AZ Ancap of Drop the Mask Pod

Mark welcomes AZ Ancap of Drop the Mask Pod for a conversation.
Connect with Jason:
https://dropthemaskpod.locals.com
https://x.com/DropTheMaskPod
https://rumble.com/c/c-5062981

Transript:

(0:02) Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Knocked Conscious. This is the first live stream (0:08) episode I’ve ever done, but it happens to be with the person who lives closest to me, (0:13) but we’re still doing this remotely, so it’s kind of funny. Jason, welcome to Knocked Conscious.(0:18) You and I have never met. We’ve exchanged a bunch of things on X, Twitter, whatever you want to call (0:22) it. Welcome, man.How are you doing today? I’m doing great. I got to say I’m feeling a little (0:27) bit hurt. I feel a little bit left out of your provoked book club.I just thought I’d throw that (0:34) at you live. Man, I was going to hit you with something hard and put you on the defensive (0:39) right away, but I spoke with these people. I’ve got a plan.I’ve got a plan. I swear I’ve got a (0:45) plan about that. Trust me, you don’t want to be a part of this.I’m telling you right now, (0:49) my head is about this big right now. I was tasked with only 30 pages for this first week, (0:58) and I’ve got three and a half pages of notes, and my head is just swollen beyond … It’s hard to (1:06) pick out what you want to talk about and how you want to share it. I do hope we get you on.I do. (1:11) I’m advocating, and I’m not the one … It took off. I had it with … (1:18) Buds took off, man.Sean grabbed it and ran with it, and then Jacob jumped on, (1:22) and then it was like … It really had kind of a mind on its own, and I do apologize for that. (1:27) I don’t know. I’m really kidding.It’s a huge project, man. I’m a little bit actually relieved (1:33) because I don’t know if I could keep up with that for seven, eight weeks, however long you guys are (1:37) doing it. I’ve never done this, and I’m very (1:41) concerned.I’m not going to lie, but I’m committed, so we’re going to have to do it because (1:45) we have to, right? Hopefully, we’ll be able to do it. (1:46) Hey, if you guys need somebody for Monday, I’m ready to go. (1:51) Okay, for Monday.All right. Sounds great. Let’s see what we can do.I’ll talk to the boys, (1:54) see if we can have you on. I can’t make any promises, and like I said, I will say it this way. (2:01) We’re here to spread the message of liberty, right? I am at the bottom of this totem pole.(2:05) If you look at any of my metrics, I am literally the bottom. When Jacob took and ran with it, (2:14) and Sean took and ran with it, look, I just ran with it because they have more credibility. (2:22) They’ve been around a little bit more.I just was like, okay, cool. I’m riding that, but (2:27) I hope we can have you on. I wanted to put you on the defensive first, sir, because I (2:32) look at your profile on Twitter, or X, apologies.Autistically explaining why everyone is wrong on (2:39) the internet. Come on, man. Do you want to share anything about it? No, I love it.I love it. (2:47) My question is, are you being jovial about it? Are you embracing that you’re on the spectrum (2:53) a little bit? Because I think many of us in the liberty movement are a little bit on the spectrum. (2:58) Yeah, that’s kind of the running joke, right? For libertarians that we’re all just a little (3:03) bit autistic.Who knows? I probably am. I don’t have any official diagnosis or anything, (3:10) but my stepson is actually. I see a lot of the same things that I had growing up that I didn’t (3:18) realize.I’m like, oh, this is starting to make sense a little bit. I think maybe there’s something (3:24) there. It’s autistic because I just get straight to the point like, hey, you’re wrong about this.(3:35) Maybe a little bit socially retarded. Sorry for the R word for anyone that’s offended by that, but (3:41) yeah, that’s me. That’s kind of what it is.It’s like these people are talking about feels, (3:46) and they don’t talk about … We talk about Ben Shapiro, the facts don’t care about your feelings (3:50) until it affects your people. All of a sudden, those feelings really do get in the way, don’t (3:56) they? Don’t they, Ben? We can’t do that. We have to run it across the board.To your point, (4:02) I just come to people with facts. People are like, but it doesn’t feel right. He’s going to want it.(4:06) Yeah, but what on paper has happened? That kind of thing. How did you get into this whole liberty (4:12) movement? What made you want to get into podcasting and everything like this? Because there’s this (4:17) huge swell of just uproar of this. It’s like, just leave us alone.Let us do our thing kind of. (4:23) How did you get into that? Yeah. Well, when I started, I would say I didn’t realize that there (4:29) were so many podcasts out there.I knew about the big ones, the Dave Smith, Tom Woods, all that, but (4:35) then I started doing this and getting on social media and stuff and meeting guys like you who (4:39) are doing similar things. I’m like, oh, okay. There’s actually a lot of us out here.(4:45) One was a miscalculation of the market saturation on my part, but you mentioned Ben Shapiro. (4:51) You should have been more autistic about that. I know.I know. Anyway, you mentioned Ben Shapiro. (4:57) That’s a really good point to bring up because a long time ago, I watched Ben Shapiro a little bit (5:05) and I bought into that.Facts don’t care about your feelings. That’s a really common thing that (5:10) you hear from the right. You said, yeah, once it hits them, definitely the feelings come out.I (5:16) think in truth, it’s really the opposite, that feelings don’t care about your facts. When you go (5:22) try to convince people of something, you can spit facts all day, all night, and people do not get (5:30) convinced. You’ve got to elicit some kind of emotional reaction to get attention and to get (5:37) people to start planting the seed for them to change their mind a little bit.(5:43) I think that’s a great point because if you talk about how we approach it as libertarians, (5:49) we’re like, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. We don’t come from, okay, let me try to, (5:55) it’s like instead of a negotiating table, you’re sitting across from your adversary or opponent.(6:01) Why not go on their side and try to look at it from their side? Look at the paper from their (6:05) perspective. It’s always hard for us because we’re like, no, but the facts are one plus one (6:10) equals two. There’s two genders, one plus one equals two.This is it. The compassion, which is (6:18) the feel part, that’s where we get lost. I think what happens is a lot of the governments and these (6:23) other things that we fight against weaponize people’s compassion against us.Don’t you care (6:30) about the children? Don’t you care about the elderly? We saw this in COVID. We saw this through (6:36) all the protection child stuff and stuff. I find that really interesting that you talk about it (6:41) like that.Do you find yourself associating more with libertarian-minded people to talk with them (6:47) and get their minds, or do you find yourself actually interacting with people who don’t have (6:52) those same types of ideologies or thoughts? Good question. I would say it’s a little bit (6:59) of both. I haven’t quite found the niche that I’m trying to hit just yet, so I do both.I’m (7:05) speaking to libertarians a little bit, but I’m trying to do it in a way where it’s like, hey, (7:09) you could share this with your friends and maybe this will help explain things. I’d say I’m a (7:15) systems thinker. I’m an engineer by training, so I went to school for mechanical engineering.(7:22) I think of, again, to the autistic thing, there’s a specific way that things work, like a machine. (7:28) It has to be this way or else it doesn’t work, right? That’s the way my brain kind of processes (7:34) things. I’m looking at political systems, which are wild, and there’s tons of random elements (7:40) within that, and I’m just trying to understand it.It’s me learning, understanding, trying to (7:47) explain what I’m learning while I’m doing it, and then I do like a lot of clips, too, so I’ll (7:54) clip out pieces of interviews from YouTube or something and be like, well, this is why he does (8:00) this and blah, blah, blah. That’s really what I’m doing. Yep.Yeah, I love that. Well, it’s funny (8:07) because I just posted something about, obviously, the education, department education has always (8:12) been something for us and the Ed and the Fed, all these things, right? So I’m looking at the (8:17) department of education. You’re looking at administrative costs and how it’s like seven (8:20) times or doubled, and everything else has only gone up marginally, like actual teaching, (8:27) actual students, you know what I mean? Things like that.I try to talk to an engineer who (8:31) ideologically feels that that’s the right way to do it, and I’m like, dude, you’re an engineer. (8:38) Administrative costs, here’s your analogy. Administrative costs equal friction.Friction (8:44) makes the machine not work so good. You don’t want friction. The less friction, the better.(8:49) The more friction, the worse. We see this on scale in every machine, everything. This is the (8:55) same true of institutions as well.So I found that interesting, trying to find those analogies, (9:00) like trying to find an engineering mindset to that other mindset of how to relate these concepts, (9:06) and hopefully those light bulbs go off, right? Because we all look at the world and have (9:10) different experiences. So you as an engineer is different than someone who’s an artist who (9:13) played guitar their whole life, for example. Yeah, and I do a little bit of music and things (9:19) here and there.It’s been a while, but I played piano. I’ve got the guitar hanging up here. I (9:27) occasionally break that out.I’ve got a few chords, but what’s that? (9:30) I used to sing, so maybe we can get something together. I’ll send you some stuff. I actually (9:36) sang with Mike, a little bit.Awesome. So I love the name, Drop the Mask. How did you come up with (9:44) the concept of that? Is that scotch? It is bourbon.(9:50) Oh, it’s bourbon. Okay. I was just wondering if you were scotch.It may be a little early, but (9:55) we don’t know. We’re on East Coast time, man. It’s Saturday.(10:00) It’s Saturday. Perfect. Yeah.So the mask, anyway, how’d you come up with that? (10:06) Yeah. So I think probably the first thing that comes to mind for people would be the COVID stuff, (10:12) face masks. That really, really got to me.I think the COVID era is what pushed me from being just (10:19) a casual libertarian to, hey, I’m an anarchist. This isn’t working. This is not going to work.(10:26) Just the way that they treated people and just continued to lie to our faces day in and day out, (10:32) that really, really got to me. So yes, it’s about the face masks, (10:38) but more than that, it’s deeper. It’s one about dropping the mask of your own… (10:45) What would you call it? The way you present yourself.Everyone has it. (10:50) We all have a facade. We all have a mask.(10:52) Yeah. Everyone does it, and it’s not always bad, but some people do it too much. Also for me, (10:58) it’s about dropping the guard of… I don’t share a lot about myself normally.If I’m at work, (11:08) I don’t talk politics. I don’t get into too much personal stuff. So for me, it’s a little bit of (11:16) reminder to, hey, open up, be a normal person, not just an autistic weirdo.And then last, (11:24) it’s really about the systems that we have in place, the government, whatever it is, are masking (11:30) what’s really going on behind the scenes. So yeah, it’s breaking down the schools. You mentioned the (11:37) schools.We just believe that we send kids to public school for learning. They go learn. They (11:44) get all the knowledge that they need for the world, and that’s it.And that’s great. But it’s (11:49) so much worse and so much more than that, that that’s one of the things I really like to touch (11:55) on too, is the education side. I think if we could fix money and education, that would fix (12:01) almost all the problems in the world.Yeah. (12:04) Yeah, it’s funny because I think we talk about it. I think it’s the meme that keeps going around (12:08) is like, people don’t understand the difference between capitalism and crony capitalism.The (12:15) crony part’s the problem that we have. That’s where the corporations have purchased all the (12:20) politicians. I mean, if we’re going to have some kind of legislative or governance, those things (12:24) have to be completely separated.That has to be completely out of it. I don’t know if there’s (12:28) an answer for that, but that’s how it has to be in order for it to work as best as possible. (12:34) Yeah, exactly.Exactly. Yeah. And that’s the funny thing.People like Robert F. Kennedy (12:40) seem like a really good guy, but I guarantee he would enlarge government to do good things (12:46) with government. Good things, quote unquote good things. But the problem isn’t what he’d do with (12:52) the power.The problem is the power that he would have at all, because he only gets at most eight (12:59) years. After eight years, the next person can do with the same power exactly the opposite of the (13:05) good that one does, right? Yeah. Yeah.That’s always a tricky thing for libertarians is like, (13:12) we want these things done, but then you have the people on social media saying like, no, (13:18) it’s bad if government does it, even if it’s a good thing. And I’m like, well, (13:21) it might. If we had a Javier Millet where he’s actually shutting down government agencies, (13:26) those are hard to get back.If you shut it down completely, it’s going to take some effort to (13:33) get it going again. So I think in that case, it would be a good thing, even though, yes, (13:39) I don’t like that government has the power to do that, but still take a win. (13:43) But the good thing for that, though, is that’s internal within government, right? That’s like (13:47) government slashing itself.I’m all good for the snakes eating each other. I don’t give a crap (13:52) about that. Obviously, we care about how it affects us.But it’s so interesting. They talk (13:57) about this tariff thing, you know, and they blow this up. It’s like, but the tariffs were we kind (14:03) of lower tariffs because it used to be used to fund America.People a lot of people do not know (14:07) before the income tax in 1913, I believe. Right. The tariffs are what funded the United States (14:14) government.And then the income tax came in. The Fed comes in and look where we’re at now. (14:19) You know, no one’s even talking about lowering, removing income tax while the replacing with (14:24) tariffs.It’s such a weird thing. He’s like, yeah, we’re just going to do tariffs. And you’re like, (14:28) wait a minute.So we just want to increase costs. Right. That’s literally what we want to do is (14:32) complete.And I know it’s like a business tactic on his behalf. But just that mention, (14:38) like, look at the people just going absolutely crazy because they don’t understand that concept. (14:44) Yeah, a lot there.There’s a lot of craziness around Donald Trump, for sure. That’s another (14:49) thing that started me getting really looking into politics more because just the way that (14:56) the media treated him, I could see was not right as much as I didn’t like him. I was never a Trump (15:02) supporter, but I was like, you guys are just lying straight up to our face about this because, (15:09) you know, they’d clip something out of context, like the fine people thing.There’s fine people (15:13) on both sides. Yeah. So, yeah, you could see that.Do you watch Rogan? Do you watch Joe Rogan at all? (15:19) Occasionally. Yeah. Yeah.So he just had a guy on from the Innocence Project. I’m just going to (15:24) cut in real quick. But yeah, I’m from the Innocence Project.And they talk about the (15:28) very fine people hoax. The guy never heard the whole clip. And he’s there.Yeah. And he goes, (15:35) what? What? I like literally shot like as like a cognitive dissonance on Joe Rogan live. (15:41) You know what I mean? So this is what it’s like one of those seven years ago or something.(15:45) And people still don’t know that. So like the media lies are really deep, man. They they will (15:51) last forever.The covid stuff, too, like people still believe that Fauci did a great job. We (15:58) didn’t maybe do things hard enough. We should have locked down more.We should have worn 10 masks, (16:02) whatever. But people still believe that. And that is crazy to me.Yeah. So I forgot what we’re (16:09) talking about for that. No, that’s so we’re just talking about just general government having (16:15) power and everything like that.But the tariffs. Yeah. Yeah.Tariffs. There you go. Tariffs.Man. (16:22) OK. So I think the right is losing on this, at least in the sense of it actually working.(16:30) So let’s say they did actually remove income tax. Great. That’s awesome.But tariffs can (16:35) potentially be worse. So I don’t want people to think that this is just an automatic win. (16:41) Tariffs increase the prices of things way before they become products.So you might have a smaller (16:47) percent tariff, but that’s going to add up every time you transfer things overseas. You know, (16:53) it builds up, it builds up, it compounds the interest or not the interest, but the the tax (16:58) on there. So you could actually be paying more.Right. And you might have you might be (17:05) paying three thousand dollars in income tax, but the tariffs might cause a five thousand (17:10) dollar increase in costs. That’s kind of what we’re talking about.Right. Right. No.And then (17:15) once again, I wasn’t defending the tariffs or anything, but one of the things that we always (17:18) talk about for on the on the on the libertarian side is Henry Hazlitt’s economics in one lesson. (17:23) I think he’s got a whole section on tariffs on that. It is simple.It’s easy to read. The (17:27) whole book is like a seven hour audio book only. It’s pretty awesome.So, yeah, I copied and pasted (17:32) that chapter as an article on X. So. Oh, did you? And you commented on it? Nice. Oh, yeah.People. (17:41) What’s that? People bookmarking stuff on X. Oh, yeah. Yeah.Nice. Yeah. I’m starting to figure (17:48) out Twitter a little bit.I would say the podcast game is harder to crack into figuring out Twitter (17:56) or X, whatever now. But yeah, maybe we can talk more about this later if you want to talk about (18:02) now. That’s fine.But how how do you get some engagement on your your show? I don’t, you know, (18:10) I just don’t. So I just, you know, yeah, let’s talk about let’s talk about guests and how we get (18:17) this stuff right. So, yeah, I’ve been we and I have actually crossed a lot of similar guests by (18:22) Cohen, Adam Hayman.Probably I’d have to go to list, but there’s there’s a couple. But I actually (18:27) met some of these people at Freedom Fest. So I just committed myself to doing that, to going (18:31) physically to that event.And I just asked people, I email them and ask if they want to talk like (18:37) Scott Horton. I emailed through a Twitter post or an ex post back in October of twenty twenty three. (18:44) I literally didn’t know anybody, know anything.He said, reach out to Connor. So I reached out (18:48) to, you know, it’s just like, boom. And then next thing you know, he’s on the he’s on the podcast.(18:52) What a nut. These people are amazing because they just want to share that message. So I think the (18:57) people mainly are good in that respect.I can tell you without I’ll probably shoot myself in (19:05) the foot, but the podcast game has a little seems to have a little bit of gatekeeping. (19:11) And I realized that when I was like at that event, there was there were some prominent people there (19:17) that I try to connect with and just wasn’t able to the way I would have liked. Maybe that’s on me.(19:23) Maybe I’m just taking that personally, but but that’s kind of how it is. But (19:29) I’ll be honest, if you figured out Twitter, please, please teach me. I’m old, man.I’m 50. (19:34) I have no idea. I’m a tech.I built computers growing up. So mechanically, to your point, (19:40) like engineer wise, I can put the pieces together. But for some reason, when it comes to virtual (19:45) software and like Internet and social, I it doesn’t you know what I mean? The pieces don’t (19:50) like solidify the same way.Oh, there’s definitely gatekeeping there, too. (19:56) There’s, you know, big groups that follow each other, repost each other, (19:59) comment and and do all that stuff. So that’s part of it.I get that stream, right? (20:04) Yeah, you can get in some engagement groups, but it’s mostly about replying to big accounts, (20:09) I guess, to get some some traction. And people do this all day, man. I don’t know how (20:13) they have the energy or the mental capacity for it, because I’m just like, OK, I did a few tweets.(20:19) I’m done. Like, that’s all I want to do. And I assume you have a full time job as well, right? (20:24) Yes.Yeah. Right. So when COVID happened, I was able to work remotely.So I’ve like, (20:29) I think I don’t want to say this too loud because someone might be listening at work, (20:33) but I haven’t stepped foot in the office very often, but I haven’t had to, obviously, (20:38) like we’ve arranged it. But since then, obviously, that’s like closed my borders here. You know what (20:42) I mean? So like now I’m just hunkered down, but it’s like I work so hard and just gone through (20:47) I try to get on X in between and stuff.You’re like, oh, I missed that one. Oh, I missed that (20:52) whole conversation. And then you’re like, oh, engagement.This is what happens to me. I’m dead (20:57) Monday through Thursday, Friday. I get a lot of engagement Saturday and then it goes dead again.(21:02) Like it’s it’s like this constant like roller coaster and it’s got to be some algo driven, (21:08) but it’s not the algorithm fault. I’ve got to figure it out. Right.Just like to your point, (21:12) you got to figure it out. Yeah, man. How do you get your.Oh, sorry. Oh, I was just gonna say (21:19) it’s it’s also, you know, as you get bigger, it’s like an exponential growth effect because more (21:25) people see your stuff, more people interact with you. So, yeah, getting followers, getting the (21:30) verified followers is kind of the key there.But it always changes to like every couple of weeks (21:36) or so I see all the algorithms changed and blah, blah, blah. So I don’t know, man. (21:42) I’m starting to get it.I’m working on it, but I just don’t like I don’t want to be on social (21:46) media all day either. And that’s a challenge for me, too, and I’ll be honest, like I had 400 (21:52) followers last Thanksgiving and I signed up for premium. Yeah, I’m like, all right, I’ll give (21:56) myself whatever.It’s been a year. I have sixteen hundred and fifty. I don’t know.I mean, and it’s (22:05) funny. Back then I was getting two hundred and fifty thousand engagements a week. I’m getting (22:09) ten thousand now.Like it’s like that. It’s that drastic. And it didn’t make sense to me.And once (22:14) again, it’s probably me because I’m posting whatever stupid things I’m posting. But it’s (22:19) just like one of those things where it does become frustrating because you’re like, I feel like I’m (22:23) trying, but you’re probably not trying the right way. So all you’re doing is spinning your wheels.(22:27) Right. So it’s like that weird frustration that you got it. You got to get in there.But but it’s (22:33) funny this last week I had seventeen hundred fifty and now I’m down to six. I lost one hundred. I (22:36) lost six percent.And I’m sure they’re bots. I’m sure it was a bot purge this week. But it’s like, (22:40) how did that happen? Where did that come from? Yeah, same.I lost about a hundred. (22:47) I’m hearing that a lot from people. Yeah.Yeah. So look, I’m totally fine with the purge and we (22:53) want verified. Right.Obviously, we want this to be real. It’s not like we want this to be some (22:57) manufactured BS thing. It’s not some dreamland.We actually want to push these messages. So if I (23:04) may go back to drop the mask before we we get into how you get your awesome guests, please. Yeah, (23:09) I see like a little V for Vendetta kind of action there, too.Is there a little bit of that fun, (23:15) like playfulness with it, too, or. Oh, you mean like blowing up government buildings and stuff? (23:20) Well, with the mask that you have on the mask, yeah, with your logo. (23:24) Actually, I had Grock make this for me.I did a little bit of modification myself. I put the (23:30) wings on. But yeah, I yeah, I liked the idea of, well, a mask because it dropped the mask.And then (23:39) I’m like, oh, yeah, V for Vendetta. The guy. I don’t know how you say Guy Fawkes mask.(23:44) Yep. Yep. Guy Fawkes.Remember, remember. That’s right. The 5th of November.And what’s funny is (23:52) this election was the 5th of November. I mean, it’s unbelievably how weird that is. But yeah.(23:57) Oh, we could talk about the election. I’m still. I mean, look, you, sir, you have brought your (24:04) time on a Saturday.You’re welcome. Drink your bourbon, share some stories, man. Let’s go.(24:11) Yeah, we can get back to the guests. But I would say I’m still a little bit unconvinced (24:17) that Trump is going to get an office. What do you think of that? (24:21) Oh, like, OK.How may I ask? Are you thinking physically unable to be there (24:26) or? So there’s a few ways that I think this could happen. One is war. So we’ve seen what Biden, (24:36) the Biden administration, not Biden himself, of course, he’s a House plan at this point.(24:41) But what the administration is doing right now in Russia, escalating the war, that’s one way I think (24:48) they could escalate it to a point where it’s just too hot. And they say, nope, we can’t we can’t do (24:53) a transfer right now. It’s it’s too dangerous.So that’s one way. I don’t know how likely, (24:59) but possible, I think. On that point, on that first point, I agree.My I thought we’d just be (25:05) in war before he takes power. So he can’t get out like once you’re in it, you can’t unroll. (25:12) It’s kind of like your point is like you can’t restart something.It’s kind of hard to stop it (25:15) once it starts to. So my thought was they’re just escalating to get to war before he takes power (25:21) so that he’s locked into that battle. But but yeah, I think giving up.(25:28) Right. That’s more likely. I think it could be like a covid type thing where they (25:33) play it up, make sure it’s actually, you know, on top of everyone’s mind so that they see this (25:38) and associate it with Trump and just, you know, just time down with that another way.(25:46) Oh, I forgot what I was going to say now. (25:49) Keep cutting you off. So there are multiple ways that you think Trump could be (25:53) taken out of office.This would be through war. They would just say, no, we’re going to keep the (25:59) power just like Zedlinski kept power right after May 20th or March 20th, whatever this year. (26:04) Yeah.Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.Second way is I’m blanking. I just had it. (26:13) I’m not good at these live things, man.Oh, man, it’s cool. No, (26:16) that’s what’s fun about it, because like this is what we’re this is what we’re learning. You know, (26:20) this is what’s great about the conversation.We certainly come back to the legal trouble. (26:24) That was it. He’s in legal trouble, so they could try to throw something at him where he goes to (26:28) jail or whatever.Again, I think not so likely, but it’s on the table at least. The other one (26:38) is just that. The assassination thing, they’ve already tried twice when I say they I don’t know (26:45) exactly who is doing it, who’s behind it.The government will tell you it’s Iran. I don’t think (26:51) so. Yeah, so I think that’s also another possibility is that he doesn’t make it to January 20th or (27:00) whatever day they do the transfer.All right, so on that end, you just brought up Iran, Iran, Iran, (27:08) Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. So Russia is not our enemy, but Iran is all of a sudden. It’s like, (27:16) why is it that we just can’t say, hey, let’s not try to make an enemy this week? (27:22) Can we try that just one time? Yeah, unfortunately, that’s how they keep their power.That’s, (27:30) you know, having an enemy makes it legitimizes the government, right? They’re like, oh, without us, (27:36) how would you defend yourselves against these international enemies? Right. And I briefly met (27:42) Kash Patel, for example, at Freedom Fest, and he did a panel with Clint, I think, and Angela (27:46) McCardle and Brett Weinstein. I think I recorded it’s probably up somewhere on my Twitter somewhere, (27:50) but it’s it’s an amazing conversation, amazing panel.But then he brings up Iran and his eyes (27:57) get all big and he gets those saucer dishes. You’re like, all right, whoa, whoa, man, easy. Why? Why (28:02) is it? Because you believe it’s one of those things like he feels it.So if he’s told it, (28:07) he can just believe it. Right. So like, it’s like they, right, they are doing the same thing.(28:12) They’re weaponizing our feels against us in a lot of different ways. Yeah. (28:19) Yeah.With Kash, that’s interesting because he’s he’s on the right side about like Ukraine, (28:25) for example. But when it comes to Israel, Iran, he seems to be very hawkish on the war with Iran. (28:32) Like he wants that or he’s just very much in favor of Israel, which fine.I don’t really (28:38) care about Israeli people. But the Israeli government has done some really horrible shit. So (28:45) I can’t in good conscience, like promote this guy or say he’s good because that is completely (28:52) nonstarter for me.Yeah, it’s antithetical. Right. And just to give you a little background (28:57) of me is I voted Republican elephant since 1992.So Bush was at Bush one. Then whoever lost to (29:08) Clinton twice and then Bush to twice and then whoever lost to Obama twice, you know, so I voted (29:17) basically I voted Trump twice this year. Nota my first time ever.I did not vote for the presidency (29:23) and I will I will say like this transition covid really is in it because my girlfriend’s (29:30) telling told me this morning even she’s like, you really got to let some of that go. And I’m like, (29:36) it’s not I’m not asking for heads to roll here. I’m asking just that the acknowledgement that you (29:44) were wrong and that next time this is not the way we’re going to do this.That’s all that’s what I (29:51) want. I don’t need any. I don’t need.I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to see Fauci in the (29:56) cage with like like he put the dogs. Don’t get me wrong.But yeah, I just it’s it it was so (30:03) tyrannical. And every day I I’m not vaccinated. I’m diabetic.And so I supplemented. I got my (30:12) blood sugars in check. I got it twice and I breezed through it.But every day, should I get it? (30:19) Should I get it? Because everybody’s just in my ear. And now it’s like, why don’t you let it go? (30:25) Why don’t I let it go? Like, I, I can’t let it go, man. You didn’t let it go.When, like you (30:34) were when you were wrong. And I was wrong, too. But that’s the thing is I’ve been wrong before.(30:38) We just need to admit that, like, let’s just at least admit and have some kind of transparency (30:42) there. So what are your thoughts on on that kind of stuff? Because that really did it for me, too. (30:48) Yeah, first of all, I have similar background.I’m not quite that old, so I didn’t vote for Bush (30:53) ever. But I, yeah, voted for McCain, Romney, Trump twice. And this year did not vote, (31:01) did not go cast vote because in large part, the covid stuff, Trump still doesn’t seem to get it.(31:07) That that was a mistake. He touts it. Yeah, that Operation Warp Speed.And let’s be honest, (31:12) $6.6 trillion in that last year. And Trump in 2020, I only did because (31:18) of the covid thing. Again, that was ongoing at the time.And as bad as Trump was, the Democrats (31:25) were promising to be worse. They were promising, hey, we’re going to lock down harder. We’re going (31:29) to get you fired from your job if you don’t take this shot.Military release, all these things, (31:36) right? If you’re a health care worker, I’m in the military. Get out of here. (31:40) And I was yeah, I was facing that.I was going to have to either get it (31:45) because of the whatever law they pass. It wasn’t even a law. I don’t remember how they did it.(31:50) They did it through some agency. But anyway, employee one, did you get caught (31:55) with that hundred employee or more or whatever? Yeah. So I was going to have to.I was up against (32:00) until the Supreme Court, thank God, said, yeah, no, we’re not doing this. But it was close, man. (32:08) Yeah, it was really interesting because when we have just under that first number (32:13) and the second that that happened, I called my boss and I said, I’m telling you right now, (32:18) I will stay home every minute of every day or you can get rid of me.But I’m not taking that thing. (32:25) I’m just not doing it. You’re not not because I don’t want because you can’t force me to take it.(32:30) That’s literally why I said it’s like I will not be forced to take it. And they said, don’t worry, (32:34) it’s only one hundred. I go, no, that’s where it starts.It starts at this number of employees. (32:38) As soon as they can get that implemented, then they’ll make it 50 employees and they’ll make it (32:41) twenty five. They’re going to keep tightening the wrench.They never loosen the wrench. They never (32:46) loosen the wrench. And and trying to share these types of things, these open transparencies with (32:52) people is really challenging, I find, because you have to kind of break the thing that it’s like (32:57) that shell of our government, good, everything we do good for us.But once it cracks, it goes (33:07) rapid. It’s a nice exponential growth. Yeah.Yeah. But like I was saying that that stuff still (33:12) pisses me off, just like you, like someone tells me to let it go. I say, no, that was one of the (33:17) biggest tyrannical overreaches of my life.I’m not going to let that go. Some heads need to roll. And (33:23) yeah, I think apologies will be nice, but that’s not enough for me.I want people out. I want people (33:30) ostracized up to and including things that I probably can’t say in public online. So I won’t.(33:36) I won’t either. Yeah. And that’s the thing is like you and we’re allowed to have thoughts.(33:40) But part of the free speech is also refraining from things that don’t need to be said. Right. (33:45) Like there’s a responsibility to refrain from speech, certain speech, too.And in this case, (33:49) you and I know better than to do that. Yeah. Yeah.So I can’t say what I think should really (33:56) happen to these people, the ones that pushed it. I mean, I don’t really blame people for going along (34:01) just because I, you know, I understand not everyone has time to dig into everything. Like (34:06) people have to go to work.They have families, they got to support, you know, all the kids and (34:11) everything. They just they don’t think about this stuff all the time. And I am blessed to have that (34:16) luxury to think about it, which is also a curse, too, because now I know too much and it drives me (34:21) crazy.But anyway, I don’t know where I was going with that. But yeah, the COVID stuff really just (34:28) really gets to me. Yeah.So we’re in the same state. How did you how did you handle with your (34:33) family? Was it I thought I found it pretty good. I personally wore a mask everywhere I went only for (34:38) the visuals.I just didn’t want to hear it. You know what I mean? But but for the most part, not (34:43) too much was shut down here. It was pretty open.It was pretty open. And I’m glad for that. But (34:50) yeah, Doug Ducey, the governor at the time, he decided randomly.Well, it seems random to me (34:57) anyway. I think it was like July or something that year decided to shut down gyms. And that (35:03) got me so pissed off.I was out canvassing leading trying to get signatures to prime not primary. (35:10) What do you call it when you recall a recall signature? Oh, to recall. Oh, okay.Yeah. Because (35:16) I was freaking pissed about that. There was no reason.Totally. You got you got to go be healthy. (35:23) So that’s the funniest thing is like the healthiest people are the ones going to the gym.Yeah. So (35:29) you probably are pretty decent there, at least with some kind of immunity and some kind of general (35:34) health, you know? Yeah. But then, you know, I look at California, our neighbor here and just like, (35:39) man, they were shut down for two years and freaking insane.So yes, I’m grateful that (35:45) we’re in Arizona. And I came from Oregon. So I just moved to Arizona, like a few months before (35:53) COVID started.So I was in the Northwest. And yeah, I got tired of the rain. And I got tired (35:59) of like 90% of Portland is Antifa.So they kept, you know, they kept burning down my coffee shop, (36:05) and then the rain would put it out, but they’d burn it out, burn it down again. I’m kidding. (36:10) Gosh.So I’m exaggerating. I know. I was up in Wilsonville.I used to work at Xerox. (36:16) So I was up in Wilsonville back in this would have been 2014. So this is before it went crazy (36:24) when Voodoo Donuts was like popular, you know, when it was like, first starting out.And that’s (36:28) when Portland was gorgeous. And I guess you would have been around at that time. Or when did you (36:34) how long were you up in Portland? Is that kind of where you grew up? (36:36) Or pretty much where I grew up? Yeah, from like four to 28 or something.I lived up there. Yeah. (36:43) And I had to stop in Idaho.So I lived in Idaho for a few years, too. That was nice, actually. (36:49) But I was looking at Idaho as well, because I’m looking at kind of a bug out place, (36:53) just to have something like something that I can build out.While I’m still here. I just I’m trying (37:00) to scrape those pennies together. It’s it’s a it’s a hard it’s our thing.I mean, we can’t none (37:04) of us can afford like a flat tire. Right. We’re trying to scrape a second place to live.(37:10) I’m looking at New Hampshire, Arizona. Oh, a new. Oh, yeah.New Hampshire. Oh, (37:14) you’ve been in New Hampshire just for the free state. I’m looking at it because, you know, (37:18) if they could actually pull something up and do a libertarian little utopia up there, (37:23) that would be cool.But have you talked with like Stephen Villay or anybody? Because I met (37:28) I had him on the podcast. I’ll get you his contact information. He’s what’s his name, (37:33) Dennis Pratt.He’s we talked at the Libertarian Convention last year. Oh, cool. Or this year, (37:40) last year, this this year or last year, this year, this year.OK, so you are the Libertarian (37:45) Convention this year. Yeah. Yeah.Yeah. I was a delegate. All right.What happened? Were you there? (37:53) No, I watched it online going. All right. REC got one.He got two. OK, five. Uh huh.Oh, (37:59) whoa. What? What just happened here? Yeah, man, I kind of blocked that out, (38:05) but now it’s coming back. So.All right. Bring it back, because I want to I want to hear about (38:09) this because I love your personal because I unfortunately like this is my thing. I was (38:13) a neocon grade, a neocon growing up.I had a Saddam. Hey, Saddam, this is good for you. T-shirt (38:18) like, you know, after this blood for you.I was a crazy I enlisted and all this. I was a crazy (38:23) person after the lies it broke for me. So I very much lean libertarian.So I met Reckonwald. I had (38:30) him on the podcast. I didn’t I didn’t meet him personally, but I had him on the podcast in (38:34) December.And I’m like, you know what? Of all the people with ideas, regardless of his way to (38:40) express him, he’ll get better at expressing them. The ideas are sound, right? Yeah. So I was in, (38:45) but I wasn’t in the party.I wasn’t I didn’t you know, I I was going to run for Congress, (38:49) actually, in Phoenix. But so I did very briefly run as a libertarian, but then withdrew the (38:55) application. But, you know, all that stuff went back and forth so that when the shenanigans (39:00) happened, in my opinion, shenanigans, which I love for you to share on.But when that stuff (39:04) happened, it was easier for me to step away because I had already seen it happen with the neocons. (39:09) So I was very lucky that this second break wasn’t as much of a heartbreak because like my heart (39:15) still hurts from like I feel absolutely heartbroken from my girlfriend, America, (39:23) like just betraying me. Yeah.Like like I just think about it. She was picking money out of my (39:31) frickin wallet. She was taking 20s out of my wallet to feed her habit.You know what I mean? (39:35) I can’t think of all the things. And once again, is America the greatest place to be? (39:42) F. Yes, it’s the greatest place to be. But this also comes with the ability to make it even (39:47) better.Right. Like by by expressing our changes. So I’m curious your thoughts on all that stuff.(39:54) That’s a good point, man. That’s a really tough pill for people to swallow, I think, is just (39:58) we get fed this propaganda. Let’s be honest about what it is that America is the greatest (40:05) freest country ever.And it’s awesome. And to some extent, you know, there’s a little bit of (40:10) truth there. The foundation of it at least is sort of there.And there’s probably nowhere better (40:18) right now, at least not that I know of. Maybe a few of those little pockets where they’re doing (40:23) the they’re doing like a free, you know, and cap city or something. But anyway, the free cities (40:30) .org, you only talk to any of those people.Never have. No. OK, I spoke with Natalie Danilish once.(40:37) I can get your information if you want to talk to her. She’s on chess chess chick. (40:42) Oh, yeah.I know who that is. Yeah. Yeah.Yeah. OK. Yeah.But yeah, those free cities. Yeah. So (40:48) this is like.But there’s some criticism, right? Sure. Yeah. So, yeah, America is good and all (40:54) that.But of course, once you start learning about how it really works, like, for example, (40:59) the president is not really the president. Right. We we’ve seen that clearly in Trump’s first term, (41:06) how he was just railroaded, completely kept away from things, tried to make decisions to pull (41:12) troops out of Syria, I think.And that’s the perfect example I was going to use. Yeah. (41:17) They straight up just lied to him and kept them there and told him.Yeah. Told him that, yeah, (41:22) we did it, but they’re still there. So, yeah.So it’s clear that Trump wasn’t the president. Then (41:29) we had Biden, who was, you know, mentally running things. He’s clearly not running the show.Right. (41:35) So. So right away, that should trigger something in your mind that says, hey, something isn’t as (41:42) it’s being presented, they’re presenting a false picture here.Right. So when you start to get that, (41:48) you dig deeper and you realize, man, this is all just a scam, like taxes. They don’t even need to (41:54) tax us.Right. They could print all the money they want. But the taxation is like a form of control.(42:00) And when you try to suggest to people, especially on the left, that we should have fewer taxes or (42:05) even no taxes, they go crazy. They’re like, no, no, no. This is the price we pay for civilization.(42:11) What would we do without schools, without health care, without all those things? And like you had (42:16) these things before we had taxes. Come on, guys. Yeah.Yeah. It is interesting how that how that (42:24) how the brain gets can get manipulated. And like it is it is a pill moment, whatever color pill you (42:31) take, it is a pill moment.And like you’ve got your different you got your red pill, blue pill, (42:35) but then you’ve got your white pill, black pill. So, yeah, let’s ask. Like, I’ll be honest, I I’m (42:43) not pushing for nihilism, but I see it so clearly.I see the path to nihilism so easily and clearly. (42:54) Much more than the path to the other. And I think that’s the struggle, because the darkness (42:57) is harder than the light.So but through all my conversations with people like yourself, (43:03) who I who are the pleasure of coming across a meeting and having these exchange of ideas (43:07) and finding that we have more similarities and differences, of course, my pills getting (43:12) like less black and more gray. You know, it’s lightning. So it depends what you’re talking (43:18) about.Right. Give me a shade of where you’re at on the pill on your pill. (43:23) Yeah.Yeah. It depends what you’re talking about. Like you said, when you meet these people, (43:26) you talk to people like Spike Cohen.I just had Jack Lloyd on the other day. He’s great. (43:32) You look at Scott Horton, like kicking ass on the Piers Morgan.When you see stuff like that, (43:38) it’s hard. Yeah, it’s really hard to be black pilled. So it depends what you’re talking about.(43:46) Do you want America to survive and be something improved? Do you want America 2.0? Which, (43:53) in my opinion, it’s still going to end up right back where we we are now, eventually. So I don’t (43:59) think that’s a great goal. If that’s your goal, I think that could happen.If you’re if you’re (44:04) hoping that America is going to become like and Kapistan, and we’re going to be completely free. (44:12) I’m not, not white pilled on that. Yeah, definitely not.So yeah, but you’re hopeful, (44:17) at least that it’s at least the bleeding is stopped a little bit. This election kind of did (44:22) kind of stop the like, it’s like seem like everything just kind of everybody exhaled. (44:26) It’s like, all right.Yeah. Yeah. And as much as Trump is bad on some things, I, (44:33) it does give me a little bit of hope that maybe we can slow down the war thing.For example, (44:38) we don’t need to be starting wars everywhere. He didn’t escalate anything. Well, if he but (44:45) in his first term, so that’s at least a little bit hopeful.The people he’s putting around him, (44:49) like the vague RFK, Tulsi, they all have their problems, right? But it’s hopeful, (44:56) like they’re really good on some things. And that that gives me a little bit of hope that we could (45:01) push it back to the right direction, maybe buy some time. And I think ultimately, what we have (45:07) to do is just build alternatives, right? Because if somebody, you know, somebody who’s worried (45:13) about the healthcare, the roads, all this stuff, like, what are we going to do without a government? (45:18) Well, let’s build it.Let’s show how it works. And then people will adopt it. It’s going to (45:24) be like technology, right? People adopting new technology, like the big flat screen TVs when (45:30) they first came out.Not everybody was buying these. It took a while. You have the early (45:35) adopters, you have like, people who are a little bit ahead of the curve, and then the big push (45:39) comes, and you get the majority bought in.And then there’s some late people. But it’s going to (45:44) be slow at first, you’re going to see a little trickle people coming in. And then once it really (45:50) takes off, you can’t stop it.And I’m kind of hoping that’s where we are with like Bitcoin, (45:54) for example. I’ve been reading hijacking Bitcoin lately, the Roger Ver story. So I’m a little (46:03) also skeptical of Bitcoin now, but… Spike just retweeted something about him.(46:09) Did he get arrested or something? Were they treating him poorly? (46:12) Yeah, he got arrested. So he renounced his citizenship from the US, I think years ago, (46:18) and had been living overseas. And then he finally sold some Bitcoin that he’d been holding.I think (46:24) he bought it originally when he was a citizen. But then the US government came after him. (46:29) And they put him in jail because they said you didn’t pay taxes on this.He’s no longer a citizen. (46:35) He sold it after he renounced his citizenship. And he’s living in another country.So how does (46:40) the US government have this, this poll to do that? I think that’s probably going to be dropped. I (46:48) don’t think they can make a good legal case. As far as I’m hearing, I don’t know everything.(46:52) I’m not a lawyer. But just from what I’m hearing, I think that’s not going to stick. But still, (46:59) man, to put the guy in jail, they want to put him in jail for the rest of his life, (47:02) for not paying some taxes.Look at Steven Donziger. I mean, look at Steven Donziger (47:06) with the Chevron case as a lawyer. No, there was never, ever anybody implemented.At most, (47:11) it should be like six months. The guy was in house arrest for two years before even being tried. I (47:16) mean, they can do it.I mean, these powers, they can do it if they really want. And it’s so scary. (47:22) But that’s the point.To your point is that community that needs to be built, (47:26) alternative, like parallel to it, right? That parallel economy. (47:31) Yeah. Yeah.And that’s kind of the whole thing about agorism. I think, you know, I go by (47:34) AZNcap on Twitter, but it’s kind of like more of a marketing thing. I would say agorist or (47:39) voluntarist is maybe a little more accurate, although the differences are very, very small.(47:44) I don’t know if it’s even worth talking about. Could you give me a little bit of a difference (47:48) between the agorist and the voluntarist, like a little bit between the different perspective? (47:52) Because they seem to be very parallel. They’re basically the same thing.I think (47:56) agorism has some specifics as far as like what to do. Building the counter-economic (48:03) strategy. So building the alternative parallel economies that you can move to, (48:08) rather than just saying, nope, no government.Like an anarcho-capitalist would be, (48:13) you’re an anarchist, I believe in no government, and I believe in capitalism, but how do we get (48:19) there? You know, there’s no bridge. So I think agorism provides that bridge. Voluntarist is (48:25) kind of the same thing.It just means that you believe that every transaction you make in your (48:32) life should be voluntary. Nothing should be forced. So again, there’s a huge overlap.They’re (48:38) almost completely identical. I would say agorist is maybe the one that aims to show a path to get (48:46) there. For sure.So I’m really enjoying the conversation. We probably talked for hours and (48:53) we’re probably still going to talk for a bit, but I definitely want to ask a couple of questions (48:56) here because I’m interested in picking your brain. So how do you pick the news pieces that you go (49:04) after? Like that gentleman with Bitcoin, I just saw Spike’s post about it.I’m so behind already (49:10) on the whole thing because I got my nose buried in Scott’s darn 800 pound book. This guy, this thing (49:17) is a freaking monster, man. This thing is gigantic.Obviously you want the news to be current and you (49:28) want to be active. So you want people listening. How do you pick what news is current? Do you kind (49:33) of piggyback off other people? Do you try to find a different new angle to a new story or do you try (49:37) to find a different story altogether? Yeah.I really just take what kind of flows, (49:45) what speaks to me. And it’s not always news. I don’t try to focus too much on news in my podcast.(49:52) It’s more of like, it could be like a starting point, something that’s happened, like the (49:57) election, whatever. That’s a starting point. But then I want to get deeper.I want to get into (50:01) what’s going on behind it. How did we get here? How does this work? (50:07) What’s the psychology going on that’s convincing people to do this? That’s really what I like to (50:12) focus on. But yeah, I don’t have a specific focus really.It’s just whatever I see that (50:20) elicits a reaction. I’m like, oh, this is wrong. This is wrong.And people will buy this because (50:25) it kind of sounds good. But no. My very first episode I did was a response to a debate.(50:37) And it was Yaron Brook, the Ayn Rand Institute leader. I don’t know his title, but he did a (50:44) debate with Brian Kaplan about anarcho-capitalism. I thought that would be a good starting point.So (50:52) just reacting to his arguments in there. I’m like, this kind of sounds good. And I probably would (50:57) have been here five years ago, but this is why, and this is how we get to the next step.Think (51:03) about it deeper. All right. I like that.So you’ve had guests. How many, you’ve had about (51:09) 30-ish episodes? Is that? 30 episodes. Yeah.I just put out number 30 with Kyle Anzalone (51:14) talking about the war. So go check that out, anybody that’s watching. He’s great.He knows (51:20) freaking everything about it. He’s like a mini Scott Horton. I shouldn’t say mini.He’s probably (51:25) a lot bigger than Scott Horton physically. Is Kyle more focused on Gaza and Israel, (51:33) or is he also still spreading on both? Is he kind of still on both? He seems to know everything. (51:37) We only talked about Ukraine in that one, but yeah, he knows about Israel.I just saw he did (51:41) one about South Korea, the whole martial law thing that just happened over there. (51:46) So how crazy is that? It seemed crazy. (51:51) They didn’t impeach the dude.I know. I don’t know the whole story. (51:59) No, I don’t know either, but like, let’s just say dude imposes martial law.Dude fails at (52:04) imposing martial law. Dude doesn’t get impeached. What? What? What? You can’t be that.You cannot (52:12) be that ideological. Well, obviously you can, but man. Well, it’s crazy because it got knocked (52:17) down by their parliament or whatever they call it over there.They didn’t get the majority. (52:23) But think about how dangerous that is. You’ve got Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, LG, right there.(52:30) Those are heavy hitters in consumer electronics for everything. And you’re just like, all right, (52:39) this is not really good. Let’s make one of the most stable electronic, like another Taiwan.Let’s (52:45) destabilize another part where we rely on certain things, right? Yeah. I really want to know more (52:52) about why and who this guy is because I don’t know his ideology, but right away when I see (52:56) president declares martial law, I’m thinking, oh, dictator, he’s wrong. (53:04) Yeah.Crazy though, because I work with a lot of Koreans. We do business. My company does a lot (53:09) of business in Korea, so it’s very, hits close to home.I’m like, oh, we’re not sending you guys (53:16) over there this week. Oh, wow. Okay.Have you traveled over there? Yeah, I’ve been there. It’s (53:22) very nice. Yeah.Seoul is beautiful. Very clean. It’s crowded like a lot of Asian cities, but it’s (53:29) much cleaner.Very nice. Very capitalist society. That’s awesome.Yeah. I’ve heard really good (53:36) things about that area, but that’s awesome that you had some personal experience. Do you get to (53:39) travel the world a lot? Do you get to travel a lot of places with work? Yeah.Tell us about some (53:44) travels. I’d love to hear some. Yeah.I’ve been to Europe. I don’t know if I want to get too deep (53:50) into how or specific places, but I’ve been to Taiwan. I’ve been to a few European countries.(53:55) I’ve been to Korea. Quick stop in China, just more of a layover, but yeah, we have a lot of (54:04) customers all over the world. So yeah, I’ve been all over the U.S. working and stuff.It’s fun to (54:11) see new places. Although I’m pretty much a homebody, I kind of just stay home. I’ll go (54:17) out and see a few sites, but I’m like, that’s good.I don’t need a whole excursion. (54:24) Yeah. There are a couple of places like specifically, you got bucket list places.(54:28) Do you have any places specifically you’d like to see? You know how people have that bucket, (54:32) I got to see the pyramids or Taj Mahal or something. Yeah. I really, I’ve never been to (54:40) South America.I would like to go somewhere there. I’ve seen on TV and pictures and things, (54:46) just how beautiful it looks, the mountains, all the forests and everything looks crazy. (54:52) Argentina sounds pretty nice right now with Malay running the show.(54:56) And I also, I used to want to really go to Australia, but after the COVID stuff, after (55:01) they locked down and started basically putting people in concentration camps. Yeah. I think (55:06) that one has moved down on my list quite a bit.You know what it did for me too. And I don’t know (55:12) what year they started taking the guns, but that’s what they did first. And they were like, no, it’s (55:19) good.It’s so good. No, give them up. No, no.Look, they’ll take care of us. We’ll take care of (55:26) us. And then did you hear about the Canadian story about the confiscating of guns and they want to (55:31) confiscate like 300 different types of hands of guns in Canada and they want to give them to (55:37) Ukraine.Oh gosh. Oh, okay. I did see something about that.Yeah. Yes. That’s legit.That is a (55:44) legit thing. Yeah. Canadians to hand over their guns and then they want to give them to the dead (55:53) soldiers that are lying in body bags in Ukraine.Apparently I, when you see something like that, (55:58) don’t like, don’t you just ask yourself, why would they be giving guns to Ukrainian citizens? (56:03) And why shouldn’t we have them? You know? Oh, because somebody is trying to invade them and (56:08) take over. Well, what if that happens to you? Right? Nobody puts that simple connection together. (56:16) It’s crazy.And that’s the thing is, and to your point, I think it’s my opinion. Most people are (56:21) busy, whatever. I don’t have children in, I’m not blessed in that.I don’t have children. (56:27) I’m blessed in the time that I don’t have to, that would, I would attend to the child. Cause (56:33) that would be, if I were a parent, I think I would be very attentive to my child and I hope not overly (56:37) attentive, but I’d hope I’d be very like engaging.Obviously it takes a lot of time. I can only (56:42) imagine what it’s like to be a parent and you’re, you’re, you’re a step-parent and a parent or (56:46) a step-parent right now. Yeah.Okay. But that’s gotta be, Oh, nice. Awesome, man.Good luck with (56:54) everything. But like, it’s gotta be daunting. It’s gotta be work and effort and extra time that (56:58) takes you away from looking at an extra news article.So now I’m at home. I don’t even have (57:02) work. I don’t have any gossip with work.I listen to three podcasts or three different things at the (57:07) same time. If one sticks out, I pause the other two and then reflect, like, listen to that part. (57:12) And I just try to get as much information.I’m lucky in that way. But to your point, we are (57:19) cursed and burdened with knowing these things that people. And when I say ignorant, (57:25) ignorance is not a bad word.It means uninformed. It is not a negative connotation. (57:31) If you consciously ignore it.Yeah. But ignorance is just, I didn’t know it’s just uninformed. So (57:38) if we could like knock down those barriers, it’s like, may I offer information to you? (57:42) And if this info, what information would it take for you to change your mind? You know what I mean? (57:47) Like those kinds of things.Right. And then you can show it to them and they’ll go, (57:51) oh my gosh, that’s real. You know, like the whole world, like just shattered.So (57:55) yeah, I think, I think that’s a fun part to do. Yeah. Yeah.It’s still a lot of fun, man. I’m, (58:02) I’m just enjoying learning and trying to help explain things to people. I don’t know how (58:07) good of a job I do, but, um, I’m keeping it going.And also it’s, it’s really just for me to (58:13) get better at expressing these ideas, expressing myself, speaking to people, (58:18) something that doesn’t come naturally to me. So, uh, it’s, uh, it’s helping me grow that way too. (58:25) If I may give, if I may give you a lot of credit, um, I am a jabber jaw.You can tell, (58:31) but I’m only good in this back and forth context. I have not really done a model. Like I’ve gotten (58:38) three, three monologues maybe, and maybe a total of 20 minutes and they are trash.(58:44) They’re just, I just, they’re trash. And your point, you got to dive in. You actually have to (58:49) make yourself uncomfortable with the things you don’t know, because I think, I think this (58:54) interaction might be less comfortable for you, but it’s more comfortable is more like my steam.(58:57) You might actually be, I’m not saying you are, I’m just saying you might just be better suited (59:01) for that, but it’s like, you’re leaning into the part that, that makes you less, less comfortable. (59:06) So kudos to you for that. Cause I think exposure therapy is the only way we get through stuff.(59:12) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And if, you know, even if this doesn’t become anything, it’s helpful for me (59:17) in my life.So just growing and career wise, or even meeting people, networking, things like that. (59:24) It’s yeah, it’s really good. You find flexibility with your work that you’re able to express yourself (59:30) this freely online and with your thing that there’s, they’re able to operate it that well (59:36) I very much kept it separate at least for now.As it grows, I think that may be more difficult, (59:43) but I’m managing your thing too. Right. So it’s like a, you know, I’m sorry, I missed the first (59:50) part of that.Oh, it may transition to this completely. You know what I mean? Right. So (59:56) yeah.So you keep it, you keep it separate, but yeah, I would love to do this, to do this full (1:00:00) time and have it be a job, but it’s nowhere close to that. So that’ll be a ways down the road. (1:00:07) But yeah, I keep it separate.I manage people too. So I, like, I don’t want to make (1:00:11) my employees uncomfortable either. That’s a balance that I like to keep separate.And if somebody (1:00:19) had any idea about it, they could probably find me. But yeah, for now I’m keeping it very, (1:00:27) keeping the two things separate work and, and doing this. And I do have flexibility.I’m able (1:00:32) to work from home a couple of days a week, so I can pick up a little slack here and there. (1:00:38) But yeah, most, otherwise it’s early in the morning, late at night, listening to things, (1:00:43) trying to get caught up and, and stay, stay on top of the news. It’s a big job, man.(1:00:48) You could do this 80 hours a week and it would not be enough. It’s not enough, man. I’m like (1:00:54) trying, I’m trying to do it, but it’s crazy.Yeah. I do the same thing. I just had an anniversary (1:00:59) with work and they’re like, Hey, is it okay if I post online that you have an anniversary with (1:01:03) work? I go, um, I have a different presence online than I have at work.So I’d probably (1:01:11) recommend not doing that. And they’re like, Oh, okay. Do your people know about this? (1:01:18) They know, they certainly know.And, and, but I, I, I don’t bring any of it into work. Like if, (1:01:25) if I have anything as be an information, I’ll be like, Hey, I’d like to share this. (1:01:29) You do not need to look.I’m only sharing this because you mentioned this to me once. Like if (1:01:34) it’s something that they had an interest in, like some people had an interest in the COVID thing for (1:01:37) sure. And some people have been interested in the Ukraine thing and some people, so, but I don’t, (1:01:42) I’ll be honest with you, ma’am.I’ve kind of hermited more and I’m disappointed in myself (1:01:46) because there, I get, there are people who are, there’s an extroverted introvert, (1:01:53) which extroverted introverts allegedly can hang around large groups of people, (1:01:57) but they’re quiet in them. I am an extrovert. Like if there’s a group of people, I get like (1:02:03) energy buzzed and then I burn out, but I don’t like it.Like it, it, it hurts. It like hurts (1:02:09) me. And it’s a whole other thing, but like, not it hurts me, but you know, like it like drains me, (1:02:14) but like during it, it’s like, I’m like, I’m all in, you know what I mean? (1:02:19) I wish I could kind of calm it down a little bit.Cause like, I felt like a spazzoid walking (1:02:23) around. Like I saw, I met all these amazing thinkers like Brett Weinstein, Michael Schellenberger, (1:02:28) to your point, Spike Cohen, Adam Coleman, like Maj Touré, all these people. And I’m just like, (1:02:33) who, who Thomas Massey? I like run up to him like a little puppy dog.You know what I mean? (1:02:38) I’m just not a calm person. So like when it comes to actual people, but how do you manage your, (1:02:43) is that your kind of demeanor? You have this really calm, nice, like calm presence about you. (1:02:49) Yeah.I’m very, extremely introverted. So going to conferences, things like that, (1:02:55) is extremely draining for me. Like at the Libertarian convention this year, (1:03:00) like I met cool people too.Like Dave Smith was there. I ran into him a few times and I’m just (1:03:06) like, I, I don’t want to bother you. I just like, kind of like, I’ll say, Hey, and stuff, but it’s, (1:03:11) you know, I keep my distance.I keep it cool. And I, like I said, this is not natural for me to do (1:03:18) this kind of stuff. So if I meet those people, I’m like, Oh, what do I say? I have no idea.(1:03:24) So it’s a, it’s different for me. Yeah. Yeah, totally.Well, you’re doing a great job at it. (1:03:30) So let’s circle back to the Libertarian convention. What are your, what are your (1:03:33) thoughts on what, on everything that transpires? Okay.Yeah. We were going to talk about that. (1:03:38) So Recktenwald, I was going to call this thing tangents.Cause like literally it’s like A to J (1:03:43) to B to Q to F to whatever. Like that’s what it’s all about. It’s just a flow of a conversation (1:03:47) because these ideas pop up, but go ahead.Libertarian convention. I’m hitting mute. (1:03:51) Yeah.We’re all over the place today. That’s okay. I like it.That’s how my brain works. I’m (1:03:55) a little ADD too. So yeah, Recktenwald was, was the guy, right? Everyone knows about the Dave (1:04:01) Smith thing.He was supposed to run and did the whole Mises caucus thing. That was a big (1:04:07) disappointment when he dropped out. So they got Recktenwald.He was, like you said, his ideas, (1:04:14) he’s got the right ones. He’s pretty good. The speaking.Yeah, it got better. You could see it (1:04:21) get better over time as he was doing his campaign stuff. I met him at the Arizona state convention (1:04:26) first.And he’s just, he’s just like a normal dude. He seems fun. But then yeah, at the national (1:04:37) convention, they had Trump show up.Right. And he’s there. I’m actually standing right behind him (1:04:43) watching Donald Trump speak.And he is high out of his mind. He was cracking up at everything Trump (1:04:53) said. He turns around to me.He’s like, Hey, I told you this guy’s just so freaking funny. (1:04:59) I’m just like, yep, because I’m, I’m sober at this point. I’m just like, okay, I’ll go see (1:05:04) Donald Trump because he’s here.Why not? Anyway, yeah, so I’m standing behind Reck. He’s losing it. (1:05:11) Somebody had given, gave him an edible, apparently like a really strong one.(1:05:16) I can share you the story on that. But I want to hold off. I’ll hold off.But I’ll share that story. (1:05:20) Yeah. So after Trump speaks, you know, all the presidential candidates got up to kind of do a Q&A (1:05:26) afterward.And you can go see this online if you want. I did an episode about it too, where (1:05:33) Reck just gave up and he just was like, ah, screw it. Like, I’m tired of talking about Trump.This (1:05:39) is dumb. And just like left the press conference, the Q&A. He was like, I’m out.I’m out. I don’t (1:05:48) want to talk about this anymore. And that really, I think, hurt him.I don’t know about the voting, (1:05:53) if that hurt him so much in the delegate voting. Because I think people had already made up their (1:05:59) mind one way or the other at that point. What maybe could have got him over the top in the (1:06:07) first round was the Josh Smith spoiler.Because a lot of people that would like, you know, (1:06:13) the Rectumwald side of the Libertarians also like Josh Smith. So there were both of them in there. (1:06:20) And I met Josh Smith there too, for the first time.After I met him, I was like, oh man, (1:06:25) this guy is so much better at the messaging, you know, just speaking and sharing the message. (1:06:32) I’m like, okay, this guy actually would be better. So I ended up voting for Josh Smith.(1:06:37) He had fundraising issues from what I heard. Josh was a little bit lacking in the fundraising side. (1:06:42) But I heard the same thing.I heard that he and REC are basically identical, but somehow (1:06:49) were butting heads in some weird way, I guess. Yeah. So I gave Josh a vote before he got knocked (1:06:55) out in the next round or two.And then, yeah, voted REC after that. Finally, it came down to (1:07:04) REC and Chase Oliver. And Chase Oliver was just a no-go.One thing I didn’t mention is that this (1:07:11) is happening over the course of an entire day, basically. From after lunch to, it went to like (1:07:18) 10, 11. Yeah.Well, yeah, just the president voting. It was 10, 11 here, I think. Because (1:07:25) I was watching.That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.So yeah, I’m in DC. It’s going on 10, 11 to the last (1:07:33) round of the president voting. People are trying to come to the place I hear.People are like (1:07:40) jumping because it’s the last day and they should have pushed earlier and all that. I heard a bunch (1:07:43) of that. Yeah.So people are leaving. You can see REC’s vote counts actually go down because I think (1:07:49) that’s part of it. People were leaving and finally came down to him and Chase.And what’s his name? (1:07:56) The VP, Libertan. Or Matt. Yeah.Mike Tremont. Yeah. I met him and the vibes I get off that, dude.(1:08:06) Sleazy. Yeah. He’s a cop.Because that’s what it was, right? He put his votes behind. (1:08:12) Okay. So he and REC are part of the Mises caucus.They’re both part of it. He then drops and (1:08:18) backstabs his own candidate to get the VP nod with him, basically, is how it turns out, right? (1:08:25) So I actually left too, because I had to eat. I’m like, it’s been since lunch and it’s already (1:08:29) 10 o’clock at night.I haven’t eaten. So I left. It’s going to take them a freaking (1:08:34) hour to count votes.I don’t know why it takes so long. So I went to go eat something and then (1:08:41) came back. It was just Chase versus Noda.I’m like, you know what? I’m running back (1:08:45) just to cast my vote for Noda, just for a middle finger. It’s you guys. (1:08:50) Make sure you put it in there.Which is a weird procedural thing that didn’t even need to happen. (1:08:54) It really wasn’t supposed to happen that way from my understanding. My understanding was it still (1:08:58) was supposed to be the two candidates until there’s a majority.There wasn’t really supposed (1:09:04) to be a Noda vote. Whatever, whatever. Yeah.But I mean, you could see the Chase people (1:09:11) like lining up at the microphones to ask questions, to interrupt, get in the way, (1:09:15) make it take longer. Get people leaving. It was so annoying.You know the mask where the bathroom (1:09:20) was to turn on the air conditioning? The next guy had said to turn it down. Three guys later trying (1:09:24) to turn it back up. And you’re just sitting there like what? And then because we did, I did a podcast (1:09:30) with Sean Collins, Buds in Reality and Recktenwald.And with Reck, the story behind the edible (1:09:39) is my understanding was he thought he was taking like a 10 milligram. It was like a 200 milligram. (1:09:45) And you can’t untake an edible.And not saying that I know anything about that. (1:09:52) But if you go too far, you can’t unring the bell, man. You just can’t.It’s like in you. (1:09:59) And I heard that. I heard that really hurt him.But you were behind him when that was going on. (1:10:03) So that’s interesting. You had like a firsthand account about that.Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. (1:10:07) I also saw Maj Touré yelling at some kid.Like, I don’t know what happened to lead up to that, (1:10:14) but he was just like, you’re a bitch. You’re a bitch. He was like yelling at him.Like, (1:10:17) leave me alone. Like, get out of my face. Anyway, I don’t know the story behind that either.(1:10:23) Yeah, I met Maj at Freedom Fest. Like I said, like it’s one of those places. (1:10:28) Have you thought about doing conventions like that? Because I think you and I should go up (1:10:32) to Freedom Fest to collaborate at Palm Springs this year.Yeah. Yeah, I do want to go to that. (1:10:38) I haven’t been to a Freedom Fest.So hell yeah, man. I’ll get you in touch with Valerie and Mark (1:10:45) and everybody. So I’ve done podcasts with them and stuff.So awesome people, man. It was such (1:10:49) a great time. I will tell you like the people that you come across.So well, I love to hear, (1:10:55) you know, you had some amazing guests, man. Do you have any? Obviously a lot of them stick out. (1:11:00) You can name them all.Any of them specific? Any one that you were like, this was my current get, (1:11:05) like the one that I got so far? Man, yeah. No disrespect to any of them, but Spike is (1:11:13) a probably the best, not in terms of podcast guests, but he’s like, he’s actually out there (1:11:20) doing stuff with You Are The Power. I really respect that, man.He’s just such a great (1:11:25) messenger for the cause. So yeah, he was amazing. I had Clint Russell on.He was great. I ran into (1:11:32) him the next week at the convention and I was like, oh, hey man, you were just on my show. (1:11:37) And he’s like, oh, which one? I was like, okay, you don’t remember me.Thanks. (1:11:43) So it was like that with Clint. Yeah.I’m sure they do a lot. So I don’t feel. (1:11:50) Well, no, they do a lot.No, but it is one of those things. Cause like we’re all trying to (1:11:54) reach up. Right.And I think it gets harder, the bigger you get. Yeah. But there is some, (1:12:03) once you take on that task of doing this, there is, once you get to the thing, (1:12:09) there is some reaching down to help someone just get a half a step up too.It’s, I mean, (1:12:15) you can’t make it your life thing cause you got to do your thing, but there is some of that (1:12:20) reciprocity in a positive way. And, and to your point, like there’s not much of that. Once you (1:12:24) get to that level where it’s just like almost so busy, they only remember that they were on (1:12:28) your podcast.Right. Yeah. So yeah, my feelings aren’t great.Yeah. Did you, have you heard the (1:12:35) stories with the Arizona stuff? I was trying to get on board with the one, but they finally (1:12:39) dropped charges on both of them. Rebecca Massey and the one, the one in Gilbert, I think too, (1:12:44) where they took, yeah, there was a kid taken away.Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.She got them. They got (1:12:50) that cleared up too. So he’s out there actually helping people and that’s a lot more than I’m (1:12:56) doing.Just talking about things. So I agree a hundred percent. Like he’s got an organization.(1:13:01) You are the power.net I believe is, is a website and everything. So yeah. Yeah.And then, and to (1:13:07) your point is like, it’s not always the biggest name or this or that, but it’s the one that kind (1:13:10) of makes the, uh, the neurons fire the most. And I think spike is one of those guys that can (1:13:18) really get your head thinking about the things, you know, the right things and getting your (1:13:24) mindset right. Yeah.And I really like that. He doesn’t play into like the, uh, the internal (1:13:29) party fighting, you know, the infighting with libertarians. He’s just, he’s kind of above it.(1:13:34) And I really appreciate that too, because it’s kind of stupid, man. Like we’re all basically (1:13:39) on the same page here. Let’s focus on some things that we can actually do together and not worry (1:13:45) about, uh, these little things, you know? Yeah.Yeah. It’s interesting. And he’s just profound, (1:13:53) like, or he’s just professed his, uh, faith too.So yeah. Yeah. I find that interesting.Like I’m, (1:14:02) I’m a weirdo. So like, I don’t have the faith like people do, but I know there’s value in it. (1:14:07) I just don’t share it.So, but yeah, when I saw that I grew up Mormon actually. (1:14:13) But wow. Yeah.I grew up Mormon, but I haven’t been in the church since I was a teenager, (1:14:20) like 16 or so I’ve kind of started falling out of it. It was mostly because my parents were, and I (1:14:27) didn’t share this, the same belief. So, um, but lately, like the last couple of years or so, (1:14:32) I’d say I find myself more, um, interested in people’s faith.Like for a while it was just (1:14:40) like, I’m an atheist. I don’t care. And it’s stupid now.I’m like, okay, maybe there’s something (1:14:45) to it. And I’m very interested when people talk about it. And I think there is definitely (1:14:50) value in it.So yeah. I love, I love people’s faith. Um, I’m, I’m going to say I’m not even (1:14:58) an atheist.I’m what’s, I’m an anti-theist. And what that means is my, it’s my personal (1:15:05) definition. Cause I don’t think there is one, but basically it’s like, I’ve had personal experiences.(1:15:11) I don’t know what it is. I just know that we don’t have it right. And I know that religion (1:15:17) is an institution, not unlike a government institution and institutions get corrupted (1:15:23) just as easily as anything else.And that’s just one of those things to your point. It’s kind of (1:15:27) like the bug. It’s like a built-in bug of the institution where you have to always clean it out (1:15:33) to that end.I think we’ve interpreted or shared what truth, you know, what reality, (1:15:39) those real stories that we didn’t put in the Bible, for example, that were omitted. (1:15:43) Those things are the real power. That’s where the real stuff is.Right. Like it’s the stuff (1:15:48) that wasn’t shared with us. So it’s like a really, you know, it’s hard to like admit, like (1:15:54) there probably is a lot of truth behind even all of it, but they’re only sharing this portion.(1:15:59) That’s I don’t even think is part of the truth, but it does work. So I do have a value. I grew (1:16:03) up Lutheran, but yeah, I’ll share offline with you on time.Maybe I’ll get on, maybe, (1:16:08) maybe I’ll get invited on your podcast. Yeah, for sure, man. (1:16:11) So you pooping on me about not inviting you to the hard, hardcore book club over here.(1:16:17) I’m just getting a hard time, man. (1:16:19) Yes, we’re just having a good time. (1:16:23) So, yeah.(1:16:24) Well, do you have anything else you wanted to share? Any, any topics, (1:16:27) anything you want to talk about before we call it a day? (1:16:31) My brain’s pretty much scattered right now, so I can’t think of anything. (1:16:35) Yeah, better. Do you take a 200 milligram edible too? Is that what happened? (1:16:40) No, just the bourbon today.Yeah. Maybe next time. (1:16:44) Well, Jason, please feel free to share all your information.I’ll get, (1:16:47) if you could send me a link of stuff, I’ll put everything up on a thing, but thank you for (1:16:52) joining me for the first live stream, man. You should at least feel honored. I don’t know if (1:16:55) honored is the right word, but just feel like a sacrificial lamb or something.(1:16:59) No, you talked about reaching up everybody that I’ve been talking to. I’m reaching up. I, (1:17:03) I think if there’s a totem pole, you said you were at the bottom, (1:17:07) but I’m probably a little bit lower than you even because you’ve been doing this for a while.So (1:17:11) very much appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. (1:17:14) Thank you so much, man.How, how can we get ahold of you? Give us your, (1:17:18) give us your website, your socials, all that stuff. We want to be able to reach out to you. (1:17:23) Yeah.The, the biggest collection of my content is going to be on my locals channel, (1:17:28) dropthemaskpod.locals.com. It’s free. Nothing. Well, the older episodes are behind a paywall.(1:17:33) If you do want to help support me, that’s great. If not, you can still see some really cool stuff (1:17:38) there. All the episodes are linked.I do some bonus episodes that only show up there. So (1:17:43) go check it out and find me on X at drop the mass pod. (1:17:48) Awesome, man.Well, welcome to the Knocked Conscious family or official member. (1:17:52) I’ll explain the, uh, the concept later, but thank you again for joining us. (1:17:57) Thank you for joining Knocked Conscious. Have a great day, my friend. Thank you.Take care.