U.S. Pirate Party Second Virtual Enlightenment Salon

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greetings and welcome to the United States Transhumanist Party Virtual
Enlightenment Salon. My name is Jannati stolier Off the second
and I am the Chairman of the US Transhumanist Party.
Here we hold conversations with some of the world's leading
thinkers in longevity, science, technology, philosophy, and politics. Like the

(00:21):
philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, we aim to connect
every field of human endeavor and arrive at new insights
to achieve longer lives, greater rationality, and the progress of
our civilization. Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our
US Transhumanist Party Virtual Enlightenment Salon of Sunday, June twenty ninth,

(00:44):
twenty twenty five. Today we have a fascinating and in
depth conversation in store for you about our continuing efforts
to build a political coalition that will consist at first
of the US Transhumanist Party and the US Pirate Party,

(01:04):
but hopefully we'll extend to other minor political parties as
well as we seek to make inroads into American politics
and challenge the depredations of the duopoly. So joining us
today is our panel of US Transhumanist Party officers, including
our current Vice chairman and Director of Visual Art Art

(01:26):
Ramon Garcia, our Director of Citizen and Community Science in
twenty twenty four, US Vice presidential candidate Daniel Tweed, and
our Director of Publication Zach Richardson, and joining us. Our
special guest for today is Drew Binghaman, who is the
chairman or Captain of the United States Pirate Party. So

(01:51):
welcome Drew. This is our second salon with the us
Pirate Party. Our first Virtual Enlightenment Salon took place on
December fifteenth of twenty twenty four and we had Jolly
Mitch Devillo of the Illinois Pirate Party joining us for
a fascinating conversation. Unfortunately, Mitch is unable to join us today,

(02:14):
but we hope to see him later this evening when
we meet with the us Pirate Party as part of
your regular meeting. So thank you Drew for being our
guest today. Tell us a bit about yourself and how
you came to be the Captain of the us Pirate Party,
as well as how you see the us Pirate Party's

(02:35):
activities and hopes for the future.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Wow. I've been a long time independent political activist, been
involved in local and state level and national level libertarian politics.
I was part of the Libertarian Party for a long
time until I was essentially made persona non grata in

(03:03):
twenty twenty two by the fascist takeover of that party.
So at that point I decided to find another party
that met with my principles, and I found the Pirate Party.
I joined up. I helped build up and get the
Pennsylvania Pirate Party going and became a member of the

(03:25):
p and C. And then from there we had an
election and I was nominated and was elected to captain.
So that's my story in short. Yeah, So if anybody
wants to be out there and check out the United

(03:45):
States Pirate Party or join us online, we have a
discord server. You can find that at us pirates dot
org slash join. Yeah, the about page, we'll give you
some information about just just tell you about us. I

(04:06):
like to advocate that people go and do their own
research and find and check us out and see what
we're all about.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Thank you very much, Drew, and we will put up
that link to join the us Pirate Party shortly.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Now.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
It's interesting because I myself have been involved in libertarian politics,
mostly small l libertarian though I have had some contact
with the Capital l Libertarian Party. I even made a
small three figure donation to them in twenty sixteen before

(04:47):
I became the chairman of the US Transhumanist Party. What
often disappointed me about the Libertarian Party was that it
was ripe for multiple waves of political takeovers by let's say,
ideologies or interests or political tribes that are not actually libertarian.

(05:10):
But we're seeing the Libertarian Party as a kind of
opportune vehicle to hijack. And I've said before I didn't
leave the Libertarian Party so much as the Libertarian Party
left me, And it seems that you had a similar experience,
and I've observed a lot of fractiousness with it within

(05:31):
the Libertarian Party as well.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah. Yeah, my exit from the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania
specifically was a lot more active on their part. But yeah,
when you have when you have the largest third party
out there, one with ballot access or relatively easy ballot access,

(06:00):
which is that's that's what they had, they did. They
became a big target and moneyed interests came in to
fund the takeover, and it's really hard to fight that,
especially when they get a lot of uh, when they
get a lot of zalots behind them, So yes.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
And of course, quite infamously during the most recent Libertarian convention,
when the Libertarian Party invited Donald Trump and RFK Junior,
who was still running for president at that time, to
speak ahead of the actual Libertarian Party candidates who were

(06:41):
competing for the nomination, and then the Libertarian Party leadership
tried to push a none of the above option through
seven rounds of ranked choice voting. Ultimately it came down
to a match between Chase Oliver, who did end up
winning the Libertarian nomination, and none of the above, But

(07:04):
Chase Oliver won it by about sixty percent to forty percent.
For none of the above, he received only half hearted
support from the Libertarian Party infrastructure, And essentially, if none
of the above had won, the Libertarian Party would have
ceased to be a viable political force and it would
have implicitly capitulated to Trump. And of course Trump co

(07:26):
opted RFK into his administration, and Trump was making promises
to the Libertarian Party. But really the only promise that
Trump fulfilled, because it was a fairly easy promise for
him to satisfy once he became president, was to pardon
ross Olbricht, but that was a single individual, and I

(07:47):
know a lot of Libertarians were passionate about freeing him.
But nonetheless, is it worth it to relinquish the integrity
of an entire political organization with a fifty three year
history three two have that one concession be made to
them because all of the other promises that Trump made
were essentially empty words.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, I don't think so. And I think a lot
of the once that takeover happened, a lot of people,
a lot of the good people in the Libertarian Party
were just too naive. I think they didn't recognize that
these were bad faith actors that had come in to
take over, because they would you know, they would lie,

(08:32):
and they would they would cheat, and they would steal.
And we actually found that out too recently that the
one of the chair that they put in basically has
stolen all of the money that they had left. And
so the Libertarian Party at this point is is in
a massive shambles. There are some people that are trying

(08:54):
to scrape up the pieces, but the Trump thing is
was was one of the biggest disappointments for me. I
thought they'd never bring him in. I heard rumblings of
things that they might be looking at doing that, And honestly,
if it was a quid pro quo basically for freeing Ross,

(09:15):
it's not worth it. It's not worth it for those people
that the Libertarians that got talked into voting for Trump
and talked out of voting for Chase Oliver. It's not
It's not like it's not not to have who we
got now.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
So Libertarians, yes, I completely agree with you, and I
do wonder, since we've both had the experience of observing
the dysfunction in the Libertarian party ranks, what lessons have
you taken away from that in terms of your leadership

(09:51):
of the US Pirate Party. What kinds of structures, protocols,
incentives can prevent that from happening in another minor political party.
Perhaps one protection that we have as each of our
organizations is smaller, so some of these political operatives might
not consider us sufficiently lucrative targets yet. But of course,

(10:16):
as we remain active, as we continue to grow, as
we hopefully attract people because of the integrity of our
ideas and how we operate, perhaps those attempt to takeovers
will become more frequent. So what kinds of safeguards are
you thinking about or have you implemented to make sure
we don't suffer the fate of the Libertarian Party.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Well, so far, I don't think we've We haven't really
implemented too much in that other than vigilance, because as
everybody knows, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and
a lot of people have been asleep at the wheel.
So that's our main Our main defense right now is
just vigilance. We have had some questionable members come into

(11:04):
the Pirate Party. We've had some people that are don't
quite understand how we operate. We stand on our principles,
we practice our principles, and we've had some people also
that that want to pull us away to another project

(11:25):
that they're you know, their personal project, those sort of things.
Mostly we've been able to handle it well as a board,
I think so far, keeping the PNC solid with solid
pirates has been most important. So far. Down the line
we grow, I think we'll definitely need to put some

(11:47):
safeguards in place to protect the integrity of our of
our principles and our core values, so that that's what's
most important as a pirate is our core valuevalues. All
the other platform stuff is definitely secondary, but it goes
hand in hand with our core values. So the core

(12:09):
values are the number one thing that we need to
protect and stand for.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Yes, and the core values of the US Pirate Party
play a similar role to the three core ideals of
the US Transhumanist Party that we ask anybody who seeks
to join us as a member about whether they agree
with those core ideals, and if they don't agree, we

(12:38):
try to delve further into that, so it's not an
automatic rejection, but we seek to understand what is it
that they disagree with. Is it just a nuance of
the wording, or is there something more fundamental. But nonetheless,
the core ideals are immutable for the USTP, and they
are essentially longer lasting than the specific provisions of the platform,

(13:04):
which could be voted on and potentially revised from time
to time. But yes, it is very important to have
a center of values that an organization adheres to through
a lot of change, including changes in the external environment,
changes in leadership, and of course changes in membership as

(13:27):
it grows over time. So in regard to the external environment,
we've had a lot of turbulence in American politics recently,
to say the least, and I am hoping to get
some of your thoughts as to events, especially in the
past half years since we had our first salon with Mitch.

(13:49):
How do you see the American political landscape since that time,
and how do you anticipate the Pirate Party responding and
what you hope from an alliance with other minor political
parties in terms of how we address these strange and

(14:09):
tumultuous times we live in.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Oh boy, that's a big one. I see the United
States Pirate Party and other and this coalition. To put
it that way, this coalition should should be building the
new Left, is how I see it. The Democratic Party
has completely failed. The Republican Party isn't even a party anymore.

(14:35):
They're just whatever Trump says. So the major political parties
have failed. We just spoke about the Libertarian Party and
how it is a shambles as well and a shadow
of its former self. The American political system right now
is an absolute nightmare, and somebody needs to step up

(14:59):
and build a group of people that are willing to
stick together for their principles and actually work in good
faith to to bring prosperity to the United States back
to bring you know, bring living wages, back to support labor,
to stay out of some of these ridiculous foreign entanglements

(15:23):
that cost US trillions of dollars over the last fifty years.
I think that's really what what you know, what I
what I see this this coalition. Uh, we can we
can maintain our individual party identities without having to to

(15:44):
you know, to go to one party, but we can
combine resources, especially when it comes to things like ballot access,
which I have a decent amount of experience with, and
it is very tough for third parties to get ballot access.
And that's that's ultimately one of the things that is
really stacked against us right now as third parties is

(16:05):
ballid access. It's there's very few states where it's easy.
Lots of places at the local level it's not too bad,
but once you get this to state and federal elections,
it can be near impossible and oftentimes costs a lot
of money. So possible, you know, possible combining of resources

(16:26):
for fundraising too, because it costs money to run a
political party. Yeah, all those.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Things, yes, indeed, and ballid access has definitely been a
challenge in the manner you described. We have in our
YouTube chat Jennifer Hughes who ran as a mayoral candidate
in twenty twenty one for Camden, New Jersey, and she

(16:54):
didn't have that high of a signature threshold to clear.
She had I think a little old. There were a
hundred signatures that were required. The Secretary of State's office
in New Jersey counseled her to get twice as many,
and she did. She went door to door and personally
collected these signatures by hand. It was quite a valiant effort.

(17:16):
But what happened then was quite a bit of machination
from the Democratic Party, which had dominated the politics of
Camden for generations. And what happened was the incumbent mayor,
the essentially interim mayor, was running to be the permanent mayor,
but he didn't want to get his hands dirty. So

(17:37):
one of his functionaries within the Democratic Party, who was
also a primary challenger, but he lost the Democratic primary
and he came in as an independent as another independent candidate,
and he essentially did the dirty work of challenging the

(17:59):
petition signatures that Jennifer had gathered under some bogus allegations like.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Oh this person doesn't live in.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
This area, even though the address was clearly from the area.
So the Secretary of State's office fortunately was objective and
upheld the majority of the signatures that were challenged, So
Jennifer ended up getting onto the ballot. But it was
an extra step to defend those signatures, and it's definitely
a lot of extra work to get that buffer quantity

(18:32):
of signatures in anticipation of a challenge. So that was
one of the episodes that taught me how the duopoly
doesn't play fair. Even when someone tries to surmount the
obstacles that they put into the law, they still do
not play fair with that individual. They still try to

(18:54):
find ways to disqualify a challenger.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, the biggest things, and both parties do it, don't.
Don't think that's just the Democrats. Both major parties do that,
and that's why the advice is usually to get double
or at least fifty percent extra because almost inevitably you
will get some of those signatures stricken, even if it's

(19:20):
just a formality on the form. In Pennsylvania, it's not
the Secretary of State that that handles that. We actually
go to court to fight over it. So if you
really want to defend yourself, you're going to need a lawyer.
And I've been in present at places where we usually
go pro se because we're minor political party and we

(19:43):
don't want to waste our resources in court. But I've
seen I've seen a lot of judges too that just
they don't even want to bother with this stuff, and
they basically are ready to throw them out. They're ready
to throw it out. And you know, you don't get
bout at access. And yeah, it's it's a lot of

(20:04):
the system has been created so that all of the
we have to burn all of our resources just getting
on the ballot, and we have nothing left to run
the campaign. We don't have money left, we don't have
people left to run a campaign because we burn all
of our resources getting just on the ballot. And I

(20:24):
think that's wrong. I think we need a much more
open ballot system in this country. And and there's tons
of reform that needs to happen there and that's a
state by state issue, and yeah, it's it's miserable. It's
it's that's that's those are the biggest that's the biggest
hurdle that we all have as as independents and third parties.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yes, I agree to me.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
The ballot access hurdle has been huge because a lot
of people who are uninformed about the problems think, well,
the only serious political parties are the ones that make
it onto the ballots, and they don't realize how much
time and expense are involved, because one can't even just
do an online campaign for signature gathering. Arizona is the

(21:14):
only state that allows any kinds of petitions to be
collected online, and only for fifty percent of the eligible signatures.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
For the other.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
States, one has to get onto the ballot the old
fashioned way through gathering petition signatures by hand. I remember
during the COVID lockdowns, pretty much no state lifted those requirements,
even though it was effectively illegal to the outside petitioning,
and that I think hampered a lot of minor political
parties as well. But what I wonder is, do you

(21:47):
see any low hanging fruit in this regard, any areas
where the system is not as lockdown, where it's possible
to still make inroads.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, generally, I see, I see a lot of things
in Generally, in local elections, those are usually elections in
your in your city, your town, your township, your you know,
your local community. Meant most of the time, the bar
for getting signatures is five, ten, twenty five in my city,

(22:20):
similar to the Camden Race, it was one hundred. I
ran for city council in my town about ten years
ago and it was it was it was a lot
of door knocking to get that one hundred and fifty
one hundred and seventy five signatures. But yeah, the low
hanging fruit is definitely local elections, the lowest. In my precinct,

(22:44):
three out of the four of us are elected elections officials,
so I'm actually a constable I do. Basically that means
I'm the security the lawlaw enforcement aside next to the
judge of elections, and I only need ten signatures to

(23:08):
get on the ballot when it when I'm up, So
and those those all those positions are pretty easy to
get on the ballot for. Those are also positions that
a lot of people don't run for. And that's another
thing that you can look at is once you have
a primary, many times independents have a later window to
get onto the bat onto the November ballot, so you

(23:31):
can you can watch and see what doesn't have a
Democrat or a Republican. Oftentimes in a in a in
a in an area where one party has a has
a relative lock, a lot of times the other party
doesn't put a candidate in because they don't want to
even bother with wasting the resources. So a lot of

(23:55):
times an independent can make a big splash just by
getting on the ballot against either a Republican or a
Democrat incumbent and challenging them. And you can really get
a lot of free press that way, especially if you're
the only one that's challenging that that person, and that
that's a good way to utilize the free press. Once

(24:17):
you're on the ballot, you are a legit candidate, and
utilize all of the free media that you can get
because it's invaluable.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yes, absolutely, And I do encourage people to run for
office as independence or as transhumanists or as whatever you
can get on the ballot as officially because that does
provide the opportunity for free publicity. And I think Jennifer's

(24:49):
race was great in that regard in Camden because she
was covered by the local newspapers once she was on
the ballot. That provides a whole new level of visibility
to a new demographic of people who might not have
even heard of that minor political party before, heard of

(25:10):
those political ideas before. Now, Zach, you mentioned that there's
a bill in Indiana House Bill thirteen sixty five. If
you would like to discuss that a bit and what
it proposes to do to perhaps help minor political parties.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
Uh, yeah, I guess I didn't look at it too much.
So Jason and our party occasionally posts a newsletter that's
like a ballot access newsletter, and several times on it
I've seen this Rep. Ryan Vorak mentioned and he tends
to push forth more ballot access stuff to get more diversity.

(25:55):
One initiative I was thinking would be interesting for us
is just a thank you letter for him from for
putting forth the effort for that as someone that is
running as a Democrat, to be able to say, look,
I want to hear everybody's voice. I'm not here to
just lock us into this two party thing. Anybody that
wants a party, let's get them in there and compete

(26:17):
on our ideas. So in through the bill, it looks
like it brings it down from twenty five hundred votes
to two hundred and fifty votes or even less if
you have a very small district.

Speaker 5 (26:34):
Let's see.

Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yes, so main thing just ballot access. Yeah, reduce the
threshold to be able to get on the ballot.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
It reduces the signature requirements for independent or minor party
petition nominations, allowing candidates to qualify with two hundred fifty
registered voter signatures or two percent of the total votes
cast in their election district, whichever is less. So this
allows for easier access to minor political parties. And then

(27:09):
what counts as a major political party also has a reduced.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Barrier to it.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
So the barrier would now be getting more than twenty
five hundred votes statewide, or in districts with five hundred
or fewer total votes, receiving more than two hundred and
fifty votes, or having the highest vote totals.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
So I think this is a good bill.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I think it does increase the probability that a party
might become major according to state law, and that allows
for some more sustained ballid access in many respects. And
then the bill sponsor is Ryan Dvorak, who is a Democrat.

(27:58):
What is interesting is Indiana is a heavily republican state,
and my experience has been that the dominant political party
in a given state always opposes competition from minor political parties.
The other political party in a state that's heavily read

(28:21):
or heavily blue might be receptive to some independent political
parties and some challengers because they know that by themselves
they will not unseat the dominant political party. But perhaps
another party coming in could provide an alternative vision that

(28:41):
would resonate with the voters in that state.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
So I would say, I'm such a I'm so thinking here,
I am thinking this guy, Oh, he's so kind and generous,
he wants to help us out. Now, Jannati's landed down
that he's just scheming away how to unseat the Republicans,
And I'm oh, man, okay, but it's still, you know, a
good bill.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yes, it is a good bill.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
And sometimes our allies are going to be purely pragmatic
allies where they have their own agendas, but as part
of their agendas, elevating minor political parties may be instrumentally
useful to them. And I would say, from our standpoint,
let's take whatever chances we can get if that means

(29:28):
our parties will be more likely to be.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
On the ballot.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Our candidates will be more likely to be on the ballot.
What we get from this is being able to spread
our messages and our ideas, and at least those kinds
of pragmatic politicians may be willing to work with us,
whether our candidates get elected to office or whether we're
just an active political presence, and we have certain proposals,

(29:53):
we have certain measures legislation that we support or oppose,
they might listen to us. So that is also, I
think a promising approach to consider. But Drew, what do
you think of these kinds of dynamics where sometimes a
major political party might see us as instrumental allies.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I think there are a lot of cases in which
the minor political parties can be allies with the major
party on issues. On certain issues, I mean, obviously there
are things that each of our parties agrees with one
of the major parties. You know, as our platform goes

(30:40):
one of the things that I see too as a
viable option. Not everybody agrees with me on this, but
a lot of times, especially at the local or at
the state rep level, somebody that is not necessarily one
of us, can register as one of the one of

(31:00):
the major parties and run in the primaries against one
of the either the Democrats or the Republicans. We call
it the rhino dno strategy. So you're a Republican or
a Democrat in name only. And there are a lot
of people and because I see this, because I do
work elections, there are a lot of people that just

(31:22):
come in and vote for their team. And I've seen
it too over the past ten plus years of being
involved in Pennsylvania politics. Anyways, how difficult it is. Even
when you're in a head to head race with an
unpopular state rep you can still only pull twenty percent

(31:45):
because half of the people that are registered in the
other party don't even look at you. If you're not
registered in that party, they won't even they won't even
look at you. I think there is a large swath
of people that are looking to vote for independence just
because they're independence, so that is also something to consider. Ultimately,

(32:11):
you need to look at a look at each race
and work up the strategy that you think is best.
I think there's a lot of ways that third party
and alternate candidates can really make a splash and get
names and ideas out there that are not in the
mainstream right now, and you know, bring politics back to

(32:34):
things where we can actually have the people have a
real role again instead of this this duopoly oligarchy.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yes, indeed, and it's interesting that you mentioned the Rhino
Dno strategy because it seems to be the strategy that
zulten Ishtvan is following in California in his run for
governor for twenty twenty six So, Zultanischefan was the founder
of the US Transhumanist Party, but he stepped down from

(33:06):
any leadership roles within it in twenty sixteen, and that
was when I became the chairman. But Zultan has run
for office since that time. He ran in twenty eighteen
for governor of California on a libertarian platform, then he
ran in twenty twenty in the primaries as a Republican

(33:26):
challenging Donald Trump, and now he's running as a Democrat.
So we had a virtual Enlightenment salon with him two
weeks ago on June fifteenth, and we asked a lot
of questions of him regarding both the substance and the
strategy of his campaign, and his response was he thought

(33:49):
that it would be more feasible for him to make
inroads in California politics running as a Democrat, even though
a lot of his ideas are not convention Democratic Party
ideas and he challenges the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party
in many respects, but he thinks this is a path

(34:10):
that makes it likelier for him to get into the
primary debates among the Democratic contenders and also maybe make
it into say the top three or five Democratic primary candidates.
So do you think someone like Zolton is following the

(34:31):
kind of dino rhino strategy that you have been contemplating
within the Pirate Party.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, I think that's a very viable strategy for the
reasons that I stated earlier. A lot of people won't
vote for an independent or a or an alternate party
I see when it comes to principles and things running
in that party. We've seen for years that Republicans and Democrats,

(35:03):
even those some that get elected, are not very in
line with what you would consider a traditional Republican or
a traditional Democrat. I mean, well, even Donald Trump is
not a traditional Republican. I mean he's looking practically like
a Russian communist right now with what he's doing with

(35:28):
some of the some of his unilateral tariffs and economic
plans that he's pushing right now. So yeah, the being
an unconventional candidate on the Republican or Democrat line, I
think can be a viable strategy and it can get

(35:50):
your ideas out there, and that's really what I think
we're about.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yes, And actually this is relevant because when we provide
the coalition proposal to our membership, we're also perhaps even
in the same voting form, going to ask a question

(36:16):
about whether our members would endorse Zultan's campaign for governor
of California, and this could give us perhaps a cross
endorsement possibility.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
So I think.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
There will be some discussion and maybe even some heated
discussion within the US Transhumanist Party ranks about Zultan and
some of his specific ideas. But we have since twenty
twenty and our constitutional reform that took place in the
latter month of that year, been open to potentially endorsing

(36:58):
candidates from other political parties as long as they either
explicitly welcome that endorsement, which Sultan said that he would,
or they advocate as part of their campaign rhetoric, either
the ideas of transhumanism or life extension or both. And
Sultan is willing to do that as well, so it

(37:22):
will be interesting to, let's say, test out that possibility
and see what our members think. But the coalition proposal
also would open us to a lot more possibilities for
endorsing candidates at the local and state levels, even federal

(37:43):
non presidential offices, if the Pirate Party has individuals who
are willing to run either as Pirates, as independents, or
perhaps under the Rhino Dno strategy. But we've had some
comments in our chat just now about that and the
fact that there are unconventional candidates who frequently run on

(38:08):
either the Republican or Democratic ballot lines because it's easier
to do that. One of the people whom I supported
early on in my political journey, let's say, Ron Paul
was really a libertarian, but he ran instrumentally as a Republican,

(38:28):
even though first in nineteen eighty eight he ran as
a libertarian, but in two thousand and eight twenty twelve
he ran as a Republican, and the Republican Party establishment
fought tooth and nail to prevent him from getting the nomination,
to the point where they changed their rules at the
national convention to make the nomination process a cakewalk for

(38:52):
the early primary leader in subsequent races, which is why
Donald Trump, who had a slight plurality of votes early on,
but the majority of Republicans disliked him as well at
the time, if we remember the Never Trump movement, he
was able to exploit those rules to take that early

(39:13):
lead and secure the nomination with it without really much
of a challenge from the other Republican candidates. So it
is interesting also to observe how the alignments of the
major parties can shift, and we've seen Donald Trump essentially
capturing the Republican Party. Some of our viewers have very

(39:36):
strong views on that, and some would even say, as
John h does. Now there are crime syndicate masquerading as
a political party with the Democrats. Allegedly they're supposed to
be the party of the resistance, but we're not sure
if they have their act together. Luisa Royo wonders what

(40:00):
happened in New York with the primary with the victory
of zorin Mamdanni. Is this a blueprint for the Democratic
Party's future? Is this part of a new left as
far as social democracy goes. I will say I have
some significant differences from mam donni in terms of specific
policy views. But it does seem like he won a

(40:22):
fair election using the rank choice method, and we need
to respect that. Now the New York financial elite is
panicking about it, and it seems like both Andrew Cuomo
and Eric Adams, who are more established figures, Cuomo seems
to be more of an ideological big D Democrat. Eric

(40:45):
Adams seems to be more of an opportunist whom even
Trump has tried to deal with. But Cuomo has been
riddled with scandals, and I am not necessarily a person
who would reflexively believe me two allegations. So I'm not
going to say one way or the other that Cuomo
is guilty. But Cuomo resigned previously because of those allegations,

(41:10):
and now he's running again. So what does that tell you, Drew,
about where the Democratic Party is at? Clearly, the Republican
Party is now a Trumpian monolith, and that disturbs me,
and it disturbs you greatly. Is the Democratic Party standing

(41:31):
for anything anymore?

Speaker 2 (41:33):
I'm not sure if the Democratic Party has stood for
anything for quite a while. I think that's I think
that's part of why they lost in twenty twenty four.
They don't have a direction there. I think some of
their their top talking points are not what people are

(41:53):
concerned with in their own lives. You know, I've got
I've got my pride flag here flying behind me, and
I am absolutely one hundred percent behind LGBTQ rights. But
I can tell you that there are a lot of
issues related to related to the LGBTQ community. Did our

(42:16):
losers when it comes to you turn off voters if
that's your main message, and that's that's just a reality
of twenty twenty five right now. I don't think that's
a good thing, but I think we need to be
aware of that. I think Zooran had ran an amazing race.

(42:37):
He put in a ton of work, He knocked on doors,
he talked to people, and I think that's that, if anything,
is really the blueprint for moving forward is get out
there in your community, talk to people. Campaign, don't just
rely on you know, advertising and like a handful of

(42:57):
big events. Get out there and talk to p will
be in your community. Have lots of events, have lots
of rallies door to door if you think you need to.
There's a lot of public parks all over the place.
That you can have events just out of the blue.
But I think that I think he did to an
extent give a lot of people a blueprint of how

(43:21):
you take on the establishment. And yeah, no, I'm with
you on that that I'm not on board with a
lot of his potential policies. I think there are some
things that he has proposed that are pretty silly, but
that's not really what this is about. Honestly, with Cuomo
and Adams, they are both corrupt to the core, and

(43:44):
that's part of the problem. It isn't just Republicans that
are corrupt to the core. They are not the only
ones that are the crime syndicate, although they are, as
you said, a monolith. Now the Democratic Party, the Democratic
Party establishment is just as much a problem as is
the Republican Party. They just have turned into a bunch
of lame ducks over the past couple of years. And honestly,

(44:09):
that's why I think they've lost elections recently, that they
didn't have direction, they didn't have a strong voice that
was behind the people. They are traditionally supposed to be
the party that is behind the people, behind labor, behind
you know, those that to help people. You know, they're

(44:31):
traditionally for entitlements, however you want to put that, you know,
helping the poor, helping you know, but none of that
has come out. They don't have strong candidates. You know.
One of the only ones that you see that even
is close to it, to that that talks about those
things is Bernie Sanders. And he's not even really a Democrat.

(44:54):
I think he's still an independent even though he caucuses
with them. So I think they lack they lack direction,
they lack strong leadership, and honestly, the Democratic Party right now,
I think is ripe for a new left takeover.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Very interesting now. I wonder also what your thoughts are
on the emerging let's call them the Abundance faction within
the Democratic Party. Ezra Kline and Derek Thompson wrote a
book called Abundance, which essentially makes a lot of the
arguments that transhumanists have been making in the past decade

(45:36):
and a half, stating we're not building enough, we have
obsolete infrastructure, we are not providing material opportunities for people
to get ahead in life, even though we have the technology,
we have the resources to do it.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
We have a system that's.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Gridlocked, and Asraclin and Derek Thompson describe it as a
vitocracy where various layers both of government and of local
activists have stymied new construction, including of housing, which then
precipitates the homelessness problem as well as the housing affordability crisis.

(46:14):
And as you pointed out, a lot of the electoral
rhetoric of Democrats and recent campaigns has been focused on
issues that may be valid issues for a minority of
the electorate, but do not resonate with the majority of

(46:35):
the electorate. And Democrats have often overlooked the day to
day struggles that a lot of Americans now face with
the rising cost of living crisis, and they lack the
material and infrastructural solutions to problems such as inflation. So
do you think there's a possibility for some pragmatic alliance

(47:00):
is with this abundance faction as far as the use
of technology and let's say the liberalization of material production
and material construction can bring to improving the lives of
a lot of everyday people.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I think that's the I think that's the thing that
the Republican Party is leaven behind is the regular people
there right now. They're pushing out and only pushing for
things for the elites. I mean, look at these proposed
cuts to Medicare and Medicaid that are that are supposedly
coming in this building they're going to vote on tomorrow.

(47:41):
If that goes through, this is going to be a
massive crisis in this in this country. We need to
recognize that this is not there is. This is not
a trickle down economy. It's a bottom up economy. If
you don't have good works and you don't have a

(48:02):
good if you don't have people that can can survive
to be your base, the bottom of that pyramid is
the people is regular working class people. Working class people
need to be able to make a make a living wage.
They need to have decent working conditions. You know, these

(48:24):
policies that the Republican Party is pushing out are only
going to result in disaster. And we see people like JD.
Vance talking about issues with the birth rate being low.
I think part of the problem there is if you
don't have living wages and the cost of living is insane,
most people can't afford to have children, let alone raise them.

(48:49):
So we're pushing things they're pushing the wrong way. And
I think the Democratic Party, the new Left, the new
the abundance crowd. I think they have a lot of
the right ideas. I think they have ideas of what's wrong.
The solutions are, we'll see. I think that's where we
have some debate to go. But I think what they're

(49:11):
talking about, problem wise, I think they've nailed a lot
of it.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yes, thank you, And Mike Lusine writes, Drew is right
on points, so he is loving what you're saying. And
Mike believes that you and the rest of the Pirate
Party are going to be a great asset for our collaboration.
He also agrees with me, He writes, it infuriates me
when I'm here in California with our high homelessness and

(49:36):
see open land not being used for housing. Very immoral
and indeed, there are special interests that have been holding
back new housing construction, especially in California, for a generation now,
and it is shameful because a lot of people do
still see Silicon Valley in particular as a place of opportunity.

(49:57):
And these can even be highly skilled, capable people, but
when they come in, no matter how much money they earn,
they have to share a room in a dingy old
apartment with five people and pay exorbitant rent to have
that privilege, and that really sets that not even just

(50:19):
working class Americans anymore, people who would be considered upper
middle class Americans in any other generation. And I definitely
agree with Josh Universe's statement this is a broken system.
And he also writes certainly the threshold of effort and

(50:41):
hard work needed to get to a comfortable financial position,
especially in places like California, seems to be increasing significantly. Furthermore,
it seems that it has become normalized for people to
go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and
by now pay later. Loans that cannot should not be
underwritten for such debts. Student loans are the most insidious

(51:03):
of those because they can't even be discharged in bankruptcy.
I would tell any young person do not get student
loans under any circumstances. Even if you have to take
a longer path to get a college degree or whatever
other training or certification you're looking for, you will be
much better off financially if you don't start in a

(51:24):
six figure hole that you cannot extricate yourself from, sometimes
for decades. One of the best decisions I have made
in terms of the college path that I chose was
to avoid any student loans, and I can tell you
that decision helps you decades down the road.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
So now add these articles or something wasn't it called
why not to get a PhD? Or all the reasons
not to get a PhD? That got really popular.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Reasons not to pursue a PhD has been my most
popular YouTube video by far, over one hundred and seventy
six views, and it was made in twenty eleven, so
it's still getting traction for a variety of reasons, but
of course debt avoidance is a big one. Now. Daniel
Tweet pointed out in one of his comments that really

(52:15):
the Democratic Party has had significant elements of corruption for
a while. Democrats will never acknowledge how corrupt LBJ was,
but Daniel says he will. So, Daniel, perhaps you could
comment a bit more on that on institutional corruption within
the major political parties, as well as your thoughts about

(52:37):
how to overcome it, how to challenge the duopoly more effectively,
and have these truths be acknowledged, Because yes, LBJ, I
would say LBJ might have been a worse human being
than Trump, and that's a kind of difficult statement to make,
a difficult bar to surpass or go under, depending on

(53:03):
one's perspective. But yes, unfortunately the major political parties have
had that kind of tendency for a while.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
But go ahead, Daniel.

Speaker 6 (53:14):
Oh yeah, there's a whole panopy of you know, conspiracy.
And first of all, you know, he when he died,
he had the equivalent of one hundred and twenty million dollars,
you know, and wealth built up and he never you know,
earned more than you know, I think fifty thousand dollars
as a senator.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
So he was.

Speaker 6 (53:32):
Definitely doing all kinds of deals, including murder for hire.
He had a personal hitman, Malcolm Wallace. You know, he
was either going to become president or he was going
to go to jail or you know, that was basically
what he was facing in nineteen sixty three. And I
can't believe how long it's taken for these kinds of
facts to come to light. But yeah, and then you know,

(53:55):
people even say FDR had some incredibly corrupt practices that so,
and you know, the Democrats are typically the party of
southern slavery, so you know, it's I like it. We
had the party you know, the Democratic Republicans versus the Whigs.
You know, we could get back to that, that duopoly
that would be probably superior to what we have. Or

(54:16):
you know, the libertarians versus uh, the anarchists or socialists
or cynicalists, you know. I mean, there's all kinds of
other political you know spectra that that should be in
front of the public, that should be on the public menu.
But again it's going to be a struggle.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Yes, very interesting in apt observations. And indeed it sends
me how in the upper echelons of power it often
happens that very cynical operators gain control, and it ceases
to be about ideas, it ceases to be about policies,

(54:53):
It ceases to be about improving the human condition by
looking at it through whatever leeds one has, be it libertarian, socialists, transhumanists,
anything else. These operators care more about securing their own power.
I think that is at the root of some of

(55:16):
the recent events in the Middle East. As I spoke
during last Sunday's Salon, the desire for one particular individual
to hold on to power almost ignited a world war.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
John H.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Wrightes democrats are corrupt too because humans are corrupt. He
thinks it's sheer arrogance for minor party types to act
as if they're immune to corruption. So perhaps John thinks
that if minor parties became major parties and became dominant
in the political arena, they could also either become corrupt

(55:52):
or become hijacked by corrupt actors people who were already corrupt.
I'm inclined to con or the latter to be a
greater probability. So I don't think so much that power
corrupts those who were not previously corrupt. I think power
attracts the corrupt.

Speaker 6 (56:13):
And you know, time there was a time when you
wouldn't run because hey, I think I'll run for office.
Maybe I could, you know, get some goodies. It was
traditionally your friends around you would say, hey, you know what,
you're a good person. You should be Ryan her office,
and they oh, who me?

Speaker 2 (56:29):
You know?

Speaker 6 (56:30):
But you know, we need to get back to a
culture where people push good people to be public servants,
where people don't just say, oh, I could be a
public service and see what happens, and who knows, you know,
I could I could blind my pockets. So yeah, that's
that's uh. I'd like to see return to that, you know,
pushing people into public service that really are suited for
it kind of culture.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
Yes, and early on in American history, the figure of
Cincinnatus was very much admired. So Cincinnatus was an early
Roman military leader who repelled an invasion of the Gauls
and then he returned to till his fields. And they

(57:13):
actually found him tilling his fields when the Galls were invading,
and they told him, well, we need you, we need
you to defend Rome, and he kind of reluctantly agreed.
He waged an effective defensive campaign, and then he stepped
down voluntarily and returned to his fields, and that was
held up as an ideal for the American founding generation

(57:36):
and a few generations afterward. But rhetoric about Cincinnatus kind
of faded away over time and more of an institutional
political class.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
Well, it's probably good to mention the idea of sortition,
where being a public servant is more like jury duty.
I've mentioned this when I went to candidate forums during
my city council runs, and you know, you get picked
for jury duty kind of as a random factor, and
maybe we should use this sortition system to pick our
public servants more often, So just wanted to get that

(58:12):
thought in. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yes, it's an interesting idea, but Drew, I would be
interested in your thoughts about corruption and politics, how it
manifests itself, especially at the highest echelons, and what can
be done to protect against it. Can you have a
situation emerge where the dominant political faction or group is

(58:36):
actually not corrupt, is actually principled and acting not for
its own aggrandizement or enrichment, but to carry out a
program that they actually think will provide broader benefits.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Well, I think that that requires, like I said earlier,
that requires vigilance from other members of that political party.
If if a party has principles, it is the duty
of the other members of that party to make sure
that they're elected leadership or nominated candidates actually represent that.

(59:15):
And sure those candidates can get elected for a term
or two, but if they're not upholding their end of
the bargain, so to speak, that political party should be
there to speak out against them and say, look, you're
not holding up our principles, you are no longer you

(59:38):
don't represent us. I think in a long enough timeline,
money and power does corrupt and that's what we see
a lot with the elites especially, and that's going back
to what we were talking about earlier, where the problem
with building, especially in zoning issues, that's the elites and

(59:59):
the NIMBI. He's all all getting together to say, no,
I don't want that here. You know, I have power,
I have money that I can fight you with. And
I just see that as one of the biggest problems
is we have a system that does that that we
idealize the integrity, but nobody enforces it. There's no there's

(01:00:24):
no there's no there's no recourse, there's no consequences for
people that are not that are that are corrupt, I mean,
and that's why the whole system is corrupt at this point,
because unless it's very criminal and you're on the wrong side,
you're not gonna you're not gonna get called on the carpet.

(01:00:46):
I mean, we were talking about Eric Adams earlier, and
and he is very corrupt, and it just so happens
that he's not the right he's not the right party.
So now we see Donald Trump, you know, basically twisting
his arm over whether they're going to continue to prosecute
him or not. And that puts you even in a

(01:01:08):
worse situation. It's essentially like toe the line or you
go to jail because you know you did bad things
in the past. And I can't I can't believe that
he's even a viable candidate at this point in New
York City, other than knowing that New York City is
always been very corrupt, you know, that's the old Tammany

(01:01:30):
Hall stuff. It's always been controlled by the elite with power.
And that's not even talking about any political ideology. It's
just the elite and the money and the owners of
capital essentially have been running the show. And I we

(01:01:56):
do we need integrity, We need integrity, and we need
to we need to force it. We need to if
you don't keep your integrity, we need we need to
stand up and say it and keep those people from
being nominated again. I mean, we've got to stop voting
for incumbents too. That's another thing that I think we
need to do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Indeed, and there is a huge pro incumbent bias even
among the ordinary electorate, where we've already mentioned people will
reflexively vote for a party line, they'll also reflexively vote
for incumbents, and there are commonly circulated survey results that

(01:02:40):
the overall popularity rating of Congress as an institution is
abysmally low. It's one of the lowest. But the popularity
ratings of a particular elected congress person in their district
seem to be fairly high, in part because they try
to bring the goodies to the special in us that

(01:03:01):
dominate that district. So if, for instance, a representative is
elected from a district that manufactures some very specific part
for the Space Shuttle, and this was actually the case.
In reality, they tried to make the Space Shuttle a
pork project where some components would be made in each

(01:03:21):
of the fifty states, and they didn't care how expensive
it was or how ineffective some of the components were.
What they cared for was to provide enough of let's say,
pork to each state delegation of representatives so that they
would continue to support the Space Shuttle project. Now, I

(01:03:42):
am sadden that the Space Shuttle was discontinued, But one
reason why it was discontinued was that the manner of
funding it, the manner of producing the components, became fiscally unsustainable.
But I'm sure each of these representatives that brought jobs
and resources to their particular jurisdiction. To have that set

(01:04:05):
of components built, there was rewarded for it by the
voters who might not have understood the bigger picture either.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Mike Lausine rights that he agrees with me. Power attracts
corrupt people, people who are looking for favors. If you
do this for me, I will do this for you.
Daniel Tweet rights there are studies that show that sociopathic
personality types are highly drawn to positions of authority. John
h writes, a barrier to any form of democracy is

(01:04:37):
the willingness of a sufficient number of the citizens to
take part in their own government.

Speaker 3 (01:04:41):
It is a fall.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
It is appalling how few people even bother to vote.
And Mike Lausine rights, yes, it's awfully hard to turn
down money when your job is not to you paying
a decent wage. That is how, for instance, law enforcement
officers become compromised. There are a lot of legislative positions
that don't pay very well either. So the concept of

(01:05:03):
a so called citizen legislature is that, especially at the
state level, one could get a nominal sum per legislative session.
It's not enough to live off of so often not
only do these people have other jobs outside of the
legislative function, which in itself might be fine, but they

(01:05:24):
are looking to use their position in office as a
stepping stone to something else. So they might not be
making a lot of money as a legislator, but they
are meeting a lot of lobbyists, and they have the
opportunity to vote on a lot of bills, and they're
also of course getting campaign contributions. But implicitly they could

(01:05:47):
be made to know that, oh, after they're termed out
of their legislative roles, there's a let's say, lucrative position
in the private sector waiting for them, and they already
know some of the people who might be willing to
provide that position, if, of course, they behave themselves in

(01:06:10):
a way that is beneficial to that special interest. So
that is a huge incentive problem, and people might come
into the system being idealistic and actually wanting to make
a difference, but over time, these pressures, these perverse incentives,
get the better of them. So it is a challenge

(01:06:33):
to overcome this set of poor incentives that results in corruption.
But hopefully our respective parties and our coalition could make
a difference in this regard any comments on this, drewere.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Zachant circle back to something we were talking about earlier.
So we were mentioning the sort of disconnect with the
Libertarian Party during the election, how Trump came in and
there it all came clear to me when Jason posted
one video that was talking about this discontent Libertarian Party,
and there was a guy speaking named I believe Josh

(01:07:09):
Equal who was putting together a project called a Project
Liberal and I'm interested in what they're up to right now.
I was going to bring it up just as a
source of another seeking out allies we mentioned, and I'm
looking in their server that I'm in and who do
I see as a member, But mister Jannani Solyyerov too,
I'm wondering what your thoughts and Whey're up to our

(01:07:31):
You might have been following them more than I have.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, I've been following them kind of peripherally. But it
seems to have also arisen out of a group of
individuals who are disillusioned with the direction that the Libertarian
Party has gone in. And I've listened to some of
their commentary as well. I think some of their observations
about the disintegration of the Libertarian Party resonates with what

(01:07:54):
we've talked about here. But Drew, please go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Yeah, I think we're talking about the Liberal Party that
has what had that has become the Liberal Party. So yeah,
there are a lot that's mostly a lot of people
that are ex pats from the Libertarian Party. There are
some decent people in that in that group. But going

(01:08:18):
back to this the state representative and the and the
corruption there, I think part of how that happens is
as a as a as a representative, you are trying
to do your best for the people in your district,
and it's it becomes very easy to get switched into

(01:08:45):
a mode of when the when the the lobbyists come
in and say, we we want to bring jobs in here,
but we need this, or we need that, or we
need we need a law that allows us to do X.
And it is it is a bit it's a bit
of a conflict when you're trying to be a good

(01:09:05):
representative to see these good things, good economic activity come
you know that could potentially be coming into your district,
and and it's I think it's like balancing, it's really
towing a fine line of what's good for the district
versus going a little over to the dark side and

(01:09:27):
a little little more corrupt. So I think it's it's tough,
and I think it's probably very easy for most people
to just roll over over that line and just just
you know, go with it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Yes, And there is a vulnerability in that. I think
sometimes we forget, let's say, the human aspect of this.
Even somebody who holds a position of elected office, a
position that is seen as being powerful ac faces a
lot of practical constraints, and they also can see themselves

(01:10:04):
as well. I'm just one person. What can I do
when there are all of these forces and I can
play along with them, or I'll lose my campaign funding,
I'll be defeated in the next primary, or they'll launch
a smear campaign against me. Because a lot of politicians
are victims of smear campaigns, and sometimes it is not

(01:10:27):
what it seems.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Sometimes maybe they are.

Speaker 1 (01:10:29):
Guilty of something. They do have some kind of metaphorical
skeleton in their closet, but so do most of their
other colleagues.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
But they are the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Ones facing the fallout for that. And sometimes very conveniently,
it happens right before an election or right before a
primary or right before some other development. And there's a
whole field of opposition research that exists, and I wish
it didn't exist. I hope it can be eliminated at

(01:11:01):
some point, But the purpose of this opposition research, feel
is for certain political players to have dirt on their
opponents to deploy strategically, So not just whenever it's found,
but sometimes they might hold on to it for years.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Yeah, I think too what you're talking about there is
I think one of the flaws in our system right
now that has become an issue is the fact that
most state reps and US reps are only in office

(01:11:39):
for two years, so it is a constant need to
raise funds for your reelection. You're always campaigning, you never
get down time to actually do what you want to do.
I think I understand why the founders thought that a

(01:12:02):
two years would be better, because they didn't think that
we'd get so caught up in incumbents. But at the
same time, the way the system has grown up around
US year, a two year term is not long enough
for somebody to be able to be brave enough to
step out of line, and I think that that makes

(01:12:25):
things very difficult for anybody that's caught up in the
traditional that's a says it's a constant cycle. I constantly
need to be getting donations for my campaign that's coming
up in you know, eighteen months, because I and even
though I just got elected, you know, so I can't
I can't make my donors angry, I can't make my

(01:12:47):
constituents angry. I can't get away with anything and that
that that just keeps this cycle of corruption going. And
I think, I think, I mean, I'm very scared about
the Republic at this point. I don't know how we're
going to survive some of these decisions that have come down.

(01:13:10):
I think we are in very much danger. And the
bright side of that might be that not so much
at the state level, but maybe at the federal level
there might be some room for reform. If the people
can stand up and make it happen, we'll.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
See, Yes, Indeed, I agree Will said.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
I think there's so much flux at the federal level.
On the one hand, we're seeing some unprecedented unilateral actions,
many of which are intrusions on people's liberties, certainly tariffs
or launching a unilateral military action without even consulting Congress

(01:14:01):
are deeply troubling. On the other hand, some of those
actions are very short lived and they may be just
as easy to reverse as they are to initiate. And
I can definitely see our time horizons compressing. Certainly a
month ago, we wouldn't have thought that there would be

(01:14:24):
massive riots in Los Angeles followed by a military confrontation
in the Middle East that may have escalated into a
broader war. Fortunately it didn't. But on May twenty ninth,
twenty twenty five, who would have thought that this is
what we would be dealing with? And oh, assassinations of

(01:14:47):
lawmakers too. We didn't anticipate that coming, and that is
troubling as well. It's a sign of increasing polarization destabilization.
Certain marginal actors who would have been let's say, more
emotionally volatile or disturb people to begin with, but they

(01:15:09):
might have behaved themselves in a calmer political climate. Now
they're essentially getting riled up and motivated to inflict deadly
harm and that's a tragedy for everyone involved.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
Now we yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Yeah, I think one thing that we do need to remember,
there's actually there's two things. One the United States in
its current form is the oldest continuously operating under its
constitution in the world. Every other country in the world
has had some sort of new government since we've formed

(01:15:49):
the constitution. And let's also not forget that this is
not the first government under the United States we have
in the past, and we created the system that we
have now. I think we may be in a situation
right now where our current republic may be failing. And

(01:16:12):
we've kept it a long time, Thank you, Ben Franklin.
We've kept it a long time. But I think we
might be reaching the edges of what this system can handle.
I think I hear all the time, well, the founders
never foresaw X. The founders never foresaw this, you know.

(01:16:34):
And while we do have a flexible system, I don't
think in the current climate that there's any way that
significant constitutional reforms outside of a whole Article five Convention
is going to put reforms in that need to be done.
I would like to go back to things the way

(01:16:55):
that they were over the last couple of years. I
think it's not a bad system. We can obey the rules.
I mean that's government and elected officials can obey the rules.
But I think there are that we're seeing flaws, we're
seeing you know, holes in the armor. And and there's
no shame in letting a government fail. It's happened in

(01:17:18):
the past, it's happened all around the all around the world.
People get together, we make it better.

Speaker 6 (01:17:24):
But you know, there are strategies we can apply from
the computer universe. There's a concept called fail closed or
fail open. And if our republic is going to fail,
we want it to fail open. We want it to
fail in such a way that people who believe in
freedom can go off and form intentional communities like Atlas
Island or or you know, experiments like every state was

(01:17:45):
supposed to be a laboratory of democracy in the founder's vision,
so that would be a vision of failing open. And
I agree, I am, I am worried. You know, the
founders were pretty smart, but we may have got smarted
them with all the the you know quirks and cans
that have happened in recently, like.

Speaker 4 (01:18:02):
Having an interstate commerce clause that all of a sudden,
we have all these administrations just because they regulate interstate commerce.
And there's that's that's the one that bugs me. But yeah,
I agree, we need to fail Open. I'm interested in
what's going on with some of these startup cities, maybe
see some more competition among the little mini startup nations.

(01:18:24):
Patriy Friedman made an interesting point that resonated with me.
While I agree with you Drew, we've had the longest constitution,
Patrie also said, you know, can you imagine running Windows
ninety five right now, like there's been constant updates since then,
We've gotten old operating system and there are little issues
like control of the military where things are breaking down

(01:18:47):
like that. And then the debt. I don't think we
ever figured out a way to really deal with That's
one thing that worries me about how we're going to
fail Open is what happens with the debt. I've never
heard anyone talk about it. And the only thing I
say is printing money, which makes me think I got
to get more bitcoin. But I don't see how we
get out of the debt other than printing our way

(01:19:07):
out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:08):
And but yeah, well, a full failure, a full failure
on the of the United States government that owes that debt.
Could you know in a replacement A replacement entity is
one way that I mean, it's happened in other places
around the world that go into massive amounts of debt,

(01:19:30):
and the only way to work through it was well
that you know, it's essentially a bankruptcy where that where
it goes up. I don't know. The debt is also
another thing that is that is very bad and is
also looming very large right now. So I don't know.

(01:19:52):
I don't know how we can. The best thing I
can say is to as your comment about Windows ninety five,
there are still a lot of legacy things in Windows
eleven that still stick around. So while we have new
operating systems, we do also have a lot of legacy.
And I kind of hope that if we do end

(01:20:14):
up forming a new republic here in the United States,
that we do have a decent legacy of things moving forward.
I think we have a lot of good ideas in
that constitution. I think a lot of the mechanisms are
the what is the problem.

Speaker 6 (01:20:30):
Since we're talking about economics, could I put in a
good word for the Trustee goldback. This is actually one
thousands of an ounce of twenty four carret gold. It's
printed in six eight states now make them. This one's
from Florida. But I think New Hampshire's one state, Nevada,
South Dakota. But yeah, I've been, you know, giving these

(01:20:52):
out to merchants because you can get listed on their
website as a merchant who accepts goldbacks, and they come
in different denominations, and the different denominations are slightly larger size,
so it's great for disabled, you know, visually impaired people.
They can tell, oh, that's a bigger bill, that must
be a bigger goldback, you know. So yeah, private money,

(01:21:14):
alternative currencies exist, and I wholeheartedly encourage goldback dot Com
is the website if you want to check out goldbecks.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
Indeed, so it was interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
In our chat, John h pointed out that the US
is actually the second oldest continuous republic. The first is
San Marino. Now there are more than eleven people who
live in San Marino. According to the Wikipedia entry, the
population is just over thirty four thousand in twenty twenty five,

(01:21:50):
so please feel free to read up on the history
of San Marino. They claim that their republics started in
three oh one CE, but they really became independent from
the papal states in twelve ninety one. Still, it is
a longer history than the US, but of course it
is a smaller population, and they've been able to essentially

(01:22:13):
stay out of the conflicts of the Italian city states
and afterward maintained their independence through the World Wars. But
the US has a great, greatly larger scale, several orders
of magnitude, and with that come its own challenges that

(01:22:37):
San Marino doesn't face now.

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
John wonders also in.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Terms of failing fail how fail to authoritarianism, or fail
to some form of anarchy, and that is a vulnerability
whenever and existing government collapses, whenever, no matter what system
one has, if that system used to be perceived as
legitimate and now is no law, whether when used to
have a king or a republic, what have you, And

(01:23:05):
now it's not clear what is legitimate anymore. And there
are various claimants to being the legitimate government. It could
be that some of those claimants are better than what
preceded them, but they're going to be extremely vulnerable. And
this has been the unfortunate tendency of political revolutions throughout history. Initially,

(01:23:29):
some of those revolutions might even start with idealists. So
the French Revolution began with relatively modest reform efforts, and
there was an idealistic group in the Estates General that
proposed the Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen,
and very few of us today would disagree with that declaration,

(01:23:51):
and they essentially just wanted a constitutional monarchy where human
rights were respected to a greater extent. But in us
the space of a few years, these more sensible reformers
were crowded out and often physically killed by the Jacobins,
who were bloodthirsty, power hungry. They just wanted to smash

(01:24:15):
and destroy everything, and increasingly they turned on one another,
and eventually even some of the Jacobins realized, oh, if
we continue this then we will get killed by our
former compatriots, so we need to rein this back and
create the Directory, which lasted for four years essentially almost

(01:24:38):
five years until Napoleon came to power with the Consulate.
But by eighteen fifteen this all came full circle back
to the Bourbon monarchy, because at least there was some
greater longevity with that, some greater perceived legitimacy, and when
everything else failed, the people of France just returned to

(01:24:59):
that mon key.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
So I do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
Think we need to be careful in terms of how
any large scale reform is structured so that whatever arrangement
succeeds this one maintains the perception of legitimacy, and there
are warlords or very ruthless political actors seeking to overthrow it.

(01:25:23):
Jennifer Hughes writes, Yes, we definitely want to try to
stay away from any system crash and evolve to something
that benefits everyone.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
And I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
I've said before politically I prefer evolution to revolution. But
what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (01:25:37):
Drew?

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
So I think in the United States, I think I
don't see us devolving into anarchy. We may devolve into
a bit of a war, but I don't see us
evolving into anarchy, mainly because we still have most of
our states are still pretty solid. Our states still have

(01:26:01):
pretty much the rule of law still works in most
of our states. I mean, I think there's places where
some places are a little sketchy, but a lot of
our states are still solid republics that still mostly work
for the people. And when I say mostly, I mean

(01:26:22):
that status quo of ten twenty thirty years ago. Most
states are still pretty decent in that status quo. I
think looking to the states to help maintain an order
if there is a failure of the federal government, or
even just a vote of no confidence. I mean, I

(01:26:42):
think I think we're seeing some of that loss of
confidence from the Supreme Court, from some of the stuff
that's coming out of them. I think once people really
start losing confidence, I mean, obviously we're losing confidence in
the executive branch because that's an absolute mess. We lose
using confidence in the in the legislative branch because they've

(01:27:03):
done nothing, And we're losing confidence in the judicial branch,
at least at the top because they're endorsing a lot
of this. And when the people lose confidence in things,
it's not gonna you know, it won't be long until
it falls. And I think that is it is a

(01:27:24):
very scary proposition. Don't get me wrong. I am not
looking forward to it, but it sort of looks like
that's the way we're heading. And what I'm hoping is
is that that the governors and the state legislators can
maintain some semblance of a decent status quo, however that

(01:27:49):
is in each state, through this process, and I don't
see it necessarily devolving into like full on anarchy, So.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
It could in effect become a more decentralized system over time,
where normalcy is maintained at the state level, some extent
at the local level, and indeed a lot of the
decisions that most directly affect people are made at those levels.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
Today.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
It's just that the federal government has an influence over
the overarching policy. But if that influence were to be
diminished somewhat, perhaps day to day not that much would change.

Speaker 6 (01:28:24):
But go ahead, Daniel, Oh, you know, it's pretty easy
for people to form a government when you think about it.
Two people on a boat, one of them wants to
sleep and one of them stands watch.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
They're right there.

Speaker 6 (01:28:35):
That's a contract to agree to use deadly force, you know,
in essence. So that's probably the simplest example of you know,
a government really is just a monopoly on deadly force
in a limited geographic area. But yeah, just something as
simple as two people on a boat with one standing
watch boom, that's that's like the most essential government that

(01:28:58):
you can have. Probably maybe that's got some Pirate party residents.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Indeed, well, the pirate the pirate ships historically have had
their own pirate codes, which we discussed with Mitch during
our previous salon where these were agreements that the pirates.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
Would enter into.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Even though they were outlaws, they still made agreements with
one another about how the ship was to be governed. So, yes,
governance doesn't necessarily imply a government as traditionally constituted, and
governance attempts are going to happen with or without a
traditional government. The question for me, and this is why

(01:29:41):
I'm not an anarcho capitalist, is what policies are pursued.
So I actually care less about the form of governance,
though that is important to some extent, But I care
a lot more about the content of governance, what the
governing entity does, whether it's a king or a republican

(01:30:03):
form of government with representatives, or a direct democracy or
an oligarchy, or a pirate ship where there's a pirate code.
I care about what these people do within their governance structures.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
And I think rule of law is very important, and
that's what we're losing right now. We're losing we're losing
confidence in rule of law, and we're seeing rule of
law being completely ignored by the federal government. So and
that's not a crack in most states. Most states are
still pretty solid when it comes to rule of law.

(01:30:43):
And that's what it is with the on the pirate ships.
Your compact, your constitution, your whatever you want to call it,
your pirate code for the ship. It's really it's a
compact between people to follow a set of rules. This
is how we do things. Know, both of our parties
have our constitutions and our our by laws. That's how

(01:31:05):
we operate. We operate within those rules, I think. And
there's a lot of that around in other organizations. Many,
many organizations have have constitutions and by laws. Not necessarily corporations.
Even though a lot of corporations do have those, they
don't necessarily follow them. They do whatever they want. Uh.

(01:31:27):
But a lot of nonprofits, a lot of civic organizations, uh,
those sort of things all operate on by laws. And yeah,
it's it's a willingness to follow those rules. That that
keeps us from, you know, devolving into anarchy. And as

(01:31:52):
long as it's it's voluntary, you know, we keep it voluntary.
That's that's the best that's the best way. But sometimes
it doesn't work that way because there's always bad actors.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
Indeed, indeed, and it is the bad actors that we
have to be vigilant about as we have discussed. So
we have a question from Josh Universe. He wonders, how
do you plan to engage with our party, the USTP,
and a mutually beneficial way during times when they're not elections.

(01:32:27):
So we talked about the political coalition and cross endorsing
candidates as one function of the coalition. What about any
of the interim periods, Not that there aren't many periods
when someone isn't campaigning for office, but hypothetically, what are
some other ideas for collaboration or engagement that you have

(01:32:53):
in mind.

Speaker 4 (01:32:54):
I got to cut in real quick and say I
don't I'm not in your Discord server, and I like
live on Discord. So if we're talking about collaboration, I
feel like that's one of the first things is be
able to share some members between our servers and really
get that trust going between our members so we're working
together like a group. When I feel like this is
the first time I've met you, but if you're on Discord,

(01:33:14):
I can really see your full personality over time evolve
rather than just like a two hour sort of face
to face limited speaking. So I would love to get
our Discord servers set up as partners or anything you
guys would be willing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
I think we can definitely work to do that. I
don't see an issue with that. I think the other
pirates would be amenamal to that. I think the other
thing I will say as to our discord courd server,
I'm just one person. I'm not the Pirate Party. You know,
I'm just the captain. I just helped steer the ship.
I still help keep us in line. I keep us

(01:33:53):
rolling in our meetings. Honestly, the real heart of the
Pirate Party is the other pirates, and all of our
activity is in the discord. That's where you meet all
the other pirates. We have lots of ideas about things,
and if you want to, if you want to get
on and talk about things, yeah, the discord is our

(01:34:15):
best spot right now. We have talked about trying to
roll into other other things, but discord right now is
where where the action is at. Speaking to during times
when they are not elections now, is that just is
he just talking about when there aren't elections coming up?

(01:34:35):
Because every year there's elections. There's elections every year.

Speaker 1 (01:34:39):
Now, I think I think that's what he meant essentially,
but it could be interpreted as well, what if there's
no like large midterm election or presidential election as well.

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
I think that's where we go back to cross pollination
with endorsements and more agements like this, having more shared streams,
I think we can we can talk about issues, we
can highlight candidates on both of our platforms, and you know,
and we don't have candidates. We can just talk about

(01:35:14):
the issues and how how each each of our parties,
how we agree on things and how we disagree on
things because we're friends. We're you know, we we're and
we're friends and we're adults and we're not like the
traditional political parties where you know, the other side is
non human. Uh So yeah, that's that's uh, that's I

(01:35:40):
just see more engagement like things like this that we
keep keep the keep the dialogue open. And I think
I think any any publicity is good publicity.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
So indeed, well, thank you for that answer. And we
have another question from tomorrow Thomas, who is our ambassador
in Hungary. What do you think about running for offices
and our local governments in the States to empower us
from the overarching and barbaric federal rule. So I think

(01:36:13):
you touched on that a bit drew in the sense
that the local government positions have lower barriers to entry.
How would you essentially evaluate the strategy of a predominantly
state and local focus, given that each of our parties
has endorsed presidential candidates in the past. Of course, the

(01:36:36):
Pirate Party has endorsed Vermin Supreme, and Vermin Supreme knows
very much what he is about, and he wants to,
let's say, inject a very different kind of discourse into
American politics. I think through humor and satire, showing some
truths about the American political system that couldn't be expressed,

(01:37:00):
and other respects. And of course, we've had presidential candidates
since twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (01:37:05):
Zulten E.

Speaker 1 (01:37:06):
Schwann was our first candidate, then Charlie Camm in twenty
twenty and Tom Ross in twenty twenty four. Zach is
wearing the Tom Ross twenty twenty four campaign T shirt.
And in terms of the probability of our presidential candidates winning,
it's close to zero right now due to all of

(01:37:27):
the obstacles that we discussed. But at the local level,
somebody could win. So do you see that as the
most likely practical way forward where we would have a
presidential candidate essentially, because that's what a good minor political
party should do. But our greatest focus in terms of

(01:37:52):
actually achieving electoral success should be at the local level,
maybe at the state level if we're lucky.

Speaker 2 (01:37:59):
Right, Yeah, So a presidential candidate every four years is
a platform. That's that's what it is for. For independence
and in third parties, it's it's the time when the
most people pay attention to politics. So to not have

(01:38:22):
a to not have a nominee for president is definitely
a failure in my view. You should always have You
should always have a nominee for president. Now, how much
you how much you do to get them on the ballot,
how much you do to do publicity, that's the publicity

(01:38:45):
is what you should be looking for. I think that's
because that's where we get the attention. We get we
get new members. I've seen in the Libertarian Party and
I've seen in the Pirate Party the presidential years bring
more new people than any other time. So it's it
is a matter of getting your voice out there because

(01:39:05):
the most people are are paying attention. The way to
actually change things is to start from the bottom up.
Uh to to run those state house elections, the the
mayor city council elections, even things. You know, like I

(01:39:25):
said earlier that you know, I'm a local I'm elected
in my local precinct. There's there's auditor positions in Pennsylvania,
there's that are elected positions where you can help keep
the help keep the local municipality honest in it's in
it's uh you know, in its fiscal uh standing. Uh So, yes,

(01:39:49):
at the bottom to to to be at the bottom,
to and move up. That's one of the best strategies
to actually change things. And honestly, as to the things
that we were just discussing, and this fear that the
federal government may be at the point of no return,
and like I said, I'm looking to the states to

(01:40:11):
keep things from actually devolving into a very bad state.
And yeah, getting elected or finding people that are good
people to elect that match up with our principles is
a very good thing. And that is one of the
ways that we can all kind of survive this nightmare

(01:40:31):
that is happening right now in the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:40:35):
Indeed, indeed, it seems that it is up to decent
people at levels of government that are closer to the
people to maintain the good parts of governance that we
rely on for everyday life to be stable and prosperous

(01:40:57):
and full of our opportunity for relatively ordinary individuals to
move ahead in life. Daniel tweet Wrights local politics is
still underappreciated in his opinion, and it's been said to
some extent, all politics is local. I think people who

(01:41:19):
are closest to the reality on the ground often understand
what Friedrich Hayek, the great Austrian economists, called the circumstances
of time and place. So some federal politician may not
be aware of even what specific challenges people in a

(01:41:39):
different state, a state that this person didn't come from,
are facing, and what some of the possible solutions to
those challenges might be. Certainly, if, for instance, there's some
issue that is specific to farmers in Idaho, I wouldn't
have a whole lot of input on it either. I

(01:42:02):
wouldn't have enough awareness as compared to perhaps certain people
who live in Idaho and are close to those farmers
and know what they're facing. But of course it's a
question then of whether those people are philosophically principled and
would have the kinds of solutions that would genuinely make

(01:42:26):
a positive difference in solving that problem without imposing costs
or externalities onto everybody else.

Speaker 3 (01:42:33):
So that's also.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Challenge that any sort of large extended republic has to face.
San Marino probably has fewer of those problems because of
its thirty four thousand people, but there are so many
differences geographically, regionally, culturally within this country, and a truly

(01:42:58):
representative government does have to represent all of the people
and figure out approach to solutions that work for everybody
without harming or marginalizing anybody, or at least preventing that
outcome for as many people as possible. So Mike Lazine
points out that thanks to Zoltan's immortality bust in him personally,

(01:43:21):
that is what helped him come on board to the USTP.
So publicity done right can grow third parties, and this
is what running a presidential candidate is about at this
stage in our evolution. So I think you're quite correct
about that, Drew. It is about getting publicity. It is
about getting visibility from people who might not have noticed

(01:43:45):
us otherwise. So now I want to give Artramon the
opportunity to ask a question and then we'll have a
few others from our YouTube body and so Art Tramon
please go ahead.

Speaker 5 (01:44:00):
Yeah, I was speaking of visibility. I remember the Trump
House of Wait when he was on Saturday Night Live.
That was pretty funny. I had an acquaintance that worked
for a congressman here in Arizona and he was being
investigated by the FBI for some sort of wrongdoing and
they investigated him also because he was like the accountant.

(01:44:24):
So he was investigated by the FBI and eventually they
didn't get him for anything, but he went bankrupt because
of it. So now with you know the FBI and
cash Pattel, you know, they could use the FBI to
bankrupt campaigns and candidates. So that's something that worries me.

(01:44:47):
Any thought on.

Speaker 2 (01:44:47):
That, well, I think I think we're already seeing that
the federal law enforcement is being weaponized right now so
far against senators and congress people. Yeah, and that's the
other thing too, is your point there is is that
just an investigation or charges that have come that, even

(01:45:11):
if they're false charges and you end up beating them,
it will cost you everything to fight that stuff. How
do we combat that, I don't know with a federal
government that is weaponized to the extent that it is now,
I think I could I could potentially see a weaponized FEC.

(01:45:37):
I think right now that I think the target would
be more on the Democratic Party than independence and third
parties at this point, because they're going to be going
for the bigger fish. But yeah, absolutely, I could see.
I could see fighting in an FEC investigation. And the

(01:45:58):
rules in federal in the Federal Election Commission, the rules
for fundraising and stuff are very easy to make a mistake,
and if you're going to get if you're going to
get jammed up on just one little mistake, because the
system has been weaponized to that extent, it can become

(01:46:20):
a little bit dangerous. So what I would say to
that is anybody getting involved in a federal election at
this point needs to make sure that all of their
eyes are dotted and their teaser crossed and they have
people working in that campaign that they absolutely trust. That way,
even if you do get involved in something like that,

(01:46:43):
that's the best way that you can avoid going to jail.
I mean, I guess there's no other way around that.
And it's going to be difficult with with with a
federal government like it is. If they're if they want
to come after us, it's going to be difficult to

(01:47:05):
defend ourselves. It's going to cost a lot of money
and possibly our jobs and then possibly, uh, you know,
can absolutely ruin our lives. I mean, your your local
cops can do the same thing to you. I see
that too. You know, you get you get a false arrest,
or you get arrested for doing something that that you

(01:47:28):
know isn't even against the law, but they make up
charges like come on disorderly conduct is one of the
most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. But it's it's
it's charged and convicted all the time, and people go
to jail. So there's a lot of reform that needs
to happen, and it's a scary time right now.

Speaker 5 (01:47:50):
Yeah, the I wasn't I wasn't sure which congressmans was,
but I asked and it says that it was a
Republican Rich Wrenzi, Arizona's first congressional district. He was investigated
two thousand and eight. He was prosecuted for land swap
scheme and something other some other things. But yeah, he

(01:48:13):
went to jail in twenty thirteen. It looks like, and
but he was pardoned by Trump in twenty twenty one,
So that's that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:48:24):
Yeah, thank you. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:48:26):
And indeed Trump has complained about essentially the legal system
being weaponized against him and his supporters, but he may
be doing the same thing as well. And this again
seems to be a tendency of corrupt players within the
political system. Daniel Tweed points out that Nixon weaponized the

(01:48:50):
IRS against his enemy's list. There have been complaints about
Democrats doing the same thing in the twenty tens.

Speaker 3 (01:48:57):
When they were in power.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
And again, it shows the vulnerabilities of this system, and
it shows how incumbent players, when a challenger becomes too
much of a threat, are not necessarily going to play
by their own rules. They're going to try to distort

(01:49:20):
and abuse the processes within the system to play roles
that weren't intended for them according to the rules, but
roles that are more nefarious, like using the judicial system
against political opponents, which shouldn't happen no matter who the
incumbents are or who the opponents are. That's not what

(01:49:41):
the judicial system is for now, we have five minutes
remaining in our salon today. This has been a fascinating conversation,
and we are going to meet with the Pirate Party
at six pm Pacific time nine pm Eastern time today
to further hash out the details of the coalition so

(01:50:03):
that we have a proposal to bring before our members
for a vote. But in the time that we have remaining, Drew,
would you like to talk a bit more about the
coalition and your ideas regarding it and perhaps some of
what both of our parties members could expect from it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:28):
Yeah. I think ultimately, I think we need to just
the ultimate goal of this coalition is to grow it
beyond just the two parts, just our two parties, so
that we can grow a much larger coalition to be
a force in politics here in the United States. The

(01:50:53):
form that that takes, that's not something I'm pushing myself.
I think I think my members have the have their
have their visions, Your members have visions. I don't think
it's my place to actually tell us where we're going.
I just see us as having a very good working
relationship moving forward, and that's and and I'm here to

(01:51:17):
help that move along. And I see good things in
the future for both of our parties and potentially other
parties that may join us in this coalition, and I
look forward to helping us make it work.

Speaker 1 (01:51:33):
Yes, indeed, thank you very much, Drew. So the Pirate
Party meetings are streamed on YouTube as well. The US
Pirate Party has a YouTube channel, so please check it
out and there will be a YouTube chat for that meeting.
We're still trying to decide on a name for the coalitions.

(01:51:59):
So we have some suggestions for the names that have
been circulated, and I'll just read them out briefly. So
one of them is the Third Party Coordination Cell or
the Third Party Coalition SELL.

Speaker 3 (01:52:21):
Another set of names.

Speaker 1 (01:52:24):
Is well a set of variations on all hands so
all hands Future, all hands on Deck, Alliance, all Hands
on Deck, Coalition, All Hands on Deck, Futurists. There is
a name that I like a lot, Coalition for a
Free Future, another variant that has been proposed as United

(01:52:46):
for a Free Future or just Free Future. And there
are a variety of other names as well.

Speaker 3 (01:52:55):
So we're trying.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
To come up with a name that means something in particular,
so it's not just something bland or generic, but would
also be inclusive of the major values that both of
our parties stand for, and that other minor parties that
join the coalition are also going to align with. So

(01:53:21):
this would be a formulation that would pose a meaningful
challenge to the duopoly and wouldn't just be co opted
by let's say, establishment types that just want a different
label to run under. So think of something that the
transhumanists would resonate with, that the Pirates would resonate with,

(01:53:45):
that a lot of other minor parties would resonate with,
But perhaps not Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams, who are
probably going to run as independence, but I don't think
we want them in our coalition. Sorry Andrew Cuomo and
Eric Adams, but you're just not a good fit for us.

Speaker 3 (01:54:02):
But the rest of those of us who.

Speaker 1 (01:54:05):
Are interested in challenging the duopoly please give this coalition
proposal some thought. Take part in the meeting with the
Pirate Party, join the YouTube stream there, and as always,
live long and prosper

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