what we get today. So I think that's something that, to bring up as we go. Then the last small thing I wanna say is the thing that I found the best part of the election, the reason I'm generally happy with this election is I do think that the one trend you saw is that, um, the, uh, people who were engaging in the sort of election conspiracy theory saying that the 2020 election were stolen and who were putting themselves trying to put themselves in a position where they could, uh, overturn, you know, who had advocated, overturning the election results in places like Arizona and, and, and, um, uh, and, uh, Michigan, uh, people who were trying to get into position to be able to overturn the election results of the future, if they claimed, if they had similar sort of unfounded claims that the elections were stolen, those candidates generally lost. Speaker 1 00:11:03 I mean, the big example is Mark Fin, I think it's Mark Fin who is the guy running for Secretary of State in Arizona. Secretary of State is the office that runs elections. And this was the guy who, you know, had, had indulged in a lot of, uh, stolen election conspiracy theories when challenged on them by the press. He couldn't actually name a specific reason why he thought the election was stolen, but he was convinced it was stolen and it vowed basically that he would overturn the results of 2020 if he could, or over that he would, you know, not allow this to happen again, that he might overturn the results of future elections. And those people generally, generally lost their elections. And I think that's a very positive development cuz it takes that issue of having people doing shenanigans with the voting of people trying to say, Oh, well, you know, here's the vote totals and I'm going to throw them out and put a different slate of electors, send it into Washington. It kind of takes that off the table for the next election. And that's a huge relief to me. All right. So that's my view that I view that as, as positive because nobody won. Nobody gets to do anything for the next two years. And, uh, I think that neither, neither party really deserves to be allowed to do anything for the next two years. Speaker 0 00:12:17 All right, great. Uh, Richard, um, go ahead. Speaker 2 00:12:22 Well, Rob said nobody really won, and he thinks that's great and, uh, awesome. Um, my take is that the Democrats won, and that's awful. And, uh, apropos question of, of why do we have such bad politics, such unsavory match? Alexander Hamilton said it correctly, our disease is democracy. So democracy is just ruled by the people. Demo most just means people. It doesn't say whether they're smart people. It doesn't see whether they're virtuous people. It's just people. And if you know the history of democracy, it can be very brutal to individual rights. The Democratic party of today is brutal to individual rights. And I note that before the election, Rob recommended that everybody vote across the board for Democrats only. My recommendation was that they only vote for Republicans. So there could not be a more distinct difference just in terms of advice. I'm 63 years old, I cannot think of a two year period so awful in governance in America as the last two years. Speaker 2 00:13:31 So I would include inflation, although I think Trump was partly responsible for that crime. The rule of lawlessness, as I call it, the border completely open and, uh, no controls there at all. Uh, one of the bad things I think, actually is Roe v. Wade being overturned as to who's responsible for that and this yet another, uh, war in, uh, proxy war against Russia. Rob and I have talked about that before. To me, those are totally due to the Democrats or are almost primarily due to the Democrats. They should have been punished this election. They really weren't punished. They don't agree actually that they'll be gridlock over the next two years. There will be more, uh, democrats, uh, not maybe doing as bad as they did in the last two years. But one thing that will, I believe happened is to then there's gridlock. Everybody knows that presidents have far greater discretion in foreign affairs. Speaker 2 00:14:29 So even though the war, the proxy war against Russia was not on the ballot this time, I think that will dominate the next couple of years because Biden knows that's where he gets support from the Republican party, by the way, not from the Trump wing of the Republican party, which Rob considers to be authoritarian. And, you know, Chavez like it's the Trump's uh, the Trump candidates who basically said, stop, uh, sacrificing American interest and treasure in, uh, uh, long foreign wars that are not in our self interest. So I, I'm dismayed and disappointed about the results. I have a very different take on as to why the results are what they are. Rob thinks it's mostly due to rejecting, um, Trump, uh, endorsed candidates. I don't think that's true, but, but I just don't want to, I just sort wanna register the fact that this is a very bad result. Speaker 2 00:15:23 The Republican party has better candidates, higher quality candidates across the board. The only one I actually opposed was JD Vance in Ohio, and he won. JD Vance is a complete phony, a populist who I don't trust to, to throw 10 feet, but that's about the only one. All the others. And you mentioned Federman and Oz, I mean, whatever Oz was, he was far superior to Federman. And Federman seems to have barely beat him. But the fact that the Democrats would put up a Marxist who wants to let out all the murderers and is challenged mentally is beyond the pale. I mean, there is just talk about quality of candidate, uh, is just ridiculous. And that Walker is not superior to Warnock in both of those cases, by the way, the incumbent won. And that's what needs to be remembered. It is very difficult to unseat incumbents. Speaker 2 00:16:17 Uh, first of all, they've already demonstrated an ability to govern and that's not irrelevant. But secondly, they have a lot of financial backing and a lot of other advantages. So it's always gonna be difficult for quote unquote rookies to, uh, win the first time out. And many of the ones who did not win are in that category. And it's not because they were election deniers or advo or appointed, uh, endorsed by Trump. As, as Rob has suggested in his recent writings. It's that they're largely rookies and they still performed amazingly well. Uh, even someone who had been in office, Alden almost, uh, really closely challenged the new in the New York Governor Dixon in, uh, Michigan didn't do badly against Whitmar Whitmer, who was a complete fascist, the governor of Michigan. Uh, if you know what she did during the lockdowns, it was almost worse than what, um, Newsom did in, in what, uh, Princeton did in Illinois. Speaker 2 00:17:17 Just really fascistic type stuff. And, uh, let me throw out three or four possible explanations. Uh, and Rob mentioned some of them. We can talk more about this. I don't think it was candidate quality. I think as I said before, the can the Republicans party and its platform is so superior to the Democrats that that should not be a question. And I don't even think their candidates are inferior. I think they're fight, they're quite superior. Now, another is thing would date, well, they were just wrong on the issues. Well, if they focused on what voters said they cared about, namely, and I'd say it in order, the salience aspect in inflation crime border, maybe down the list into election integrity, abortion was down the list as well. War wasn't even discussed. But if a candidate discussed those issues and was on the right side, they did well. Speaker 2 00:18:14 And the issue of people focusing on election fraud, now, some of them did, but the problem was not that they focused on election fraud, the problem was that to the extent they were talking about, that they weren't talking about salient issues, more salient issues, put it that way. They weren't talking enough about inflation crime in the border. I would also say that in many ways, these issues are tough to win on locally. For example, what are you gonna do about inflation? I mean, if you're just a senator, one of a hundred or one of a 435 reps, you're not at the Federal Reserve. Uh, you're not doing the entire budget. So even if people were right about what caused inflation, which they're not always right about, but even if they were right and knew it was due to the Fed, it's a very tangential thing to say, I'm gonna go to Washington to fight inflation. Speaker 2 00:19:06 I mean, you'd have to fight j Powell and the Fed commissars. I think even crime was tough because crime is basically due to mayors, it's mayors. I mean, there weren't a lot of mayoral races. We're talking about senators, governors, others. The most crime written cities in America are run by Democrats. And people keep running for Democrat, keep voting for them. And again, Rob said, Vote only for Democrats. You're voting for the most crime written cities in the country. If you go that route. I think even the border was tough. Again, the the Democrats are wrong, terribly wrong on all these things. The question is whether the Republicans can turn it to advantage even on the border, even if the most Americans were dis are disgusted by what's going on down there. I think most of them think, and and probably rightly it mostly affects Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Speaker 2 00:19:59 But Texas, Arizona and Florida had Republican governors doing very well, uh, DeSantis blue doors in Florida. The first time he won, he won by only one percentage point. This time he won by 20, uh, Abbott I think won by a smaller percentage last time. This pe this time he beat Beto O'Rourke that phony by about 11 percentage points. I do believe Kerry Lake is probably gonna edge out in Arizona, which is amazing cuz Kerry Lake was basically a Fox News anchor, but a but a self. Now here's, this is a rookie, basically politically a rookie. The fact that she would be neck and neck with an incumbent, uh, uh, basically the Secretary of State Hobbs as she's running against, would be an enormous pickup if that were true. But I mean, it shows the quality that is a high quality candidate, even though she's basically a citizen, a politician if she gets there. Speaker 2 00:20:53 Now, okay, so I went through is candidate quality the issue? It can't be because that would've given Republicans an absolute landslide. So that that is not what people are focusing on, I don't think. And on the issues, I just went through the issues and the problem there, uh, election fraud, Rob, Rob in his writings really highlights election fraud. There are not that many Republicans or focused on that, but I think it's interesting cuz the way Rob puts it is he calls them election deniers. No one denies that there are elections. So election deniers is just this kind of silly description of it. Now, are they election fraud deniers? No, they're pointing out that there is election fraud and there certainly is election fraud. Now, the third level would be is deflection, is election fraud so rampant that it's actually materially changing the outcome of elections? Speaker 2 00:21:45 Now that I don't actually think is true. It might be true in one or two states, but I don't believe that's true. But I also do don't find most Republican candidates saying that it's a very small number. And so I think that is really just a, a, a incorrect reading of what the results of this election are. Uh, and Rob and I differ enormously on that. And by the way, if even if you are a full-fledged, full-throated advocate of democracy, as Rob seems to be, and I am certainly not you, the reason I'm not is democracy often leads to tyranny. And so I know Rob is saying he wants liberty, but the Democrats in the current form do not deliver liberty and the Republicans are more likely to deliver it. So I, I think a third or fourth possibility might be the electorate really has been changed over the last few decades. Speaker 2 00:22:43 I mean, the public schools, the government schools have really indoctrinated people to the point where they find the Democrats just fine and Erica is losing her liberty accordingly. So to me, the primacy is not democracy. Uh, democracy is a means to an end. It's the way to vote for our representatives, but the end should be government upholding liberty and individual rights. And the Democrats are not for those things. The Republicans are for those things weekly. They're, I don't mean on the calendar, I mean not strongly enough. They're for those things inconsistently. The, the main fault I have with the conservatives and Republicans, and this could go on the list also for reasons they didn't do so well is abortion. But I think I have found that the Republican party is becoming more and more liberal on abortion. Thankfully they're becoming more liberal on abortion. Um, but that doesn't seem to have been a big issue. Speaker 2 00:23:38 Rob hasn't even mentioned it in his writing. So let, let me just sum up. I think the, uh, the, the ideal that we should be, uh, working toward is a constitutionally limited government that protects our individual rights 0.1 0.2, weak as and bad as the both parties are. The Republicans are far superior in terms of wanting constitutionally limited government. They were the ones who backed the Tea party, not the Democrats that, that that weak attempt 10, 12 years ago to go back to Constitutionalism in some form. At least third, the Republican candidates that were just put up are young, pious learn. And um, some of them even who lost, I hope come back because they'll do better. Uh, presumably next time if the Democrats aren't stopped, if their own corruption of the elections is stopped, they are the main corruptors of elections. So those who care about, uh, corruption of of election integrity really have to restrain the Democrats. Speaker 2 00:24:44 They were the ones who said Bush stole the election from Gore. They were the ones who denied that Bush won in 2000. They denied that Bush won in 2004. They claimed that they stole the election from Ken, uh, Kerry in Ohio. Of course, they had no problems with oh eight in 2012 cuz Obama won. But then Hillary was an election denier and all her allies were election deniers after 2016. So if we're gonna get, if we're gonna get an pissing match about which party is election deniers, um, the Democrats are, are, are the biggest ones. And and that's not an excuse for any Republican to, but it's not election denying that's going on here. Each party and each candidate should proudly stand up and say, I want election integrity. And you cannot take that view and collapse it into, well, you're an election denier and therefore in the future you're not gonna want any elections. Speaker 2 00:25:42 I mean, that's kind of Rob's argument. He, he literally believes if anyone questions the integrity of an election, they don't want any future elections. And to me, this is just the primacy of democracy run riot. This is just unlimited majority rule run riot. That our primary rights are not the right to vote. The right to vote should be a secondary, tertiary thing. The key is we're voting for people who protect our rights. I believe the only reason elections are so important to people these days is precisely because the government is unrestrained and can do any damn thing it wants. So it's very, very important now, uh, who we elect. But, but it's a, it's an increasingly corrupt system because there's so much democracy. So that's my, that's my main argument that we need more constitutional republicanism and far less democracy. Speaker 1 00:26:35 Uh, if I can pipe in with two things, I wish you'd open it for more, more discussion, but there's two things I just wanna pipe in there with very quickly, which is when I use the term election denier, I have something very specific in mind, which I defined, which is, it is people who believe that, that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. And I actually linked to, uh, in my things on this, there's a, the Washington Post did a rundown. They looked at Republican candidates and they looked at basically, did they, uh, either refuse to affirm, you know, when asked what that Biden won or did they actively go out and say that they thought Biden didn't win in 2020, that Trump actually won. And that's what I mean by election denial, that you denied specifically the 2020 election. And as you admit, Richard, there's there's no evidence that that act that, that that, that Trump actually won that election. And if you look at those, the claims being made, it's, you know, there's a little bit, there's a few votes here and there that were suspects, but every claim that was made that was big enough to uh, well actually all all, they had a whole series of lawsuits they, they that they filed that were thrown out and the reason the washes were Speaker 2 00:27:45 Thrown out. That's not, this is not relevant to what we're discussing because I Speaker 1 00:27:49 It is relevant to what we're discussing though. Cause Speaker 2 00:27:51 Lemme, lemme finish because lemme lemme stipulate to everything you just said. It still does not justify characterizing an entire party as election deniers. Speaker 1 00:28:02 Well, I was, cause I was just about to complete my sentence there, which is that okay, sure. Speaker 2 00:28:08 Bent on suppressing all future elections. It is a, it is a ganan leap to go from that. There is definitely fraud in elections. In the case of Trump, there were at least six states where it was questionable. But the idea that people question it, the idea that people in investigate or wish to investigate the integrity of elections, you would think from someone who really loves democracy, that they would wanna make sure that, Okay, Richard, Richard, Richard, Speaker 1 00:28:35 You'll talk here. You'd lemme talk here Speaker 2 00:28:38 That elections are fair and clean and they're not always fair and clean. The question is that they material, the question is whether they materially change the outcome. And election denier is just such a broad blanket. These are not election deniers. They're people who want elections that have integrity, that have minimal fraud as much as minimal as possible. That Speaker 1 00:29:00 Is, that is, Speaker 2 00:29:01 It is not true that the, it is not true that the Democratic party cares about. That the Democratic party is elusive, lucid, Speaker 1 00:29:09 I'm not the word lie here, but I am going to say that I have written extensively about this and people can look at it. That's Speaker 2 00:29:15 Not an argument. Speaker 1 00:29:16 The people here, Speaker 2 00:29:18 I've read your essay Speaker 1 00:29:20 Chance quiet and listen to me for two minutes and we can go on discussion. Okay? The two minutes here are this, there were people who came out and made flagrantly wrong claims about widespread fraud in the 20 election. So why? And there were people fin you to me, Richard, if you wanna have a discussion, it goes both ways. Um, there, Mark Fisherman, Arizona is a great example where he made totally arbitrary claims of fraud in the 2020 election and declared his desire to overturn the result. If you make an arbitrary claim, you're not asking questions, you're not analyzing it, you're making up conspiracy theories that are provably wrong If you do that and then declare your, your desire to overturn the election, that makes you an enemy of elections. Now that gets me the second thing I wanna say, which is, and its gonna be fruitless to go back and forth cuz you have your own unique set of facts. They're different than the facts on the Speaker 2 00:30:14 Groundless to me. No, Speaker 1 00:30:17 I thing I wanna say about elections is you say elections are secondary or tertiary. I think elections are on the first tier because they are our way of controlling who governs us. You know, if you can't have elections, I think elections are not the end, they're not the goal, the goal is liberty. But I think elections are an indispensable means to that end that you can't do without elections. Cuz without elections there's no way to, you know, reign in the, the only way you can rein into people who govern you is if you're allowed to kick them out. And if they go around saying, we're gonna overturn the results, we're gonna send a different slate of electors, which people actually tried to do, then they're saying, we're not gonna let your vote count. Speaker 2 00:30:59 People who lie about election results or whether there's fraud or not are not the people I'm defending. What I'm saying is to cite cases like that and conclude as you do that, therefore you should only vote for Democrats is exactly what you said. Anyone in your readings only vote for Democrats? That's what you said. Basically you are advocating one party rule at Speaker 1 00:31:23 The same. Well no, I answered this Richard, I answered this cause I said only vote for Democrats Speaker 2 00:31:29 Election. You're not letting me finish. You're not letting me finish. You said elections are for controlling those who govern us. No, it isn't. If you elect Biden, you have an uncontrollable fascist dictator telling you what to do. <laugh> what's that to do with controlling us? We need constitutional limits on what these people do. And just cuz you elect them doesn't mean anything. Let me remind people that after the Civil War, until World War I, women didn't even have the right to vote in America. And many others didn't have the right to vote. We had more liberties. We had no federal reserve, we had no income tax. We had the gold standard, we had free trade and only less than half the people could vote. Why? Cause elections really didn't matter. Why cuz we had our liberties. What we have today is unlimited democratic rule. And I most hold responsible Those who Democrats, the Democrats are on record for being universal suffrage, No limits, whatever, no election day, no limits on the Supreme Court pack, the Supreme Court, no electoral college and no filibuster. Speaker 2 00:32:39 They wanna remove every f-ing limit to majority rule. And that's why I'm, I'm so insensitive about this because if we care about individual rights and government protecting our rights, we cannot be touting unlimited democratic rule, let alone by the party which is most responsible for this. It is undeniable. The Democratic party with its long horrendous history of racism and slavery and Jim Crow and the kkk. Even to this day, they are the biggest advocates of the slave plantation called the welfare state. The idea that anyone would stand up and say vote only for them, especially after the last two years. Because I found some people in the Trump wing who don't, who think the election was stolen from him is beyond the pale. It is a ridiculous argument. Speaker 1 00:33:30 Well Richard, I I wanna say I I cuz I had to clear this up because I've said I've written all this stuff and so, you know, you're presenting my view. That's not an Speaker 2 00:33:37 Argument. So don't refer to things you've written. I've written about things too. Speaker 1 00:33:42 Talk about argument. It's a conversation. It has to go both ways. All right. So Speaker 2 00:33:47 It's not an argument that I've written stuff. It's Speaker 1 00:33:49 Not an argument. No, what I'm saying is it's an argument that I'm saying that I have actually articulated this so you're summarizing me incorrectly. So when I said vote for Democrats, I meant in this election, in an election they were projected to lose badly. And it was in order not to get unlimited mero by the Democratic party, it was to get exactly the result that we got. I wanted gridlock, no, I wanted side to have the powerful majority. Speaker 2 00:34:14 Sorry to say, but that's just insincere because you said also you expected a red wave cuz you wrote afterwards that you were surprised there was not a red wave, which means ahead of time you thought most people were gonna vote for Republicans. It was only after the fact that you went in and said, I'm glad they didn't. But, but they Speaker 1 00:34:34 American, this is why I refer to my writing. Cause I can point to what I wrote before the election or I, the Speaker 2 00:34:40 American, the American people cannot be corrupt two days before Speaker 1 00:34:43 You. Right. You're just making stuff up. Okay, so please don't make that about what I'm writing. Speaker 2 00:34:48 You're you're referring to what you wrote. I'm what you wrote. Speaker 1 00:34:52 Let Rob answer. No, Yeah, I'm setting what I wrote because I wanna show you that I actually did not say what you're impeding, but I don't think shouting back and forth. Can I try to move on people? Look at what I wrote. That's fine. Speaker 2 00:35:06 You said only vote for Democrats and you said you expected a red wave, which means beforehand you thought the American people would largely vote for Republicans after they didn't. You said that they were praiseworthy, which means you would've thought beforehand they were disgusting cuz they were about to vote for a bunch of Republicans. You changed your view and it's because you're biased. Speaker 1 00:35:28 Uh, I don't even know what point you're making there. Let look, uh, Scott, let's take control of this. Yeah. Let's go back to some semblance of an open discussion with the, with the audience here. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:35:37 Uh, we can um, I I wanna bring Roger in in just a moment. Um, Rob, I'm curious because one of the things you did say in your piece was that you were confident that now that these, um, people lost that uh, there was hope going forward. And you know, I I know, um, you, you know, you're skeptical of DeSantis. Uh, where do you, where do you see yourself like in 2024? You're just gonna base it on who the nominees are or, Speaker 1 00:36:09 Oh yeah, I'm gonna base it on who the nominees are. I am not wild about DeSantis. I think so Desant, what, what's part of what's going on here is that, you know, Richard mentioned the, the Tea Party. I was really involved in the Tea Party. It was a great moment, you know, in in, in, in politics cause it was this sort of grassroots rebellion in favor of a pro liberty agenda. But what happened is the Tea Party sort of carried us up to 2014. And then there was a change and there's a switch in the Republican agenda and there has been an attempt in the last, you know, basically starting 2015, 2016, using Trump as a vehicle. Although he's himself is not an ideological guy, there's been an attempt to advocate for this nationalist conservatism. And I think DeSantis is sort of in the same vein in that the, the premise of the nationalist conservatism is we should give up fighting against government power. Speaker 1 00:37:00 We should have said try to get government power so we can use it to, and the phrase they use is to reward our friends and punish our enemies. So there's this idea we should use it to promote, you know, our agenda and including a religious agenda. And I see DeSantis as sort of like the less, the less, um, erratic and more reasonable way of doing that. So I think a lot of Republicans are looking to him because he's the guy who, you know, threatens, threatens to take away Disney's, uh, uh, to, to to, to exert power of the over the Disney corporation using his the go the power of government over Disney Corporation cuz they advocated against a piece of was he wanted, uh, a piece of legislation he wanted. So that's the sort of thing that they see, oh, he's somebody who will use the power of government to, to promote our agenda, but he'll do it in a more reasonable and less inflammatory and less erratic way than Donald Trump. And so I, that's why I'm skeptical DeSantis, but I think that's one of the issues here is that I see the Republicans as having actually turned away from the traditional reaganite small government agenda to the extent they had one. It was always, you know, they always made a lot of promises and and rarely delivered very much on that. But they leave. Speaker 2 00:38:12 Can I say something please? Sure. There's no filibuster here. I know we wanna get rid of the filibuster. Yeah, I was a reaganite. The objectives were not Iron Rand and Peikoff criticized Reagan. They didn't want Reagan. So I'm on record of long been a reaganite and got shit from that from objectives for a long time. So I'm not saying I liked the Trump version of, uh, the Republican party when Trump was in the primaries in 2000 thousand 16. I wanted, uh, Cruz. And but you, you have described yourself as a never Trumper. Now if I get that right, that means regardless of who he goes up against, you would vote for the other person. That means you would endorse, I assume you did. I didn't read your stuff at the time. Him, uh, Hillary against him in 2016 and Biden against him in 2020. So we have Biden and it's already bad, but it Rob, if you had had your way, you would've had Hillary and Biden. Speaker 2 00:39:04 I mean I just don't understand this. I do see exactly what you see, that there is nationalism on the right and socialism on the left. And I have long argued that if we keep this up, we're gonna combine the two and get national socialism. That is exactly what we're moving toward. That's what Weimar Germany was. That's what Leonard so, uh, presently forecast in ominous parallels. So I know that Trump their protectionist, I was against their protectionism, but one of the things Trump did that was good was to not remain in these forever wars. And I know you don't like that. You want the Republican party to remain NeoCon. You want the Republican party to remain in wars all over the place. That to me, that that and the corporate tax cuts were the only good thing Trump did. But, but yes, I'm, I'm not endorsing nationalism, but to be a never Trumper is basically to endorse these democrats, these awful Democrats. I don't understand that Speaker 1 00:39:55 It, it was to say being an well for one thing I think, I think Donald Trump, uh, clearly committed two impeachable offenses for which he was impeach, never convicted. But I think he was absolutely guilty on both of those. And so that was why I was against him. Cause I anticipated he would do exactly those things. He would abuse the powers of the presidency. Speaker 2 00:40:15 Yeah, yeah. So you Speaker 1 00:40:16 Were you trying to Speaker 2 00:40:17 Get in, you're confirming that you recommended Hillary and Biden? Speaker 1 00:40:23 I, Cause you're, Oh God, I i recommending Hillary is sort of a, I recommended Biden as a weak alternative. No, but you, Cause I thought he would be a week leader, which is true. Speaker 2 00:40:32 Yeah. I've read your Speaker 1 00:40:33 Hillary, Hillary is a bitter pill to look at. And I think I I sat that one out. Speaker 2 00:40:39 Well, okay then you're not, I I can't understand what you're writing then. You wrote, I'm a never Trumper you said that that Speaker 1 00:40:45 Means Yeah, never Trumper means. Okay, so the context of never Trump and the Never Trump movement was this idea that there were people I Speaker 2 00:40:52 Trump I know it, Speaker 1 00:40:53 Hold on the context for it, the, the way the word came into existence is there were people in the, in the Republican party who opposed Trump during the primaries I did and then got the nomination. The expectation was, well you'll come around, you know, you'll have to, if it's her, if it's him or Hillary, you're gonna have to come around. I understand you'll eventually accept him. And it was a statement that never Trump was gonna statement. We won't accept him. But it's, Speaker 2 00:41:16 That's not the point, right? The point is, if you're never trumper you by default support Hillary and Biden. That's, that's undeniable. Ok, Sure. And that is just talk about, talk about an objectives perspective. You cannot have an objectives perspective that would, would promote Hillary and Biden. There is Richard, to be fair, the chairman of of the Orthodox group there is, I Speaker 1 00:41:41 Mean, I mean you just said letter Pecos not an objective Speaker 2 00:41:43 In, I mean the fact that your, I was think now, I mean Jo own Brook is in the same camp, loves what you're writing now because they're also against the Republican party. It is just maniacal in my view. But there is a principle called the perfect being the enemy of the good. That's what you're doing, Rob. When you find defects in the Republican party, I don't have a problem with that. But you have to compare them to the other party. You have to compare them to the other candidate. And on all scores, Hillary and Biden were disasters. And, and, and I just, the idea Speaker 1 00:42:17 Part of this is based on the idea that that, uh, presidents are not philosopher kings. They don't have the, the the, they don't have the power to impose their attire agenda. You look at what they can do as president and you know, I think it's unambiguous that as president using his presidential powers, uh, uh, Donald Trump, uh, abused those powers. He went beyond what his legitimate powers were. Yeah, I think he, he, he, he took the one pro liberty party and put it on an anti liberty direction. I think he was, it's disastrous. So that was why I opposed him cuz I thought, you know, in a way I opposed him even more so because he was a Republican and because he was destroying the, he was undermining the principles of the publican party and making them, making him anti liberty party. Speaker 2 00:43:03 This is what I mean about anti liberty goes a bit far. But men not sufficiently pro liberty is, well this is what I mean about the perfect being the enemy of the good. It's like saying the following, Trump is not Ra. Speaker 1 00:43:14 Donald Trump is not imperfect. He was bad. Speaker 2 00:43:16 Trump is not Reagan, therefore vote for Hillary. That is just ridiculous. Trump is not Reagan, which I agree with, therefore vote for Biden, uh, after two years of Biden wrecking the country and putting us on as he even put it, an Armageddon path to nuclear war. You're still saying vote for Democrats across the board. That's exactly what you wrote vote for only for Democrats. By the way, you have not answered my question yet. Your main thing is election denial. Why aren't you anti all the Democrats who are been denying elections since Gore? But you're saying vote for the Democrats. Speaker 1 00:43:55 Well, okay, there's a couple things. So there's two things there. So I'm against DC Abrams, okay? I'm against, cause she's a more, a recent example, I was voting against McCullough. I didn't like McCullough because in, in running in Virginia, because he was the guy who's been I Now, on the other hand, here's the thing though. When you talk about these judge up to 2000, one of the things that happened in 2000 is Al Gore, you know, winded about how, you know, winded about the election and fought it and refused to concede. But <laugh>, he actually then did concede and more than that he presided as vice president. He provided over the vote in the Senate. So, so that recognized the, let me finish that sentence please. He, he, he presided over the vote in the Senate that confirmed George w Bush's, uh, election victory, right? Yes. And as, as opposed to, as opposed to Donald Trump, who basically egged on a mob to disrupt that very same vote and tried to get vice, pre own vice president to, to throw out the election Speaker 2 00:44:56 Result. The same Donald Trump who was on the stage at the inaugural shaking hands with Biden. And, uh, just look it up people. Well, Speaker 1 00:45:04 Okay, wait, wait. I just mentioned relevant facts that you just throw out and ignore by saying something else. No, I'm, the relevant fact was he tried, he asked Mike to overturn the election result in Speaker 2 00:45:15 The Senate. The, the relevant facts is that the decades the Democrats have been denying election results, including, including Hillary and Biden, who both said who Speaker 1 00:45:25 Both. But that's, at this point, that's a two cool point argument. Okay? The two argument is, my guys said something bad, but look, the other guy did something bad Speaker 2 00:45:33 Interrupting. So you don't want, you don't want me to make your my point, Okay. Hillary and Biden, who you both supported have been denying election results to Bush and to other for decades. Now, it's not my main issue, it's your main issue. I'm, I'm not saying it because it's a main issue to me, it's a main issue to you. You're the one saying don't vote for Republicans cuz there's some people in the party who deny election results. That same principle applies to the Democrats. It makes no sense whatsoever as a distinguishing feature. The distinguishing feature is which party is violating our liberties more. The Democrats without question are doing that way more than the Republicans. So the idea of being biased toward the Democrats is inexplicable to me, frankly, for those who love Liberty. Speaker 1 00:46:19 You are, you are still mischaracterizing my position, which is it's not that, oh, there were a couple of guys in the Republican party who denied the election. It was that they were actually making specific plans and attempted, they attempted and then we're making specific plans for the future get into positions where they could overturn future election results and promising to do so. That is not a ridiculous thing I made up. It's at documented. And like I said, Speaker 0 00:46:46 I do wanna, uh, guys, I do wanna bring, uh, you know, the audience in Speaker 1 00:46:52 Good idea. Good idea. Speaker 0 00:46:53 Scott. Roger, thanks for joining us. Do you wanna get in on this? Speaker 3 00:46:58 Oh my God, I was having so much fun listening to this. Now all all I'm gonna do is slow the pace down. Um, here's what I'll say. Um, first of all, I, I think that you both would agree, and it sounds like you do in the idea that, um, that neither party is doing anything, uh, that would help advance liberty, uh, to, to a sufficient level that any of us on this stage and probably anybody in the audience listening would expect. And then, so then the argument is about, well what do you do about that? And I like, I I personally see it as that you don't have to back a party, uh, that is not doing, um, uh, you know, all the things that you would expect them to do. And, and the answer to that is not, it is not this obvious, well, I'll just go vote for the other party. Speaker 3 00:47:50 There is a third option of just staying out of it and, uh, and, and not voting is a vote. Um, and I would, I would give this example to to to illustrate it most, right? If you go back into the sixties, uh, when Malcolm X was speaking about how, you know, uh, you know, you can't trust, uh, you know, the white liberal and essentially telling people, not necessarily to abandon the Democratic party, but not to just gift them the vote. If they're not giving them something, uh, that, that they want, then you don't vote for them. And I would argue that if you are, if you are Republican leaning or if you are a staunched Republican, I would say that the most powerful thing that you could do is withhold your vote unless you're getting the, the small government, uh, you know, uh, lower taxation, uh, you know, protection of, of individual liberties that the Republican party once stood for and tell them, Hey, uh, I know that the other party's not going to give me these things either, but if, if I can't count on you to do it, then I'm going to rally the troops to just not vote for you. Speaker 3 00:48:57 And I, and the, and the outcome of that may may very well be that, that you get something worse. But you do need to somehow shock the system. And I think that if, if, if both parties had the, the, uh, desire to keep their own side of the fence accountable for what they say that they stand for, I think we'd be in a better position. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you're on the other side. It's that you're just trying to strategically wield thing back to a, you know, to a positive result. That's all I would Yeah, Speaker 2 00:49:27 Let just take, let me first take a shot at that quickly. I, I, Roger, I appreciate that. I think there's way too much emphasis spent on like, where should I allocate my vote and should I withhold my vote? Believe me, these political parties and these candidates are not, I mean, some of them seem like they care, They're not holding their breath for that kind of thing. The history has been in the, in the case of the US political parties, if we want to improve either one of them and you could pick either one and say, I'm gonna focus on them and try to improve them. The best way to do it is ideas. It, it's, it's the intellectuals, it's the think tanks and others that get behind these ideas. The, these candidates and, and the voters are like the last ones who are asked, Well what do you think, you know, vote for me or not? Speaker 2 00:50:11 And, and in that regard, the g o p itself was founded as the anti-slavery party. It was a one issue party. But, but that's an idea. Those, that was a powerful idea. And, and the Republican party and the Democrat Party over the history has gotten worse or ill regarding liberty. So the, so the best thing to do, and I would pick the Republican party as I've said, that they're the better party. We need to push them in a direction of more liberty. And the answer to that is not, uh, you know, punish them periodically cuz they're not perfect or they're not Reagan. I even the objectives didn't like Reagan as I said, and then say vote for Democrats. I would characterize the two parties as following the, the G O P is anti-socialist. Uh, Trump himself said, we will never become a socialist country. Okay? But he didn't say we're gonna become a capitalist country. We need a party as we're going to become capitalist and here's how to go there. Now the difference is the Democrats are pro socialist that has no small difference. In other words, the g neither of them are pro capitalists. But the difference is one of them is anti-socialist and the other one is pro socialist. So the idea of recommending the second one is not good for liberty. Speaker 1 00:51:20 So why, where I wanna agree with Roger is I think that people put on this, I think people put too much emphasis on elections. My interest in this election was specifically I did not want people in getting in positions of power where they could overturn election results, period. That was like the one issue of this election I cared deeply about. But, and that, cuz that had, that was an actual practical thing that they were going to be put in a position to do, right? So that was a practical thing that they could do. And this, this idea of punishing people and they'll get better, I don't think happens. But what I do wanna say is I think it is true elect people to put too much eggs in the basket of an election of how could you vote for this person? And I do agree the ideological battles are more important. Speaker 1 00:52:12 And so that's part of why for the context is for the, for this election though, is that part of my ideological battle. I've been fighting personally, you know, day in, day out for the last five, six years has been against the nationalist conservatives who I think are, I think they actually are socialists. They say they're against socialism. But actual premise, if you look at the deepest premise of socialism, is that society is more important than the individual meaning of socialism. And the nationalist conservatives are absolutely explicitly in favor of the idea the society is more important than the individual and the individual, right? The rights of the individual should be subordinated to the wider needs and desires of the society. And so that's I think, the big ideological battle I've been fighting because I do think that, you know, you had a, i I I agreed for many years that the Republican party was the better party, but it has been deeply infected, I think more deeply than most people want to admit with these idea. So if ideology is important, the ideology creeping into the Republican party has been extremely corrosive. Speaker 2 00:53:21 I mean, I would put it that the Democrats are no less nationalist than the Republicans. So there the parks on both their houses. The, if you look at it as a political spectrum thing, both parties in this century have moved to the left. And Rob, well, what I'm saying you're missing is the Democrats have moved twice as far to the left as the Republican. So the gap between them really matters. And what you tend to focus us on is where are the Republicans and how far have they come from Reagan? I agree with all that. I think it's terrible, but, but elections are about choices. Binary. It's very binary. That's how the US system is set up. We don't have a parliamentary system where seats are occupied by those who get, uh, you know, proportional voting and stuff like that. So the gap, what do they say in the subway? Mind? The gap. You're not minding the gap, you're ignorant of the gap or you're ignoring the gap, or you're not just that, you're saying pick the Democrats only that is exactly what you wrote. And you believe that if anyone in the Republican party questions the integrity of the elections and questions, whether there's that they don't want any future elections, not Speaker 1 00:54:32 Somebody Speaker 2 00:54:32 In the, even if some of them are in conspiracy theory, which I don't want, I want both parties to stand up and say there should be no election fraud. And, and I don't know, I don't have a problem with that. And it's not the same thing as saying this person doesn't want elections in the future, which is kind of what you've been writing, you've been writing that anyone who questions whether there's fraud in elections, don't want future elections, That's ridiculous. Speaker 1 00:54:56 I've summed up my position. I don't think it's by me restating again what I actually wrote, so, Speaker 2 00:55:02 Okay. Speaker 0 00:55:02 All right. That's fair. Uh, we're actually gonna go to Atlas Society founder David Kelly. Welcome. Do you have, uh, I don't know if you're able to unmute, um, if you had a question for Rob or Richard. Um, I guess, uh, you know, Rob, just to differentiate, uh, some of what, uh, Richard's saying, I just, I think there's some of what happens is like these press people will go and they'll, they'll kind of force you to say, Oh, I believe that there's no election fraud when for all we know, you know, it, it, it's not that, that we don't have evidence, per se of, of widespread election fraud, but some of it's just, uh, you know, a result of seeing, like the Democrats use the Justice Department to accuse Trump of being a Russian agent. And so there is a bit of skepticism. And so we just don't wanna be forced to say, Oh, you know, we're for a blank check to Ukraine, or, or, we're, we're never gonna question the election. It just, we just, you know, there's almost like the societal intimidation to say, You have to say that for us to not consider you friends. Well, Speaker 1 00:56:20 Actually, so I cover this, you know, this is my, this is is my job. I cover this. And so I read these things. The, the, the what, the reporter, it's not, it's not the sort of caricature, you're, you're propo, you're, you're putting out there that you actually, and they won't ask, right? They'll ask questions, Go ahead, 2020 election. Right? And they'll ask these questions, They won't say, Do you think there might have been election fraud? I mean, you know, cuz somebody could say, Yes, there was, there may have been election fraud, but, you know, it wasn't, it didn't rise to the level of changing the result. So they will ask specific questions intended to get this out. And the other thing is, in a lot of the cases I'm talking about, this is not a subtle thing, right? It's not, oh, a guy raised some questions in a lot of these cases I'm talking about is a guy came out with, you know, totally arbitrary conspiracy theories, which the minute you brought them in the court and you subjected them to the rules of evidence in a courtroom, they were thrown out because they were found to be, you know, utterly without basis. Speaker 1 00:57:25 So, and then people go on, continue spouting them, It's to continue saying the same things. There was a great interview done by, uh, Scott Kelly, I think at, at on 60 Minutes with Mark Fin, where he starts asking him specifics, You know, cause Mark fin made these broad statements about there's election fraud. Says, Well, okay, well specifically what happened? And fin had nothing. He basically just babbled, he, he had, he had no answer to the actual specifics of his claims. And that's the sort of thing I'm talking about where if you say there was fraud in the election and somebody says, Oh really? What happened? And you're like, Well, I kind of feel there was Right, You have not actually asked questions. You have not actually thought, You are not actually asking, uh, offering, uh, a thoughtful contribution on this. You're just throwing off what you feel off the top of your head. Speaker 1 00:58:09 And that's the sort of thing that I was advocating that I, I particularly advocate against, but I don't think I have to because those people mostly lost their elections. Now, one thing I do wanna throw in, we mentioned the earlier issue of abortion earlier, and I have not mentioned much about this cuz I didn't think it was gonna be a big issue. I I thought it was too far early in the year that it wouldn't have that much impact on this. And I, I've seen some evidence that I actually did. Uh, one of the pieces of evidence that I think is actually a great thing is, uh, abortion was actually on the state ballot in a number of different states. Uh, there was, I think Kentucky tried to put into its constitution and provision saying that there is no recognized right to abortion. And that was defeated. Speaker 1 00:58:50 Um, and uh, the other one was, there were a couple of cases where, you know, a couple of states that put a constitutional in the cons state constitution, a constitutional protection for abortion rights. And I also saw that was it, uh, somebody's breaking out the vote totals, uh, the vote, uh, differentials by like married men, unmarried men, married women and unmarried women. And by a huge margin, unmarried women went way far to the Democratic side. And I, I think that's pending investigation of the polls. I think that's at least a prima fi that's a signal, you know, unmarried women are the people who have the most direct interest in the abortion issue. Um, and I think that is in doubt to basically cast votes, especially on the state level to, to, uh, Speaker 2 00:59:45 Um, Speaker 1 00:59:46 Scott David there Speaker 2 00:59:47 At the end. Can I, are we done? Can I, Speaker 1 00:59:51 You wanna make a quick statement before we go to Speaker 2 00:59:53 David? Uh, just a quick question, a quick point about conspiracy theory. I mean, conspiracy theory seem to be ubiquitous. It's not one side or the other. The entire Russian hoax <laugh> that it got Trump elected went on for two or three years. And I believe the two, I know you, we differ on this, Rob, but I'm not, the two, uh, impeachment attempts were attempts to overturn the results of the election. So I know they heard, I know they happened after Trump was elected, but those were two and, and defeated, by the way. There was no evidence at all. He would've been impeached, uh, and, and convicted. There was no evidence, um, at all. And yet it hamstrung his presidency. So there are various ways to overturn the results of an election, but the fact that both parties, uh, have their conspiracy theorists, the fact that both parties, and I would say more so the Democrats reject election results by calling, calling them illegitimate president. Speaker 2 01:00:48 It is a, it is a pattern of the last 20 years. There's no doubt about it. There's definitely a pattern in the US and it's part of an eroding belief in constitutional limits. Frankly, I think that both parties do not trust the results of elections. Not just because they're sore losers, but because these elections are becoming looser. They are becoming less, there is like less regulated, like the border is less regulated. And, and I'm just saying here tonight, just wanna stress the solution to that is not to only vote for Democrats. I mean, that, that is just bad advice, really bad advice. Cuz they're the looser of the two parties on these issues, literally on election issues. They're very loose. Speaker 1 01:01:30 There, there is no evidence that elections have gotten less, uh, accurate or less fair, or that there's more fraud. I think way more fraud. No, there's way more fraud. I mean, in, in the, the Chicago machine in the, in the sixties way, way, way more frequently fraudulent in its election, uh, you know, vote early vote often was the old, uh, uh, mantra in Chicago, Dead people voting, they were way looser, way more flagrantly fixed elections back then. I, I think the idea that there's anything significant, uh, that it's a significant amount of fraud in today's elections or the things are too loose and unregulated, I don't think there's any basis in, in evidence for any Speaker 2 01:02:05 Of that. And I, and I'm not, Speaker 1 01:02:06 Not, and, and we know cause people went over the 2020 election with the fine tooth comb. They held audits looking for, you know, the evidence of this. They didn't find it. Speaker 2 01:02:16 And, and I, and I, and I'm not saying it's a huge problem, I'm just saying it is a problem. If one party is accused of that stance and all their victories are dismissed as illegitimate, that's a problem. Cause it's just, Speaker 1 01:02:30 But I, I didn't, I didn't make Republicans say these things. Okay? I didn't make that up. It just happened. Okay. I'm just pointing out that it, and, and I do think that the both sides thing, you know, uh, that, that the, Oh, well the other side does it too. But you know, when somebody's actually saying, I'm going to be in the position where I could try to overturn the election, and I'm promising to do that, you have to take them at their word and, and take that seriously and not just say, Oh, well, you know, Democrat said something in 2000. That's, that's not a counterbalance to Speaker 2 01:03:00 That. Let me, let me, let me quote Rob Jasinski, my recommendation is this vote for Democrats and only Democrats to ensure that you'll be able to vote again. That's unbelievable. Speaker 1 01:03:12 It's, Well, I'm gonna, I went on the, you know, appropriate, but that is exactly what I think is Speaker 2 01:03:18 True's. Yeah. It's basically the premise that if you vote Republican, you were voting for authoritarian end to elections. At one point you actually cited Chavez in Venezuela, equating Republicans with Chavez, who was a Democratic. Speaker 1 01:03:31 I don't, no, I didn't do that. I don't. Or if I did, it was a long time ago. Speaker 2 01:03:34 Wow. No, in the last three essays. No, Speaker 1 01:03:36 No. I didn't mention Chavez at all. Wow. Speaker 0 01:03:39 Well, let's, uh, let's move on from that and give, uh, David a chance to, uh, ask his question. Thank you for your patience. Speaker 5 01:03:48 Uh, thanks. Can you hear me now? I had to sign out and sign in to get, uh, Speaker 0 01:03:53 Yes, you Speaker 5 01:03:53 Sound good word. Can you hear me now? Okay, thank you. Uh, first of all, um, I don't follow elections in the detail that, uh, Richard and Rob do. So, um, I've been listening with great interest. On the other hand, as a philosopher, I, you know, it's, no, you know, I think the, the liberal philosophy properly understood and the founder's vision was liberty is the first value, democracy is the means to, to an end. So, but I, I take it that's a point of common agreement. So let me just go onto my questions. Um, and Rob, there are questions for you. They're not, I signed with Richard, but please don't take these as hostile questions. They're really coming outta curiosity. Question one. Um, in light of your, um, your zuki letter about both Democratic, would you have been, would you have been happier if the Democrats had kept the house, which seems unlikely they will as well as the Senate and we had, uh, another two years of unified government, unified democratic government? Speaker 5 01:05:10 That's question one. Question two is, uh, in the run up to the election, uh, President Biden was often saying that this issue is not just about policy questions or other issues, but it's about democracy itself. And some of your, um, the, the points you've made in that deeper democracy, uh, article of yours and which you defended in the Litera article after the election, um, sounded very similar. Do you have, so here's the question. Do you have, uh, substantial disagreements with Biden's case, Um, or, you know, and if so, how would you, um, what, what are your main differences? Speaker 1 01:05:53 Oh, right, okay. I I'm gonna, I'm gonna punt on the Biden thing cuz I haven't, his most recent speech I haven't even looked at. He did one in Philadelphia a while back, um, which was kind of generally I agreed with it. Um, he used a sort of a, the thing that he got, he did is he, he called it a sort of semi fascism, which I thought was such a, people use the sort of, Richard uses it, people use the term so loosely, you know, No, Joe Biden is not a fascist dictator and Trump is not a fascist. But, you know, if you say sort of semi fascism is, so, I I, I disagree with that as being sort of so wide and and loose as to be pretty meaningless. Um, now as to whether I would've been happier if Democrats had maintained a majority or gotten a bigger majority, no, I don't think I would be, I definitely, I, I'm, I don't think there's very few things I could be happier about in this election because precisely because it leaves no side with the ability to do anything big. Speaker 1 01:06:53 Um, and the one thing I'm, the only thing I'm dissatisfied about in this election is I think if the Democrats have lost it would've prompted it actually had a whole article on this drafted ready to go and had to throw it out. Um, if they had lost thought, there would be, I think it would've, it might've prompted a reckoning with the woke side. I, you know, cuz I had a whole article saying, you know, this is what you get for backing the woke, uh, uh, culture warriors and for backing your own extreme crazies. Uh, there's a crazy wing to the, to the left. This is what you get for not distancing yourself from your own crazies. We're not gonna have that reckoning on the, on the left this time. Speaker 5 01:07:30 Well, just to follow up, um, what would you expect if everyone had followed your advice? Not, it's not just the objective, it's not our, our small constituency, but <laugh>, many more people had voted a democratic and kept the Democrats in control of the house. Well, but ok, Speaker 1 01:07:51 I always have in mind that I, my, if I advise, advise people to do something, not, you know, the 20 million people, 30 million people are not gonna follow my advice. So that's part of the context for it. Okay. But, you know, I think if, uh, so the context for this was that, you know, I expected, and there was the expectation at the time that Republicans were gonna have a major victory. So I was saying we need to prevent that from happening. And that was the reason for the advice. Well, to me that was part of the context. I spelled it up. Speaker 5 01:08:20 Can I, So if I could just follow up on one, one last point. Um, you said you should vote for on the issue, uh, I think this was from your follow up article, uh, vote on the issue in, in play at the moment. And you said that was the democracy, but, um, you, you also made a good point, which I largely agree with that. Um, first of all, philosophy doesn't dictate a, a view about elections. There are too many factors. And I've, years ago I stopped listening to objectives about elections, um, Speaker 1 01:09:00 <laugh> Speaker 5 01:09:00 Because there was so much rational involved. But, um, uh, be that as it may, um, you were saying don't, don't try to manipulate or don't try to, uh, uh, election, just vote your conscience. And so, but yet, am I right that you were counting on your advice going to a small number of people who would not affect the outcome, in which case that's a strategic kind of analysis, not a substantive one. Speaker 1 01:09:35 Uh, no, I, I, okay, so that's, it's a really interesting subtle question you're asking there. So let me untangle that because I didn't even think that through. I think I did a little follow, I didn't think through that specific implication except in, so I did the day before the election, I did a little follow up, a little q and a in response to various objections. And the, what I said in there is, is if they, people were expecting a massive, uh, democratic wave, if they were expecting Democrats to win handily, I said, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Right? So part of the, what you do in, in recommending making election recommendation is you take, I think you have to take into account the question of, well, you know, put it this way, election denial would not be the issue of the election. Uh, or sorry, Republican election denial would not be the central issue of the election if Democrats were poised to win handling. Speaker 1 01:10:26 Right? So it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a real threat. It's only a threat in the context of these people could actually win their, um, you know, so for example, if McGovern, if, if an, if in 1972, uh, McGovern was like 30% in the polls and it was obvious that that Nixon was going to have a complete landslide, I don't would iron rent have felt the need to go out and tell people, vote for, vote for Nixon, Right? Would she have written anti nites for Nixon? Well, I don't think she would've, it wouldn't have been an issue. It wouldn't have been a question, right? So, um, we do take into account it's, I won't call it strategic voting, but I think we do the context of, you know, when you ask what's the issue of this election, part of that question is what is the likely outcome as things stand right now, Right? Speaker 1 01:11:16 So for example, if, uh, I, I think I've given enough examples that right, you know, if, if, if McGovern were clearly going to lose, there'd be no reason to recommend voting for Nixon. It's only in the context that it's a close election. It could go either way, that that becomes a relevant issue to talk about. And that was the context here. It's only in the context that it looks as if a bunch of republicans who, who, who want to, who, who, uh, you know, deny the 2020 election result and want to overturn future elections. A bunch of those people could get elected to positions of power. That was the context in which to make the recommendation. Speaker 2 01:11:48 They may, may, uh, may, may I just say that, well, we have to be, we have to be principled about our politics and, and in in the objective context, we have to be principled about saying the key thing is liberty and individual rights, not this unlimited, uh, voting power. And, and, and frankly, it sounds to me like a father who says something like, uh, Dear teenage son drive 80 miles an hour. Uh, but I don't worry about it because the cops will stop you. I mean, it's just, it's just not principles, right? Speaker 1 01:12:17 That's the argument I was arguing, Speaker 2 01:12:18 Let finish yeah. Recommending to do some reckless thing in my, in this context, voting for Democrats who are ruining the country. But I, but don't worry about it cuz you know, someone will stop it a lot. It's just not a principled way of talking about politics. It's no different than that father recommending reckless behavior, hoping somebody else will stop him. You're still responsible for advocating the reckless behavior. You're not bailed out, you're not bailed up by the fact that somebody else might restrain you later might restrain Biden later. Well, I certainly hope so. But the key is to get as many of those people out as possible not to hope that there'll be Yeah, Speaker 1 01:12:56 You can't make election recommendations while ignoring the whole context of what is the likely result of the election going to be? What is a live issue in the election versus what's a dead issue if there weren't a lot of Republicans advocating this one thing, and in the position potentially getting in the position to act on it, Right? And Speaker 2 01:13:13 Here, Speaker 1 01:13:13 Then it would not be a live issue. It would not be something to motivate your vote. I would've, I would've written it completely desirable. Speaker 2 01:13:19 And I, and I did notice that, I mean David asked this, but you did say you thought you Biden was right, This is after the election to say, as you did on the eve of the election, that Democra is on the ballot. That is exactly your view. Your view is, unless you throw the Republicans, unless you restrain the Republicans, we're gonna lose democracy. It's a Biden argument. It's a ridiculous argument. Democracy was not on the ballot, but, but it seems, Speaker 1 01:13:43 I have to say sometimes I have to suffer from the fact that Democrats, I agree with something a Democrat says sometimes have to suffer through the fact that you're on, Brooke agrees with what I said about the Speaker 1 01:13:55 What you're this place where I sum it up. I also add, you know, I add all the appropriate qualifications and say things like, okay, you know, we will not immediately lose the right to vote, but we're taking a step down the road towards further conflicts. And that's why you're, you're drive 80 miles an hour, but don't worry, the cops will stop you. That's precisely what I'm arguing against because that was the argument in favor of ignoring the, the election people on the right, the election deniers on the right is, Oh, don't worry. Yeah, they have these awful conspiracy theories, but they won't really be able to act on it. Well then, Speaker 2 01:14:28 If Speaker 1 01:14:28 That's, I want to stop them now rather than stopping waiting for it to get farther down the road. Speaker 2 01:14:32 If that's, that was my Speaker 1 01:14:33 Whole argument Speaker 2 01:14:34 Argument. If that's true, then you do think the, uh, Democrats are largely innocuous and I just don't see evidence of that. By the way, not to be on record misquoting Rob, but you did compare 'em to Chavez. So I found the quote, what here it is in the last week from what I read, three essays he wrote in the last week. And from one of 'em it says, what Trump intends is a purge of the military, a key stage in Chavez takeover in Venezuela. You specifically said Trump is a would be Chavez. Wow. Speaker 1 01:15:03 Well you okay, I forgot about that. Speaker 2 01:15:07 The fact that Donald Trump wants talking Donald Trump might wanna get rid of, of, of Millie. There were very bad generals at the Pentagon. Not all of them. Millie. Speaker 1 01:15:16 I wrote an article, the idea, I'm, I'm citing articles there of people talking about a a, a plan being flooded by people in Trump's circle to literally quote, fire all generals. Speaker 2 01:15:26 This is, but you said, but you just told me, I misquoted you by saying you compared it to Shov shove. Speaker 1 01:15:30 I you signed it was I compared that you forget Speaker 2 01:15:33 You writing. So your writings in the past week. It's the past Speaker 1 01:15:36 Week. Yeah. Ok. Well it's a fair comparison though on the facts of the idea of purging the mil Speaker 2 01:15:42 First, Speaker 1 01:15:43 First Republic thing. Can you deny that? Speaker 2 01:15:48 You start by saying, I miss, Speaker 1 01:15:50 Is it a good idea to purge all the generals from the military? Richard, Speaker 2 01:15:53 Now you're saying good quote, now you're Speaker 1 01:15:55 All the generals. Is that a good idea? Yes or no? Speaker 2 01:15:58 He didn't say fire all the generals. He said fire ones like Millie the Speaker 1 01:16:01 Ones, No, the quote I have read the piece, the quote is somebody who said literally it wasn't Trump himself, it was his advisor who said literally fire all the Speaker 2 01:16:10 Generals. I did read the piece, Rob, and you said Chavez, and when I told you that two minutes ago, you denied it. So don't tell me to read your pieces. I read them very closely. You don't read, I Speaker 1 01:16:19 Read the article I linked to where a guy and what a Trump's advisor says, Fire all the generals. And that's what I'm responding to. Is it fair to compare that to the actions of a banana republic? Yes or no? Speaker 2 01:16:30 And since Chavez is the postal, let me finish. Since Chavez is the poster boy of Obama and o AOC and the Democrats, they want democratic socialism. The Republicans don't. It is really rich. Speaker 1 01:16:44 There are Democrats other than the court, it Speaker 2 01:16:47 Really rich to compare a Republican to a would be Chavez. That and to be so pro democrat who ignore Speaker 1 01:16:55 Are there, haven't denied that. Speaker 2 01:16:56 Who the Democrat socialists are in this country who love Chavez and you compared Trump to Chavez. That's Speaker 1 01:17:02 Richard. Okay, Richard, if, if you're off of your, off of your soapbox there, the facts that I gave were, there's a plan to fire all the generals cuz they were considered insufficiently, politically loyal. That's false. That is a valid comparison. You haven't repeated at all. You haven't it all Speaker 2 01:17:17 Let's conspiracy that you just out that is co Speaker 1 01:17:21 Guy. That's not a conspiracy. Speaker 2 01:17:25 It's not Trump's view. And you know, it, Speaker 0 01:17:28 He's, he's, you know, it Speaker 1 01:17:29 Let's the comparison, it's one of his advisor just said it. That's what I said in the article. Call it all the facts there, and you can't refute them. Trump Speaker 2 01:17:38 Is Trump. Speaker 0 01:17:39 I would like to, uh, let John answer or ask his question. Thank you for your patience, John. Speaker 6 01:17:47 Thank you. Uh, um, number one, I'd say that you forget that Trump purged the military and this is a little bit of get back now just to change to a different subject or go back. That's not true. The other question is, um, that's Speaker 2 01:18:02 Just false. Speaker 6 01:18:03 No, I don't believe that's the case. We can talk about another day. You, we all heard about the Maricopa County vote suppression by way of 20% of the machines in the Republican precincts not working. Perhaps you saw Carrie Lake go into downtown Phoenix and find that all of the machines in those precincts were working. This is, uh, perhaps the greatest example of vote suppression in American history, <laugh>. And, uh, ironically it benefited the Democrats, of course, I say ironic because they constantly cite imaginary vote suppression without ever of, of peoples of color, of course without ever citing any actual examples. Um, it's, uh, and then we have, uh, Veterans Day tomorrow and, uh, we have the, uh, Registrar of voters in Maricopa County and the, the county supervisor telling us that, um, well the, the votes won't be done counting until next week. And there's a question whether they're gonna count tomorrow, Veterans Day. Do you suppose that all the volunteers that would normally wanna watch the vote counting, they're gonna go there instead of to their family parties for Veterans Day? So, uh, what's gonna happen at the Registrar of voters tomorrow? Will they be, will there be auditing? Speaker 0 01:19:41 Uh, I hope it's gonna go past this weekend. Speaker 6 01:19:43 Yeah, they said next week. Um, well, Speaker 1 01:19:47 Arizona clearly has a, Speaker 6 01:19:48 Oh, that videotape of, of the two Maricopa County election officials standing there. I mean, one guy has got a, a wrinkled suit, a wrinkled syrup, he needs a shave, and he hasn't combed his hair and he needs a haircut. And he's the head of Maricopa voted, you know, it, it is, uh, that's why it, he presents himself on the most important day of his life, You know, then, then we've got, um, Speaker 1 01:20:14 The schlubby suit is definitely, uh, uh, the smoking gun for election fraud. Speaker 6 01:20:18 Well, you know what? Go ahead and make fun of it, but it's, it's not beside the point. The guy is a schlub professionally too. This is the second election in a row. He did it. Now, today, the right wing pundits are missing the point. When they talk about the delay in the, in the counting, they don't realize that delay in counting is essential. If you want to cheat, you get, what you got is you got an insiders at the registrar of voters who are feeding information to one side while depriving the other side of it, and then the one side goes out and fabricates ballots to make up the difference, to offset it. Meanwhile, today, the right wing punts are nodding and saying, Well, this is to deprive Carrie Lake of her, the publicity of a winner. They're idiots. The public employees, the registrar of voters are, they're holding back on reporting the number of ballots and the candidates percentages, the count from the general public and from the Republicans. And, uh, you know, I'm repeating myself, but with the other hand, they're giving the information to the Democrat cheaters who are feverously fabricating fake ballots in the days between and after because they got inside information that the Republicans don't have and they got conveniently have federal holiday tomorrow. Or did John give informations give Speaker 0 01:21:40 Rob a chance to Speaker 6 01:21:41 Answer? Speaker 1 01:21:42 Well, I I have only one answer. Prove it. Where is your evidence? You made a whole bunch of claims there. Where is your evidence for those? There's speculation on your part. Speaker 6 01:21:50 Of course there is, but, um, there's never been any cheating before and there's never been any proof of cheating either, right? Don't be ridiculous, Rob. Speaker 0 01:22:00 All right? Give him, uh, you know, we're trying to be respectful here. Speaker 1 01:22:05 The Speaker 6 01:22:06 Best way to understand Speaker 1 01:22:06 You made a whole series of complaints. It's fabricating fake pallets well's, the evidence for it. Speaker 6 01:22:13 That's Speaker 1 01:22:13 Just speculation on your Speaker 6 01:22:14 Part. Suppose you're sitting in a, in a game of cards with a guy across and he's, you know, cards are coming out of his sleeve and he says, uh, hey, show me your cards. And you say, Wait, no, wait a minute. You show me your cards, you show me your cards first. So you sit there harumphing because the cheater has to see your cards first so it can slip some outta his sleeve, but you, the non cheaper, you know this and you refuse to show your cards. So what do you do in rural Arizona County registrars? They aren't stupid. They've started holding back their votes, so they're harumphing at each other. They know what's going on in Maricopa and they're refusing to release their ballots, Speaker 1 01:23:01 Right? So this is a great example. If I, Speaker 6 01:23:04 You go to go to court, Speaker 1 01:23:06 Judge, Speaker 6 01:23:07 Let him answer John. Okay? You go to court, you tell a judge to get an order to simultaneous release all the results Speaker 1 01:23:14 Right away. But here's what I'm talking about. I'm John, give Rob a chance. I'm just, Speaker 6 01:23:18 I'm done. I'm done. Speaker 1 01:23:19 This is the last thing on this issue that I was talk about, which is, this is an example of what I'm talking about is, is this sort of thing is absolutely endemic in the right of center media and in right of center politics right now, which is if you can simply come up with a va bunch of vague suppositions and say, therefore I know they're cheating and they're ceiling, then you can justify saying, Well, we're gonna cheat and seal when turn the results. And then you have a situation where there's no elections that will can actually function anymore. And that's the, now I don't think we're right on the cusp of it. I think we're actually now, but we're on the road going that. And you can hear when somebody comes on and says something goes, Yes, you, you have to think about what would that actually lead to if we took this stuff so seriously that we acted upon it and politics, it would mean we could never have an election again, because whatever the vote hap whatever happens in the vote, it will always be assuming to be some grand conspiracy and nobody will ever accept the results. Speaker 1 01:24:19 And what you have is chaos that you have, you know, the end of voting and, and Richard says voting secondary. But if you actually project, what would the end of voting mean? What would the end of votes that people, you know, accept votes where candidates, uh, are willing to concede and, and where people don't go out in the streets and, and, and riot over it. What would it actually mean to have the end of the vote? It would be a disaster for this vote. Speaker 2 01:24:42 I did not, Please do not do that. I did not say there should be an end to voting. I said it was not. Please, I said it was not the primary, right? The primary. What Speaker 1 01:24:56 About Speaker 2 01:24:56 Voting though to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The primary right is not to vote. The objective perspective on this is that the essence of good politics is good governance. And good governance is constitutionally limited republicanism in the, in the service of liberty and rights. It's not democracy. So Soros view voting, elections, candidates, platforms, representatives, these are, should be in my view. And the objective is here means to an end simply and the end, let me finish. And the end is liberty. And we are losing our liberty. And the reason we're losing our liberty is not just because as objectives point out, we have opposite philosophic roots. It's also because people are defying democracy. They're defying unlimited suffrage, they're defying unlimited majority rule, and they don't even care if the elections are fraudulent. They are such defiers of elections that we're losing our liberty. Speaker 1 01:25:56 I my elections are mean to the without them. You, you cannot preserve liberty without having election. Speaker 2 01:26:04 I didn't say without them. I didn't Speaker 1 01:26:06 Say. What I'm saying is, and then my saying, I actually view, Speaker 2 01:26:10 I didn't say no elections. I didn't say no voting. I said no unlimited majority rule, which is what Democrats and democracy theorists want, right? And you're enabling them. You're enabling them, you're encouraging them. Speaker 1 01:26:23 But at the same time, you have people with these conspiracy theories about elections. Speaker 2 01:26:27 Oh boy, come on. Every side. The third one, every side has Speaker 1 01:26:30 Third one. Speaker 2 01:26:31 Fine. The, Speaker 1 01:26:33 The problem I have with, okay, we have these debates with Richard, and it's philosophically we're on the same wavelengths, but the problem I have with these discussions is you'll say you're entitled. Everybody's entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. That's, that's cute. I find it, Richard, you have a lot of your own facts. Speaker 2 01:26:48 You cannot have unlimited majority rule, which is what the democratic thesis is. That's what it is. Speaker 1 01:26:54 We're not talking about unlimited majority rule. We're talking about the integrity of the vote and whether people overturn it based on speculation and their feelings about the election, rather them an actual Speaker 2 01:27:06 Proof of facts. You know, better than anyone, the current democratic party believes an unlimited majority rule. They are Rian, they are not lockian, they are Rian. You know that the Republicans, Speaker 1 01:27:17 That's, that's, that's not true university. Speaker 2 01:27:20 Wow. Speaker 1 01:27:21 Majority rule wing to it. There is a more old fashioned liberal wing. I know these people, I talk to these people. There's a more old fashioned liberal, liberal democratic wing that actually says, you know, for example, right now they're making a big deal about abortion. And the thing that a lot of them don't realize is this is the place where they see, yes, we have to have a limit moment rule, right? They're actually putting in their cons. State constitutions, we recognize this, right? And the, and the legislature can't violate this, right? So, you know, there is a liberal democratic tradition. Speaker 2 01:27:55 You Speaker 1 01:27:55 An old fashioned 20th century liberal tradition that's not totally, Speaker 2 01:27:59 You found one, you found one issue on their side, whether not for majority rule. That's, that's, uh, making the perfect the, uh, enemy of the good. Uh, yet again. Speaker 0 01:28:08 Well gentlemen, um, I, uh, this has been a very lively discussion. I appreciate it. I know it got heated at times, but, uh, you know, um, you both are good objective thinkers and even though you have different opinions, I think it's glad it's good, you know, we're able to air these out and, uh, it, it is an example of open objectiveness in action. I wanted to say, um, you know, the outlet society is, is trying to raise enough revenue to cover next year's expanded events to promote rand's ideas to young people creative ways. But it's gonna be a nail biter down to the final days of 2022. But, uh, for donations made this year, a a major donor agreed to match all brand new donors. Uh, you know, $5 contribution means $10 for our student initiatives. Um, all lap donors, if you haven't donated since 2019 or longer, then your gift will be fully matched again. You know, giving $5 means $10, uh, in terms of the power that it does. Um, all current donors, anything they gave over their 2021 giving will also be matched. So, uh, you know, as you evaluate, uh, the whole year end philanthropic, um, activities, I hope you'll take into account the full scope, uh, of our impact and decide to include the Atla society in year end of your giving plans. Uh, gentlemen, thank you both very much. Thanks Scott. Thanks Rob. Thanks Scott. Thanks Rob. Thanks everyone for coming. Thank you. Take care. Speaker 5 01:29:39 Thanks guys. Thank you Scott. And uh, great, great discussion.