May 21, 2025 • 32 mins
We explore the transformative journey from victimhood to survivorship and why it's impossible to embody both identities simultaneously. Drawing from personal experiences of childhood abuse, prison, and healing, we examine how abandoning victimhood creates freedom and quiets the mind.
• Victimhood keeps us trapped in thought loops that replay trauma and pain
• Survivors acknowledge their experiences without being defined by them
• Victim mentality constantly seeks validation, perpetuating suffering
• Prison exposure to others' traumas creates perspective and transformation
• Stoic principles help separate what we can control from what we cannot
• Collective victimhood has damaging effects on culture and personal growth
• Relationships dramatically improve when we release victim identity
• True freedom comes from acknowledging past abuse without letting it define us
Check out my book "A Radical Reset" available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback and hardcover formats to learn more about anti-politicism as an alternative to our failing systems.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning everybody.
It's me, uncle Herbie, yourhost for the Spiritual Agnostic.
Today we're going to take itdown from the 20,000-foot level
or the 40,000-foot level,depending on how you look at it.
I'm speaking from a pilot'spoint of view of you know how
ethics and religion andspirituality and philosophy
affect national issues, as I'vetalked about for the last couple
(00:23):
of weeks.
We're going to bring it down tothe individual's level and
we're going to talk about todaywhy it's impossible to be a
victim and a survivor at thesame time.
You can either be a victim or asurvivor, but you cannot be a
victim who is a survivor.
Now I understand that literally, that's true.
I mean literally.
I am a victim who is a survivor.
I was raised in and I'm going touse my own experience as let's
(00:48):
just say, I don't know just kindof set the table for the
discussion.
A, because it's not a secretI've never kept this secret, but
I also want it and B because Iwant you to benefit from it.
It's kind of like think oftoday's podcast as kind of like
a miniature AA meeting.
I've never been to an AAmeeting but I've been to a
(01:08):
circular.
I've been to drug addictiondiscussions, particularly when I
was in prison and you know.
The value of them, as far as Ican tell, is everybody tells
their story and since everystory is so horrible, you start
to realize that your story isn'tso horrible after all and maybe
gain some perspective and thenbe able to battle your own
(01:29):
addictions and your own demons.
I don't know, I don't.
I'm not going to speak to 12step programs and how those work
and what those mean, but I do.
I saw value in it.
That was the value I saw.
I was attending just more outof curiosity than anything else,
because I've never had a drugproblem or an alcohol problem.
Just as an aside, I don't drinkand I don't drink because I have
(01:50):
any kind of objection to it.
All of my children drink.
I just can't stand the taste ofalcohol, so it's just not
something that I like and Idon't do it.
I do use, just for you to know,I use marijuana and I like it
and that's that.
But that has you know it's notan addiction thing.
I went for nearly five years inprison without ever smoking
(02:10):
marijuana.
I never experienced withdrawal,if you know what I mean.
But anyway, I digress so and asI get into this today.
I want to make this very, veryclear Victimhood is nobody wants
to be around a victim,everybody wants to be around a
survivor, okay, and you cannotbe effective in your life unless
you are a survivor.
So, and what I mean by that iswhen you're a victim and I until
(02:33):
I went to prison.
So, just as a little bit ofbackground, my stepfather and
this is for those of you who arenot familiar with my story, and
that's probably most of thepeople listening to this we're
going to be listening to it muchlater than when I'm recording
it, since my audience audiencetoday is minuscule and I'm
hoping to grow it.
But anyway, whether I do or Idon't, I'll just pretend that I
am and I'll share with you thatdon't know me that I was.
(02:55):
My mother divorced my naturalfather when I was two years old.
I'm not going to go into the.
You know the reasons why andall this other kind of stuff.
I'm just going to set the stagefor this discussion today
because I don't want to have itgo on for hours.
And after she divorced him, welived in Miami Beach.
I was born in Miami Beach andwe lived on Alton Road in a
house that my grandfather boughtfor my mother, who was his
(03:16):
youngest child, and we livedthere, and when I was five years
old, my grandfather arranged amarriage for my mother between
her and a man named Samuel K.
I still use his last namebecause my mother had him
legally adopt me and since Ireally never had anything to do
with my father as much as I hatemy stepfather it's just the
name, so I use it.
(03:36):
I thought about changing, justas an aside, when I came out of
prison, to use my middle name,ivan, as my last name, put an S
on it and call myself HerbieIvans, and I I almost did it,
but it would have confused mychildren and you know, and in
the end and this is, by the way,part of becoming a survivor
versus a victim I just, it'sjust no big deal.
I realized that K is the lastname of my, of my persecutor and
(03:59):
my tormentor and my abuser, butit's just the name, and there
are plenty of people named Kthat have nothing to do with
Samuel K, who was the manspecifically.
I'm not afraid to say his namebecause he's not going to sue me
, because he's going to.
You know, the defense ofslander is that you're telling
the truth and he doesn't.
He's an old man now becauseonly the good die young.
(04:20):
I'm hoping he dies soon, butthat's another story.
Yeah, I carry a little angerover it, but it's not rage, but
we'll get into that in a minute.
So, anyway, so he came into mylife when I was five and
beginning almost immediately, itwas a combination of being
beaten and there's a bigdifference between a spanking
(04:41):
and a beating and we all knowwhat that is, so I'm not going
to go into it.
I suddenly was getting beaten,denigrated, because I made him
insecure, because I was, I know.
By the way, this is arevelation I realize now.
At the time I had no idea whyhe absolutely on one moment
would tell me he loved me andthe next moment denigrate me
down to the size of a peanut.
(05:02):
You know that's, that's a wreck.
Metaphor was the best, the bestI could come up with in the
moment.
But anyway, um, or it's, it wasan analogy, I think it's
analogy.
Anyway, the uh, he did that allthe time.
But the worst of all was thesexual abuse.
He was a homosexual pedophileand he, I mean otherwise.
(05:25):
Why would I mean?
I realized this was only the1960s, was 1962.
But even then arrangedmarriages were unheard of.
I mean, why would my mother andhe agree to bury each other?
Having not known each other?
They married less than twoweeks after the day they said
hello.
That's a true story.
And the answer is both of themhad serious, serious sexual
issues.
In my mother's case it wasmorbid obesity that she fought
(05:49):
all of her life and she justbasically took the first comer.
She met my natural father at afat farm, no less.
I'm happy to say I'm notmorbidly obese.
I just like to throw that outfor the record.
That's pure vanity, but Iwanted to share that with you.
But my sister battles it tothis day and it's just something
(06:09):
that runs in the family.
But anyway, having said that,why else would anyone agree to
an arranged marriage?
And he began the systematicabuse of me in every possible
way, and this went on until Iwas 14 years old.
So for the next nine years,until I went to live with my
aunt and uncle in Miami Beachwhen they moved.
(06:30):
So, subsequent to gettingmarried to him at five, we moved
to Pittsburgh from the age offive to the age of 14.
I lived in Pittsburgh, then mynuclear family, including the
pedophile, and my half sister,who, who I adore, and my mother,
who's now dead, just for therecord.
Um, they all moved to Arizonafor him to take a deal.
(06:51):
Now, the real reason they movedto Arizona, I see now, I didn't
realize it at the time, as Ihad wrecked his life in
Pittsburgh.
Um, when I was 11, uh, justturning 12, he had raped me and
that was the last straw for me,and I got hold of the family
Rolodex, and I called everybodyI could think of and I told them
in graphic terms what was goingon in our house, which was I
(07:13):
want you to think about this.
This is 1968.
No one talked about this in1968.
So my mother basically coveredit up, told me that I was
creating a scandal for thefamily, told me that we had to
keep a secret, told everybodythat I was a liar and that I
just didn't like my stepfather,and this is why I made this
whole story up.
But there was enough people whobelieved it that I really
(07:34):
ruined their life in Pittsburgh.
But I don't care, I don't feelany guilt about that.
And anyway, they took adifferent deal within his
industry in Nogales, arizona,importing produce from Mexico,
and at the same time I went tolive with my family, with my
aunt and uncle, in Florida,which in some ways was the first
step in saving my life.
The second step was the Navy.
(07:55):
When I say saving my life, myaunt and uncle were crazier than
shit, but they weren't abusivein any way, shape or form.
They were just normal, crazylike most of us are.
And, to make a long story short, I got a chance to have a
breath of fresh air and live inpeace and quiet, and it gave me
some perspective.
But then they got nervous thatI was sharing too much in
(08:15):
Florida, so they pulled me backto Arizona where I graduated
from Nogales High School when Iwas 16 years old, because I was
so far ahead of the high school.
That was really horrible.
I'm sure it's good today, butthose days it was horrible.
It literally took place in abuilding that was condemned.
This is how desperately theytried to get me back into the
fold, because they were justparanoid that I was going to say
something to somebody which, bythe way, they should have been
(08:38):
paranoid because I didn't reallykeep it a secret.
And to make a long story short,yada y.
And to make a long story short.
Yada, yada, yada.
The relationship was poisonous.
I haven't spoken to mystepfather in a very long time.
I carried around an enormousamount of rage for years and
years and years that justsuppressed inside me.
I felt like a victim of all ofthis and it absolutely affected
my marriages and everything else, because I inherently didn't
(08:59):
trust women, because of thebetrayal of my mother.
I mean and I know I'm shootingthrough this stuff really,
really, really, really fast butthese are all the scars that
came upon me and all the thingsthat made me feel like a victim,
okay, at of of all of this.
And it was always in my mind.
It was always in the back of mymind, it was always present, it
would.
It took very little to get meto discuss it.
(09:21):
It was just a pinprick, is allit would take until, frankly, I
went to prison and that's not anexcuse for my behavior.
Millions of people have gonethrough what I went through and
worse, and did not do the thingsI did.
So I don't want you to hear inany of the things I'm telling
(09:42):
you as an excuse for why Ibecame a criminal, in any of the
things I'm telling you as anexcuse for why I became a
criminal.
But the truth of the matter wasthat when I got to prison and
before I came to realize thatnot only am I not alone in being
a target of an abusive personor an abusive lifestyle or
(10:02):
sexual abuse, physical abuse,emotional abuse, not only am I
not unusual, it's almost common.
One of the things you developwhen you've been the target of
this and you're a survivor of itis you pick up kind of a radar
for other survivors.
And over the years I've come torealize it's terrifying how
many people have experienced avery similar thing behind closed
(10:24):
doors and it affects them a lotof different ways.
And this is where I come downto.
You can either be a victim or asurvivor.
In the topic, the centraldiscussion of today's
conversation, when you're avictim, you are always trolling
for offense.
Okay, in the sense that you'relooking for.
A victim looks for what am Ilooking for?
(10:46):
Confirmation, and I don't thinkthat's the right word.
Validation, that's the rightword.
A victim is always looking forvalidation of their victimhood.
They're always, you know, whenyou get into a discussion and
someone starts to talk aboutsomething that's happened to
them which, on a scale of one to10,.
What you experienced was a 10,and what they're talking about
is a two and they're making itsound like it's, you know, a
national disaster.
(11:06):
You know you almost can't wait.
You're formulating a way tobring it into the discussion, to
bring out your victimhood, ifnot discussing it in graphic
terms, just the entire attitudeof a victim you know is one of I
don't know.
It's a damaging way to operate.
You cannot effectively run yourlife as a victim.
(11:28):
It is something of a miraclethat I put up the facade that I
did for as long as I did as avictim, because that was the
center of my existence and ittook away from everything I did
and I didn't even.
I never made the distinctionbetween victim and survivor.
I thought I was a survivor whenI was a victim.
(11:49):
All along I was allowing, I wasallowing my past experiences to
replay in my head over and overagain like a thought loop, and
in doing so I kept reliving theexperience which kept
revalidating my victimhood,which kept making me feel like I
was different.
(12:09):
And the way I think of it is,it made me a very dented can.
I couldn't roll smoothly downthe road.
There were too many dents inthe can, where I lost the
victimhood and I shared thiswith you, and I think this
relates kind of to the 12-stepthing, even though I've never
gone through it is I hit mybottom, which for me was prison.
(12:32):
And in prison I came to realize,through the exposure to people
every single day, when I firstwent to prison, I used to hear
people say you know, I grew, youknow what they used to ask you
ask me, what did you do?
What did you do on the streets?
What do you do on the streets?
Now, I always thought that wasa metaphor.
(12:52):
I didn't think the straight,the streets were literal, but
these people, they meant thisliterally.
These are people who literallylive their lives on the street.
Oh, they would sleep.
I'm not saying they werehomeless all the time.
A few of them were.
We had a few of those guys, butmost of them went from, you
know, shitty situation to shittysituation to shitty situation,
sleeping on couches, really,really rough apartments.
(13:13):
You know, rented trailers,things like that.
Um, and I'm not talkingmanufactured homes, I'm talking
trailer, two different, complete, like travel trailer, two
different things and it and theylive very, very, very tough,
much, much tougher than mine andI, my attitude, began to change
and I felt, first of all I feltempathy, and then I started to
(13:35):
feel understanding, and then Istarted to realize that what I'd
experienced, as horrible as itwas, was not the most horrible.
And I had a choice to make.
And I had a choice to make.
I could either convert myvictimhood to simply part of
what makes me interesting andkind of like a diamond has a lot
of facets Instead of making myvictimhood a flaw that would
(14:02):
make the diamond break apart, Iconverted it to just another
facet, just another way, anotherpart of my personality that,
instead of, for example, makingme distressed every woman I meet
, instead it transformed into Iwould say, speaking from a stoic
point of view a sort of wisdomabout my relationship with women
(14:24):
.
And I'm going to use that asI'm just thinking to myself, as
I'm going along here, becauseobviously I don't speak from a
script.
That's a good microcosm ofwhere the transformation took
place between victimhood andsurvivorship.
As a victim, I was constantlylooking for, whether consciously
or unconsciously, confirmationthat women can't be trusted.
(14:45):
And then what you do is you setup the betrayal itself.
And the way I would set up thatbetrayal was to be an
over-promiser.
You know if you promisesomebody something and then
don't do it, that's going to setup betrayal and if you do it
enough times, they're going tobetray you.
You know my first wife ended up.
(15:05):
You know our divorce was overinfidelity her infidelity but in
fact, if I'm being honest, mybehavior drove her to it, but I
was so blind to it that I didn'tknow.
I kept that I was setting upbetrayal in her mind and making
her feel unsafe.
And you know she did.
I wish she wouldn't have doneit, but you know it is.
(15:28):
It is completely understandablewithin the context of my own
behavior as a victim, althoughat the time I took it not nearly
as magnanimously as I'm takingit now.
I was, I was furious, but thatis another difference between
victimhood and survivorship.
As a survivor, I can look andsee how my behavior was part of
the problem and then come tosome reconciliation with it, but
(15:49):
as a victim, I can neverreconcile with it because it is
constantly a loop in my mind.
The victimhood plays like amovie that never comes to an end
in your head.
I know you guys know what I'mtalking about.
This is why, by the way,regrets are such a stupid thing,
because a regret is nothingmore than you rethinking
(16:11):
something you've done andwishing you hadn't done it,
which is another term for what Icall a thought loop thinking
through something and thencoming to the exact same
conclusion over and over and theexact same wish over and over
to nothing.
All it does is waste energy andwaste mental energy and waste
what could be creativity insteadof moving on.
A survivor doesn't do that.
A survivor.
The difference is simple.
As a survivor, what you say toyourself is that was part of my
(16:33):
life experience, it's part ofwhat makes me interesting, but
unless you bring it up, it's notsomething I even think about it
.
You know, I thought about itobviously in the context of
having this discussion with youguys today, but in the broader
picture, I can honestly tell youthat where before prison,
(16:55):
victim Herbie would sometimes Icall myself Herbert Herbie,
that's why that kind of soundedlike I was talking like
President Biden but anyway,victim Herbie would have been,
would have repeated the samebehavior over and over.
Survivor Herbie recognizes it'snot that I don't have the same
feelings sometimes.
I just recognize them for whatthey are and reject them, and on
(17:17):
a day-to-day basis.
You know Samuel K doesn't entermy mind.
You know he just doesn't whenhe used to enter it.
I used to run scenarios of howI'd like to murder him, frankly,
and all kinds of differentthings and all kinds of ways
that karma would get him andhave thoughts of revenge and
anger and rage.
And you know it's amazing howfreeing you know what is rage?
(17:40):
But anger turned it on yourself, right, you know it just turns
into an acid and and and boilsinto rage and and rage is, is is
an out of control emotion.
And so you do things.
You know you can be angry butbe in complete self-control.
I'm not going to lie to you andsay I don't get angry today.
I do get angry, but in littlethings.
I'm angry for five minutes andthen it's like how important is
(18:04):
it in the great scheme of things?
Which is also why philosophyhas become so important to me.
Let's relate this to Stoicism.
First of all, you're going tohave to have the courage to
admit talking about the firstpillar of Stoicism.
Courage.
You're going to have to havethe courage to admit talking
about the first pillar ofstoicism.
Courage, you're going to havethe courage to admit that all
the things that you if you'refeeling like a victim of
(18:25):
anything, whether it's racialdiscrimination or sexual
discrimination or family abuse,like I've gone through, whatever
it is, whatever it is that'ssetting you up as a victim in
any part of your life.
You first have to have thecourage to admit is really no
big deal, okay, anything shortof killing you is really no big
deal because no one really cares.
(18:45):
Okay, you know that's the otherpart of victimhood.
You want everyone to care aboutit, otherwise you don't feel
like you're.
You're being validated as avictim where the survivor
doesn't give a shit if anyoneknows or not, and if it comes up
in conversation, you don't denyit, but then again you let the
conversation move off of it.
It's not the center of yourexistence.
We're in victimhood, oh yeah.
(19:06):
Well, you don't know what I'vebeen through, the kind of things
that he put me through or sheput me through or
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
We've all heard it.
And and if you're doing that, ifyou're feeling like everything
in your life is somehow relatedto some wrong done to you,
particularly in childhood, letit go, okay.
You have to have the courage toadmit you're a victim.
(19:27):
That's the first step, becauseunless you acknowledge that
you're behaving like a victim.
How can you possibly stopbehaving like something you
don't acknowledge?
Okay, stop behaving likesomething you don't acknowledge,
okay.
Then you have to understandthat there is, you know, when we
talk about the second pillar ofstoicism, justice.
You are not going to receivejustice for your victimhood.
(19:48):
Just get over it.
People have their own problems.
You are not going to achievewhether it's you know, something
that's on a public level,restitution, or whether it's an
apology from your abuser.
I mean, I confronted mystepfather straight out at my
sister's wedding, looked himright in the eye, had it out
with him, did not get an apology, will not get an apology, okay.
(20:11):
And the other thing that youhave to understand is that
you're not going.
It's no matter how much.
I know that you said that peoplewho are victims here's how you
know you're a victim.
Why doesn't he, why can't they?
Why don't they?
You start asking that.
Why, question, don't theyunderstand?
Why doesn't he see?
Why doesn't he change?
Or she change?
(20:31):
You can make it interchangeable.
It doesn't matter whatever thecase might be, and the answer is
they don't give a shit andthey're not going to.
And all this stuff is just inyour head, all this noise that's
screaming.
Your abuser abused you becausethey didn't care in the first
place.
They're not going to care later.
Whoever victimized you, inwhatever way it might be,
whether it's physical or sexualor financial or whatever it
(20:52):
might be, when they did it theyfelt justified doing it and to
expect that they're going tohave changed is to have a very
unrealistic expectation.
I mean, if one day they show upat your front door and surprise
you and just throw themselvesat your feet and apologize.
But you know, mostly theyjustify it, that piece of shit
that sexually abused me in hisweird way of describing it.
(21:14):
He viewed it as an act of loveand I'm sure he was a victim.
But again, I don't feel empathyfor him.
I don't feel anything for him.
That's the key.
Goodbye, good luck.
It's a closed chapter.
What's done is done.
You have to recognize the kinksin your armor that have been
left behind by the victimhood,but you can't have that
awareness by the victimhood, butyou can't have that awareness.
(21:37):
So, like, for example, today, Iam single but I occasionally
date and one of the great thingsnow is is I can just sit down
without expectation when I sitdown with a woman and we sit
down and discuss and we starttalking to see if there's any
kind of compatibility and so onand so forth.
I can honestly tell you thatbetrayal is not on my mind.
(21:59):
It's much quieter in your headwhen you're not a victim, when
you're not replaying a story inyour head.
Life is so much quieter.
And that brings me to wisdom,moderation, which is another
pillar of stoicism.
It applies in a general youknow just, it applies in a
general sense in this situation,and that you really need to
(22:21):
tamp down your noise.
Nobody really wants to hear it.
But but as far as wisdom goes,you have to have the wisdom of
understanding that your abuserwas probably abused themselves,
and not to feel empathy for them, but to understand that they
couldn't have been anythingother than but than what they
were, and you were just unluckyand got in their way and were
the target.
And I know that when I say this, a lot of you are going.
(22:41):
You don't understand If the twowords together, yes and but,
are in your head right now yes,but you don't understand.
That's the sign you're off indelusion land.
You know there is no, yes, butOkay.
Your abuser, your persecutor,your enemy, whatever, whoever it
is that has caused this feelingof victimhood in you, or
(23:02):
whatever it is that has causedthis.
Maybe it's an institution,maybe you know, whatever it
might be doesn't care and theydon't care.
(23:24):
So your choice is either togive them power over you that
they're not even asking foranymore because they've moved on
.
That's what it is withsociopaths and psychopaths
They've moved on to their ownthing and live your life and
forget about it.
Not to forget that it everhappened, okay, but forget about
it in the sense of it's acentral thing in your life.
(23:46):
It's just one more experiencethat you've had along the way,
together with the joyful ones,which, by the way, you'll have a
lot more joyful experiences asa survivor.
As a survivor, you can look backwith pride at overcoming
something that was awful.
As a victim, you can take nopride at all in your behavior
because you're allowing yourselfto be constantly re-victimized
(24:07):
by the same situation or personthat did it before, and they
don't even know they're doing itbecause you're empowering them
through your own victimhoodbehavior.
Do not be a victim, be asurvivor and, in a broader sense
, as a culture, and I'll justsay this in closing this would
help us all out, no matter whatgroup we all belong to, let's
bring it to group victimhoodjust to close it out.
For those of you who have notexperienced personal victimhood
(24:31):
and thank God you haven't, bythe way good for you, great but
if you haven't, then let's lookin the broader cultural context
of what victimhood is doing toour culture and our country, and
that is we have so many groupsthat are victims.
They begin to feel entitled tosome sort of recompense or
(24:52):
reparation for what's happenedand just forget it.
You know what you don't, Idon't.
The world doesn't owe meanything because of what Samuel
Cade did to me, and the worlddoesn't owe you anything because
, let's say, let's just talkabout the big one in the room.
You maybe are a black and feelthat you are a victim of the,
(25:12):
the legacy of slavery, and blah,blah, blah.
You know, nothing could be moreridiculous than to demand
reparations and feel like avictim for something that you've
never experienced from peoplewho never did it to you.
Okay, that's the.
That's, that's the pinnacle ofabsurdity in victimhood versus
survivorship.
What you should be saying iseven if you feel like you've had
(25:34):
to overcome things as a blackperson, great, have pride that
you did that as a survivor, notas a victim.
Don't ask for any.
I don't think Samuel K is.
I'll give you a good example.
When I broke away, I knew I waskissing off an inheritance Not
a huge inheritance, but severalmillion dollars that right now
in my life would come in prettyhandy when the old guy dies and
(25:56):
he's 88 years old Now.
You know that's the way it goesand I knew it when I did it.
But it was to me a small priceto pay for my emotional freedom.
But I don't ever think tomyself there's no, there's on no
planet.
Until this moment, talking toyou about it, I haven't thought
about it in years.
As a matter of fact, weirdlyenough, I don't think about it
Not at all when he dies and allthe money goes to my sister,
(26:17):
who's my half sister, by him,and that's fine.
God bless her.
Good luck, I don't want it,it's just, I don't care, I've
let it go.
You have to genuinely let it go.
To be a survivor is to let goof your victimhood completely
(26:37):
and entirely and, instead ofwrapping yourself in a demand
for recompense or reparation, toinstead be proud of what you've
accomplished and then make acontribution in a meaningful way
to your family, your communityand your culture and your
relations.
One last thing yourrelationships with everybody you
know will get so much betterwhen you shake off victimhood.
So much better.
(26:59):
Anyway, that's all I've got foryou today.
For those of you who would liketo read my book A Radical Reset,
which describes anti-politism,which is the solution, let's say
magically, hypothetically, thatPresident Trump were successful
and he got us out of thishorrible mess we're in and we
somehow grow our way out of thiswhole financial thing.
(27:19):
Great, great, great, great,great.
But how do we guarantee that itnever happens again?
Anti-politism, let's say it'smore likely that he's not going
to succeed and we're going toend up in a pile of manure.
Well, that's when the reallybad people come out.
And then democracy historicallyalways ends in tyranny and mob
rule, because democracy is mobrule.
(27:40):
The reason that our foundersset up our country as a republic
and not a democracy was becausethey understood that democracy
is a horrible form of government.
As HL Mencken said and I'mparaphrasing because I'm doing
this from memory democracy iswhen the common man gets what he
wants good and hard, you know,and that's what we're getting
(28:00):
right now.
We're getting what we demandedas a people, good and hard, and
we're going to pay a price forit.
So what comes next?
And how do we prevent it fromhappening again?
And how do we emerge from theashes without having a dictator
or a strong man or a charismaticphony, fraud, self-serving
psychopath, which is what alwaysends up?
(28:20):
Historically, this is the endof democracy.
This is what happens.
But if you're looking for arealistic alternative and
something to really hang yourhat on, that's interesting and,
believe me, you'll try to findholes in it.
You won't check outanti-politicism.
Pick up my book, a radicalreset.
It's available at Amazon onKindle, paperback and hardcover.
(28:41):
Also, you know, share, likeblah, blah, blah.
Pass it on.
Share, share the podcast.
And uh, what else did I want tosay?
Oh, and if you'd like to helpsupport the podcast, there will
be a link to come to myBuzzsprout website, which is
where I post these things,because I really don't have any
idea how to edit and do anythinganyway and I don't really feel
the need to learn, since there'sautomation and AI for this sort
(29:03):
of thing.
Anyway, that'll link you to mywebsite and on that website, you
can support the showfinancially if you choose to.
I love you, whether you do oryou don't.
That's it.
Have a beautiful day UntilFriday, the next podcast.
Have a great week, peace out.
Good morning everybody.
It's me, uncle Herbie, yourhost for the Spiritual Agnostic.
Today we're going to take itdown from the 20,000-foot level
or the 40,000-foot level,depending on how you look at it.
I'm speaking from a pilot'spoint of view of you know how
ethics and religion andspirituality and philosophy
affect national issues, as I'vetalked about for the last couple
(00:23):
of weeks.
We're going to bring it down tothe individual's level and
we're going to talk about todaywhy it's impossible to be a
victim and a survivor at thesame time.
You can either be a victim or asurvivor, but you cannot be a
victim who is a survivor.
Now I understand that literally, that's true.
I mean literally.
I am a victim who is a survivor.
I was raised in and I'm going touse my own experience as let's
(00:48):
just say, I don't know just kindof set the table for the
discussion.
A, because it's not a secretI've never kept this secret, but
I also want it and B because Iwant you to benefit from it.
It's kind of like think oftoday's podcast as kind of like
a miniature AA meeting.
I've never been to an AAmeeting but I've been to a
(01:08):
circular.
I've been to drug addictiondiscussions, particularly when I
was in prison and you know.
The value of them, as far as Ican tell, is everybody tells
their story and since everystory is so horrible, you start
to realize that your story isn'tso horrible after all and maybe
gain some perspective and thenbe able to battle your own
(01:29):
addictions and your own demons.
I don't know, I don't.
I'm not going to speak to 12step programs and how those work
and what those mean, but I do.
I saw value in it.
That was the value I saw.
I was attending just more outof curiosity than anything else,
because I've never had a drugproblem or an alcohol problem.
Just as an aside, I don't drinkand I don't drink because I have
(01:50):
any kind of objection to it.
All of my children drink.
I just can't stand the taste ofalcohol, so it's just not
something that I like and Idon't do it.
I do use, just for you to know,I use marijuana and I like it
and that's that.
But that has you know it's notan addiction thing.
I went for nearly five years inprison without ever smoking
(02:10):
marijuana.
I never experienced withdrawal,if you know what I mean.
But anyway, I digress so and asI get into this today.
I want to make this very, veryclear Victimhood is nobody wants
to be around a victim,everybody wants to be around a
survivor, okay, and you cannotbe effective in your life unless
you are a survivor.
So, and what I mean by that iswhen you're a victim and I until
(02:33):
I went to prison.
So, just as a little bit ofbackground, my stepfather and
this is for those of you who arenot familiar with my story, and
that's probably most of thepeople listening to this we're
going to be listening to it muchlater than when I'm recording
it, since my audience audiencetoday is minuscule and I'm
hoping to grow it.
But anyway, whether I do or Idon't, I'll just pretend that I
am and I'll share with you thatdon't know me that I was.
(02:55):
My mother divorced my naturalfather when I was two years old.
I'm not going to go into the.
You know the reasons why andall this other kind of stuff.
I'm just going to set the stagefor this discussion today
because I don't want to have itgo on for hours.
And after she divorced him, welived in Miami Beach.
I was born in Miami Beach andwe lived on Alton Road in a
house that my grandfather boughtfor my mother, who was his
(03:16):
youngest child, and we livedthere, and when I was five years
old, my grandfather arranged amarriage for my mother between
her and a man named Samuel K.
I still use his last namebecause my mother had him
legally adopt me and since Ireally never had anything to do
with my father as much as I hatemy stepfather it's just the
name, so I use it.
(03:36):
I thought about changing, justas an aside, when I came out of
prison, to use my middle name,ivan, as my last name, put an S
on it and call myself HerbieIvans, and I I almost did it,
but it would have confused mychildren and you know, and in
the end and this is, by the way,part of becoming a survivor
versus a victim I just, it'sjust no big deal.
I realized that K is the lastname of my, of my persecutor and
(03:59):
my tormentor and my abuser, butit's just the name, and there
are plenty of people named Kthat have nothing to do with
Samuel K, who was the manspecifically.
I'm not afraid to say his namebecause he's not going to sue me
, because he's going to.
You know, the defense ofslander is that you're telling
the truth and he doesn't.
He's an old man now becauseonly the good die young.
(04:20):
I'm hoping he dies soon, butthat's another story.
Yeah, I carry a little angerover it, but it's not rage, but
we'll get into that in a minute.
So, anyway, so he came into mylife when I was five and
beginning almost immediately, itwas a combination of being
beaten and there's a bigdifference between a spanking
(04:41):
and a beating and we all knowwhat that is, so I'm not going
to go into it.
I suddenly was getting beaten,denigrated, because I made him
insecure, because I was, I know.
By the way, this is arevelation I realize now.
At the time I had no idea whyhe absolutely on one moment
would tell me he loved me andthe next moment denigrate me
down to the size of a peanut.
(05:02):
You know that's, that's a wreck.
Metaphor was the best, the bestI could come up with in the
moment.
But anyway, um, or it's, it wasan analogy, I think it's
analogy.
Anyway, the uh, he did that allthe time.
But the worst of all was thesexual abuse.
He was a homosexual pedophileand he, I mean otherwise.
(05:25):
Why would I mean?
I realized this was only the1960s, was 1962.
But even then arrangedmarriages were unheard of.
I mean, why would my mother andhe agree to bury each other?
Having not known each other?
They married less than twoweeks after the day they said
hello.
That's a true story.
And the answer is both of themhad serious, serious sexual
issues.
In my mother's case it wasmorbid obesity that she fought
(05:49):
all of her life and she justbasically took the first comer.
She met my natural father at afat farm, no less.
I'm happy to say I'm notmorbidly obese.
I just like to throw that outfor the record.
That's pure vanity, but Iwanted to share that with you.
But my sister battles it tothis day and it's just something
(06:09):
that runs in the family.
But anyway, having said that,why else would anyone agree to
an arranged marriage?
And he began the systematicabuse of me in every possible
way, and this went on until Iwas 14 years old.
So for the next nine years,until I went to live with my
aunt and uncle in Miami Beachwhen they moved.
(06:30):
So, subsequent to gettingmarried to him at five, we moved
to Pittsburgh from the age offive to the age of 14.
I lived in Pittsburgh, then mynuclear family, including the
pedophile, and my half sister,who, who I adore, and my mother,
who's now dead, just for therecord.
Um, they all moved to Arizonafor him to take a deal.
(06:51):
Now, the real reason they movedto Arizona, I see now, I didn't
realize it at the time, as Ihad wrecked his life in
Pittsburgh.
Um, when I was 11, uh, justturning 12, he had raped me and
that was the last straw for me,and I got hold of the family
Rolodex, and I called everybodyI could think of and I told them
in graphic terms what was goingon in our house, which was I
(07:13):
want you to think about this.
This is 1968.
No one talked about this in1968.
So my mother basically coveredit up, told me that I was
creating a scandal for thefamily, told me that we had to
keep a secret, told everybodythat I was a liar and that I
just didn't like my stepfather,and this is why I made this
whole story up.
But there was enough people whobelieved it that I really
(07:34):
ruined their life in Pittsburgh.
But I don't care, I don't feelany guilt about that.
And anyway, they took adifferent deal within his
industry in Nogales, arizona,importing produce from Mexico,
and at the same time I went tolive with my family, with my
aunt and uncle, in Florida,which in some ways was the first
step in saving my life.
The second step was the Navy.
(07:55):
When I say saving my life, myaunt and uncle were crazier than
shit, but they weren't abusivein any way, shape or form.
They were just normal, crazylike most of us are.
And, to make a long story short, I got a chance to have a
breath of fresh air and live inpeace and quiet, and it gave me
some perspective.
But then they got nervous thatI was sharing too much in
(08:15):
Florida, so they pulled me backto Arizona where I graduated
from Nogales High School when Iwas 16 years old, because I was
so far ahead of the high school.
That was really horrible.
I'm sure it's good today, butthose days it was horrible.
It literally took place in abuilding that was condemned.
This is how desperately theytried to get me back into the
fold, because they were justparanoid that I was going to say
something to somebody which, bythe way, they should have been
(08:38):
paranoid because I didn't reallykeep it a secret.
And to make a long story short,yada y.
And to make a long story short.
Yada, yada, yada.
The relationship was poisonous.
I haven't spoken to mystepfather in a very long time.
I carried around an enormousamount of rage for years and
years and years that justsuppressed inside me.
I felt like a victim of all ofthis and it absolutely affected
my marriages and everything else, because I inherently didn't
(08:59):
trust women, because of thebetrayal of my mother.
I mean and I know I'm shootingthrough this stuff really,
really, really, really fast butthese are all the scars that
came upon me and all the thingsthat made me feel like a victim,
okay, at of of all of this.
And it was always in my mind.
It was always in the back of mymind, it was always present, it
would.
It took very little to get meto discuss it.
(09:21):
It was just a pinprick, is allit would take until, frankly, I
went to prison and that's not anexcuse for my behavior.
Millions of people have gonethrough what I went through and
worse, and did not do the thingsI did.
So I don't want you to hear inany of the things I'm telling
(09:42):
you as an excuse for why Ibecame a criminal, in any of the
things I'm telling you as anexcuse for why I became a
criminal.
But the truth of the matter wasthat when I got to prison and
before I came to realize thatnot only am I not alone in being
a target of an abusive personor an abusive lifestyle or
(10:02):
sexual abuse, physical abuse,emotional abuse, not only am I
not unusual, it's almost common.
One of the things you developwhen you've been the target of
this and you're a survivor of itis you pick up kind of a radar
for other survivors.
And over the years I've come torealize it's terrifying how
many people have experienced avery similar thing behind closed
(10:24):
doors and it affects them a lotof different ways.
And this is where I come downto.
You can either be a victim or asurvivor.
In the topic, the centraldiscussion of today's
conversation, when you're avictim, you are always trolling
for offense.
Okay, in the sense that you'relooking for.
A victim looks for what am Ilooking for?
(10:46):
Confirmation, and I don't thinkthat's the right word.
Validation, that's the rightword.
A victim is always looking forvalidation of their victimhood.
They're always, you know, whenyou get into a discussion and
someone starts to talk aboutsomething that's happened to
them which, on a scale of one to10,.
What you experienced was a 10,and what they're talking about
is a two and they're making itsound like it's, you know, a
national disaster.
(11:06):
You know you almost can't wait.
You're formulating a way tobring it into the discussion, to
bring out your victimhood, ifnot discussing it in graphic
terms, just the entire attitudeof a victim you know is one of I
don't know.
It's a damaging way to operate.
You cannot effectively run yourlife as a victim.
(11:28):
It is something of a miraclethat I put up the facade that I
did for as long as I did as avictim, because that was the
center of my existence and ittook away from everything I did
and I didn't even.
I never made the distinctionbetween victim and survivor.
I thought I was a survivor whenI was a victim.
(11:49):
All along I was allowing, I wasallowing my past experiences to
replay in my head over and overagain like a thought loop, and
in doing so I kept reliving theexperience which kept
revalidating my victimhood,which kept making me feel like I
was different.
(12:09):
And the way I think of it is,it made me a very dented can.
I couldn't roll smoothly downthe road.
There were too many dents inthe can, where I lost the
victimhood and I shared thiswith you, and I think this
relates kind of to the 12-stepthing, even though I've never
gone through it is I hit mybottom, which for me was prison.
(12:32):
And in prison I came to realize,through the exposure to people
every single day, when I firstwent to prison, I used to hear
people say you know, I grew, youknow what they used to ask you
ask me, what did you do?
What did you do on the streets?
What do you do on the streets?
Now, I always thought that wasa metaphor.
(12:52):
I didn't think the straight,the streets were literal, but
these people, they meant thisliterally.
These are people who literallylive their lives on the street.
Oh, they would sleep.
I'm not saying they werehomeless all the time.
A few of them were.
We had a few of those guys, butmost of them went from, you
know, shitty situation to shittysituation to shitty situation,
sleeping on couches, really,really rough apartments.
(13:13):
You know, rented trailers,things like that.
Um, and I'm not talkingmanufactured homes, I'm talking
trailer, two different, complete, like travel trailer, two
different things and it and theylive very, very, very tough,
much, much tougher than mine andI, my attitude, began to change
and I felt, first of all I feltempathy, and then I started to
(13:35):
feel understanding, and then Istarted to realize that what I'd
experienced, as horrible as itwas, was not the most horrible.
And I had a choice to make.
And I had a choice to make.
I could either convert myvictimhood to simply part of
what makes me interesting andkind of like a diamond has a lot
of facets Instead of making myvictimhood a flaw that would
(14:02):
make the diamond break apart, Iconverted it to just another
facet, just another way, anotherpart of my personality that,
instead of, for example, makingme distressed every woman I meet
, instead it transformed into Iwould say, speaking from a stoic
point of view a sort of wisdomabout my relationship with women
(14:24):
.
And I'm going to use that asI'm just thinking to myself, as
I'm going along here, becauseobviously I don't speak from a
script.
That's a good microcosm ofwhere the transformation took
place between victimhood andsurvivorship.
As a victim, I was constantlylooking for, whether consciously
or unconsciously, confirmationthat women can't be trusted.
(14:45):
And then what you do is you setup the betrayal itself.
And the way I would set up thatbetrayal was to be an
over-promiser.
You know if you promisesomebody something and then
don't do it, that's going to setup betrayal and if you do it
enough times, they're going tobetray you.
You know my first wife ended up.
(15:05):
You know our divorce was overinfidelity her infidelity but in
fact, if I'm being honest, mybehavior drove her to it, but I
was so blind to it that I didn'tknow.
I kept that I was setting upbetrayal in her mind and making
her feel unsafe.
And you know she did.
I wish she wouldn't have doneit, but you know it is.
(15:28):
It is completely understandablewithin the context of my own
behavior as a victim, althoughat the time I took it not nearly
as magnanimously as I'm takingit now.
I was, I was furious, but thatis another difference between
victimhood and survivorship.
As a survivor, I can look andsee how my behavior was part of
the problem and then come tosome reconciliation with it, but
(15:49):
as a victim, I can neverreconcile with it because it is
constantly a loop in my mind.
The victimhood plays like amovie that never comes to an end
in your head.
I know you guys know what I'mtalking about.
This is why, by the way,regrets are such a stupid thing,
because a regret is nothingmore than you rethinking
(16:11):
something you've done andwishing you hadn't done it,
which is another term for what Icall a thought loop thinking
through something and thencoming to the exact same
conclusion over and over and theexact same wish over and over
to nothing.
All it does is waste energy andwaste mental energy and waste
what could be creativity insteadof moving on.
A survivor doesn't do that.
A survivor.
The difference is simple.
As a survivor, what you say toyourself is that was part of my
(16:33):
life experience, it's part ofwhat makes me interesting, but
unless you bring it up, it's notsomething I even think about it
.
You know, I thought about itobviously in the context of
having this discussion with youguys today, but in the broader
picture, I can honestly tell youthat where before prison,
(16:55):
victim Herbie would sometimes Icall myself Herbert Herbie,
that's why that kind of soundedlike I was talking like
President Biden but anyway,victim Herbie would have been,
would have repeated the samebehavior over and over.
Survivor Herbie recognizes it'snot that I don't have the same
feelings sometimes.
I just recognize them for whatthey are and reject them, and on
(17:17):
a day-to-day basis.
You know Samuel K doesn't entermy mind.
You know he just doesn't whenhe used to enter it.
I used to run scenarios of howI'd like to murder him, frankly,
and all kinds of differentthings and all kinds of ways
that karma would get him andhave thoughts of revenge and
anger and rage.
And you know it's amazing howfreeing you know what is rage?
(17:40):
But anger turned it on yourself, right, you know it just turns
into an acid and and and boilsinto rage and and rage is, is is
an out of control emotion.
And so you do things.
You know you can be angry butbe in complete self-control.
I'm not going to lie to you andsay I don't get angry today.
I do get angry, but in littlethings.
I'm angry for five minutes andthen it's like how important is
(18:04):
it in the great scheme of things?
Which is also why philosophyhas become so important to me.
Let's relate this to Stoicism.
First of all, you're going tohave to have the courage to
admit talking about the firstpillar of Stoicism.
Courage.
You're going to have to havethe courage to admit talking
about the first pillar ofstoicism.
Courage, you're going to havethe courage to admit that all
the things that you if you'refeeling like a victim of
(18:25):
anything, whether it's racialdiscrimination or sexual
discrimination or family abuse,like I've gone through, whatever
it is, whatever it is that'ssetting you up as a victim in
any part of your life.
You first have to have thecourage to admit is really no
big deal, okay, anything shortof killing you is really no big
deal because no one really cares.
(18:45):
Okay, you know that's the otherpart of victimhood.
You want everyone to care aboutit, otherwise you don't feel
like you're.
You're being validated as avictim where the survivor
doesn't give a shit if anyoneknows or not, and if it comes up
in conversation, you don't denyit, but then again you let the
conversation move off of it.
It's not the center of yourexistence.
We're in victimhood, oh yeah.
(19:06):
Well, you don't know what I'vebeen through, the kind of things
that he put me through or sheput me through or
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
We've all heard it.
And and if you're doing that, ifyou're feeling like everything
in your life is somehow relatedto some wrong done to you,
particularly in childhood, letit go, okay.
You have to have the courage toadmit you're a victim.
(19:27):
That's the first step, becauseunless you acknowledge that
you're behaving like a victim.
How can you possibly stopbehaving like something you
don't acknowledge?
Okay, stop behaving likesomething you don't acknowledge,
okay.
Then you have to understandthat there is, you know, when we
talk about the second pillar ofstoicism, justice.
You are not going to receivejustice for your victimhood.
(19:48):
Just get over it.
People have their own problems.
You are not going to achievewhether it's you know, something
that's on a public level,restitution, or whether it's an
apology from your abuser.
I mean, I confronted mystepfather straight out at my
sister's wedding, looked himright in the eye, had it out
with him, did not get an apology, will not get an apology, okay.
(20:11):
And the other thing that youhave to understand is that
you're not going.
It's no matter how much.
I know that you said that peoplewho are victims here's how you
know you're a victim.
Why doesn't he, why can't they?
Why don't they?
You start asking that.
Why, question, don't theyunderstand?
Why doesn't he see?
Why doesn't he change?
Or she change?
(20:31):
You can make it interchangeable.
It doesn't matter whatever thecase might be, and the answer is
they don't give a shit andthey're not going to.
And all this stuff is just inyour head, all this noise that's
screaming.
Your abuser abused you becausethey didn't care in the first
place.
They're not going to care later.
Whoever victimized you, inwhatever way it might be,
whether it's physical or sexualor financial or whatever it
(20:52):
might be, when they did it theyfelt justified doing it and to
expect that they're going tohave changed is to have a very
unrealistic expectation.
I mean, if one day they show upat your front door and surprise
you and just throw themselvesat your feet and apologize.
But you know, mostly theyjustify it, that piece of shit
that sexually abused me in hisweird way of describing it.
(21:14):
He viewed it as an act of loveand I'm sure he was a victim.
But again, I don't feel empathyfor him.
I don't feel anything for him.
That's the key.
Goodbye, good luck.
It's a closed chapter.
What's done is done.
You have to recognize the kinksin your armor that have been
left behind by the victimhood,but you can't have that
awareness by the victimhood, butyou can't have that awareness.
(21:37):
So, like, for example, today, Iam single but I occasionally
date and one of the great thingsnow is is I can just sit down
without expectation when I sitdown with a woman and we sit
down and discuss and we starttalking to see if there's any
kind of compatibility and so onand so forth.
I can honestly tell you thatbetrayal is not on my mind.
(21:59):
It's much quieter in your headwhen you're not a victim, when
you're not replaying a story inyour head.
Life is so much quieter.
And that brings me to wisdom,moderation, which is another
pillar of stoicism.
It applies in a general youknow just, it applies in a
general sense in this situation,and that you really need to
(22:21):
tamp down your noise.
Nobody really wants to hear it.
But but as far as wisdom goes,you have to have the wisdom of
understanding that your abuserwas probably abused themselves,
and not to feel empathy for them, but to understand that they
couldn't have been anythingother than but than what they
were, and you were just unluckyand got in their way and were
the target.
And I know that when I say this, a lot of you are going.
(22:41):
You don't understand If the twowords together, yes and but,
are in your head right now yes,but you don't understand.
That's the sign you're off indelusion land.
You know there is no, yes, butOkay.
Your abuser, your persecutor,your enemy, whatever, whoever it
is that has caused this feelingof victimhood in you, or
(23:02):
whatever it is that has causedthis.
Maybe it's an institution,maybe you know, whatever it
might be doesn't care and theydon't care.
(23:24):
So your choice is either togive them power over you that
they're not even asking foranymore because they've moved on
.
That's what it is withsociopaths and psychopaths
They've moved on to their ownthing and live your life and
forget about it.
Not to forget that it everhappened, okay, but forget about
it in the sense of it's acentral thing in your life.
(23:46):
It's just one more experiencethat you've had along the way,
together with the joyful ones,which, by the way, you'll have a
lot more joyful experiences asa survivor.
As a survivor, you can look backwith pride at overcoming
something that was awful.
As a victim, you can take nopride at all in your behavior
because you're allowing yourselfto be constantly re-victimized
(24:07):
by the same situation or personthat did it before, and they
don't even know they're doing itbecause you're empowering them
through your own victimhoodbehavior.
Do not be a victim, be asurvivor and, in a broader sense
, as a culture, and I'll justsay this in closing this would
help us all out, no matter whatgroup we all belong to, let's
bring it to group victimhoodjust to close it out.
For those of you who have notexperienced personal victimhood
(24:31):
and thank God you haven't, bythe way good for you, great but
if you haven't, then let's lookin the broader cultural context
of what victimhood is doing toour culture and our country, and
that is we have so many groupsthat are victims.
They begin to feel entitled tosome sort of recompense or
(24:52):
reparation for what's happenedand just forget it.
You know what you don't, Idon't.
The world doesn't owe meanything because of what Samuel
Cade did to me, and the worlddoesn't owe you anything because
, let's say, let's just talkabout the big one in the room.
You maybe are a black and feelthat you are a victim of the,
(25:12):
the legacy of slavery, and blah,blah, blah.
You know, nothing could be moreridiculous than to demand
reparations and feel like avictim for something that you've
never experienced from peoplewho never did it to you.
Okay, that's the.
That's, that's the pinnacle ofabsurdity in victimhood versus
survivorship.
What you should be saying iseven if you feel like you've had
(25:34):
to overcome things as a blackperson, great, have pride that
you did that as a survivor, notas a victim.
Don't ask for any.
I don't think Samuel K is.
I'll give you a good example.
When I broke away, I knew I waskissing off an inheritance Not
a huge inheritance, but severalmillion dollars that right now
in my life would come in prettyhandy when the old guy dies and
(25:56):
he's 88 years old Now.
You know that's the way it goesand I knew it when I did it.
But it was to me a small priceto pay for my emotional freedom.
But I don't ever think tomyself there's no, there's on no
planet.
Until this moment, talking toyou about it, I haven't thought
about it in years.
As a matter of fact, weirdlyenough, I don't think about it
Not at all when he dies and allthe money goes to my sister,
(26:17):
who's my half sister, by him,and that's fine.
God bless her.
Good luck, I don't want it,it's just, I don't care, I've
let it go.
You have to genuinely let it go.
To be a survivor is to let goof your victimhood completely
(26:37):
and entirely and, instead ofwrapping yourself in a demand
for recompense or reparation, toinstead be proud of what you've
accomplished and then make acontribution in a meaningful way
to your family, your communityand your culture and your
relations.
One last thing yourrelationships with everybody you
know will get so much betterwhen you shake off victimhood.
So much better.
(26:59):
Anyway, that's all I've got foryou today.
For those of you who would liketo read my book A Radical Reset,
which describes anti-politism,which is the solution, let's say
magically, hypothetically, thatPresident Trump were successful
and he got us out of thishorrible mess we're in and we
somehow grow our way out of thiswhole financial thing.
(27:19):
Great, great, great, great,great.
But how do we guarantee that itnever happens again?
Anti-politism, let's say it'smore likely that he's not going
to succeed and we're going toend up in a pile of manure.
Well, that's when the reallybad people come out.
And then democracy historicallyalways ends in tyranny and mob
rule, because democracy is mobrule.
(27:40):
The reason that our foundersset up our country as a republic
and not a democracy was becausethey understood that democracy
is a horrible form of government.
As HL Mencken said and I'mparaphrasing because I'm doing
this from memory democracy iswhen the common man gets what he
wants good and hard, you know,and that's what we're getting
(28:00):
right now.
We're getting what we demandedas a people, good and hard, and
we're going to pay a price forit.
So what comes next?
And how do we prevent it fromhappening again?
And how do we emerge from theashes without having a dictator
or a strong man or a charismaticphony, fraud, self-serving
psychopath, which is what alwaysends up?
(28:20):
Historically, this is the endof democracy.
This is what happens.
But if you're looking for arealistic alternative and
something to really hang yourhat on, that's interesting and,
believe me, you'll try to findholes in it.
You won't check outanti-politicism.
Pick up my book, a radicalreset.
It's available at Amazon onKindle, paperback and hardcover.
(28:41):
Also, you know, share, likeblah, blah, blah.
Pass it on.
Share, share the podcast.
And uh, what else did I want tosay?
Oh, and if you'd like to helpsupport the podcast, there will
be a link to come to myBuzzsprout website, which is
where I post these things,because I really don't have any
idea how to edit and do anythinganyway and I don't really feel
the need to learn, since there'sautomation and AI for this sort
(29:03):
of thing.
Anyway, that'll link you to mywebsite and on that website, you
can support the showfinancially if you choose to.
I love you, whether you do oryou don't.
That's it.
Have a beautiful day UntilFriday, the next podcast.
Have a great week, peace out.
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