Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, how's it going?
It's your pal, herbie.
It's another episode of aRadical Reset.
It's been a, here in Phoenix,anyway, a hot week and I am in a
cool room and let's have adiscussion this week.
I want to talk to you, or thisepisode.
I want to talk to you a littlebit about why capitalism, free
market capitalism, cannotcoexist long-term with altruism.
(00:24):
Well, that's an intellectualsubject for a podcast, isn't it?
You know, everyone else istalking about the Epstein files
and I'm talking about capitalismcoexisting with altruism.
Briefly, on the Epstein files,just while I'm on it, I have no
idea and I don't care.
You know, I am sure that thereare people being protected and I
(00:46):
am sure that there's all kindsof factors going in, and I'm
just as sure I don't care.
I know that there's a, you know, particularly among the younger
people in the MAGA group, afeeling that they're not being,
they're being a gas lit orwhatever the case might be, I
don't know, I don't know.
To me it looks like I mean froma distance, from a person that
barely cares.
It looks like a case of onemore case of the Trump
(01:08):
administration over-promisingand under-delivering, but, in
this particular example, beinghoisted on their own petard,
because when you do that, youset up a trail.
I don't know how people don'tlearn that If you make a promise
to somebody that you eitherhave no intention of keeping or
don't know that you can keep inthere and then find out that you
cannot keep it, the inevitableresult of that promise will be a
(01:31):
feeling of betrayal and on thepart of the person that you
promised, and they in the end,will deeply resent you for it,
and that's the kind of thingthat really lasts.
So my advice to the Trumpadministration is stop over
promising under promise,under-promise and over-deliver.
I don't know.
Well, trump is the diametricopposite of that, but somehow
(01:52):
the MAGA people don't seem tocare.
I'm not talking about Trumptoday.
I'm going to talk aboutcapitalism and altruism.
It is not incumbent upon you totake care of everybody else.
I don't know any other way tosay this.
Altruism is thought of as a goodthing, and I personally think
(02:13):
of it as an evil thing, becauseit's used by people to control
other people by pressing ontheir guilt and their altruism
buttons and then using thisleverage to force them to do
things that they otherwise wouldnot do, in the name of the
greater good, but in fact thatresults only in the control of
(02:33):
those advocating the altruism.
You know that was a reallycomplicated statement, but it's
really.
That was another complicatedway of saying that the road to
hell is paved with goodintentions.
The reason that that is an oldsaying is that when we start out
to do good, first of all it'sdoing good to others that
they're not asking for ispatronizing.
(02:56):
Let's start with why it's a badidea, why altruism is a bad
idea.
By singling out a group ofpeople that you have to quote,
unquote, help you're, you arestarting with the, with the
notion that they cannot helpthemselves, that for one reason
or another they cannot helpthemselves.
And you know you can disguiseit like saying well, these
(03:16):
people are the victims of racism.
But by saying that, you'resaying that somehow there's
something wrong with their race,that they cannot compete, that
there, that they cannot compete,that they're just unable to
keep up in a world that's hardand competitive and has knocks
and bruises.
And you cannot protect peoplefrom themselves, my friends.
And when you go to help a groupof people, I'll tell you a true
(03:39):
story when altruism really.
This is on a much more personallevel, but it definitely
relates to what I'm saying.
Years and years ago, I used tocoach little league baseball for
my youngest son, julian, andfrom the time he was playing
T-ball so I guess that was maybefive or six years old until he
graduated high school, I on andoff coached either his teams or
(04:02):
other teams as part of thelittle league organization.
Let's say I really loved it.
I loved coaching kids.
I really enjoyed it.
Anyway, where we lived inTucson was in an historic area
of older homes that had beenrestored and were large.
This was back in the day when Iwas on top of my game
(04:23):
financially.
We lived in a very large housein a very wealthy neighborhood.
We lived actually in a housethat was in the National
Historic Register and it wasvery beautiful and all that kind
of stuff.
But our neighborhood borderedon a much poorer neighborhood
Because it was an historic area.
Just to the south of us was arundown area, let's just call it
(04:44):
, and largely Latino, but notall.
Okay and anyway, long storyshort, most of the kids that
played on my team were poorchildren or children from poorer
families.
Now I share this with you justfor the context of the story.
Kids are kids.
You know they were allwonderful and I loved coaching
them, and I'm only sharing thecontext of the story because
(05:06):
it's important to understandwhat happened.
So anyway, I had this kid.
There are drafts in LittleLeague.
So you go out and the kids alldo tryouts and all the coaches
watch all the kids try out andthen there's a draft day.
This is at least how it workedin our Little League, where we
all got together and picked theplayers we want and there was
some trading and horse tradingand it was fun stuff putting
(05:28):
together our teams for the yearto be competitive.
And anyway, one of the kidsthat I selected for my kid was a
little boy named Kenny.
Kenny was not Latino, as youmay tell by the name, but anyway
Kenny was.
His last name was KennyTriplett.
I'm going to use this because Idoubt he's ever going to hear
(05:48):
this story from this podcast,wherever he is, and at this
point Kenny's in his 30s or 40sand he'll laugh.
And if you hear this story,kenny, you'll know it's true.
So anyway, his mother was notMrs Triplett, his mother.
After practice I used to drive alot of kids home.
You know that didn't have ridesor whatever it might be and
when I would drive Kenny home.
(06:09):
Kenny's family lived in atravel trailer, essentially an
old Airstream, and there were anumber of kids, I want to say
four or five kids.
They all had different lastnames.
There was no father present andthe mother, so this was not an
atypical.
You know, there's a reasonpeople are poor and it starts
with having a lot of kidswithout a partner, but anyway.
(06:29):
So but again, this wasn't about.
This is not about judgment.
This is just part of the story,so you understand it.
So I understood Kenny'scircumstances.
Long story short, when Kennytried out, he had glasses on,
but when we started going havingpractices, um, he did not have
glasses and I asked him wheredid his glasses go?
And he said that they hadbroken.
But his mother was getting anew pair and I said, okay, great
(06:51):
, and.
But kenny was a whole differentplayer without glasses because,
frankly, he couldn't see theball very well.
And guys, baseballs are hard.
They call it hard ball for areason and even a little league
pitcher throwing a baseball, ifit hits you in the side of the
head and you don't duck or moveor try to deflect it, it could
easily break your jaw reallyeasily.
(07:12):
You know you can really gethurt by getting hit by pitchers.
There are instances of peoplebeing killed being hit by
pitchers not in the littleleague as far as I know, but
still a lot of damage can bedone.
So I was very, very aware ofthis and I could tell that Kenny
wasn't seeing the ball, he justwasn't seeing it.
So I this went on for a periodof weeks and I would ask Mrs
Triplett, you know when is Kennygoing to get his glasses?
And she would always tell meand again, she wasn't Mrs
(07:34):
Triplett, I'm just using thatbecause I have no idea what her
last name was.
I just we were good so and shewould tell me they're coming.
You know, tomorrow, always.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,tomorrow.
Well, you know, it became clearthat they weren't coming
tomorrow, you know after, andthen games were starting and now
we're going to start playingagainst competitive teams and
(07:57):
balls are going to be comingmuch harder than the than I
would lob them in for battingpractice and so on and so forth.
You know when Kenny would bat,trying not to hurt him, and you
know he was going to get.
Being hit by pitches is part ofbaseball, but most of the time
you see it coming and you know,you turn away and you just take
a little bruise on your tush andthat's that.
But I was really worried.
Kenny was going to get hit soor really get hurt.
(08:17):
So I said to I decided that whatI would do is I would buy Kenny
glasses.
I was wealthy, I didn't make abig deal out of it, but I was
wealthy.
It meant nothing to me.
So I went to Mrs Triplett and Isaid to Mrs Triplett Mrs
Triplett, listen, if it's okaywith you, what I'd like to do is
, after practice today, I'd liketo take Kenny over to the mall
(08:41):
and I'd like to get him a pairof glasses.
Kenny over to the mall and I'dlike to get him a pair of
glasses.
And it was one of those examget your glasses at the same
time.
And I told her I'd like to buyhim two pairs of glasses.
I'll buy him an athletic pairthat won't break when he
practices and a regular pairthat he you know, whatever he
picks out that he can wear toschool.
It'll be my treat, be mypleasure.
I thought she was going to saythank you.
Okay, here's what reallyhappened.
(09:03):
She.
Well, every other word startedwith the letter F, let's just
say and who the F did I think Iwas, you rich effing bastard.
And who the F do you think youare making it out like I can't
afford glasses for my own effingkid?
It was really, and I'mdownplaying it a lot, and she
(09:24):
was screaming it at me at thetop of her lungs.
Needless to say, I never sawKenny again, sadly, and that was
the end of that.
To say I never saw Kenny again,sadly, and that was the end of
that.
However, it taught me animportant lesson, which is you
can't help people unless theywant to be helped.
And if you assume that theywant to be helped as often as
not, they'll take it as aninsult.
You know, like who are you, youpatronizing prick, and I can
(09:47):
kind of understand her point ofview.
At the time I didn't understandit because I didn't know that I
deserved, especially in frontof all those children, to have
all those F-bombs flying.
But in retrospect, and aftergoing to prison, frankly, and
being among those people, theyaren't really asking for our
help, they're just taking it.
You know, like any goodparasite, they'll be happy to
(10:08):
take it, but they don't want tohave to say thank you for it and
they sure as shit don't want toshow appreciation for it.
And they sure as shit don'twant to show appreciation for it
and they sure as shit resentpeople for helping them.
The reason poverty has beentransformed by all the programs
that we've done through altruismto help people.
Can you think of a single onethat actually works and all it
(10:28):
really does is take money out ofcirculation and more productive
places that could have gone togrow business and grow
employment and then so thesepeople can pull themselves out
of poverty?
Instead, this money getsredirected into these
patronizing programs that therecipients themselves resent and
hate.
You can see it on their facesthey don't say thank you when
(10:48):
they get their welfare checks.
They feel entitled to it, andif you ask them to say thank you
, they'll get in your face andscream everything at you,
whether it makes sense or not,because altruism does not
produce results.
Altruism is a wonderful concept,theoretically, I guess, and let
(11:08):
me be very clear about thisthere's a difference between
altruism and doing a nice thing.
Everybody likes to do nicethings for people they know,
their family, their friends,even strangers.
I know I'm not the least bitunusual that I have throughout
the years of my life, from timeto time when I've seen people,
for example, in grocery storelines they're a little short or
(11:30):
people that need help withwhatever it might be, not just
financial.
You know lifting boxes, gettingin and out of cars, older
people, you know, I helped theother day I helped the blind
lady find the correct door shewas looking for.
Anyway, long story short,people like I enjoy doing nice
things for people, large andsmall.
I'm sure you do too.
But when it becomes altruism, itbecomes enforced by the greater
(11:52):
public and then it becomes apower structure and then it
becomes patronizing and then itbecomes a trap.
Because all we've done, by allthe social safety net programs
we've put in place and all thewelfare programs we've put in
place and Social Security andall the rest, is we created an
enormous body of parasitictakers who have no appreciation
(12:18):
for those giving it to them inthe first place.
And no government program isrun well or efficiently.
There's not a single one, andmost of them don't work.
The most successful governmentprogram is Social Security, in a
sense in that when SocialSecurity was first invented, old
people were the poorest part ofsociety and now they're the
wealthiest, but now it's becomenothing but a gigantic transfer
(12:39):
of wealth from the young to theold when the old.
In other words, we're killingour future for our yesterday,
and I'm part of the yesterday.
I'm speaking against my owninterest, but that's what
enforced altruism does, and therecipients don't ever feel
thankful.
They feel entitled when it'saltruism and not an act of
kindness or charity.
(13:00):
And there's an enormousdifference.
A private act of charity is notaltruism.
It's a private act of charity.
It's you doing something thatmakes you feel good for your own
reasons and no one is tellingyou to do it.
And Americans are charitablepeople.
Where we got into theenforcement of altruism is when
(13:21):
we began to destroy everythingand in particular the nuclear
family, because all that socialwelfare has done and aid to
family with dependent childrenand the rest is destroy the
nuclear family, all in the nameof altruism family with
dependent children and the restis destroy the nuclear family,
all in the name of altruism andpoverty, instead of becoming
something that a family wouldfall into and then pull
themselves out of together.
You know the mom and the dadwould go to work.
(13:42):
Sometimes they'd take two jobs.
The kids would, you know, doside hustles and, you know,
deliver papers or whatever itmight be, to raise money for the
family.
It was all about pulling out ofpoverty and they would pull out
, and as a result of pulling outof poverty, a lot of important
lessons would be learned and soit wouldn't be a repeated
experience.
But that was all taken away byaltruism and state-enforced
(14:04):
altruism.
So now we feel that we haveprograms that people are
entitled to the word entitlementdefinitely denotes that and
they expect to get the money.
They have absolutely nogratitude for it in the first
place.
And since they expect to get itand have no gratitude for it,
they learn nothing.
And since they learn nothing,they become trapped endlessly.
(14:25):
And on top of all of that,because our programs are
designed to pay women who havechildren without husbands, it's
an enormous incentive to havemore children.
So the only healthy demographic, so to speak, in the sense that
there are plenty of youngpeople, are the worst part of
society.
They're breeding like bunnyrabbits.
Okay, that's the one part ofsociety, because they have no
responsibility for anything thatthey do.
(14:47):
Out of altruism, we have, as asociety, decided that these poor
people who weren't saying thatthey needed our help, we just
said we had to help them.
I'll give you another reallygood example, and let's talk
about a group that's perenniallyparaded before us, us being all
of us who work for a livingregardless of race, but that's
(15:07):
poor black people.
You know, poor black people arepoor because racism was the
line, except that between theend of the Second World War in
1960, black poverty at the endof the Second World War was
awful, it was 80%, but by 1960,it was 40%.
It had been cut by half duringJim Crow, during the worst parts
of racism.
(15:28):
Okay, then you know, we passedthe Civil Rights Act.
All we had to do was nothing.
Once racism became illegalacross the board and jim crow
was destroyed, black people hadalready demonstrated plenty of
resilience.
All we had to do and we as aculture, as a country, both
successful, white, black, asian,latino, all the successful
(15:49):
people to all the poor people,regardless of race if we would
have just gotten out of the wayand not tried to help them, poor
people regardless of race, ifwe would have just gotten out of
the way and not tried to helpthem, poor people won't stay
poor very long becauseconsequence is the real teacher
In life.
Think of everything that you'veever done in your life.
Think of everything in yourlife that has any value at all.
Think of all the lessons thatyou've learned, and I promise
(16:09):
you, when you really reflect onit, you will find out that you
learn nothing from yoursuccesses.
And everything in your lifeworth knowing you've learned
from your failures.
And by trying to protect peoplefrom their own bad decisions
and failures, we've created apermanent seething underclass of
resentment, from which all ofthis nonsense and tribalism and
(16:31):
racial profiling that, inreverse, that is destroying our
culture all of it is bubbling upfrom the seething underclass
that we constantly continue tosupport.
You know, and anything that yousubsidize, we're essentially
subsidizing poverty.
And when you subsidizesomething, all you're going to
(16:52):
do is get more of it.
Okay, that's just like a law ofgravity Anything you subsidize,
you get more of, good or bad.
We must stop subsidizingpoverty Now.
As a libertarian and as ananti-political libertarian, my
attitude is very, very simpleLeave it to the states.
There should be no federalwelfare programs whatsoever,
(17:15):
none at all.
Okay, I'll speak to SocialSecurity in just a minute, but
there should be no socialwelfare programs at all.
Look, if a state wants toexperiment with social
engineering and they think theycan come up with a better idea.
Look, I'm not speaking.
I'm not saying it's impossibleto design a social welfare
program that might actually dosomebody some good.
(17:36):
I'm saying it doesn't work atthe federal level.
And a one-size-fits-all,particularly in a country of 340
or 50 million people, dependingon how you count them, and not
to mention the ones that are nothere legally.
Let's not even go down thatroad today, my friends, but in a
country this size, aone-size-fits-all and as diverse
culturally as we are, it justdoesn't work.
(17:58):
You know, the reason that youcan set up a fairly decent
welfare state in Denmark isbecause Denmark has 5 million
people and they're all Danes,you know.
And the reason they're havingbig problems today is they let
in some people that weren'tDanes, and the minute they let
in the people that weren't Danes, they had problems.
And the same thing with theSwedes and the Dutch and the
rest.
You can have working socialsafety programs within racially
(18:18):
homogeneous populations becauseeverybody basically thinks the
same way.
So you can set up rules andregulations designed to fit the
culture, the people that you'regoverning.
But when you do it for acountry like ours, where you
have every flavor of personknown to mankind you try to
impose.
(18:39):
In an anti-political world andin a libertarian world we would
simply devolve all of this tothe states Of some states like,
for example, wyoming that Ithink has less than a million
people.
I might be wrong about that,wyoming, but I think you're the
least populous state and I thinkthere's something like 900,000
people in Wyoming.
I could be wrong, but if I'mwrong it won't be by much.
Anyway, I know I'm right thatthey're the least populous state
(18:59):
state.
They may decide not to have asocial welfare program at all
because they don't really haveany poverty.
So the people of Wyoming get tobe spared those taxes and the
state of Wyoming doesn't have tomess with it.
I'm pretending I live inWyoming.
Maybe Wyoming will want to doone, but if they do one, they'll
do one for the very small,restrictive group of poor people
that live in Wyoming.
(19:19):
Okay, but California's programis not going to look like
Wyoming's.
You know what I'm saying whenyou have a huge populous state
and then you have a small.
Now I personally don't thinkCalifornia, because of its
diversity, can design a programthat'll work, but maybe it can't
.
It's going to be a lot more.
The thing of it is that when astate or a local government
tries to do social engineering,even if it screws it up, it's
(19:42):
not as bad as it is at thefederal level, because they
don't have a printing press.
That's what gets us intotrouble.
At the federal level, we canjust print up the money we need,
no matter how stupid we are andno matter how long.
Again, I challenge you nogovernment social program works,
not one.
You can't name one, not one.
Yet we have them all and we'veincreased their funding and
(20:03):
we've spent trillions andtrillions and trillions and
trillions and trillions andtrillions of dollars on programs
that don't work.
And we continue to do so as ifthey're somehow going to make
sense, as if this insanity makessense, when we would all be
better off if we drop thealtruism.
We stop trying to mix altruismwith a free market.
Let the free market do what itwill on a national level,
(20:25):
unhindered by governmentinterference, as much as humanly
possible, with some smallexceptions.
And then, if the states want toexperiment, let them experiment
, because then let's say thatI'm wrong and that someone can
come up with a social safetyprogram that's better.
Okay, I have no pride ofauthorship on a statement.
That's great.
(20:45):
Then the other states can copyit.
So what we'll basically have is50 laboratories all trying
different things at differenttimes and places with different
populations, and, who knows,they might come up with
something that's really great,god knows.
And people would support thatvoluntarily.
Okay, no one would have to becoerced if we knew that the
money we were spending was beingspent well.
(21:07):
But none of us think thegovernment spends our money well
.
And it's so funny to me as alibertarian, how people think
voting for a libertarian is awasted vote when they keep
voting for the same two partiesthat have done nothing but fail.
And I assure you that all ofthese Trumpian programs are
going to fail the same way.
Okay, the tariffs, that all ofthese Trumpian programs are
going to fail the same way.
Okay, the tariffs are going tobe a disaster when it's all said
and done.
I'm sorry but it's true.
Okay, we're not going to roundup 20 million people.
(21:29):
Trump is a chronicover-promiser.
Not going to happen.
Okay, we're going to have tohave an intelligent, grown-up
discussion about immigration atsome point.
You know we're not going tobully things in the way we want
them to be by sheer will.
Okay, a lot of the things he'sdoing are very, very good, and
I've said so on past podcasts.
But, guys, we have to stopblindly.
(21:49):
First of all, good and evil.
Throw that concept out, alongwith altruism, and look at
things as they are and thinkcritically.
Think, my friends, it's notillegal yet.
And that's going to be my lastthought for today.
Listen, it's not illegal yet,and that's going to be my last
thought for today, listen.
Thank you so much for listeningto me as I rant on.
Have a beautiful weekend, enjoyyourself, enjoy this gorgeous.
Well, wherever you are, I hopethe weather is gorgeous.
(22:12):
I'm talking about Phoenix,gorgeous.
Our temperature has droppedfrom 116 to 104.
It's like it's a cold snap.
We're having a great day, youknow.
So, wherever you live, I justhope you're having a great time
with your family.
God bless you, god bless yourfamily and God bless America.
Oh, and don't forget I forgotto do the big deal.
Don't forget to go to Amazon,pick up a copy of A Radical
(22:33):
Reset on Kindle, paperback orhardcover.
Read the Manifesto ofAntipolitism.
Learn what it's all about.
You will be, I think, impressed, regardless of whether you are
or you aren't.
Thank you for joining me today,as I said, and please share
this with friends, and all that,and yada, yada, yada.
You know the rest and, onceagain, god bless you.
No-transcript.
Hey everybody, how's it going?
It's your pal, herbie.
It's another episode of aRadical Reset.
It's been a, here in Phoenix,anyway, a hot week and I am in a
cool room and let's have adiscussion this week.
I want to talk to you, or thisepisode.
I want to talk to you a littlebit about why capitalism, free
market capitalism, cannotcoexist long-term with altruism.
(00:24):
Well, that's an intellectualsubject for a podcast, isn't it?
You know, everyone else istalking about the Epstein files
and I'm talking about capitalismcoexisting with altruism.
Briefly, on the Epstein files,just while I'm on it, I have no
idea and I don't care.
You know, I am sure that thereare people being protected and I
(00:46):
am sure that there's all kindsof factors going in, and I'm
just as sure I don't care.
I know that there's a, you know, particularly among the younger
people in the MAGA group, afeeling that they're not being,
they're being a gas lit orwhatever the case might be, I
don't know, I don't know.
To me it looks like I mean froma distance, from a person that
barely cares.
It looks like a case of onemore case of the Trump
(01:08):
administration over-promisingand under-delivering, but, in
this particular example, beinghoisted on their own petard,
because when you do that, youset up a trail.
I don't know how people don'tlearn that If you make a promise
to somebody that you eitherhave no intention of keeping or
don't know that you can keep inthere and then find out that you
cannot keep it, the inevitableresult of that promise will be a
(01:31):
feeling of betrayal and on thepart of the person that you
promised, and they in the end,will deeply resent you for it,
and that's the kind of thingthat really lasts.
So my advice to the Trumpadministration is stop over
promising under promise,under-promise and over-deliver.
I don't know.
Well, trump is the diametricopposite of that, but somehow
(01:52):
the MAGA people don't seem tocare.
I'm not talking about Trumptoday.
I'm going to talk aboutcapitalism and altruism.
It is not incumbent upon you totake care of everybody else.
I don't know any other way tosay this.
Altruism is thought of as a goodthing, and I personally think
(02:13):
of it as an evil thing, becauseit's used by people to control
other people by pressing ontheir guilt and their altruism
buttons and then using thisleverage to force them to do
things that they otherwise wouldnot do, in the name of the
greater good, but in fact thatresults only in the control of
(02:33):
those advocating the altruism.
You know that was a reallycomplicated statement, but it's
really.
That was another complicatedway of saying that the road to
hell is paved with goodintentions.
The reason that that is an oldsaying is that when we start out
to do good, first of all it'sdoing good to others that
they're not asking for ispatronizing.
(02:56):
Let's start with why it's a badidea, why altruism is a bad
idea.
By singling out a group ofpeople that you have to quote,
unquote, help you're, you arestarting with the, with the
notion that they cannot helpthemselves, that for one reason
or another they cannot helpthemselves.
And you know you can disguiseit like saying well, these
(03:16):
people are the victims of racism.
But by saying that, you'resaying that somehow there's
something wrong with their race,that they cannot compete, that
there, that they cannot compete,that they're just unable to
keep up in a world that's hardand competitive and has knocks
and bruises.
And you cannot protect peoplefrom themselves, my friends.
And when you go to help a groupof people, I'll tell you a true
(03:39):
story when altruism really.
This is on a much more personallevel, but it definitely
relates to what I'm saying.
Years and years ago, I used tocoach little league baseball for
my youngest son, julian, andfrom the time he was playing
T-ball so I guess that was maybefive or six years old until he
graduated high school, I on andoff coached either his teams or
(04:02):
other teams as part of thelittle league organization.
Let's say I really loved it.
I loved coaching kids.
I really enjoyed it.
Anyway, where we lived inTucson was in an historic area
of older homes that had beenrestored and were large.
This was back in the day when Iwas on top of my game
(04:23):
financially.
We lived in a very large housein a very wealthy neighborhood.
We lived actually in a housethat was in the National
Historic Register and it wasvery beautiful and all that kind
of stuff.
But our neighborhood borderedon a much poorer neighborhood
Because it was an historic area.
Just to the south of us was arundown area, let's just call it
(04:44):
, and largely Latino, but notall.
Okay and anyway, long storyshort, most of the kids that
played on my team were poorchildren or children from poorer
families.
Now I share this with you justfor the context of the story.
Kids are kids.
You know they were allwonderful and I loved coaching
them, and I'm only sharing thecontext of the story because
(05:06):
it's important to understandwhat happened.
So anyway, I had this kid.
There are drafts in LittleLeague.
So you go out and the kids alldo tryouts and all the coaches
watch all the kids try out andthen there's a draft day.
This is at least how it workedin our Little League, where we
all got together and picked theplayers we want and there was
some trading and horse tradingand it was fun stuff putting
(05:28):
together our teams for the yearto be competitive.
And anyway, one of the kidsthat I selected for my kid was a
little boy named Kenny.
Kenny was not Latino, as youmay tell by the name, but anyway
Kenny was.
His last name was KennyTriplett.
I'm going to use this because Idoubt he's ever going to hear
(05:48):
this story from this podcast,wherever he is, and at this
point Kenny's in his 30s or 40sand he'll laugh.
And if you hear this story,kenny, you'll know it's true.
So anyway, his mother was notMrs Triplett, his mother.
After practice I used to drive alot of kids home.
You know that didn't have ridesor whatever it might be and
when I would drive Kenny home.
(06:09):
Kenny's family lived in atravel trailer, essentially an
old Airstream, and there were anumber of kids, I want to say
four or five kids.
They all had different lastnames.
There was no father present andthe mother, so this was not an
atypical.
You know, there's a reasonpeople are poor and it starts
with having a lot of kidswithout a partner, but anyway.
(06:29):
So but again, this wasn't about.
This is not about judgment.
This is just part of the story,so you understand it.
So I understood Kenny'scircumstances.
Long story short, when Kennytried out, he had glasses on,
but when we started going havingpractices, um, he did not have
glasses and I asked him wheredid his glasses go?
And he said that they hadbroken.
But his mother was getting anew pair and I said, okay, great
(06:51):
, and.
But kenny was a whole differentplayer without glasses because,
frankly, he couldn't see theball very well.
And guys, baseballs are hard.
They call it hard ball for areason and even a little league
pitcher throwing a baseball, ifit hits you in the side of the
head and you don't duck or moveor try to deflect it, it could
easily break your jaw reallyeasily.
(07:12):
You know you can really gethurt by getting hit by pitchers.
There are instances of peoplebeing killed being hit by
pitchers not in the littleleague as far as I know, but
still a lot of damage can bedone.
So I was very, very aware ofthis and I could tell that Kenny
wasn't seeing the ball, he justwasn't seeing it.
So I this went on for a periodof weeks and I would ask Mrs
Triplett, you know when is Kennygoing to get his glasses?
And she would always tell meand again, she wasn't Mrs
(07:34):
Triplett, I'm just using thatbecause I have no idea what her
last name was.
I just we were good so and shewould tell me they're coming.
You know, tomorrow, always.
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,tomorrow.
Well, you know, it became clearthat they weren't coming
tomorrow, you know after, andthen games were starting and now
we're going to start playingagainst competitive teams and
(07:57):
balls are going to be comingmuch harder than the than I
would lob them in for battingpractice and so on and so forth.
You know when Kenny would bat,trying not to hurt him, and you
know he was going to get.
Being hit by pitches is part ofbaseball, but most of the time
you see it coming and you know,you turn away and you just take
a little bruise on your tush andthat's that.
But I was really worried.
Kenny was going to get hit soor really get hurt.
(08:17):
So I said to I decided that whatI would do is I would buy Kenny
glasses.
I was wealthy, I didn't make abig deal out of it, but I was
wealthy.
It meant nothing to me.
So I went to Mrs Triplett and Isaid to Mrs Triplett Mrs
Triplett, listen, if it's okaywith you, what I'd like to do is
, after practice today, I'd liketo take Kenny over to the mall
(08:41):
and I'd like to get him a pairof glasses.
Kenny over to the mall and I'dlike to get him a pair of
glasses.
And it was one of those examget your glasses at the same
time.
And I told her I'd like to buyhim two pairs of glasses.
I'll buy him an athletic pairthat won't break when he
practices and a regular pairthat he you know, whatever he
picks out that he can wear toschool.
It'll be my treat, be mypleasure.
I thought she was going to saythank you.
Okay, here's what reallyhappened.
(09:03):
She.
Well, every other word startedwith the letter F, let's just
say and who the F did I think Iwas, you rich effing bastard.
And who the F do you think youare making it out like I can't
afford glasses for my own effingkid?
It was really, and I'mdownplaying it a lot, and she
(09:24):
was screaming it at me at thetop of her lungs.
Needless to say, I never sawKenny again, sadly, and that was
the end of that.
To say I never saw Kenny again,sadly, and that was the end of
that.
However, it taught me animportant lesson, which is you
can't help people unless theywant to be helped.
And if you assume that theywant to be helped as often as
not, they'll take it as aninsult.
You know, like who are you, youpatronizing prick, and I can
(09:47):
kind of understand her point ofview.
At the time I didn't understandit because I didn't know that I
deserved, especially in frontof all those children, to have
all those F-bombs flying.
But in retrospect, and aftergoing to prison, frankly, and
being among those people, theyaren't really asking for our
help, they're just taking it.
You know, like any goodparasite, they'll be happy to
(10:08):
take it, but they don't want tohave to say thank you for it and
they sure as shit don't want toshow appreciation for it.
And they sure as shit don'twant to show appreciation for it
and they sure as shit resentpeople for helping them.
The reason poverty has beentransformed by all the programs
that we've done through altruismto help people.
Can you think of a single onethat actually works and all it
(10:28):
really does is take money out ofcirculation and more productive
places that could have gone togrow business and grow
employment and then so thesepeople can pull themselves out
of poverty?
Instead, this money getsredirected into these
patronizing programs that therecipients themselves resent and
hate.
You can see it on their facesthey don't say thank you when
(10:48):
they get their welfare checks.
They feel entitled to it, andif you ask them to say thank you
, they'll get in your face andscream everything at you,
whether it makes sense or not,because altruism does not
produce results.
Altruism is a wonderful concept,theoretically, I guess, and let
(11:08):
me be very clear about thisthere's a difference between
altruism and doing a nice thing.
Everybody likes to do nicethings for people they know,
their family, their friends,even strangers.
I know I'm not the least bitunusual that I have throughout
the years of my life, from timeto time when I've seen people,
for example, in grocery storelines they're a little short or
(11:30):
people that need help withwhatever it might be, not just
financial.
You know lifting boxes, gettingin and out of cars, older
people, you know, I helped theother day I helped the blind
lady find the correct door shewas looking for.
Anyway, long story short,people like I enjoy doing nice
things for people, large andsmall.
I'm sure you do too.
But when it becomes altruism, itbecomes enforced by the greater
(11:52):
public and then it becomes apower structure and then it
becomes patronizing and then itbecomes a trap.
Because all we've done, by allthe social safety net programs
we've put in place and all thewelfare programs we've put in
place and Social Security andall the rest, is we created an
enormous body of parasitictakers who have no appreciation
(12:18):
for those giving it to them inthe first place.
And no government program isrun well or efficiently.
There's not a single one, andmost of them don't work.
The most successful governmentprogram is Social Security, in a
sense in that when SocialSecurity was first invented, old
people were the poorest part ofsociety and now they're the
wealthiest, but now it's becomenothing but a gigantic transfer
(12:39):
of wealth from the young to theold when the old.
In other words, we're killingour future for our yesterday,
and I'm part of the yesterday.
I'm speaking against my owninterest, but that's what
enforced altruism does, and therecipients don't ever feel
thankful.
They feel entitled when it'saltruism and not an act of
kindness or charity.
(13:00):
And there's an enormousdifference.
A private act of charity is notaltruism.
It's a private act of charity.
It's you doing something thatmakes you feel good for your own
reasons and no one is tellingyou to do it.
And Americans are charitablepeople.
Where we got into theenforcement of altruism is when
(13:21):
we began to destroy everythingand in particular the nuclear
family, because all that socialwelfare has done and aid to
family with dependent childrenand the rest is destroy the
nuclear family, all in the nameof altruism family with
dependent children and the restis destroy the nuclear family,
all in the name of altruism andpoverty, instead of becoming
something that a family wouldfall into and then pull
themselves out of together.
You know the mom and the dadwould go to work.
(13:42):
Sometimes they'd take two jobs.
The kids would, you know, doside hustles and, you know,
deliver papers or whatever itmight be, to raise money for the
family.
It was all about pulling out ofpoverty and they would pull out
, and as a result of pulling outof poverty, a lot of important
lessons would be learned and soit wouldn't be a repeated
experience.
But that was all taken away byaltruism and state-enforced
(14:04):
altruism.
So now we feel that we haveprograms that people are
entitled to the word entitlementdefinitely denotes that and
they expect to get the money.
They have absolutely nogratitude for it in the first
place.
And since they expect to get itand have no gratitude for it,
they learn nothing.
And since they learn nothing,they become trapped endlessly.
(14:25):
And on top of all of that,because our programs are
designed to pay women who havechildren without husbands, it's
an enormous incentive to havemore children.
So the only healthy demographic, so to speak, in the sense that
there are plenty of youngpeople, are the worst part of
society.
They're breeding like bunnyrabbits.
Okay, that's the one part ofsociety, because they have no
responsibility for anything thatthey do.
(14:47):
Out of altruism, we have, as asociety, decided that these poor
people who weren't saying thatthey needed our help, we just
said we had to help them.
I'll give you another reallygood example, and let's talk
about a group that's perenniallyparaded before us, us being all
of us who work for a livingregardless of race, but that's
(15:07):
poor black people.
You know, poor black people arepoor because racism was the
line, except that between theend of the Second World War in
1960, black poverty at the endof the Second World War was
awful, it was 80%, but by 1960,it was 40%.
It had been cut by half duringJim Crow, during the worst parts
of racism.
(15:28):
Okay, then you know, we passedthe Civil Rights Act.
All we had to do was nothing.
Once racism became illegalacross the board and jim crow
was destroyed, black people hadalready demonstrated plenty of
resilience.
All we had to do and we as aculture, as a country, both
successful, white, black, asian,latino, all the successful
(15:49):
people to all the poor people,regardless of race if we would
have just gotten out of the wayand not tried to help them, poor
people regardless of race, ifwe would have just gotten out of
the way and not tried to helpthem, poor people won't stay
poor very long becauseconsequence is the real teacher
In life.
Think of everything that you'veever done in your life.
Think of everything in yourlife that has any value at all.
Think of all the lessons thatyou've learned, and I promise
(16:09):
you, when you really reflect onit, you will find out that you
learn nothing from yoursuccesses.
And everything in your lifeworth knowing you've learned
from your failures.
And by trying to protect peoplefrom their own bad decisions
and failures, we've created apermanent seething underclass of
resentment, from which all ofthis nonsense and tribalism and
(16:31):
racial profiling that, inreverse, that is destroying our
culture all of it is bubbling upfrom the seething underclass
that we constantly continue tosupport.
You know, and anything that yousubsidize, we're essentially
subsidizing poverty.
And when you subsidizesomething, all you're going to
(16:52):
do is get more of it.
Okay, that's just like a law ofgravity Anything you subsidize,
you get more of, good or bad.
We must stop subsidizingpoverty Now.
As a libertarian and as ananti-political libertarian, my
attitude is very, very simpleLeave it to the states.
There should be no federalwelfare programs whatsoever,
(17:15):
none at all.
Okay, I'll speak to SocialSecurity in just a minute, but
there should be no socialwelfare programs at all.
Look, if a state wants toexperiment with social
engineering and they think theycan come up with a better idea.
Look, I'm not speaking.
I'm not saying it's impossibleto design a social welfare
program that might actually dosomebody some good.
(17:36):
I'm saying it doesn't work atthe federal level.
And a one-size-fits-all,particularly in a country of 340
or 50 million people, dependingon how you count them, and not
to mention the ones that are nothere legally.
Let's not even go down thatroad today, my friends, but in a
country this size, aone-size-fits-all and as diverse
culturally as we are, it justdoesn't work.
(17:58):
You know, the reason that youcan set up a fairly decent
welfare state in Denmark isbecause Denmark has 5 million
people and they're all Danes,you know.
And the reason they're havingbig problems today is they let
in some people that weren'tDanes, and the minute they let
in the people that weren't Danes, they had problems.
And the same thing with theSwedes and the Dutch and the
rest.
You can have working socialsafety programs within racially
(18:18):
homogeneous populations becauseeverybody basically thinks the
same way.
So you can set up rules andregulations designed to fit the
culture, the people that you'regoverning.
But when you do it for acountry like ours, where you
have every flavor of personknown to mankind you try to
impose.
(18:39):
In an anti-political world andin a libertarian world we would
simply devolve all of this tothe states Of some states like,
for example, wyoming that Ithink has less than a million
people.
I might be wrong about that,wyoming, but I think you're the
least populous state and I thinkthere's something like 900,000
people in Wyoming.
I could be wrong, but if I'mwrong it won't be by much.
Anyway, I know I'm right thatthey're the least populous state
(18:59):
state.
They may decide not to have asocial welfare program at all
because they don't really haveany poverty.
So the people of Wyoming get tobe spared those taxes and the
state of Wyoming doesn't have tomess with it.
I'm pretending I live inWyoming.
Maybe Wyoming will want to doone, but if they do one, they'll
do one for the very small,restrictive group of poor people
that live in Wyoming.
(19:19):
Okay, but California's programis not going to look like
Wyoming's.
You know what I'm saying whenyou have a huge populous state
and then you have a small.
Now I personally don't thinkCalifornia, because of its
diversity, can design a programthat'll work, but maybe it can't
.
It's going to be a lot more.
The thing of it is that when astate or a local government
tries to do social engineering,even if it screws it up, it's
(19:42):
not as bad as it is at thefederal level, because they
don't have a printing press.
That's what gets us intotrouble.
At the federal level, we canjust print up the money we need,
no matter how stupid we are andno matter how long.
Again, I challenge you nogovernment social program works,
not one.
You can't name one, not one.
Yet we have them all and we'veincreased their funding and
(20:03):
we've spent trillions andtrillions and trillions and
trillions and trillions andtrillions of dollars on programs
that don't work.
And we continue to do so as ifthey're somehow going to make
sense, as if this insanity makessense, when we would all be
better off if we drop thealtruism.
We stop trying to mix altruismwith a free market.
Let the free market do what itwill on a national level,
(20:25):
unhindered by governmentinterference, as much as humanly
possible, with some smallexceptions.
And then, if the states want toexperiment, let them experiment
, because then let's say thatI'm wrong and that someone can
come up with a social safetyprogram that's better.
Okay, I have no pride ofauthorship on a statement.
That's great.
(20:45):
Then the other states can copyit.
So what we'll basically have is50 laboratories all trying
different things at differenttimes and places with different
populations, and, who knows,they might come up with
something that's really great,god knows.
And people would support thatvoluntarily.
Okay, no one would have to becoerced if we knew that the
money we were spending was beingspent well.
(21:07):
But none of us think thegovernment spends our money well
.
And it's so funny to me as alibertarian, how people think
voting for a libertarian is awasted vote when they keep
voting for the same two partiesthat have done nothing but fail.
And I assure you that all ofthese Trumpian programs are
going to fail the same way.
Okay, the tariffs, that all ofthese Trumpian programs are
going to fail the same way.
Okay, the tariffs are going tobe a disaster when it's all said
and done.
I'm sorry but it's true.
Okay, we're not going to roundup 20 million people.
(21:29):
Trump is a chronicover-promiser.
Not going to happen.
Okay, we're going to have tohave an intelligent, grown-up
discussion about immigration atsome point.
You know we're not going tobully things in the way we want
them to be by sheer will.
Okay, a lot of the things he'sdoing are very, very good, and
I've said so on past podcasts.
But, guys, we have to stopblindly.
(21:49):
First of all, good and evil.
Throw that concept out, alongwith altruism, and look at
things as they are and thinkcritically.
Think, my friends, it's notillegal yet.
And that's going to be my lastthought for today.
Listen, it's not illegal yet,and that's going to be my last
thought for today, listen.
Thank you so much for listeningto me as I rant on.
Have a beautiful weekend, enjoyyourself, enjoy this gorgeous.
Well, wherever you are, I hopethe weather is gorgeous.
(22:12):
I'm talking about Phoenix,gorgeous.
Our temperature has droppedfrom 116 to 104.
It's like it's a cold snap.
We're having a great day, youknow.
So, wherever you live, I justhope you're having a great time
with your family.
God bless you, god bless yourfamily and God bless America.
Oh, and don't forget I forgotto do the big deal.
Don't forget to go to Amazon,pick up a copy of A Radical
(22:33):
Reset on Kindle, paperback orhardcover.
Read the Manifesto ofAntipolitism.
Learn what it's all about.
You will be, I think, impressed, regardless of whether you are
or you aren't.
Thank you for joining me today,as I said, and please share
this with friends, and all that,and yada, yada, yada.
You know the rest and, onceagain, god bless you.
No-transcript.
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