June 5, 2024 • 32 mins
Commentator Jordan Peterson’s controversial comments on LGBT Pride Month are making a splash. I break down what he gets right (and what he gets wrong) from the perspective of a socially moderate, anti-woke gay man in this episode of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.
Then, I offer an unexpected take on the trial of Hunter Biden and report on yet another story showing California’s economic policies backfiring. I round out the show by reacting to a WILD Marxist TikTok and reading your comments.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pride is a cardinal sin and there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And prosecutors used a Hunter Biden's own voice as a
key piece of evidence.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Tough time for a beloved Southern California company.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
The simplest way to explain capitalism versus communism is to
look at a family.
Speaker 5 (00:17):
Jordan Peterson's takes on Pride month go viral, Hunter Biden
is on trial, California's minimum wage law backfiers yet again,
and a hilarious Marxist TikTok. All this and so much
more is coming up on today's episode of Brad Versus Everyone,
(00:38):
my daily series where I take on the craziest ideas
from across the Internet and from across our politics from
a center right independent perspective. If you're new here, please
consider subscribing and sticking around. We're building a really fun
community here. And if you're a returning viewer you know
what I'm about to say, don't forget to hit that
like button, and please do comment with your thoughts as
(00:59):
we go along. I do read the comment and I
pick a few to respond to in every episode. So
without further ado, let's get into our first topic today.
Because doctor Jordan Peterson just did an interesting interview with
Fox News where he gave his thoughts on Pride Month. Now,
folks who followed me for some time will know that
I have nuanced but pretty critical thoughts about the modern
(01:20):
pride movement. So I found doctor Peterson's interview interesting, especially
because he's somebody who I've appreciated some of his work
in the past and found him thoughtful, but also sometimes
do disagree with him or find some of his takes extreme.
This interview kind of perfectly encapsulated that, because he made
some good points, I thought, some things I disagree with,
(01:40):
and then some things where I agree, but he said
it a little too extremely for my tastes. We're gonna
break it all down and then you can let me
know who you agree with. Here's the first clip where
he talks about why pride is a bad thing inherently.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So what are my thoughts about Pride Month. Well, the
first thing I would say is that you should be
very careful what you name things, and pride is not
a virtue. And I've brought that up with people before
and their objection always is while they don't really mean pride,
people are just trying to affirm their own identities, and
you know, fair enough, I suppose to some degree, but
(02:18):
that was the name that was chosen, and that's the
name that's stuck. And pride is a cardinal sin, and
there's a reason for that. And the reason is is
that pride means something like stubborn refusal to change when
evidence of error is accruing, and it's not a good thing.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
So hear this a lot when people critique the notion
of pride. Pride is a sin. And I've always found
this argument head scratching, because there is a sin called pride,
but it's referring to something specific and not all forms
of pride in total. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, in the
theological sense, pride is defined as an excessive love of
(02:58):
one's own excellence. It's the opposite of humility, or, as
Peterson describes it, it's stubbornness in the face of contradicting facts.
That could certainly describe some people in the modern alphabet movement,
trust me, but it's not really relevant or applicable to
pride in general. The pride movement, at least theoretically, is
(03:19):
about celebrating self acceptance and your family and your love
and being who you are and overcoming adversity. There's nothing
about it that's inherently arrogant or inherently denying facts that
undercut your own excellence. I mean, I'm sure doctor Peterson
has told his daughter Mikaela Peterson that he's proud of her.
Was that a deadly sin? Of course not. There's a
(03:41):
sense in which pride is just feeling good about your
accomplishments or feeling good about yourself for justifiable reasons, but
not excessively so and arrogant. And in that sense, pride
is a good thing. Having pride in your work is
a good thing. I'm sure doctor Peterson has pride in
the show that he creates for Daily why he's proud
of the product he puts out into the world. Again,
(04:04):
that's not a deadly sin, we saw, Harrison, Butker do
this recently take a shot at the entire idea of
pride mont as celebrating a deadly sin, And to me,
it's just a losing argument because it conflates something pretty
different to a narrow biblical definition of pride in a
double standard. They never apply to other common day versions
of pride that aren't viewed as sinful or bad.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
Doctor Peterson's second criticism of the Pride movement talked about
what he calls sexual narcissism.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
There's a real tinge of narcissism, sexual narcissism about the
whole Pride spectacle. And you know, do people have the
right to express their sexuality the way they see fit
to some degree if it's consensual and among adults, but
generally among human beings with any degree of civilized compartment whatsoever,
(04:54):
it's a pretty damn private affair. We tend to be
private in our sexual conduct as a species, and so
this isn't exactly private. And it's also the case that
identities based on something as narrow as sexual desire, let's say,
aren't identities at all. Their pronouncements of subjection to instinctual whim.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So I agree with the first part of what he
says here. The modern Pride movement is absolutely tinged with
sexual narcissism. One of the reasons Ivy criticized it so
extensively is because it is so hyper sexualized, at least
in the official Pride marches and parades. It's very often
not about celebrating gay love and family and acceptance and tolerance,
(05:40):
but it's about walking around in asslest chaps, or many
people dress up in kink and fetish gear in front
of children, or lots of other stuff that is both
disturbing and I think gives our community a very bad name,
and yes, is narcissistic in the sense that people are
elevating their personal sexual desires and wanting to flaunt them
over what's best for the community, or the fact that
(06:01):
it's not really an appropriate time or place or venue
for that kind of conduct, which, as far as I'm concerned,
knock yourself out but doesn't really belong in public parades.
The part I disagree with, though, about what doctor Peterson
says here is when he does this thing that conservatives
will often do where they conflate being gay with your
sexual preferences, or as he puts it, in identity based
(06:23):
around your sexual desires. To me, this really misses the mark.
Being gay is not just about sex. It's about love,
it's about romance, and it's about family as well. It's
about who you will build a life with, who your
life partner will be, who you might co parent with
one day. It's about so much more than just what
happens in the bedroom. In the same way that you
(06:46):
being proud of your wife and showing people pictures of
your beautiful wife, isn't you flaunting your sexual desires and preferences.
She's your partner, she's your family. You're proud of the
person that she is. You're proud of the love you
share about a lot more than just sexual preferences. But
people on the right will often reduce gay identity to
(07:06):
that when they're speaking derisively, and I really do reject that,
although I do acknowledge that the LGBT community plays into
that notion with its hyper sexualized displays, which is one
of the many reasons that I criticize and don't support those. Next,
Doctor Peterson touched on the tension between the LGB and
the t and the gender activism in a way that
(07:28):
I found very interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I also have a real problem with the idea
of the LGBT plus et cetera community, because it's not
a community, and it's especially not a community right now
because the trans pushing gender affirming butchers and liars primarily
target young people whose most likely outcome on the sexual
(07:52):
front is homosexuality. So the trans gender affirming butchers and
liars are different, destroying the youthful gay community, and that's
not a community by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Now he puts it in terms that are a little
extreme for me, but I do agree that there is
tension between the radical transactivists and gender activists and the
LGBs and the traditional understanding of homosexuality. Now, to be clear,
I don't feel that old school transsexuals like my friends
Blair White or Buck Angel, I don't feel there's anything
(08:29):
about what they advocate for or how they want to
live their lives that is at odds with being gay
and the gay acceptance and the gay movement more broadly.
I don't view those as in conflict. But the modern transactivism,
which essentially increasingly denies the reality of biological sex and
pushes extremely nebulous and problematic arguments and ideas about gender identity,
(08:52):
does undercut the legitimacy of homosexuality. After all, if sex
is just a feeling or a spectrum or or can change,
then being same sex attracted is not an immutable characteristic
the way we argued it was rightly so when we
argued for acceptance. There is tension there and There is
tension between the fact that the transactivist community pushes for
(09:16):
irreversible medical transitioning of minors, which I oppose, and that
in the absence of transitioning a lot. It's hard to
say exactly how many, but at least a significant number
of these gender confused youth would eventually desist and not
have gender dysphoria, and many would just end up being
feminine gay men or butsh lesbian women. So the radical
gender activism and the extreme trans stuff is absolutely in
(09:40):
some ways an attack on the gay community, so much
so that these transactivist groups literally declare that the word
homosexual is now verboten. So I thought he made an
interesting point here, and it's something I've spoken about as well. Now,
this last clip I want to show you is a
little bit of a roller coaster ride.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now. I read recently, like this week, that support for
gay marriage is plummeting. Right, It's like, well, keep pushing,
keep pushing, You're going to lose everything you've gained. And
I'm not celebrating that at all. That's not the point
at all, But I'm just done with it. I don't
(10:19):
like the flag. I think it's a piece of idiocy.
I don't understand why it changes every bloody week. I
don't know who makes those decisions. I don't like the
acronym and all the mystery surrounding it. I don't like
the fact that the LGBT agenda whatever that is increasingly
dominates the school system. I don't like the fact that
it's targeted at young people. And I think the surgery,
(10:40):
the gender affirming care movement, I think it is Nazi
Auschwitz level awful that they should not only stop and
now as they've decided to do in the UK and
in most places in Europe, but I think all the
people that were involved in the surgical transition of minors
should be imprisoned. So there's a lot of house cleaning
(11:03):
to do on the pride side of things.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
So, even as a gay guy, I was with him
until the end there, I totally understand the dislike for
the ugly as shit ever evolving flag that's so hideous
that a gay person definitely was not involved in designing it. Like,
we don't need anything past the basic rainbow. That's the
point of the rainbow. It already includes everybody. And he's
absolutely right that we are seeing some modest declines in
(11:28):
gay acceptance and support for gay marriage, and I do
partially attribute that to a pensulum swing to backlash with
how far insane and extreme LGBT activism has gone. If
you tell people that in order to accept the LGBT community,
you have to accept biological males dominating women's sports, or
irreversible medical changes to minors, or neo pronouns and non
(11:52):
binary and all the other TikTok nonsense, then yeah, some
people are just gonna reject the whole thing. And I'd
like people to have more nuance and maybe pick and
choose what makes sense to support and what doesn't. But
that's not how many people think honestly, which is part
of why I've spoken out right, is to stop this
pendulum swinging, to give people an alternative, a sane middle
ground on these issues. But I don't think he's wrong
(12:15):
that this is happening, this backlash in part because of
people going too far within the LGBT community. I think
that's undeniable at this point. I will say that even
when I agree with him that he does this a
lot nowadays, increasingly so far more than he did earlier
in his career. Peterson loses me with the extreme nature
of some of his rhetoric. I'm against the medical transitioning
(12:36):
of miners. I have been for years on record. I
think it's bad. I don't support it. I think these
European countries are doing the right thing by rolling it
back and restricting it. But don't compare it to the
Nazis and Aschwitz. Come on, unless millions of people have
been systematically killed somewhere and I just missed it, that's
(12:56):
not an appropriate comparison. Almost nothing is actually comparable to
the Nazi era, and people do this all the time,
comparing stuff to it, but it just hurts their own arguments. Really,
people on the right can recognize this. When insane woke
lefties we're constantly calling Trump literally Hitler, y'all can see
how silly that sounds. Right, even if you don't like him,
(13:18):
he's never literally been equivalent to Hitler. Well, even if
you don't like it, even if you think it's evil,
if it's wrong, you want to ban it. Gender firming
care is still not akin to the Nazis, guys, come on, touchgrass.
And I also don't really agree with the idea of
locking up doctors who provided legal and recommended care. You
can't put people in jail retroactively for something that was
(13:41):
completely legal when they did it. That's actually kind of orwellian.
And while I do think in many cases they were
mistaken to do so, they were just following the standards
and recommendations set out by the medical authorities that they
defer to in their field. Lots of these doctors probably
earnestly believe they were doing what was in this kid's
best interest. Now, maybe some of these kids might have
(14:03):
malpractice claims somewhere along the line here, that's a civil matter.
Locking up doctors for following the law and doing what
was recommended by the expert industry associations that set standards
for medical treatments isn't fair and isn't reasonable. That's just
my take. I did find this interview really interesting and
(14:25):
it was getting a lot of buzz online, so I
wanted to give my thoughts on it, and you're yours.
Let me know in the comments who you agree with,
doctor Peterson, myself, or a little bit of both. And
now let's talk about Hunter Biden, the President's wayward son
who's on trial this week in a criminal case. Now,
my take on This might surprise you slightly because I'm
going to make sort of a defense of Hunter Biden.
(14:48):
But first, here's some coverage from five News to help
us get caught up on what's going on.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
After emotional opening statements in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial, today,
the Delaware jury could hear fly personal witness testimony. As
soon as today. Prosecutors could call hunter Biden's ex wife
and other family to the stand. Jared Hill has the latest.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
In an intense day of opening statements, prosecutors used a
Hunter Biden's own voice as a key piece of evidence
in their case against the President's son. First Lady Jill Biden,
sitting behind him as an FBI agent played clips from
Hunter Biden's twenty twenty one audiobook of his memoir Beautiful Things,
in which he details his crack addiction the same year
(15:30):
he bought the gun at the center of the case.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I used my superpower finding crack anytime anywhere less than
a day after landing at Lax in the spring of
twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Prosecutors will tell you that there are few things more
effective before a jury than being able to show the
jury what the defendants said. In this case, hearing the
defendant's own voice describing his struggles with addiction and the
fact that he was using illegal controlled substances right around
the time he bought this gun.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to felony charges he
made false statements on a federal background form by not
acknowledging his drug use when applying for a handgun in
October of twenty eighteen, then possessing it illegally. Biden's defense
argued the President's son didn't knowingly make false statements because
he was seeking sobriety and, like other addicts, experienced a
(16:23):
deep state of denial.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
They're really trying to paint Hunter Biden as someone who
was making a good faith effort to get himself cleaned.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
If convicted, Hunter Biden could face up to twenty five
years in prison.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
So let me try to explain this case in as
simple as terms as possible. Hunter Biden is a longtime
self admitted drug abuser, but he also purchased a handgun.
And you have to fill out a form that asks
you some questions as part of federal law. One of
those questions requires you to attest that you are not
a user of any unlawful drug he said he wasn't,
(16:56):
which isn't true and is directly contradicted by public evidence,
including his own audiobook memoir, and now is being held
accountable for lying on a federal form violating federal law
to obtain a firearm. On one level, they've got him
dead to rights, and it's hard to feel too much
sympathy for the guy. He clearly knowingly checked off the
(17:19):
wrong box on this form, and he's openly confessed and
bragged about his drug use. So it's easy to look
at this case and be like, Wow, a person who,
by the way, I'll just say, is not a good person, right,
he really is a sleeves ball. It's easy to just
say this guy played stupid games and he won stupid prizes,
and he should be held accountable like anybody else for
(17:41):
breaking the law. So on one hand, I'm like, yeah,
get him good. On the other hand, though, this law
I really don't think it should exist, and the potential
punishments here seem wildly excessive. Plus if his name wasn't
Hunter Biden, prosecutors probably wouldn't even have bought the to
prosecute this case. First. This law, this federal law, makes
(18:04):
it unlawful for anyone who uses drugs in any capacity,
including just marijuana, guys, to purchase a firearm. That's stupid,
that's dumb. Now, maybe if we're talking about literal crack
or something heavy and serious, that's potentially a problematic. But
just because somebody smokes pot doesn't mean they should be
stripped of their Second Amendment rights and their ability to
(18:26):
purchase a firearm. And I'm honestly open to the idea
that even more heavy drug users, unless there's real evidence
showing that that makes them incredibly likely to be violent,
and I'm really not sure there is, should still have
the right to self defense as long as they're not
using the firearm well actively high, of course, But that's
different from simply being a drug user and also owning
(18:48):
a firearm. But let's say you do think this should
be a crime. Still twenty five years in jail. Now,
he probably won't get that, he might not even get
jail time. But we're talking about a crime with no victim.
Nobody was hurt, nobody's rights were violated. As far as
I'm aware, he never even did anything wrong with the firearm.
(19:10):
Incarcerating people should be a last resort for when they're
a danger to society, a menace, and they've harmed someone.
But he could potentially get more time in jail than
many people who commit sexual assault get, people who commit manslaughter,
whose actions take someone's life. I have absolutely no love
(19:30):
lost for the Biden family or for Hunter Biden, but
I'm sorry that strikes me as unreasonable and unfair. And
here's the other thing, Guys, if Biden was just an
everyday American and did this exact same thing, they probably
wouldn't even have prosecuted him. As reasons Jacob's Solemn reports.
The fact that Biden was prosecuted at all for violating
(19:51):
Section nine twenty two G three marks his case as
highly unusual because millions of people do this and never
get prosecuted. Reports that, judging from survey data on drug
use and gun ownerships, something like twenty million Americans are
committing that felony right now. The Justice Department prosecutes only
a minuscule percentage of those potential defendants. That is partly
(20:13):
because such cases are not a high priority, which tells
you something about the logic of treating this offense as
a felony that is currently punishable. By up to fifteen
years in prison. The main reason that gun owning drug
users are rarely prosecuted is that the government generally does
not know who they are. So again, on one hand,
it's kind of Hunter's fall because he confessed publicly accidentally
(20:34):
sort of with his autobiography and his other public displays
of drug use. But on the other hand, there's something
wrong about a selective enforcement system where tons of people
commit a crime but only certain ones get held accountable,
especially when again, nobody was hurt. Hunter Biden is nobody's
idea of an innocent hero. But I still don't really
(20:58):
think this case against is productive or fair. That's just
my take on it, But you guys can let me
know what you think in the comments below. Up next,
California's twenty dollars minimum wage mandate is backfiring yet again.
Here's some local coverage from KKW News.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It's sad to see that it's a quality, good company
that can't keep all of their Rubios open.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Customers with hankering for Rubio's fish tacos might have to
drive a little farther to get their fix. The restaurant's
owners announced Friday they had shuddered more than a third
of its locations, including twenty four in the LA area,
in a statement saying the closings were brought about by
the rising cost of doing business in California. While painful,
(21:42):
the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic,
long term plan to position Rubios for success for years
to comp disappointed customers across the state, Echoing the company's frustration.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I'm sure a lot of businesses are going through the
same problems.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
We're over tag were overburdened.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
Urubia's closures, of course, mean lots of workers lost their jobs.
The company did not confirm how many. Wheaton says in
the last nine months, including since the minimum wage hike,
about ten thousand fast food workers in the state overall
have lost their jobs. That's about one point three percent decline.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So you mean to tell me that they hiked the
minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour for the restaurant industry,
which already runs on very tight profit margins, and now
a bunch of restaurants are closing locations. This is my
shocked face. And of course it's not just this one
chain that we're seeing in this latest news development. It's
tons of chains and tons of businesses that are closing
(22:42):
down and laying off workers who were supposed to be
helped by this minimum wage hike but ended up out
of a job and screwing over all the consumers that
liked to go to these places, all because progressive politicians
refuse to stop helping. How bad does it have to
get before they wake up, before they realize that this
is foolishness? I don't know, guys, I truly don't know.
(23:06):
All right, now it's time for Brad versus TikTok, my
series where I take on the craziest ideas from the
clock apps. Don't get to subscribe and stick around if
you're enjoying this video and hit that like button. Now
we're going to take a look at a rather interesting
Marxist TikTok.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
The simplest way to explain capitalism versus communism is to
look at a family. Pretty much, every sane person runs
their family under a communist economic model. You're living communally,
So so far, I actually agree people do run their
own family units like a communist system, I guess in
a way, But that very much only works at that
(23:47):
extremely small local level and small scale involving people who
deeply care about each other and in fact will put
each other's needs over their own. It doesn't work applied
to a whole society where you expect people to treat
random strangers like family. For example, right, if I have
kids one day, I will be happy to work hard
(24:08):
and then share whatever wealth I earn with them, even
though they won't give me anything direct in return. But
I'm not and I would never be willing to just
do the same for some random stranger. Ironically, this kind
of explains why socialism and communism are doomed to fail
because they're utopian and they deny human nature. But he's
setting this up like it's gonna make the case for
(24:30):
communism interesting. I guess, let's see where it goes. A
capitalist economic model applied to a family would be like
if the dad owned the dishwasher, the laundry machine, and
the lawnmower and charge his own kids to use those things.
And let's say the mom owns the vacuum and she
still has to pay to use the other appliances. Eventually
(24:53):
she's gonna run out of money. Even if she's charging
the dad to use the vacuum, he's gonna be making
a lot more money a lot faster than she is,
and she might have to sell the vacuum cleaner to him.
And then all of a sudden, he owns all the
appliances and the whole family because they didn't really like
come together and fight when they had the chance, they're
indebted to the dad forever. He could use this economic model,
(25:15):
the fact that all of the appliances in the house
are his private property. He can use that to basically
have indentured servants who do all of the housework for
him for the rest of time. He's making astronomical profits
compared to what the rest of his family is making,
enough to hire security to guard his private property against
(25:36):
his own family. Do you see how bizarre and anti
social capitalism gets? When you follow the model's design in
people's material interests just a little bit down that line,
it always tends toward monopoly.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Because this hypothetical doesn't make any sense as a stand
in for free market capitalism. These appliances, like the dishwasher
or whatever, are supposed to be goods or services that
people needed and must buy. Right But is there any
world in which there's only one dishwasher aka? Only one
(26:07):
grocery store. You can buy food at only one gas station,
you can go to purchase fuel, only one place to
buy or order clothes. I have never lived in such
a place or encountered one personally.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
No.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
In reality, in almost all places, especially in the era
of the Internet, you have many different options and they're
all competing to offer you lower prices or sales or
higher quality products. In fact, the consumers really have the
power there, So it's just nothing like the scenario he's describing.
His argument also rests on the false assumption that free
(26:42):
markets tend towards monopolies. But that's not true because when
you have big profits in an industry, that attracts new
businesses to enter that field to try to cash in
on those profits and increase his competition with a little
bit of time. Look at TikTok, for example. They were
becoming huge with these short form vertical videos, and at
first they were the only ones doing it right. Then
(27:02):
Instagram got in the game with Instagram reels, Facebook reels,
they got in the game, and YouTube shorts got in
the game. Boom monopoly eviscerated again. Profitable industries actually reject monopoly.
They attract competition. Now, there are some narrow exceptions where
monopolies can form in a free market due to something
called economies of scale, but it's a pretty specific set
(27:25):
of circumstances that's not applicable in most cases. And usually
when you see a monopoly form, it's actually not because
of free market capitalism, but it's because the government is
colluding with big business to rig the system and put
up barriers to block competition. That's actually anti capitalist behavior though,
and it's not at all a free market anyway. I
(27:48):
have a book recommendation for our communist TikTok friend here.
All right, I'm going to skip forward a little, it's
a really long video and get to the rest of
the good part I want to talk about.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Then, once the dad has kind of cornered the market
and has the majority of those appliances, no one's really
going to be able to compete. That's where socialism comes in.
Socialism is the transition from that capitalistic model with the
private ownership of property, to communism where there's no need
(28:18):
for people to own property because we're all on the
same team.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
You hear that, guys, We're just all going to be
on the same team and all just work together for
the common good. This is where the utopian thinking runs
into reality. Humans are inherently self interested beings. Now, sometimes
our self interest includes other people like me caring about
my future kids. But nobody is ever going to work
(28:44):
hard just in pursuit of the nebulous collective common good
out there in the universe. Thinking you can all be
on one team in a country of three hundred and
thirty million people is delusional.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Now.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
The beauty of capitalism with restraints and with rules and
frameworks set out is that it harnesses humans inherent self
interest towards productive ends. But if your economic system relies
on people being inherently selfless and putting the greater good
over their own self interest, it is doomed to fail.
(29:20):
It divorces effort from incentives, it promotes and encourages free writing,
and it's fundamentally incompatible with human nature. Other than that,
though you're doing great, What do you guys think of
this communist TikTok? Let me know in the comments below,
and don't forget to hit that like button. Now, before
we wrap up today's show, I'll read a few of
(29:41):
your comments that y'all left on the last episode. One
person says, as a Colombian, I swear whenever I hear
or read that abhorrent LATINX, my blood boils. It's just
freaking neo colonialism from woke Americans who are arrogant enough
to make a whole group modify their language. Believe me,
nobody here uses that endous word. It really is funny
(30:02):
because it comes from the same crowd that rails against
the evils of colonialism, but they're colonizing other people's language.
I remember I went to Costa Rica a couple of
years back, and I asked a bunch of people in
my broken Spanish if they'd heard of LATINX or if
it made sense to them, and they all looked at
me like I was crazy. Another person says, if we're
supposed to call people what they want to be called,
(30:22):
why do these activists keep saying LATINX or WHIMXN or sis.
It's a good question. Another guy says, as a center
left independent gay man, I really appreciate you and other
sane not queer voices speaking up publicly to make it
known that we're not all insane. Don't listen to anyone
when they tell you that you look like Patrick Bateman.
(30:42):
Wait is that an insult? Isn't he like kind of
good looking? But thank you? And yeah, you know, like
any community, any demographic group of people, really not a community.
Gay people are individuals with different opinions and viewpoints and values.
We're not some monolith, but it can seem that way
from the representation of the mainstream LGBT community, where everyone's
(31:03):
a woke democrat. Another person says, you trained me. Well,
the first thing I do is hit the like and
then focus on the video. Good job. That's exactly what
I'm going for. So Marv, you follow this person's lead.
Another person says, Brad, don't listen to the haters. I
like your simple and low key setup. It's homely. So
this is funny because I think you meant to say
that it's homye, because to say it's homely is actually
(31:27):
saying that it's ugly. But yeah, I'm going to work
on my setup and eventually I'll probably have something different.
But for now, guys, we're stuck with this, so deal
with it, okay, or feel free to donate a couple
thousand dollars for me to build an in home studio
if you want to do that, I'm all ears. Another
person put a laughing emoji at the people hating on
Brad's background as I like the grow as we Go painting.
(31:49):
So here's the thing. Y'all are making fun of that,
like it's just some cheesy home goods art or something,
and it is, but it has particular significance to me
and my boyfriend because our song is the ben Plat
song Grow as we Go. So I bet y'all feel
like assholes now. Another person says day four asking for
a Palumbo plushy, and they've made that their username and image.
(32:12):
Oh well, I feel slightly unsafe, and I probably won't
be making or offering a palumbo plushy because I would
be disturbed by the thought of what people might use
it for. But thanks for your interest. All right, everybody.
That's it for today's episode. I can't do any more
of this today. Thanks so much for tuning in. Don't
(32:34):
forget to hit that like button, YadA YadA yah. We'll
talk again tomorrow, all right,
Pride is a cardinal sin and there's a reason for that.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
And prosecutors used a Hunter Biden's own voice as a
key piece of evidence.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Tough time for a beloved Southern California company.
Speaker 4 (00:11):
The simplest way to explain capitalism versus communism is to
look at a family.
Speaker 5 (00:17):
Jordan Peterson's takes on Pride month go viral, Hunter Biden
is on trial, California's minimum wage law backfiers yet again,
and a hilarious Marxist TikTok. All this and so much
more is coming up on today's episode of Brad Versus Everyone,
(00:38):
my daily series where I take on the craziest ideas
from across the Internet and from across our politics from
a center right independent perspective. If you're new here, please
consider subscribing and sticking around. We're building a really fun
community here. And if you're a returning viewer you know
what I'm about to say, don't forget to hit that
like button, and please do comment with your thoughts as
(00:59):
we go along. I do read the comment and I
pick a few to respond to in every episode. So
without further ado, let's get into our first topic today.
Because doctor Jordan Peterson just did an interesting interview with
Fox News where he gave his thoughts on Pride Month. Now,
folks who followed me for some time will know that
I have nuanced but pretty critical thoughts about the modern
(01:20):
pride movement. So I found doctor Peterson's interview interesting, especially
because he's somebody who I've appreciated some of his work
in the past and found him thoughtful, but also sometimes
do disagree with him or find some of his takes extreme.
This interview kind of perfectly encapsulated that, because he made
some good points, I thought, some things I disagree with,
(01:40):
and then some things where I agree, but he said
it a little too extremely for my tastes. We're gonna
break it all down and then you can let me
know who you agree with. Here's the first clip where
he talks about why pride is a bad thing inherently.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So what are my thoughts about Pride Month. Well, the
first thing I would say is that you should be
very careful what you name things, and pride is not
a virtue. And I've brought that up with people before
and their objection always is while they don't really mean pride,
people are just trying to affirm their own identities, and
you know, fair enough, I suppose to some degree, but
(02:18):
that was the name that was chosen, and that's the
name that's stuck. And pride is a cardinal sin, and
there's a reason for that. And the reason is is
that pride means something like stubborn refusal to change when
evidence of error is accruing, and it's not a good thing.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
So hear this a lot when people critique the notion
of pride. Pride is a sin. And I've always found
this argument head scratching, because there is a sin called pride,
but it's referring to something specific and not all forms
of pride in total. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, in the
theological sense, pride is defined as an excessive love of
(02:58):
one's own excellence. It's the opposite of humility, or, as
Peterson describes it, it's stubbornness in the face of contradicting facts.
That could certainly describe some people in the modern alphabet movement,
trust me, but it's not really relevant or applicable to
pride in general. The pride movement, at least theoretically, is
(03:19):
about celebrating self acceptance and your family and your love
and being who you are and overcoming adversity. There's nothing
about it that's inherently arrogant or inherently denying facts that
undercut your own excellence. I mean, I'm sure doctor Peterson
has told his daughter Mikaela Peterson that he's proud of her.
Was that a deadly sin? Of course not. There's a
(03:41):
sense in which pride is just feeling good about your
accomplishments or feeling good about yourself for justifiable reasons, but
not excessively so and arrogant. And in that sense, pride
is a good thing. Having pride in your work is
a good thing. I'm sure doctor Peterson has pride in
the show that he creates for Daily why he's proud
of the product he puts out into the world. Again,
(04:04):
that's not a deadly sin, we saw, Harrison, Butker do
this recently take a shot at the entire idea of
pride mont as celebrating a deadly sin, And to me,
it's just a losing argument because it conflates something pretty
different to a narrow biblical definition of pride in a
double standard. They never apply to other common day versions
of pride that aren't viewed as sinful or bad.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Now.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
Doctor Peterson's second criticism of the Pride movement talked about
what he calls sexual narcissism.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
There's a real tinge of narcissism, sexual narcissism about the
whole Pride spectacle. And you know, do people have the
right to express their sexuality the way they see fit
to some degree if it's consensual and among adults, but
generally among human beings with any degree of civilized compartment whatsoever,
(04:54):
it's a pretty damn private affair. We tend to be
private in our sexual conduct as a species, and so
this isn't exactly private. And it's also the case that
identities based on something as narrow as sexual desire, let's say,
aren't identities at all. Their pronouncements of subjection to instinctual whim.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
So I agree with the first part of what he
says here. The modern Pride movement is absolutely tinged with
sexual narcissism. One of the reasons Ivy criticized it so
extensively is because it is so hyper sexualized, at least
in the official Pride marches and parades. It's very often
not about celebrating gay love and family and acceptance and tolerance,
(05:40):
but it's about walking around in asslest chaps, or many
people dress up in kink and fetish gear in front
of children, or lots of other stuff that is both
disturbing and I think gives our community a very bad name,
and yes, is narcissistic in the sense that people are
elevating their personal sexual desires and wanting to flaunt them
over what's best for the community, or the fact that
(06:01):
it's not really an appropriate time or place or venue
for that kind of conduct, which, as far as I'm concerned,
knock yourself out but doesn't really belong in public parades.
The part I disagree with, though, about what doctor Peterson
says here is when he does this thing that conservatives
will often do where they conflate being gay with your
sexual preferences, or as he puts it, in identity based
(06:23):
around your sexual desires. To me, this really misses the mark.
Being gay is not just about sex. It's about love,
it's about romance, and it's about family as well. It's
about who you will build a life with, who your
life partner will be, who you might co parent with
one day. It's about so much more than just what
happens in the bedroom. In the same way that you
(06:46):
being proud of your wife and showing people pictures of
your beautiful wife, isn't you flaunting your sexual desires and preferences.
She's your partner, she's your family. You're proud of the
person that she is. You're proud of the love you
share about a lot more than just sexual preferences. But
people on the right will often reduce gay identity to
(07:06):
that when they're speaking derisively, and I really do reject that,
although I do acknowledge that the LGBT community plays into
that notion with its hyper sexualized displays, which is one
of the many reasons that I criticize and don't support those. Next,
Doctor Peterson touched on the tension between the LGB and
the t and the gender activism in a way that
(07:28):
I found very interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I also have a real problem with the idea
of the LGBT plus et cetera community, because it's not
a community, and it's especially not a community right now
because the trans pushing gender affirming butchers and liars primarily
target young people whose most likely outcome on the sexual
(07:52):
front is homosexuality. So the trans gender affirming butchers and
liars are different, destroying the youthful gay community, and that's
not a community by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Now he puts it in terms that are a little
extreme for me, but I do agree that there is
tension between the radical transactivists and gender activists and the
LGBs and the traditional understanding of homosexuality. Now, to be clear,
I don't feel that old school transsexuals like my friends
Blair White or Buck Angel, I don't feel there's anything
(08:29):
about what they advocate for or how they want to
live their lives that is at odds with being gay
and the gay acceptance and the gay movement more broadly.
I don't view those as in conflict. But the modern transactivism,
which essentially increasingly denies the reality of biological sex and
pushes extremely nebulous and problematic arguments and ideas about gender identity,
(08:52):
does undercut the legitimacy of homosexuality. After all, if sex
is just a feeling or a spectrum or or can change,
then being same sex attracted is not an immutable characteristic
the way we argued it was rightly so when we
argued for acceptance. There is tension there and There is
tension between the fact that the transactivist community pushes for
(09:16):
irreversible medical transitioning of minors, which I oppose, and that
in the absence of transitioning a lot. It's hard to
say exactly how many, but at least a significant number
of these gender confused youth would eventually desist and not
have gender dysphoria, and many would just end up being
feminine gay men or butsh lesbian women. So the radical
gender activism and the extreme trans stuff is absolutely in
(09:40):
some ways an attack on the gay community, so much
so that these transactivist groups literally declare that the word
homosexual is now verboten. So I thought he made an
interesting point here, and it's something I've spoken about as well. Now,
this last clip I want to show you is a
little bit of a roller coaster ride.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now. I read recently, like this week, that support for
gay marriage is plummeting. Right, It's like, well, keep pushing,
keep pushing, You're going to lose everything you've gained. And
I'm not celebrating that at all. That's not the point
at all, But I'm just done with it. I don't
(10:19):
like the flag. I think it's a piece of idiocy.
I don't understand why it changes every bloody week. I
don't know who makes those decisions. I don't like the
acronym and all the mystery surrounding it. I don't like
the fact that the LGBT agenda whatever that is increasingly
dominates the school system. I don't like the fact that
it's targeted at young people. And I think the surgery,
(10:40):
the gender affirming care movement, I think it is Nazi
Auschwitz level awful that they should not only stop and
now as they've decided to do in the UK and
in most places in Europe, but I think all the
people that were involved in the surgical transition of minors
should be imprisoned. So there's a lot of house cleaning
(11:03):
to do on the pride side of things.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
So, even as a gay guy, I was with him
until the end there, I totally understand the dislike for
the ugly as shit ever evolving flag that's so hideous
that a gay person definitely was not involved in designing it. Like,
we don't need anything past the basic rainbow. That's the
point of the rainbow. It already includes everybody. And he's
absolutely right that we are seeing some modest declines in
(11:28):
gay acceptance and support for gay marriage, and I do
partially attribute that to a pensulum swing to backlash with
how far insane and extreme LGBT activism has gone. If
you tell people that in order to accept the LGBT community,
you have to accept biological males dominating women's sports, or
irreversible medical changes to minors, or neo pronouns and non
(11:52):
binary and all the other TikTok nonsense, then yeah, some
people are just gonna reject the whole thing. And I'd
like people to have more nuance and maybe pick and
choose what makes sense to support and what doesn't. But
that's not how many people think honestly, which is part
of why I've spoken out right, is to stop this
pendulum swinging, to give people an alternative, a sane middle
ground on these issues. But I don't think he's wrong
(12:15):
that this is happening, this backlash in part because of
people going too far within the LGBT community. I think
that's undeniable at this point. I will say that even
when I agree with him that he does this a
lot nowadays, increasingly so far more than he did earlier
in his career. Peterson loses me with the extreme nature
of some of his rhetoric. I'm against the medical transitioning
(12:36):
of miners. I have been for years on record. I
think it's bad. I don't support it. I think these
European countries are doing the right thing by rolling it
back and restricting it. But don't compare it to the
Nazis and Aschwitz. Come on, unless millions of people have
been systematically killed somewhere and I just missed it, that's
(12:56):
not an appropriate comparison. Almost nothing is actually comparable to
the Nazi era, and people do this all the time,
comparing stuff to it, but it just hurts their own arguments. Really,
people on the right can recognize this. When insane woke
lefties we're constantly calling Trump literally Hitler, y'all can see
how silly that sounds. Right, even if you don't like him,
(13:18):
he's never literally been equivalent to Hitler. Well, even if
you don't like it, even if you think it's evil,
if it's wrong, you want to ban it. Gender firming
care is still not akin to the Nazis, guys, come on, touchgrass.
And I also don't really agree with the idea of
locking up doctors who provided legal and recommended care. You
can't put people in jail retroactively for something that was
(13:41):
completely legal when they did it. That's actually kind of orwellian.
And while I do think in many cases they were
mistaken to do so, they were just following the standards
and recommendations set out by the medical authorities that they
defer to in their field. Lots of these doctors probably
earnestly believe they were doing what was in this kid's
best interest. Now, maybe some of these kids might have
(14:03):
malpractice claims somewhere along the line here, that's a civil matter.
Locking up doctors for following the law and doing what
was recommended by the expert industry associations that set standards
for medical treatments isn't fair and isn't reasonable. That's just
my take. I did find this interview really interesting and
(14:25):
it was getting a lot of buzz online, so I
wanted to give my thoughts on it, and you're yours.
Let me know in the comments who you agree with,
doctor Peterson, myself, or a little bit of both. And
now let's talk about Hunter Biden, the President's wayward son
who's on trial this week in a criminal case. Now,
my take on This might surprise you slightly because I'm
going to make sort of a defense of Hunter Biden.
(14:48):
But first, here's some coverage from five News to help
us get caught up on what's going on.
Speaker 6 (14:53):
After emotional opening statements in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial, today,
the Delaware jury could hear fly personal witness testimony. As
soon as today. Prosecutors could call hunter Biden's ex wife
and other family to the stand. Jared Hill has the latest.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
In an intense day of opening statements, prosecutors used a
Hunter Biden's own voice as a key piece of evidence
in their case against the President's son. First Lady Jill Biden,
sitting behind him as an FBI agent played clips from
Hunter Biden's twenty twenty one audiobook of his memoir Beautiful Things,
in which he details his crack addiction the same year
(15:30):
he bought the gun at the center of the case.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I used my superpower finding crack anytime anywhere less than
a day after landing at Lax in the spring of
twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Prosecutors will tell you that there are few things more
effective before a jury than being able to show the
jury what the defendants said. In this case, hearing the
defendant's own voice describing his struggles with addiction and the
fact that he was using illegal controlled substances right around
the time he bought this gun.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to felony charges he
made false statements on a federal background form by not
acknowledging his drug use when applying for a handgun in
October of twenty eighteen, then possessing it illegally. Biden's defense
argued the President's son didn't knowingly make false statements because
he was seeking sobriety and, like other addicts, experienced a
(16:23):
deep state of denial.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
They're really trying to paint Hunter Biden as someone who
was making a good faith effort to get himself cleaned.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
If convicted, Hunter Biden could face up to twenty five
years in prison.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
So let me try to explain this case in as
simple as terms as possible. Hunter Biden is a longtime
self admitted drug abuser, but he also purchased a handgun.
And you have to fill out a form that asks
you some questions as part of federal law. One of
those questions requires you to attest that you are not
a user of any unlawful drug he said he wasn't,
(16:56):
which isn't true and is directly contradicted by public evidence,
including his own audiobook memoir, and now is being held
accountable for lying on a federal form violating federal law
to obtain a firearm. On one level, they've got him
dead to rights, and it's hard to feel too much
sympathy for the guy. He clearly knowingly checked off the
(17:19):
wrong box on this form, and he's openly confessed and
bragged about his drug use. So it's easy to look
at this case and be like, Wow, a person who,
by the way, I'll just say, is not a good person, right,
he really is a sleeves ball. It's easy to just
say this guy played stupid games and he won stupid prizes,
and he should be held accountable like anybody else for
(17:41):
breaking the law. So on one hand, I'm like, yeah,
get him good. On the other hand, though, this law
I really don't think it should exist, and the potential
punishments here seem wildly excessive. Plus if his name wasn't
Hunter Biden, prosecutors probably wouldn't even have bought the to
prosecute this case. First. This law, this federal law, makes
(18:04):
it unlawful for anyone who uses drugs in any capacity,
including just marijuana, guys, to purchase a firearm. That's stupid,
that's dumb. Now, maybe if we're talking about literal crack
or something heavy and serious, that's potentially a problematic. But
just because somebody smokes pot doesn't mean they should be
stripped of their Second Amendment rights and their ability to
(18:26):
purchase a firearm. And I'm honestly open to the idea
that even more heavy drug users, unless there's real evidence
showing that that makes them incredibly likely to be violent,
and I'm really not sure there is, should still have
the right to self defense as long as they're not
using the firearm well actively high, of course, But that's
different from simply being a drug user and also owning
(18:48):
a firearm. But let's say you do think this should
be a crime. Still twenty five years in jail. Now,
he probably won't get that, he might not even get
jail time. But we're talking about a crime with no victim.
Nobody was hurt, nobody's rights were violated. As far as
I'm aware, he never even did anything wrong with the firearm.
(19:10):
Incarcerating people should be a last resort for when they're
a danger to society, a menace, and they've harmed someone.
But he could potentially get more time in jail than
many people who commit sexual assault get, people who commit manslaughter,
whose actions take someone's life. I have absolutely no love
(19:30):
lost for the Biden family or for Hunter Biden, but
I'm sorry that strikes me as unreasonable and unfair. And
here's the other thing, Guys, if Biden was just an
everyday American and did this exact same thing, they probably
wouldn't even have prosecuted him. As reasons Jacob's Solemn reports.
The fact that Biden was prosecuted at all for violating
(19:51):
Section nine twenty two G three marks his case as
highly unusual because millions of people do this and never
get prosecuted. Reports that, judging from survey data on drug
use and gun ownerships, something like twenty million Americans are
committing that felony right now. The Justice Department prosecutes only
a minuscule percentage of those potential defendants. That is partly
(20:13):
because such cases are not a high priority, which tells
you something about the logic of treating this offense as
a felony that is currently punishable. By up to fifteen
years in prison. The main reason that gun owning drug
users are rarely prosecuted is that the government generally does
not know who they are. So again, on one hand,
it's kind of Hunter's fall because he confessed publicly accidentally
(20:34):
sort of with his autobiography and his other public displays
of drug use. But on the other hand, there's something
wrong about a selective enforcement system where tons of people
commit a crime but only certain ones get held accountable,
especially when again, nobody was hurt. Hunter Biden is nobody's
idea of an innocent hero. But I still don't really
(20:58):
think this case against is productive or fair. That's just
my take on it, But you guys can let me
know what you think in the comments below. Up next,
California's twenty dollars minimum wage mandate is backfiring yet again.
Here's some local coverage from KKW News.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
It's sad to see that it's a quality, good company
that can't keep all of their Rubios open.
Speaker 7 (21:21):
Customers with hankering for Rubio's fish tacos might have to
drive a little farther to get their fix. The restaurant's
owners announced Friday they had shuddered more than a third
of its locations, including twenty four in the LA area,
in a statement saying the closings were brought about by
the rising cost of doing business in California. While painful,
(21:42):
the store closures are a necessary step in our strategic,
long term plan to position Rubios for success for years
to comp disappointed customers across the state, Echoing the company's frustration.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
I'm sure a lot of businesses are going through the
same problems.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
We're over tag were overburdened.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
Urubia's closures, of course, mean lots of workers lost their jobs.
The company did not confirm how many. Wheaton says in
the last nine months, including since the minimum wage hike,
about ten thousand fast food workers in the state overall
have lost their jobs. That's about one point three percent decline.
Speaker 5 (22:20):
So you mean to tell me that they hiked the
minimum wage to twenty dollars an hour for the restaurant industry,
which already runs on very tight profit margins, and now
a bunch of restaurants are closing locations. This is my
shocked face. And of course it's not just this one
chain that we're seeing in this latest news development. It's
tons of chains and tons of businesses that are closing
(22:42):
down and laying off workers who were supposed to be
helped by this minimum wage hike but ended up out
of a job and screwing over all the consumers that
liked to go to these places, all because progressive politicians
refuse to stop helping. How bad does it have to
get before they wake up, before they realize that this
is foolishness? I don't know, guys, I truly don't know.
(23:06):
All right, now it's time for Brad versus TikTok, my
series where I take on the craziest ideas from the
clock apps. Don't get to subscribe and stick around if
you're enjoying this video and hit that like button. Now
we're going to take a look at a rather interesting
Marxist TikTok.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
The simplest way to explain capitalism versus communism is to
look at a family. Pretty much, every sane person runs
their family under a communist economic model. You're living communally,
So so far, I actually agree people do run their
own family units like a communist system, I guess in
a way, But that very much only works at that
(23:47):
extremely small local level and small scale involving people who
deeply care about each other and in fact will put
each other's needs over their own. It doesn't work applied
to a whole society where you expect people to treat
random strangers like family. For example, right, if I have
kids one day, I will be happy to work hard
(24:08):
and then share whatever wealth I earn with them, even
though they won't give me anything direct in return. But
I'm not and I would never be willing to just
do the same for some random stranger. Ironically, this kind
of explains why socialism and communism are doomed to fail
because they're utopian and they deny human nature. But he's
setting this up like it's gonna make the case for
(24:30):
communism interesting. I guess, let's see where it goes. A
capitalist economic model applied to a family would be like
if the dad owned the dishwasher, the laundry machine, and
the lawnmower and charge his own kids to use those things.
And let's say the mom owns the vacuum and she
still has to pay to use the other appliances. Eventually
(24:53):
she's gonna run out of money. Even if she's charging
the dad to use the vacuum, he's gonna be making
a lot more money a lot faster than she is,
and she might have to sell the vacuum cleaner to him.
And then all of a sudden, he owns all the
appliances and the whole family because they didn't really like
come together and fight when they had the chance, they're
indebted to the dad forever. He could use this economic model,
(25:15):
the fact that all of the appliances in the house
are his private property. He can use that to basically
have indentured servants who do all of the housework for
him for the rest of time. He's making astronomical profits
compared to what the rest of his family is making,
enough to hire security to guard his private property against
(25:36):
his own family. Do you see how bizarre and anti
social capitalism gets? When you follow the model's design in
people's material interests just a little bit down that line,
it always tends toward monopoly.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Because this hypothetical doesn't make any sense as a stand
in for free market capitalism. These appliances, like the dishwasher
or whatever, are supposed to be goods or services that
people needed and must buy. Right But is there any
world in which there's only one dishwasher aka? Only one
(26:07):
grocery store. You can buy food at only one gas station,
you can go to purchase fuel, only one place to
buy or order clothes. I have never lived in such
a place or encountered one personally.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
No.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
In reality, in almost all places, especially in the era
of the Internet, you have many different options and they're
all competing to offer you lower prices or sales or
higher quality products. In fact, the consumers really have the
power there, So it's just nothing like the scenario he's describing.
His argument also rests on the false assumption that free
(26:42):
markets tend towards monopolies. But that's not true because when
you have big profits in an industry, that attracts new
businesses to enter that field to try to cash in
on those profits and increase his competition with a little
bit of time. Look at TikTok, for example. They were
becoming huge with these short form vertical videos, and at
first they were the only ones doing it right. Then
(27:02):
Instagram got in the game with Instagram reels, Facebook reels,
they got in the game, and YouTube shorts got in
the game. Boom monopoly eviscerated again. Profitable industries actually reject monopoly.
They attract competition. Now, there are some narrow exceptions where
monopolies can form in a free market due to something
called economies of scale, but it's a pretty specific set
(27:25):
of circumstances that's not applicable in most cases. And usually
when you see a monopoly form, it's actually not because
of free market capitalism, but it's because the government is
colluding with big business to rig the system and put
up barriers to block competition. That's actually anti capitalist behavior though,
and it's not at all a free market anyway. I
(27:48):
have a book recommendation for our communist TikTok friend here.
All right, I'm going to skip forward a little, it's
a really long video and get to the rest of
the good part I want to talk about.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Then, once the dad has kind of cornered the market
and has the majority of those appliances, no one's really
going to be able to compete. That's where socialism comes in.
Socialism is the transition from that capitalistic model with the
private ownership of property, to communism where there's no need
(28:18):
for people to own property because we're all on the
same team.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
You hear that, guys, We're just all going to be
on the same team and all just work together for
the common good. This is where the utopian thinking runs
into reality. Humans are inherently self interested beings. Now, sometimes
our self interest includes other people like me caring about
my future kids. But nobody is ever going to work
(28:44):
hard just in pursuit of the nebulous collective common good
out there in the universe. Thinking you can all be
on one team in a country of three hundred and
thirty million people is delusional.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Now.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
The beauty of capitalism with restraints and with rules and
frameworks set out is that it harnesses humans inherent self
interest towards productive ends. But if your economic system relies
on people being inherently selfless and putting the greater good
over their own self interest, it is doomed to fail.
(29:20):
It divorces effort from incentives, it promotes and encourages free writing,
and it's fundamentally incompatible with human nature. Other than that,
though you're doing great, What do you guys think of
this communist TikTok? Let me know in the comments below,
and don't forget to hit that like button. Now, before
we wrap up today's show, I'll read a few of
(29:41):
your comments that y'all left on the last episode. One
person says, as a Colombian, I swear whenever I hear
or read that abhorrent LATINX, my blood boils. It's just
freaking neo colonialism from woke Americans who are arrogant enough
to make a whole group modify their language. Believe me,
nobody here uses that endous word. It really is funny
(30:02):
because it comes from the same crowd that rails against
the evils of colonialism, but they're colonizing other people's language.
I remember I went to Costa Rica a couple of
years back, and I asked a bunch of people in
my broken Spanish if they'd heard of LATINX or if
it made sense to them, and they all looked at
me like I was crazy. Another person says, if we're
supposed to call people what they want to be called,
(30:22):
why do these activists keep saying LATINX or WHIMXN or sis.
It's a good question. Another guy says, as a center
left independent gay man, I really appreciate you and other
sane not queer voices speaking up publicly to make it
known that we're not all insane. Don't listen to anyone
when they tell you that you look like Patrick Bateman.
(30:42):
Wait is that an insult? Isn't he like kind of
good looking? But thank you? And yeah, you know, like
any community, any demographic group of people, really not a community.
Gay people are individuals with different opinions and viewpoints and values.
We're not some monolith, but it can seem that way
from the representation of the mainstream LGBT community, where everyone's
(31:03):
a woke democrat. Another person says, you trained me. Well,
the first thing I do is hit the like and
then focus on the video. Good job. That's exactly what
I'm going for. So Marv, you follow this person's lead.
Another person says, Brad, don't listen to the haters. I
like your simple and low key setup. It's homely. So
this is funny because I think you meant to say
that it's homye, because to say it's homely is actually
(31:27):
saying that it's ugly. But yeah, I'm going to work
on my setup and eventually I'll probably have something different.
But for now, guys, we're stuck with this, so deal
with it, okay, or feel free to donate a couple
thousand dollars for me to build an in home studio
if you want to do that, I'm all ears. Another
person put a laughing emoji at the people hating on
Brad's background as I like the grow as we Go painting.
(31:49):
So here's the thing. Y'all are making fun of that,
like it's just some cheesy home goods art or something,
and it is, but it has particular significance to me
and my boyfriend because our song is the ben Plat
song Grow as we Go. So I bet y'all feel
like assholes now. Another person says day four asking for
a Palumbo plushy, and they've made that their username and image.
(32:12):
Oh well, I feel slightly unsafe, and I probably won't
be making or offering a palumbo plushy because I would
be disturbed by the thought of what people might use
it for. But thanks for your interest. All right, everybody.
That's it for today's episode. I can't do any more
of this today. Thanks so much for tuning in. Don't
(32:34):
forget to hit that like button, YadA YadA yah. We'll
talk again tomorrow, all right,
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