Stefan Molyneux discusses the Karmelo Anthony case, which centers on a stabbing that took place on April 2, 2025, during a rain-delayed high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. He walks through what happened at the Memorial High School tent, where Anthony was asked more than once to leave, leading to physical contact and a stab to the chest that killed Austin Metcalf.
He covers the trial and verdict as well. Anthony was 17 at the time but was tried as an adult. The jury turned down both self-defense and sudden passion after roughly three hours of deliberation and gave him a sentence of 35 years in prison.
He also lays out the backgrounds of the two young men involved. Austin Metcalf was a student athlete who played on the football and track teams and kept a solid GPA, and his family spoke about him publicly after his death. Anthony had served as captain of the track team and had no prior criminal record, though there was public discussion of his social media posts and the claims he made about his academics.
One point he emphasizes is the role of consequences and escalation in these situations. When people do not stop to think through what might follow from their actions, they can reach for violence during a conflict. He suggests leaving the scene, getting security involved if needed, and steering clear of direct confrontation whenever possible. He ties this into larger questions about group loyalty, race, and how juries tend to handle these cases.
In the later part of the discussion he takes questions from callers. On spanking, he argues that it amounts to violence against children who cannot fully grasp or resist what is happening to them, and that it should be replaced by reasoning and parenting without coercion. When the topic turns to collecting, he notes that it only carries real value when it creates something worthwhile beyond the collector himself. For a question about a Pokémon card trade, he focuses on the importance of reciprocity and fairness in the exchange.
He closes by talking about social enforcement and personal safety in public spaces, drawing on examples from a grocery store and wider community tensions. The approach he recommends is to weigh the costs and benefits carefully, to defer to local authority when it is present, and to avoid putting yourself at risk for communities that offered no support during earlier conflicts such as the deplatforming and ostracism that occurred in the COVID era.
0:00:00 - Karmelo Anthony Case Intro
0:06:16 - Metcalf Stabbing Details
0:14:18 - Violence and Consequences
0:17:33 - Rain Delay Confrontation
0:22:08 - The Fatal Escalation
0:30:24 - Self-Defense Rejected
0:39:07 - Trial and Verdict
0:42:19 - Courthouse Reaction
0:44:44 - Fundraising Controversy
0:48:43 - Media and Racial Narratives
0:56:42 - Lessons on Impulse Control
1:03:44 - Verdict and Final Take
1:05:29 - Spanking and Sacred Cows
1:18:23 - The Value of Collections
1:32:45 - Pokemon Cards and Reciprocity
1:46:53 - Safety, Norms, and Community
[0:00:00] Good evening, good evening, my friends. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show, help out your friendly neighborhood philosopher. Thank you so much for joining me this evening. We're going to go through a little bit of... Boy, how bad is that for my brightness? Fairly bright, fairly bright, but we'll survive. All right. We're going to do a little bit about Karmelo Anthony. And I suppose, you know, I was working. Most people remember when, where they were, when they became, I don't know, race away or something like that, that we aren't all going to necessarily get together in a big frappe of togetherness, and most people sort of realize where they are. There's sort of two things I remember from being a younger man with regards to this. Well, one was with regards to women, the other was with regards to race. The women one, I remember driving in the States on a business trip with a crusty old salesman who actually taught me quite a bit about sales, which was useful and helpful, this crusty old salesman.
[0:01:09] And we'll just call him Bob. Bob, the crusty old salesman, and we were listening, to the Lewinsky situation, Monica Lewinsky, and of course, Bill Clinton. And it was coming out about, he'd used her as his own personal Geisha slash Kleenex. She'd given him oral sex. Apparently, though, a cigar had gone places a cigar is definitely not supposed to go. And this had happened in the Oval Office. This had happened with dignitaries on the phone and so on. And I remember thinking, oh, man, man, the feminists are going to eat him alive. I was so young. Forgive me. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I was so young and naive. And I thought the feminists cared about female empowerment, because my whole life had been told that an imbalance in power makes sex less than consensual, right? If you're the boss, you can't sleep with the secretary because you control her career and you can fire her. So she can't consent, man. Okay. Okay.
[0:02:14] Is there perhaps a slight iota of a difference of power between, say, I don't know, the most powerful man in the world, I.e. the president of the United States, and a lowly unpaid intern? I would suggest... Yeah, I'm going to go with yeah. Yeah, just a smidge. Just a smidge. A power differential. And I thought, man, they're just going to eat this guy alive.
[0:02:43] Anyway I think there were feminists who said hey I'd give him a bj too if it meant he'd keep abortion oh I was so young and the other I remember working, and it was my first programming job I was programming a cobalt 74, at a stock trading company. I was maintaining and occasionally writing, but often just maintaining massive amounts of code, helping them with an upgrade from COBOL 74 to COBOL 85 on a tandem operating system. And, There was a pause that day, the day that, the O.J. Simpson verdict came in.
[0:03:33] O.J. Simpson, in my view, absolutely, completely, and totally... I've read Marcia Clark's, I've read Ann Coulter's books on these things. I've read a bunch of books. I just find it quite fascinating. Yeah, yeah. In my view, absolutely, completely, and totally murdered Ronald Goldman and [Nicole Brown] Simpson, in the most brutal fashion imaginable to me it was a slam dunk case, and it was such a slam dunk case that they had to play the race card and they had to say Mark Fuhrman is racist because he pretended to be a bad character 10 years before for some writer and used the n-word while pretending to be he says like what would a bad cop, evil cop talk like she was working on a screenplay and he's like oh an evil cop would say and this and this And so he went, the only person convicted, I think, in the whole thing was Mark Furman for perjury or something like that. And, it was one of these like, oh, yeah, no, he's guilty. I mean, to me, it seemed indisputable. I mean, the shoes, the blood all over the Bronco. I mean, come on. And the history of violence and no other motive. And boy, didn't he spend the rest of his life trying to find the real killers. And then he ended up, what do you mean, back to jail for something like threatening people who were selling his sports memorabilia or something like that?
[0:04:50] And of course, everybody except black people as a whole, in general, knew that he was 100% guilty. And even people on the jury, the black people on the jury, said, well, we knew he was guilty, but we wanted to stick it to the white man. Or was he Jewish, the guy, Goldman? Anyway, the two white people, his wife and so on. And so they wanted to get a brother out of jail. And so they set him free. In fact, I think one of the jurors gave a black power sign to Simpson on the way out. And the studies are very clear. Blacks are much less likely to convict blacks than they are to convict whites. And this is one of these... I suppose the ideal of the colorblind society is an interesting thought, but it kind of does require everyone to focus on universal principles rather than racial in-group preferences.
[0:05:52] Seems kind of important, right? If you're playing a team, you're playing soccer team, and you make up a rule that says we all pass to each other, but they only pass to themselves, you're going to lose the game. You're going to lose the game. So this is a challenge. I don't know any particular easy way out of it, but I will give you a few words of advice as we pass through this tragic tale, or this evil tale.
[0:06:16] The truth about Karmelo Anthony. April 2nd, 2025. You know what? I'm not even going to pretend to be that young. Glasses on. Welcome to the reflection world. April 2nd, 2025, during a rain-delayed high school track meet at Cookie Endle Stadium in Frisco, Texas, 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony he fatally stabbed 17-year-old Austin Metcalf in the chest. Anthony from rival Centennial High School had been sitting under the Memorial, High School team tent. After a repeated request to leave in a verbal confrontation, he reached into his backpack, issued threats, and stabbed Metcalf once. After being pushed or grabbed, Metcalf died from the wound. On June 9, 2026, which would be yesterday. After an eight-day trial in Collin County, a jury convicted Anthony, now 19, of murder. They rejected self-defense and sudden passion claims after roughly three hours of deliberation and sentenced him to 35 years in prison now. I don't know if you've ever talked to anyone who's been on a jury.
[0:07:19] Three hours is not very long at all. It had to be pretty open and shut, cut and dried. And of course, I said it was open and shut, cut and dried last year. And it turns out to be the case. He's eligible for parole, I think, in 17 years. So Austin Metcalf, this is the victim. I mean, bro was a tank and he was a 17-year-old junior at Memorial High School in Frisco, Texas, a standout student athlete who played linebacker on the football team and was voted team most valuable player the previous season. He also competed in track and field alongside his twin brother, Hunter. Public descriptions of Austin, including those from his family, consistently portrayed him as a dedicated, high-achieving young man with strong character. His family's GoFundMe page highlighted his 4.0 grade point average, leadership qualities, passion for football, and the positive impact he had on those around him. He was described as someone who rose to challenges through commitment and grit. Now.
[0:08:19] One of the things that's kind of happened in the modern world is athletes have been relentlessly dissed by spineless dweebs who don't know how to bathe and think that somehow being an athlete makes you dumb. And that's just envy and jealousy. Look, there are some people to whom all the gifts on the planet seem to be given. When I was younger, it was one Gordon Sumner, a.k.a. Sting, the singer, who was gifted with some great hair, at least when he was younger, a fantastic face. He played a character in the movie Quadrophenia by The Who called Ace Face. He was very handsome and striking, a great physique, which, of course, he worked to maintain. He said he'd rather die than gain weight, and a beautiful singing voice and, great musical talent and an ungodly capacity for creating catchy pop rock songs. And it seemed kind of jealous. Everyone seemed kind of jealous. He was like the guy to look up to. And there was an old New Yorker cartoon, where two guys were sitting at the bar. One guy says to the other, he says, how's your lift going? He says, it's good. It's good. Don't get me wrong. I'm just not staying. And of course, you know, it's a cool name. He got that from his jersey. He wore a sweater with black and orange stripes.
[0:09:40] And look, they worked hard. Don't get me wrong. I've actually read a whole biography of the police. They're kind of an interesting band when I was younger. And I'll do that another time. It's a very interesting guy. And... Worked hard and all of that. But some people just get it all. You know, they get great looks, great hair, great brains, great athletes, great family. Some people just get it all. And thank God. Thank God. If everyone had been like me, you know, really terrible family life and broke, if everyone had been like me, I wouldn't have had anyone to aspire to. So the fact that there were cool people in my high school, I mean, I remember in my high school.
[0:10:22] Some of the richest kids, man, it was crazy, man. They got, I remember there was two guys in my high school. I remember they actually went to their house once to rehearse a play I'd written. And they got Corvettes for their 16th birthday. It was beautiful red Corvettes and very wealthy family. They were good looking guys, good students and good athletes and popular with the girls and easy charisma and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, yeah, it happens, man. Sometimes the planets align and people get just about everything that they want or need. And it just, does it seem unfair? I don't know. To me, it's nice having people that you can aspire to or that I can aspire to. I think that's nice. I think it's fine.
[0:11:09] So Austin just looks like one of these guys. He had a twin. So he's got someone he's automatically close to. Very smart guy. He was captain of the track team, if I remember rightly, which is not easy. Like people have to really respect you. They have to really like you because being a leader is very tough because when you are a leader, and I say this as someone I was in charge of 35 people in the business world. I was a chief technical officer, director of marketing, director of technology, and so on. And when you're in charge, there's a lot of vengeful Gollum egos that surround you everywhere. Just, it sucks to get ahead, man, sometimes. It sucks to have ability. It sucks to be in charge because when you're in charge and you're good at it.
[0:11:55] You know, people, they get, they just get mean, they get resentful, they get pissy, they get, they have a problem with you because they have a problem with authority or excellence, and they're taught to resent anybody who's better at stuff than they are. Like, I remember trying to sing in a band in high school, and, you know, I could do a couple of songs okay, but I remember a friend of mine just had this, two friends of mine actually had really great singing voices, And I remember one of them was in a band that played the El Macombo. And I went down there and for the song Fairies in Boots, I ran around the stage in giant boots doing crazy stuff. It was actually quite a lot of fun. It was great to be at the after party and see what rock bands are like afterwards, and have everyone step over my face to get to the singer. But, you know, way more musical talent, way better voices and so on. And it's just like, oh, you know, it's drag. You want those things, right? I remember the first time I went up for karaoke and I tried to sing Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. And it's like, yeah, I could do it at the beginning, but then it gets high and my voice crawls up to my nose and screams in dying banshee.
[0:12:58] So yeah, some people are just super cool and you got to just, bro, if you, if you're good at stuff, watch your fricking back, man. People are gunning for you. People are looking to, looking to take you down. People are looking to spread rumors. People will just, uh, shit on your every step just to watch you slip and slide. When you're good at stuff, people gun for you, man. They get envious, resentful, and so on. If you get a promotion, all your former co-workers are just kind of often, not always, but often kind of pissy and resentful.
[0:13:32] And, you know, I'm talking about the stuff I wasn't good at that other people were better at, which is not inconsiderable. But, you know, there was stuff that I was really good at. I was really good at debating, really good at public speaking, and so on, and have a pretty good sense of humor. Not nearly as funny as my brother, though, man, that guy's killer funny. But, The stuff that you're good at, people get mad at. You know, if you're good at investing and you make some money, you know, people get mad at you and they just get tense and they feel resentful. And so, you know, if you're good at stuff, watch your back. The Gollums will start crawling out the woodwork to try and take you down. This happens even more in the world of politics.
[0:14:18] So, online claims suggesting that Asenor's brother had engaged in bullying behavior towards Karmelo Anthony or others, these accusations remain unverified. I don't actually, personally, I don't believe that. It's not a color thing. If it was some, you know, violent white guy and superstar, black athletes, I mean, why would you bully? You've got it all. And also, if you are a bully, it's really hard to be a leader. Being a leader and a bully is not the easiest thing in the world. I know that you've got screaming bosses and all that kind of stuff, but not in high school. It's a little tougher. So background on Karmelo Anthony, I guess we don't have to say, uh, uh.
[0:15:06] Yeah, I guess we don't have to say alleged, right? Sorry, Karmelo Anthony, sorry, I got that backwards. Uh, Karmelo Anthony was served as captain of the track team. So Karmelo Anthony was also 17 years old at the time of the stabbing. He was a student at Centennial High School. He played varsity football and served as captain of the track team. He had no prior criminal record. Public information about his academics was inconsistent. His family promoted the image of a strong student, but leaks and online discussions suggested significantly lower grades, with some claims that his GPA had been misrepresented. Social media posts attributed to Anthony showed him posing with firearms and making defiant gestures, including one widely circulated image in which he held a lighter with his middle finger raised. These posts contributed to a public perception among many observers that he projected an image of toughness or bravado. And I remember there was a guy in my high school who was this big, beefy Palestinian guy who would openly talk about how he could snap his fingers and get people killed, and uh anyone he wanted he could just and I was just remember thinking well that's a pretty freaking bizarre thing to talk about hey, I know a lot of criminals!
[0:16:14] It just doesn't seem ideal uh to me as a whole but um nonetheless that was his big thing and so to me it was like okay don't um, don't mess with people like that. Like they've clearly signaled that they're going to be aggressive or violent, or they don't have a conscience or virtue or ethics or things like that. And so again, sort of regardless of race, just don't be, don't be violent towards, sorry, don't be violent towards those people. Don't engage in violence with those kinds of people because it is going to not, go well for you at all, frankly. And steer clear, steer away, and all that kind of stuff. It is just not going to go well for you at all. And it's generally a very, very bad idea. My apologies. I just lost the document here. Why? Why? Where did it go? For no reason in particular, it's just gone. So let me just grab this back here. So again, we want to be wise about these things and we want to be aware of the dangers that we're facing in social situations. Keep your head on a swivel. This is a very different world, especially if you're if you're older.
[0:17:34] So, the incident, what happened? Evidence summary. The confrontation occurred during a rain delay at the track meet when Karmelo Anthony was sitting under the Memorial High School team tent. Now, I never went to a track meet myself. I was on the cross-country team, and we don't do track meets. Track meets are fundamentally feminine. Oh, look at me, running around a little flat track. I want to be running up and down hills in the mud. I remember being in one cross-country race where I came around the hill. Not that I was ever behind anyone else, but I came around the hill. I came down a hill and at the bottom, there was like a dozen kids all poking around in the mud with sticks, trying to find the shoes that came off. So of course I ran around the side because, you know, you think it's just a puddle. Sometimes you go in, it'd be raining all day and you just, your shoes get, you get stuck and you get your feet out, but you got to try and find your shoes and you're not going to do much with the race, but you kind of might want to race again. And I remember that very clearly just coming down the hill as a dozen guys were trying to find their shoes. And it was a crazy, crazy day of running. I came back mud from head to toe, just a blonde, blue-eyed mud being, like an earth elemental. Oh, nerdy. No, it's not nerdy. It's just lore-wise. Lore-wise. There we go.
[0:18:53] So, but of course, if there's a track meet, rain delay. We didn't do rain delays in cross country. It was like, go and meet your maker and lose your shoes. But in the track meet, oh, this is a spot of rain. You see, this is a spot of rain. And therefore, we all have to retire to our tents until the rain has gone away. You can't run in the rain. Bring on the thunder! I even ran in lightning! I did a 20 miler once in rain.
[0:19:22] Anyway, so multiple students and coaches asked Anthony to leave the tent, right? He's not supposed to be there, and it's not his place. It's not even his high school and so on. Witnesses reported that these requests are repeated, but some accounts dating up to 15 times. So, of course, I don't think there's any video of these kinds of interactions, and, you know, if some surly guy who's, you know, half-thrown gang signs on social media and posing with firearms and so on, then he's somebody who worships thuggery. Thuggery. Not exactly as they call a gangbanger, but somebody who idolizes and worships that lifestyle.
[0:20:09] Now, the one thing that's true, race relatively irrelevant, the one thing that's true about the gang culture is you don't back down. You always escalate, right? They put one of us in the hospital, we put one of theirs in the morgue. And so to back down is to lose all your social juice, your power, and so on. And so it's tough if you ask someone something reasonable, like, hey, you're not supposed to be in this tent. You're not supposed to be here. This isn't even your high school. And you're not running here. I don't know if he was running in the race or not.
[0:20:41] But if somebody who has that kind of air to them, and of course, I'm not saying that the victim or anyone there knew necessarily about these social media posts, but you can usually tell it's pretty easy to look at somebody and get a sense of their values. And what do you do? Well, I'm telling you what I would do, because I've managed to make it to the ripe old age of nearly 60, having never gotten in a physical fight, even though I grew up in a pretty bad neighborhood with some pretty sketchy characters around. I've never gotten into a physical fight. Not the face, not the brain, right? I just need to protect my head. I view my head and its contents as a common good for mankind that needs to be preserved. And so what you do is you leave. I know, I hate to say it because, you know, who wants to do that, right? Well, you want to do that rather than get stabbed in the heart and die. And so you go and get security. You go and get someone else. Let somebody whose job it is to deal with this stuff deal with this stuff. That's really, really important, right? So do not try to enforce getting somebody away from an area, go and get a security guard, go call the police if you need to, do not try and deal with it yourself, because the way that the world is these days is it's a lot more than some pushy, shovey, it's some stabby, bleedy, diey.
[0:22:08] So, some accounts slayed up to 15 times he was asked to leave. Anthony refused to leave and reached into his backpack while making statements such as, touch me and see what happens, or touch me and find out. So these are threat gestures. You know how cats put up their hair and dogs get kind of stiff and growl. So this is threat response behavior. Austin Metcalf stood up and pushed or grabbed Anthony in an attempt to remove him from the tent. Metcalf was significantly larger than Anthony, 50 to 60 pounds heavier, and so on.
[0:22:39] Now, one thing to understand about some people, I'm really going to take you to school here, my friends. This is really, really important to understand. You listen to the show, right? So you're smart. Don't take the marshmallow. Look over the horizon for consequences kind of person. There are a rather unsettling number of people in the world who frankly, couldn't give one minor rat's ass about consequences they don't, think about them everything is this blur of the moment and it's a blur of rage and fear and status and so on and they don't think of consequences of course, most people, if you're asked to leave a tent, will say, oh, I think I'll leave the tent. You know, there's this old joke about Canadians. How do you get 500 Canadians out of a swimming pool? You say, excuse me, would you mind getting out of the pool? That's the British side of things. So you and I, and most people...
[0:23:46] If, oh, shoot, am I in the wrong tent? Listen, man, hang tight. Please, if you don't mind, because it's kind of raining hard out there or whatever, if I can just wait here, I'll fold myself into a nanobot and just sit in the corner or would you mind? But most people, if it's like, hey, man, you got to leave the tent, blah, blah, blah. I don't know what they needed, why they needed him to leave the tent. Maybe he was doing something untoward or maybe he was going through people's stuff. I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, they wanted him to leave the tent. So, you know, most times, most times, most people, if somebody says, hey, you're not supposed to be here, you need to leave, uh, most people...
[0:24:25] I remember one time, one time, I disobeyed this, one time, one time, actually worked out okay. I was seeing Tom Cochran at Red Rider down at Ontario Place, which is like a venue. I saw Stephen Wright there as well, who thought he was a musician, but he wasn't. And I remember seeing Red Ryder, Boy Inside the Man, great song, although I think that came out later. But I saw Red Ryder, and we were all dancing on the seats, and all dancing on the seats. And the security guards were like, you got to get down, you got to get down. I was like, they can't make us all get down. So screw you, screw. So we didn't get down. We continued to dance on the seats. And it was a lot of fun evening. It was a great, great fun evening. Tom Cochran has an amazing mop of hair, a great singing voice, and not a bad stage presence, actually, not a bad stage presence at all. This is before Mad, Mad World, which was his big breakout album, but it was still a pretty good show. And so people leave. But the difference is, of course, that you and I think of consequences. Now, if you're trying to tell someone to leave, and they're not leaving, then you, you know, get this chest-thumping stuff, right? Well, I'm going to make him leave. And maybe you got to make him leave, man. And, you know, whatever it is. So, but if you have to be able to gauge where the people think about consequences at all, because if they don't think about consequences, you're dealing with a very, very, very different type of person whose mental machinations will be largely incomprehensible to you.
[0:25:59] You ever, like, I had a friend later died in a horrible motorcycle accident who used to uh, ride his bike off walls like sometimes dropping 10 12 feet he had shocks on his bike but it was still crazy dangerous and he would fall off sometimes and he would bloody up his face and so on and he'd just do it again and I'd be like, you sir are a very very different type of human being, from me and, And yeah, I mean, just real briefly... he was a bit of a bully and kind of cold hearted. Like I didn't have any gloves. We'd go out dirt biking in the winter and I'd ask to just, can I just borrow your hockey mitts for a few minutes to warm my hands up? He said, well, why didn't you bring any of your own? He was a little bit cold hearted, but you know, whatever.
[0:26:46] And I was biking home. He was right behind me and there was a big rock on the sidewalk and I had to swerve. And he accused me of cutting him off. And I said, no, you were tailgating. And this was literally the end of a multi-year friendship was that I was like, you know what? I'm sick and tired of backing down from this guy. So I'm like, no, you were tailgating. He's like, no, you cut me off. And it's like, you were tailgating. And we just went, we just went at it, man. And then he started to lose it. And I could see him starting to lose it. He had a crazy temper. And I biked like a bat out of hell home and my hands shaking, get my finger in the, the key in the lock of the apartment building, get in, shut the door. I wish I could have bolted it. And he was like, I went upstairs. I remember looking down from my fifth floor balcony, he's hurling his bike around and screaming at the top of his lungs. And I'm like, well, I'm glad I'm not there. And we were never friends again.
[0:27:35] He called me the next summer saying, hey, man, I think I left my football with you. I need my football. Like, no, just say you're sorry, man. Just say you're sorry and you miss me. No, won't happen to you that. So just a different kind of person. No particular consequences. And if you've ever been around those kind of people, they can get you into a serious amount of trouble. They really can. And so you got to be able to tell when people don't think of consequences. There's so many people that live in this absolute blur of the now. The only thing that matters is I'm not backing down now. And normally people would say, well, but if I don't back down, this and this and this is going to happen, it's going to be bad and blah, blah, blah. And that's a different kind of thinking though.
[0:28:19] Or I guess you could say that is a not kind of thinking. So you got to be aware of that stuff and recognize most people in the world, especially if you're this lovely, beautiful, tasty, is tasty the right word? Scrumptious audience that they're not like you. People who don't think for themselves are not like you. They're not like me. And you got to be aware. Have a theory of mind that includes people who are nothing like you at all. You've got to have that theory of mind. Otherwise, you escalate thinking, you know, like if you've, you know, the game of chicken, we used to play this on our bikes, who's going to turn away? I didn't play it much because it seemed kind of stupid and dangerous. But, you know, chicken and two cars driving at each other. So if you're playing chicken and you don't know that the guy you're playing chicken with is suicidal, you're just going to die. You got to be aware of what's going on in people's minds so that you don't make the mistake of thinking that people are like you, because they're probably not as a whole. I mean, everybody knows people who've just done like incomprehensible things. Like, why would you even think that? Why would you do that? And be aware, be alert. The world needs more lerts.
[0:29:43] So, Austin Metcalf stood up and pushed or grabbed Anthony in an attempt to remove him from the tent, thinking that consequences would inform Anthony's decision-making. It did not. Metcalf was significantly larger than Anthony, 50 to 60 pounds heavier. That's like, you know, you ever see a high school football player next to a high school track star? It is like the Michelin tire man next to a child's drawing of a stick figure. Anthony pulled a folding knife three to five to five inches in blade length from his backpack and stabbed Metcalf once in the chest.
[0:30:24] So you got to think of all this. Somebody sits there and says, I am being asked to leave this tent. I could leave the tent. Or maybe I got a plan B. I could leave the tent. I know what. I'll stab the guy in the chest. I'll stab the guy in the chest. Things that would not cross your mind. Things that would not cross my mind. I mean, I might have some scathing Oscar Wilde words of insultiness to say, but I'm not going to bury a knife in the guy's chest. That wouldn't even cross my mind, even if I had a knife. I'd be like, I'm going to show you some knife tricks. So it wouldn't cross, the victim's mind. It didn't cross the victim's mind, right? Right? Austin would not sit there and think, this guy might stab me.
[0:31:30] And this is a failure of, I'm not blaming the victim, right? Because you got to be taught this kind of stuff and maybe he wasn't, right? But you got to be able to evaluate people. You know, you look for the light, in their eyes, you know, self-awareness, consequences, maybe you could say intelligence and so on. My wife always says, it's in the eyes, it's in the eyes. So you got to look for that kind of stuff and you got to be able to assess whether people of processing consequences or not. And so on. The other thing too, of course, and this is true for a lot of black people, and I say this with some sympathy, like they're raised with, significant hatred of, in particular, whites and Asians, and Jews to some degree, but in particular whites and Asians, we all know the reason why I've talked about it a million times on this show before.
[0:32:19] And so whites are often raised to be colorblind, but other races, not so much. And you got to be aware of that, too. You got to be aware of that, too. And, you know, the black parents say, well, you got to have the talk about the dangers of the police and so on. Yeah, maybe that's true. I mean, I can't really judge that as a whole, but, you know, the white kids and to some degree, Asian kids, I think are raised to be like totally colorblind. And I'm like, I mean, I'm okay with that if everyone's like that. But if other cultures are raising people to be racially conscious or whatever it is, then you're not giving your kids necessarily an accurate view, of the world, right? And so that's important. And I'm not blaming the parents. I'm not, this is the culture. This is a whole big problem. Certainly not blaming the victim, not blaming the parents and so on. It's a whole big cultural issue and so on, right?
[0:33:18] So, after stabbing Metcalf once in the chest, he then fled the scene and discarded the knife into the bleachers. Again, I don't know his GPA, and I don't know how much it might have been inflated, but this is extremely impulsive behavior, obviously, with only a desire to win in the moment with no thought of long-term consequences. And now you see this, you know where most people see this. Most people see this, in relationships, in romantic relationships in particular. So if you've ever been in a romantic relationship with a woman who just, wants to win in the moment, or a man who just wants to win in the moment, they'll say anything, they'll dig up any old thing, they'll hurl any kind of insult just to win in the moment. Like my friend, right? who wanted to win this argument, right? So he almost ran into me in the bike because I had to swerve to avoid a big stone in the road. Boy, that stone probably saved my life. Thank you, oh, Ignaceous!
[0:34:23] And he wouldn't back down and I wouldn't back down. And if you're with someone who won't back down, that's why I fled the scene. Like, that's why I fled, got into the apartment building, locked the door behind me or closed the door behind me, got up to my apartment, locked that door. And so I had two doors between me because I'm like, oh, okay, this guy's like not going to back down.
[0:34:47] He's not going to back down. And I'd actually seen him throw his mom up against the wall. And yeah, he's a violent guy. And the fact that he came to a violent end was not too shocking, but he didn't care about the long-term effects on the friendship, and I was one of the only friends he had. And he was a funny guy. I mean, this is a lot of times people with no fear of consequences have a kind of loosey-goosey Jim Carrey, living in the moment kind of hilarity that's actually kind of fun. And there were lots of, you know, he was a smart guy, he was a funny guy and all of that. But yeah, just very impulsive.
[0:35:24] And it's just like, you kind of want to stop people and say, you're kind of wrecking your life here. If you don't mind me saying so, you're kind of wrecking your life here. Maybe you shouldn't do this. But any backing down is just complete anathema. They would rather die or be, sent to jail for 35 years than back down over a stupid tent in the rain. It wasn't like he was guarding his beloved girlfriend from marauding KKK members, right? It was nothing like that. It's just some stupid tent in the rain. Alternative. One, go to jail for 35 years or two, uh, get a little wet, a little damp, a little damp, or a prison for ever and ever, amen.
[0:36:11] But, of course, to back down from an altercation with a white man, in particular for certain types of minorities, certain types of black people, to back down from an altercation is considered, you know, I don't know, surrendering to whitey or something like that. So just important. Again, tons of black people, not like this at all, but, and tons of white people who are just touchy as well. It's not like all the gangs are black and gangs can be Hispanic and can be white and so on. Not so much East Asian, but that's a variety of other cultural and reasons we've talked about before. But just really, really have some sense of who you're dealing with and get a sense of what the stakes are. Teenagers are sort of famously not thinking of consequences and so on, but because even if he hadn't killed the guy, you still stabbed a guy. Like, for what? For what? Again, it's incomprehensible. So he was the stabber. Anthony was located shortly afterward by a school resource officer and surrendered. Body cam footage kept. Anthony stating variations of, I did it, and he put his hands on me. I told him not to, while also asking whether the stabbing could be considered self-defense. Core evidence included multiple eyewitness accounts, grainy surveillance video showing the physical contact and stabbing, the recovered knife, Anthony's backpack, and his own post-incident statements.
[0:37:29] Now... when it comes to the law, you know, I'm obviously not a lawyer, but we all have to live within the confines of the law. And a lot of the law is kind of nuts and exaggerated, but there's sort of a still a vaguely visible core of common law, common sense that's sort of buried in the law, particularly when it comes to violence. Of course, it's imperfectly and sometimes very badly put into practice and so on. But, if somebody pushes you, you can't stab them. Again, I'm just talking morally. I'm not talking about the law. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't give you any legal advice. Obviously, don't listen to some podcast about legal advice. But in a sort of common sense situation, you have to be in danger of death or grievous bodily harm. I think it's a general phrase in most common law scenarios or formulations. So death or grievous bodily harm.
[0:38:40] And somebody pushing you is not putting you in danger of death or grievous bodily harm for you to use lethal force in self-protection. You have to have a reasonable assumption, like somebody's running at you with a chainsaw. Well, that chainsaw is going to inflect grievous bodily harm. And so just because somebody pushes you doesn't mean you can stab them in the chest, especially if they're supposed to be someplace and you're not.
[0:39:07] So Karmelo Anthony was charged with a single count of murder, the first degree felony under Texas law. Because he was 17 years old at the time of the offense, he was automatically tried as an adult, as is standard in Texas. In most states, this type of charge would generally fall somewhere between what people commonly understand as second degree murder and manslaughter, an intentional or reckless killing that occurred during a confrontation rather than a premeditated planned murder. However, however, Texas does not use the traditional degrees of murder found in many other states. It distinguishes between capital murder, the most serious category, which can carry the death penalty or life without parole, and regular murder, a first-degree felony. Manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide exist as separate, lesser offenses.
[0:39:54] So, what happened in the trial and verdict? The prosecution's case, the prosecutors argued that Anthony was the aggressor. They presented evidence that he used multiple requests to leave. The Memorial High School team tent reached into his backpack while issuing threats, touch me and see what happens, and escalated a verbal dispute into lethal force by using a concealed knife. Now, I'm not sure did he take the knife out of the backpack and then, like, pretend he was, you know, like, just came out at the last minute. The prosecution characterized the stabbing as a sneak attack that was disproportionate to the physical contact from Metcalf.
[0:40:30] The defense argued self-defense, of course. They emphasized that Anthony was seated and significantly smaller than Metcalf, that Metcalf initiated the physical contact, and that Anthony reasonably feared for his safety in a chaotic situation involving multiple larger individuals. Character witnesses, including a coach, testified on Anthony's behalf. Anthony did not take the stand, as is quite common in these kinds of situations.
[0:40:53] So what was the key evidence presented? Multiple student and coach witnesses who consistently reported Anthony's refusal to leave the tent, his threatening statements, and the stabbing immediately after physical contact. The folding knife recovered from the bleachers and Anthony's backpack. Body camera footage showing Anthony's post-incident statements. I did it. He put his hands on me. I told him not to. End the scene. Medical testimony confirming that the single stab wound to the chest was unsurvivable. See, this is another thing, too. Didn't stab him in the shoulder. Didn't stab him in the leg, which I guess if you cut the femoral could also be fatal, but didn't stab him, I don't know, in the arm or the forearm or the hand or I don't know, whatever. You go for the chest. Well, that's where the big beaty beaty drum is that keeps you alive, and you nick that and you're kind of toast.
[0:41:44] So the verdict and sentencing. After approximately three hours of deliberation, the jury found Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder of first degree felony and reject the defense's self-defense claim as well as the lesser charge of manslaughter. The sentencing range for first-degree murder in Texas is 5 to 99 years of life in prison. The jury sentenced him to 35 years, eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence 17.5 years.
[0:42:09] And since he already admitted to doing it afterwards, he can't exactly end up stuck in prison because he believes he's innocent, but you have to say that you're guilty in order to get out.
[0:42:20] Public reaction to the verdict. Following the guilty verdict on June 9, 2026, crowds gathered outside the Collin County Courthouse. Supporters of Karmelo Anthony chanted, free Karmelo, while others expressed support for the Metcalf family and the verdict. The scene included verbal confrontations, chanting, and some minor physical pushing and shoving between opposing groups. Law enforcement officers were present and kept the two sides separated. The clashes remained localized to the courthouse area and did not escalate into broader riots or widespread violence.
[0:42:50] So this, of course, is quite interesting. They had their shot with George Floyd, right? Remember the summer of love and billions of dollars of damage, people killed and massive amounts of injuries and so on. So they had their shot, so to speak, with this kind of stuff. But the George Floyd narrative for anybody who's followed it at all with any rational common sense has completely fallen apart. So they can't really gin this kind of stuff up in the way that they used to be able to.
[0:43:22] Now, there were, of course, complaints that there were no black members on the jury, although there were non-whites and non-males on the jury. There was complaints that there were no black people on the jury. I'm not sure exactly why, but I know why there were complaints. I'm not sure why there weren't black people on the jury. One of the issues would be that for a lot of blacks, and this is true of other ethnicities as well, for a lot of blacks, there is, a sense that the, you know, the justice system is so bad and it's so anti-black and so on that they engage in a kind of jury nullification thing where they just say like, I'm going to vote not guilty no matter what, because I'm not going to send a brother to jail and that kind of stuff. Right. And we can sort of debate the reasons as to why this is the case, but it does make it a bit more tricky that...
[0:44:09] I talked about this recently in Singapore, where they had to switch from jury trials to judge trials. And they're looking at doing this in England because jury trials work when everybody, supports the law, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, or ideology. But if you've got a bunch of communists who are never going to convict a communist and so on, then the jury trials don't really work. So it requires a commitment to moral and legal universals and a colorblind jury, which has not been proven to be the case in many situations.
[0:44:45] So, fundraising comparisons and controversy. The Metcalf family campaign, Austin Metcalf's father, Jeff Metcalf, started a campaign on GoFundMe on April 2nd, 2025, the same day of the stabbing. Yeah. Yeah. Not sure about that, Chief. The same day? I mean, as a parent? Wouldn't you take a couple of days to grieve the horrifying loss? I don't know. I, you know, this is a whole new world, a brave new world, and I didn't grow up in it, so I'm not trying to condemn anyone. I'm just like, it sort of sits a little sideways in my craw, right or wrong. The campaign was created to help the family with funeral costs and support. It remained active and raised approximately $590,000.
[0:45:39] Anthony's family's fundraising path. The Anthony family initially attempted to raise funds on GoFundMe shortly after the incident. However, GoFundMe's policies prohibit fundraising for the legal defense of individuals accused of violent crimes. Those early campaigns were removed and donations were refunded. The family then moved to GiveSendGo, launching their campaign before April 9th, 2025. Unlike GoFundMe, GiveSendGo Permits fundraising for legal defense When someone is charged with a crime. So, I won't go into the policies and so on.
[0:46:14] There were early rumors that the Anthony family used donations to buy a house and a car. These claims were false, GiveSendGo confirmed. No money had been withdrawn when the rumors started, and the family stated they were renting due to safety concerns. So, please, please, people, like, I'm not perfect. I obviously strive my very best to be accurate and fair and reasonable and to give every side in a conflict a fair shake. But please please please just try your absolute very best and I say this with all the humility because I'm sure I've made I mean I know that I've made mistakes over the years, but try not to share stuff that seems salacious that maybe confirms your view of this family or or the culture or something like that just be careful because, you know as somebody who's been subjected to a lot of lies about me in public, a lot of horrendous lies about me in public, I have, perhaps, a significant amount of a soft spot to people who get lied about in horrible ways. It is a terrible thing to do, and the idea that they bought a house and a car and so one. So, uh, the campaign from Anthony's family did expand its stated purpose beyond just legal defense to include security and relocation, which GiveSendGo rules do permit.
[0:47:40] Following the guilty verdict on June 9th, 2026, the GiveSendGo campaign remained active for a short time and continued to receive donations. This drew strong public criticism. On the day of the verdict, somebody posted, Karmelo Anthony is still raising money. Karmelo Anthony's family is still raising money and people are donating even now. The GiveSendGo is now the fundraiser for a convicted murderer. Take it down. And they wanted almost $1.4 million. They got $626,000. Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know. It's a way to get your family set for life. It's not great. The post triggered widespread calls for GiveSendGo to shut the campaign down. Many people expressed outrage that donations were still being accepted for a convicted murderer. On June 10th, that's today, GiveSendGo published an official statement announcing that the campaign was closed. The statement noted that the fundraiser was created for pre-trial needs, legal defense, and family relocation. Its purpose was now complete.
[0:48:44] So as with most cases like this, media coverage varies widely. Thank you for the people who are waiting to talk. We'll get you shortly and thank you for your patience. Local media, WFAA, Fox 4, Dallas Morning News, and other outlets were generally straightforward fact-based and focused on court proceedings, evidence, and official statements. It was much less sensational than national coverage. And, you know, I say this to every group who feels an in-group preference about somebody who's charged with, and I mean, I think everybody kind of knew this, you don't stab a guy in the heart for pushing you. Especially if you're in a place where you shouldn't be, where you're not allowed to be. That's why I said last summer that this was bad stuff and I thought he did the wrong thing and all of that. This is wrong. If you just kind of, and this is true for every group, you just kind of mindlessly come out and because that group is in your group or the person is in your group, you just support them and cheer them and assume they're innocent and so on. This is tearing apart. I'm not kidding about this. All of this stuff, it can happen with whites, it can happen with Indians, East Asians, South Asians, It can happen with blacks. It can happen with just about everyone. Do not assume that somebody in your group is in the right because they're in your group.
[0:50:11] Because if you do, everyone else is going to have to do it. This is a race to the bottom. This is a race to the bottom. You know, if you pull out a knife in a fight, the other guy is going to pull out a knife if he's got one. I mean, what else are you going to do? Just get stabbed? So, April 2nd to 7th, 2025, last year, strong local coverage of the stabbing, Anthony's arrest and initial police statements focus on the facts of the incident and the victim after Metcalf. April, May 2025, local outlets covered bond reduction from $1 million to $250K, Anthony being placed on house arrest and early legal developments. They also reported on threats and harassment against both families.
[0:50:54] And wait for the verdict, of course, right? June 2026, trial. Detailed day-by-day coverage of witness testimony, evidence presentation, and courtroom developments. Much more focused on the actual trial than national outlets.
[0:51:07] June 9th, 10th, 2026, post-verdict. Reported on the verdict, sentencing and the clashes outside the courthouse in a relatively measured way.
[0:51:15] National media, dun-dun-dun, and the sociopaths have entered the typewriter. National media put more emphasis on the racial dynamics. Black defendant, White victim. Much more emphasis on self-defense claims, race, and controversy than local coverage. So, April 2nd to 8th, 2025, initial national pickup was relatively limited compared to local. Most stories focused on the basic facts of the stabbing. April 9th to 17th, 2025, this is when national attention spiked. So, there's some evidence for this kind of stuff, but, you know, there's a bunch of woke reporters who have their secret chats in various encrypted things, and they've got to take a while to get together and make sure that they coordinate their messaging and see how much damage they can do to the national, character of the country as humanly possible, so the fact that it took a little while is not shocking. Newsweek ran multiple articles specifically about Karmelo Anthony's GiveSend Go fundraiser, including one on April 9th reported it reached 270K, another on April 17th when it neared 453K. These articles often included Anthony's self-defense claim and family statements. The Metcalf fundraiser was mentioned only as a point of comparison, as the article was primarily focused on Anthony's campaign. Other national outlets began covering the racial angle and the growing online controversy. April May 2025, national coverage increasingly framed a story around race, self-defense, and the viral fundraiser. Anthony received significantly more national attention than Metcalf during this period.
[0:52:39] June 2026, the trial, national coverage increased again but remained heavily focused on race, jury selection, and the self-defense narrative rather than the day-to-day trial evidence.
[0:52:49] I mean, it's a whole lot easier to just poke the wounds of a nation than to actually get into, I don't know, details and facts about legal complexities. June 9th, 10th, 2026, post-verdict, focus on the verdict, sentencing, protests outside the courthouse, and racial reactions.
[0:53:06] Social media, highly polarized, emotional, and often filled with misinformation. There's a lot of narrative distortions on social media. I do my level best to try and keep these to a minimum, but not everyone is quite as dedicated to these things as I am.
[0:53:22] So April 2nd to 8th, 2025, social media exploded immediately. Narratives formed quickly around race and self-defense. Misinformation such as fake autopsies, bullying claims, and so on spread rapidly. April 9th to 30th, 2025, this was the peak period for the Anthony fundraiser going viral. Social media played a major role in amplifying the GiveSendGo campaign. Many posts framed Anthony as a victim or compared him to Kyle Rittenhouse. Comparisons, of course, are completely wrong. Kyle Rittenhouse is on video being attacked by a wide variety of people and shooting only in an extremity of self-defense when people are swinging skateboards at his head, which is grievous bodily injury in my humble and amateur opinion, not a lawyer, grievous bodily injury, and potential death. So that is a very different situation.
[0:54:09] Throughout 2025 to 2026, ongoing battle of narratives, Anthony's supporters emphasized self-defense and alleged bias. Metcalf supporters focused on the evidence and called out fundraising as exploitation.
[0:54:21] June 9th, 10th verdict, 2026. Extremely heated viral posts, protests, and strong reactions on both sides. Some posts contained clear factual errors, a statement about public prosecutors, or inflated fundraising totals. So, that's not good. Claims of misuse and parental criticism. Prominent commentators criticized the parents for allowing the case to go to trial rather than accepting an early plea, arguing that this extended the fundraising period. In one widely shared exchange, Matt Walsh wrote, Keep in mind, if Karmelo had pled guilty early on, it would have cut the fundraiser short. His parents chose to send him to trial so they could keep raking in the cash. They don't love or care about him. Awful people who inevitably raised an awful son, he said. My only regret is that they can't be thrown in a prison cell along with him. A raw egg nationalist quoted Matt Walsh, but added significant exaggerations and invalid claims, which arguably undercuts the point he's trying to make. The amount of money raised was about 630K, which is not nothing, obviously, but close to a million dollars. It is not. The family does not choose the prosecutor, and Anthony was represented by private defense attorney Mike Howard.
[0:55:30] So, yeah, it's pretty rough. And obviously, I don't think that a family that raised a guy who stabs another guy in the chest over a stupid property dispute over a stupid tent in the stupid rain is necessarily an ideal family, but criticize what is factual and don't spread things that are wrong.
[0:55:56] So the jury's verdict stands on the evidence. Anthony initiated key escalations by remaining in the tent, reaching for a weapon, issuing threats, and that he used lethal force disproportionate to a shove under the legal standard for self-defense. Texas law allows strong self-defense claims, but the facts here did not meet the threshold in the jury's view, of course, and three hours, three hours to send a young man for decades to prison. Parental accountability is a legitimate question. Dragging a case to trial or choosing not to plead early can extend fundraising windows, a point raised forcefully by Matt Welsh and others. Walsh. Whether this was primarily financial motivation or good faith belief in self-defense is not proven in court, but the optics of continued crowdfunding for a convicted murderer has fueled legitimate outrage.
[0:56:42] So philosophically, in the spirit of reason over force, initiating or escalating conflict with a concealed weapon at a school event is going to carry consequences. Now, here's the thing too. Like, this is another thing to understand about impulsive people who don't think about consequences, which is... They don't actually have a huge amount to look forward to. You know, when I was a kid, you know, facing a lot of violence at home, some violence in the neighborhood and so on, I was like, I just got to get out of here because I got a great life ahead of me. I always had this, you know, this belief, this light guiding me forward. I just got to get out of here. And once I get out of here, man, I can have a great life. I envisioned myself married to a great woman with kids in a reasonably nice neighborhood in a modest house. And I was like, I'm going to have a great life. I just got to, I just got to, I just got to grip my teeth and get through this tsunami of shite. And then on the other side of that tsunami of shite, hose myself off, wash myself down, sail off to a great life. And I will say that overall, and in general, that turned out to be the case. I'm married to a wonderful woman. I have a lovely daughter and live in a decent place and, you know, a decent neighborhood. So, it kind of worked, thankfully.
[0:58:09] And for a lot of people, though, if you're the kind of person who's just going to go stabby-stab on someone for telling you to leave a tent and maybe shoving you, you really don't have a lot to look forward to. And, of course, the idea, you know, when you have a great life planned for yourself and then you get some impulse to do something stupid or violent or something like that, you say, oh, but that's going to threaten the great life that I want. Double plus ungood. That side quest of jail for 35 years is really going to interfere with the life that I want. I don't want to be getting out of prison in my 50s, 52, something like that. Anyway, so it depends. I mean, could be younger if he gets out 17.5 years.
[0:58:57] So you, I assume, dear, fair, wise and kind listener, you have a lot to look forward to. I had a lot to look forward to. So, we suppress our impulses so that we can get the good life that's coming. If you don't believe that there's a good life coming, or if deep down you know that you're just going to do a whole bunch of stupid stuff, and maybe even evil stuff, and certainly stabbing this poor young man was about as evil an action as can be conceived of, you really don't have much to look forward to.
[0:59:33] And to take the extreme example, if it's your last meal, before being executed, do you really care about the calories? Ooh, I shouldn't have too many carbs, right? You don't have, you have minutes to look forward to, hours at best. So, there are a lot of people out there in this world, they don't believe they have much to look forward to, and in a way, if you believe you have something good to look forward to, or you believe you don't have anything good to look forward to, you're right. Because if you believe you have something good to look forward to, you will, I don't know, do what I did. I mean, you find a way to get through school, you get and keep jobs, you try to have decent social relationships, you try not to get in too much trouble, and you get your education, and you try to be a reasonable person in the world, and tell the truth, and so on. And, you know, in general, as a whole, good things will happen to you, and that's what you've earned. If you really don't believe you've got any future, like my friend on the dirt bike didn't really believe he had any kind of future. So he just lived for the day, did stupid stuff and ended up dying young. If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right either way. And I just choose to think I can. And that has a lot to do with deferral of gratification, right?
[1:00:48] So when I was being chased around school, I was only bullied once or twice, twice, I think I was bullied and for pretty short amounts of time. And the one guy I used to play a game called Defender which is like having a bag of bees strapped to your head I used to play this game called Defender Defender what am I in Boston Defender, so I used to play this game and I was doing really well and this guy... this kid unplugged my machine because he wanted to play, and I called him a jerk. And then his giant brother, he's like huge. I was like, I don't know, maybe 12 or 13. His giant brother was chasing me out in school because apparently I'd beat up at his brother or something. His brother just lied and got his brother. And I just, I spent like a week or two just dodging this guy. And he punched me once on the staircase. And I said, I didn't hit your brother. And it just all went away. And so I'm like, I'm not getting into a fight with this guy. I mean, first of all, I'm 12 and he's like 17 or 18. I still remember his name. Anyway, and I met him years later. He didn't remember me at all, of course, right? Probably did drugs.
[1:01:52] So I'm like, well, I can't get involved in a fight with this guy because I've got this great future to look forward to. And I don't want to get rid of it. But a lot of people don't believe they have a great future to look forward to. And this is the other thing. If you tell people that society is stacked against them and the police are racist and just looking to throw them in jail, then you create the kind of nihilism that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as to you getting in trouble with the system. So that seems quite important. You know, profiting from a crime via crowdfunding, especially post-conviction, does raise pretty important ethical red lines. And it's not just the people on the receiving end. This is the OnlyFans question, right? Supplier demand, right? The people who are donating to a convicted murderous family, you know, I'm going to assume that they had something to do with him becoming, violent and nihilistic. I'm not saying it's their fault. I'm not saying they're uninvolved either, logically.
[1:02:48] So cultural patterns around conflict resolution, impulse control, and parental modeling matter. And of course, we don't want to assign collective guilt to any group. But in general, if you look at the data in the US in particular, which is where some of the best data is being kept, even though they do assign, people who are Hispanic or obviously not white as white, but you are dozens of times more likely as a white person to be the victim of black violence than vice versa. And for reasons we can talk about another time, it's just really, really important to understand, right? I mean, the amount of data is just way off. You know, you talk to people, they think thousands of unarmed black men are killed by police every year. And it's like 10 or 12 or something like that. And unarmed is an easy thing to say after the fact. I mean, this guy had a hidden knife, right? So he was unarmed until he wasn't, right? And then you're dead. So....
[1:03:44] So what's the bottom line? Well, Karmelo Anthony was convicted of murder after a jury in three hours determined that the evidence did not support his claim of self-defense. Austin Metcalf's life was taken in an escalation that the court found unjustified under Texas law. Of course, we want to focus on the evidence presented at trial, the jury's verdict, and the documented facts, rather than narratives that either excuse the use of lethal force or reduce the situation to simple exploitation by the defendant's family.
[1:04:13] Recent evidence, personal accountability remain the most reliable guides in cases like this. And personally, again, my non-lawyer personal opinion, if you go to trial and the jury finds you guilty in three hours, man, you should have taken the plea. But again, he's not going to take the plea. Why? Well, maybe he got legal advice that I can consider ideal, but it's part of the whole personality thing, right? If you're not going to back down over a stupid confrontation in a stupid tent in the stupid rain, then you're going to go all the way with regards to a trial. You're not going to back down from that either. So that is my thoughts and response to truth about Karmelo Anthony. Please, please, please, overall, do not let people tell you that something that is evil is in fact a tragedy. I say, oh, it's a tragedy. No, it's tragedy when a young person gets sick with cancer through no fault of their own. That's a tragedy. It's a tragedy when a woman gets hit by a boulder when she's hiking for no reason. And that's a tragedy. Evil is not a tragedy. And people will constantly try and get you to reprogram, what is actually evil as a tragedy. They want to program you to reduce evil to misfortune, which it's not. It's a conscious choice.
[1:05:29] All right. Thank you for your patience. Jake, if you would like to unmute, let us see if you are still with me. Had an incredibly maddening. Oh, such a maddening debate today, which is going out to donors tonight. All right, Jake, what's on your mind?
[1:05:47] Hey, can you hear me?
[1:05:48] Yeah, got it.
[1:05:50] Hey, it's kind of related to this Metcalf situation. I really enjoyed your conversation with Sam Hyde that went up a week or two ago. And after you after he posted that up on YouTube I don't know if you saw it he put out a tweet condemning spanking and physical punishment from your parents and I was just curious on your thoughts on that.
[1:06:18] My thoughts on spanking?
[1:06:23] Your thoughts on his tweet specifically, I don't know if you read it, but I feel that the timing of you being on his show and then the tweet going up like a day or two later had to be related.
[1:06:36] Yeah, I mean, obviously can't read his mind, but I assume so. Yeah, spanking is a violation of the non-aggression principle. It is an evil attack upon a helpless and defenseless child. It is wrong. It is immoral. And listen, I'm not saying everybody who spanks is an evildoer because you have to make the case, right? So the case is put forward usually in the Bible. People say, spare the rod and spoil the child while forgetting, of course, that the rod refers to the rod of guidance and inspiration, not hitting a kid with a stick. The rod is like the baton of a conductor, right? It's not there to poke the violinist in the eye if he gets a note wrong. So yeah, it is the initiation of the use of force. It is violence. It is aggression. It is bullying because you're like, oh, big, brave guy, five times the size of your kid and you're hitting him. And it is a terrible, terrible behavior and is responsible for a great number of evils in the world and is a violation of the non-aggression principle and should not be pursued by anybody who wants to be a moral person.
[1:07:41] We don't, in general, allow for violence against the cognitively diminished, right? So if you have some old person with Alzheimer's and they forget where their keys are, you don't beat them. Or if they spill something, or if they're, with somebody who's got Tourette's, and swears aggressively or seemingly swears aggressively in public and so on, we don't spank them, we don't hit them. So people who are cognitively diminished, we do not use violence against them. If somebody has a significant learning disability or cognitive impairment as the result of some brain damage and so on, we don't beat them. We have some sympathy and we have some patience. And children are, of course, relative to their capacities as adults, they are cognitively diminished. And we just don't fucking hit people who are cognitively diminished. We try to inspire them, we try to lead them. You model the behavior that you want out of your children. You don't just hit them.
[1:08:36] And now, of course, then people say, oh, but what do I do if my child does something I don't like? Well, as soon as you can, as early as you can, and this is all in the book Peaceful Parenting at PeacefulParenting.com, you reason with your children, you set down rules that you can all agree on, and you say, listen, you want a lot of sugar. I don't want you to have a lot of sugar. Your tongue likes sugar. Your teeth and your body don't like sugar. Like, it's bad for them. I mean, other than a little bit here and there. And so, we got a problem. How do we solve it. And you get your kids' engagement into house-solve, they're probably just top-down rules. Boom, boom, boom, like this hammer blow, or you're playing whack-a-mole with all of their free will.
[1:09:15] You sit down, you reason for children, and you have them participate in the rules that they want to follow. Because the purpose, of course, of parenting is to prepare your children for adulthood. In other words, to prepare them for a time when they can go and buy all the candy they want, all the candy they want. And so I saw this when I was in, one of the things that pulled me towards peaceful parenting was after high school, I went to work for a year and a half up north, gold panning and prospecting. And I lived in tents in minus 30, 35 degree weather and it was a pretty intense experience and pretty good. Brought me very vividly into contact with reality and never seduced into becoming an abstract Platonist. So when I came back and I went to a university, there were a lot of people there who just came for drinking and sex and they overate. The famous frosh 15, you put on 15 pounds in your first year. And it was just hedonism. And why?
[1:10:18] Because they were on their own, and they got to make their own decisions, and they hadn't been raised well, and so they're just pushing back against all the limitations of which they hadn't internalized. The purpose of course of parenting is to have your children internalize good, moral, sensible, practical values, and that doesn't really happen when you just use violence. You can't beat someone into being a good person. You can't hit someone into being a good person, and all violence is dangerous. Violence is like unpopping a genie. You don't know if it's good or bad. It can be really negative, right? You're hitting your children with a belt and they turn suddenly and you hit them in the eye. You're hitting your children with a spoon and it might hit their testicle and cause damage to their testicle. Your child is running away from being hit, trips and falls down the stairs or trips and hits their head against the counter. And next thing you know, you've got some kid in a vegetative state for the rest of your life. So, oh, their lives. So, it's a dangerous, a dangerous thing. It's absolutely unnecessary. It's counterproductive. Children who are spanked, you'll get short-term compliance, but then they just try and figure out a way around the rules. I mean, if spanking worked, why are 40% of people in junior high, kids in junior high still being spanked? It doesn't work because if it worked, you wouldn't need to keep doing it. So I hope that makes some sense. Sorry for the very sort of brief compressed version of it, but you can find more of this, of course, at peacefulparenting.com for the free book.
[1:11:41] Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. As a kind of a quick follow-up, I mean, first of all, I've seen good movement for the kind of doing away with the spanking in recent years and homeschooling as well. I think those are both directly related to your work. So definitely big wins for the culture there. But one thing I've noticed, and particularly, it comes to light on Sam's tweet, well you see a lot of conservatives that want to stick their fingers in their ears when they hear this stuff about spanking and just like pretend like it doesn't make any sense and, I'm not going to say that conservative parents like continue to perpetuate it more than anyone else I don't know that that's necessarily true but it's kind of upsetting that uh it it seems to be conservative parents you know, conservative boomers I've spoken to as well that they they don't want to hear anything about this they think it's ridiculous they think uh they mistake peaceful parenting with um, um it's it's slipping uh...
[1:12:49] Oh, unparenting, or non-parenting, or something or... or, um, gentle parenting they call it, right?
[1:12:55] Yeah, gentle parenting that's the one.
[1:12:57] So and sorry to interrupt I just really want to and I really thank you for bringing this up--no you know what let me not be annoying and rude you finish your thought. I could hold on to mine for five seconds.
[1:13:09] No, that pretty much is me finishing my thought. I wanted to hear your thoughts on the conservative parents, particularly.
[1:13:17] Right. So, I mean, both the left and the right, this is why I'm not on the left and not on the right. So both the left and the right have their sacred cows that you can't talk about without them losing their shit. So on the left, it's IQ. And on the right, it's spanking and other things. I mean, this is just but those are the two of the big ones. So on the right, they tend to be more Christian, more religious, and so on. And the question is, and it's a big question, can you get children to believe in religion without bribes or threats? It's a big question. It's a big question. Can you imagine if I said, as a philosopher, you have to believe what I say, even if I say two and two make five, even if I say virtue is a square circle, even if I say the earth is banana-shaped. You have to believe what I say, or I'm going to send people over to torture you for the rest of your life. I mean, that would be psycho. I mean, that would be wrong.
[1:14:18] And so can you get children to believe in religion or patriotism to the state, not to the ideals of the country, but to the state? Can you get people to believe things that are not true without threat? And in general, the answer is no, you cannot get children to believe things that are obviously untrue without threat. And so if you take away spanking or, aggression towards children or threats towards children, because threatening someone with eternal damnation is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Because if somebody were to threaten someone else with brutal torture, that would be a violent threat, that would be illegal, that would be immoral. And if you say you will be burned and tortured alive for eternity, that's a kind of crazy threat. And the bribe as well. If I were to say, well, if you believe in everything that I say, I'm going to give you a million dollars or something like that, right? I mean, that would be intellectually very weak, of course, and financially, well, more than draining, completely catastrophic.
[1:15:33] So, can you get people to believe what you want without threats and bribes? So, on the left, they threaten you with social ostracism and the destruction of your reputation, if you don't believe what they say. And on the right, they will threaten you with eternal condemnation and hellfire if you don't believe what they say. And on the left, they will reward you with cultural praise, with free jobs. And like USAID was like hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in free spending. And of course, since that was all shut down, since that was to some degree shut down, people in South and Central America are starting to vote for the right because socialism is always propped up by your tax dollars. So the left will, they have their heaven and hell. And the hell is a social and economic destruction, the destruction of your reputation and your ability to make a living. Hello. And on the left, they will give you social approval. They will give you awards. They will give you an income. They will defend you no matter what. So it's very tribal. It's just here we'll give you heaven on earth or we'll give you hell on earth if you don't believe what we say on the left.
[1:16:43] And on the right, they say, well, we'll give you heaven for eternity or hell for eternity, if you believe or don't believe what we have to say. These are all heaven and hell, social ostracism, and bribery, not arguments, not arguments. And here we live, breathe, and die by the argument. And so, yeah, if you're going to say to people on the right, you can't lie to and use violence or threaten your children with negative consequences or bribe them with positive consequences, then you are not respecting their sovereign will, you're not respecting their capacity to reason, and you're just bribing and threatening and bullying them, which is not healthy and not right and not good. And it's the same thing on the left. The left punishes you before death, the right punishes you after death. And so at least you can disbelieve in the right's punishment, but you can't really avoid the left's punishment, if that makes sense.
[1:17:44] Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah, it certainly does. I, mean, that's statism at the end of the day, statism at its finest. Either way, you own, uh...
[1:17:58] Well, sorry, but... "Statism" is true, but on the left, the reason they go for your reputation, of course, is because you haven't broken any laws, right? If they could get you for the violation of a law, they would just get you for the violation of a law. But because they haven't been able to get people for violations of the law, the attack upon reputation is almost a confession that they can't get you for anything in particular moral.
[1:18:23] So, sorry, I've got another bunch of other callers. Next up, if you want to unmute, I'd be happy to hear what is on your mind. Thank you for your attention and your support. Freedomain.com/donate. If you'd like to help out the show, I really would appreciate it.
[1:18:39] Hey, you can hear me okay?
[1:18:40] Yeah.
[1:18:42] Awesome. Hey, the reason why I requested to speak and the reason why I wanted to chat with you is because I wanted to chat with you about the topic of collecting. I've heard you...
[1:18:55] Of what?
[1:18:57] Collecting. Collections.
[1:19:00] Collections. Oh, do you mean like debts?
[1:19:04] Um, I just mean, um, you've spoken about it in the past, uh, like collecting comic books or.
[1:19:11] Oh, I see. Got it. Got it. Okay. Sorry. My apologies. I'm with you now. Sorry. You used a word with a couple of meanings. My apologies. Go ahead.
[1:19:20] Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about collecting because I know that you've talked about it in the past and I know you're not too, too hot on it. I know you don't really collect much. But then I also had a dilemma that is like live here in real time. And so I'm wondering if you could help me unearth the moral or ethical decision, as opposed to telling me what I should do. So I was kind of going to talk to you about both of those. I know based on what you've talked about, it doesn't sound like you're a collector. I collect a couple things. And so we're kind of coming at this from different angles. And so I just wanted to...
[1:19:58] Okay, enough preamble. Let's do the topic. I don't need all the previews. Just give me the topic.
[1:20:04] Sure. So the argument here is that I find collecting incredibly valuable towards the growth of civilization. There's a lot of collections that are out there that are incredibly valuable. I'm thinking libraries. I'm thinking food banks, seat banks. I'm thinking archives and that kind of stuff I think towards society is incredibly valuable and, in the past when I originally heard you talk about collecting the things that I had heard was that you know it's just kind of you're chasing a dopamine head, you know there's not really value and just hoarding rooms with stuff and I was wondering if what does the Aristotelian mean of when it comes to collecting, I guess, is what I'm trying to uncover.
[1:20:53] Well, you're going to have to define a little bit more. I mean, I have a bunch of books. I wouldn't say I'm a book collector, but tell me what you mean by collecting.
[1:21:03] So when I think of collecting, I think of acquiring similar or like items that have a perceived value, usually subjective to the individual, which are generally organized in a kind of way. Kind of the difference between having a collection and being a hoarder is a very fine line, right? And when I think of collecting, I think of things that are not necessarily consumed by the individual. But if they are consumables, then maybe they're being held outside of their intended purpose. So if I collected, like I had somebody in my family that collected Coca Cola memorabilia, right? And like some of them are like bottles. And it's just weird. It's just weird to me. But to the individual, to have a collection of a bunch of Coca Cola memorabilia, it was valuable to them. And so they would say that they have a collection of Coca Cola memorabilia in the same way that I would have a collection of whatever it is that I collect.
[1:22:06] Okay so let's talk about Coca Cola memorabilia that's a that's a good subject for this so I think in general if you have the choice between, things that are going to be meaningless to others after you die and things that have meaning to others after you die you should probably go for things that are more meaningful to others after you die so if you collect Coca Cola memorabilia, then when you die, what's going to happen to them? I mean, if you collect first edition comic books, you know, or whatever it is, then that's going to be of some value to other people after you die. Maybe you could sell them or collect them or they're going to gain in value and so on. I have a friend who used to flip houses and he got into, a house. He was telling me this story kind of broke my heart. He got into a house. Well, first of all, it had a lot of creepy sex stuff in it, but also, but also it had a massive final record collection.
[1:23:00] And this guy obviously had spent his entire life getting albums and storing them in pristine condition and so on. And then of course, it wasn't even worth going through. It all just got thrown out. Like it wasn't even worth going through looking for, you know, in these tens of thousands of albums or whatever, there was, there was no, it just all got thrown know. Of course, I've talked about another friend of mine who had an uncle who spent his decades of life going to collect every single butterfly in the known universe. And then when he died, he left this butterfly collection to my friend and it was just rotting in the basement. He'd called up a couple of places, but it wasn't, you know, he couldn't really ship it and they didn't really have any use for it. And so all of this stuff just was, it was a hassle. It was like a negative. It was like a problem. It was garbage to be disposed of.
[1:23:51] And so, in general, I think we should try to add to the value of the world as a whole. So, again, if you are collecting rare books that otherwise would completely vanish from society, obviously, I think you're doing some decent good and all of that. But if you are gathering a whole bunch of stuff that gives you some pleasure but then has no meaning to anyone else, it's not like you're doing anything immoral. It's not a violation of universally preferable behavior to collect useless things, but I would say that it probably is going to be healthier as a whole for you or others to focus on adding value that outlasts you rather than, spending value on things that are thrown out when you die and have no particular value or meaning for anyone else. And so I consider it a bit of a waste of time and life and energy and resources, like this guy spent his whole life gathering butterflies, the other guy spent his whole life collecting albums, and all just thrown out. They become an inconvenience to other people. And wouldn't you rather create things of value that, even if it's just children or, some sort of positive effect in the community or whatever it is, shouldn't you try to add to the sum and value and beauty and virtue of human life? Rather than just gathering a bunch of stuff that gets buried with you when you die.
[1:25:17] Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that that would be the case. If I'm thinking about the example of Coke memorabilia, I don't know that there's too many collectors out there, but I'm sure there's some. So you're right, it might be just a hassle to get rid of it. The effort might outweigh the value. If we're talking about first edition comic books um that has a little bit more cultural significance these could be people that are buying right now in the here and now and that might be their retirement plan right because when they're done they want to sell it and so they're not necessarily contributing anything of value by holding on to it uh but there is cultural value therefore something...
[1:25:55] No, no, sorry to interrupt I think they are contributing things of value by holding on of the comic books, which otherwise would have been destroyed. And I think they're doing, and one of the reasons we know that they're doing something of value is other people will pay for them. And it's not all about the money, but at least money shows that what you've done has some value to other people, as opposed to these butterflies or these records, which were just a hassle for people that nobody cared about.
[1:26:18] I agree. And I think about your work. I think about the future, you know, and I know that UPB and future civilizations might find your work very, very valuable.
[1:26:30] Oh, not "might."
[1:26:30] So much.
[1:26:31] Oh, no, they're not over here...
[1:26:34] They will. I'm absolutely certain of that. I am very conscious of that every day that I'm sort of laying down these tracks to the future that are going to be revisited over and over for thousands of years. So and you're part of that conversation now. So thank you for that, too.
[1:26:46] Right right so so somebody in the future might find it very valuable to have a collection of your works or your books or things of that nature and so you know you might be able to, they might pass away and they just say oh there's this old thumb drive that's got a terabyte of Stefan's work on it, this is a gold mine, right?
[1:27:05] Okay, but my my work is not going to fade away like that. I mean, I'm aware of that, I'm aware of that. So, but, so, anyway, so I think collecting... collecting and maintaining philosophy, I think, has great value as a whole, but you said you had a personal situation that you wanted to deal with?
[1:27:20] I did. I wanted to ask you real quick, though, why don't you think that your work will fade away? I mean, you had a collection on YouTube before it was deleted, but thankfully, you still maintain that collection and were able to upload it elsewhere. If you didn't have that, you'd be kind of boned, right? You wouldn't have any of that data, this archival data. So what do you mean when you say that it won't fade away? I think some episodes might get lost, right? Everything has lost things. What do you mean by that?
[1:27:48] I'm not sure what your question is, sorry.
[1:27:51] You said that your work won't fade away.
[1:27:53] Yeah, no, it won't for sure. I'm not, but are you asking me why it won't fade away?
[1:27:57] Oh yeah, yeah. I was just curious what your thoughts were.
[1:27:59] Because I get more and more right as time goes along. So when you have foundational principles that are true, valid, and accurate, then they're highly predictive. And so my work gets more and more valuable as time goes along because I'm more and more right. Right. So I put up a video many years ago about the problems with immigration into Ireland, and then that was taken down for a variety of reasons, blah, blah, blah. And so people will discover me as a whole because I am more and more right. And also I have solved the problem of secular ethics, which is the holy grail of philosophy. And people understand it. I've debated it countless times. I know it's absolutely true and valid. I've had professors of philosophy call in and tell me I'm wrong, and then they end up agreeing with me. So I've solved the problem of secular ethics. Now, that's going to take a long time to change the world. It's not like physics. Physics, because governments can use physics to create weapons, so physics has immediate value to governments.
[1:28:57] But UPB denies the moral legitimacy of hierarchical political powers, and it denies the use of aggression against children, as we were talking about earlier. So it's just going to take a long time. If you look at the first people who ever thought slavery was wrong, it took like over 200 years to actually end up to a large degree in general, reducing or default economic position around us. 200 years. So yeah, it's going to take a long time, but there is going to be an increasing fascination with my work over the years because I've solved the major problems of philosophy. We've done free will, determinism, we've done property rights, we've done rape, theft, assault, murder, universal ethics. So I've just solved these problems, again, with great help from the community. And also this technology has made it all the more worthwhile. And so there are people who become valuable later. J.S. Bach was almost completely forgotten until he was revived and so on. This is kind of common around the world. There was a guy who wrote a comic novel, I can't remember, it was a Confederacy of Dunces or something like that. He ended up killing himself because nobody wanted it. It may have been another one. And then he ended up willing to Pulitzer posthumously for it. So I know most foundationally what runs the world are moral principles. I have generated and disseminated the most foundational revolution in moral principles and moral ethics that history and philosophy has ever seen.
[1:30:19] I mean, there's things I don't do well. That's one I do very well. And as society moves forward and it gets more and more lost, it's going to need more and more maps to get to a better place. And people, of course, have been telling me I'm wrong, but events in the world have proven me more and more right as I move forward. So that fascination and that interest is only going to go forward. And then people will look back upon what it is that I'm doing and say, well, how could anyone have actually argued this?
[1:30:48] Like the guy who said you should wash your hands before, like if you're a surgeon, you should wash your hands before sticking it in people's innards and people like thought he was insane and they destroyed his life and so on. And now, of course, we look back and say like, how could anyone have actually argued this? It doesn't make any sense. So I view myself from 500 years in the future, looking back to say, look, I just have to survive the dunderheads that are around me. Not you, of course, or this lovely audience. I just have to survive the dunderheads around me, and eventually people will understand what it is that I'm talking about in a way that's not deeply weird and shocking.
[1:31:19] And I've seen that actually happen just over the course of the last 20 years. So one of the reasons I was attacked at the very beginning of my career, and very viciously and by a wide variety of big old media outlets, is because they considered me an evil cult leader for saying to people, you don't have to spend time with abusive family members, even if they are your parents. Go talk to them, but if they're unrelentingly abusive. You don't have to spend time with them. And this was like the worst thing in the world. And I was relentlessly attacked and dragged through the mud and blah, blah, blah. And you just got to grit your teeth and say, look, this is just the reactions of evildoers when their evils are revealed to them. And that's just the way that it is.
[1:31:56] And now people talk about going no contact and not being with abusive parents. It's mainstream. Like every time I see this article, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Of course, nobody goes back to apologize or we were wrong or anything like that. So things can go remarkably rapidly in some situations. But oh, yeah, I know for an absolute fact, if there's to be a future that's worthwhile, it is going to be founded on the work, that we've been doing as a community here for over 20 years, because this is non-aggression principle, universal property rights, free markets, and peaceful parenting. That's the only route forward to any kind of sustainable future. So if there is going to be a future worth living in, it's going to be founded among what we're doing here. And if there isn't going to be a future worth living, then there was never any chance anyway.
[1:32:41] Thank you. That's a great answer. And thank you for addressing that.
[1:32:45] Okay. Moral dilemma, right? So I collect, I'm a collector, right? I collect shiny cardboard. If you want to know the topic, it's like Pokemon cards.
[1:32:57] Okay, it's like shiny cardboard.
[1:32:59] Okay, shiny, shiny...
[1:33:00] All right.
[1:33:01] Shiny cardboard. And they're really hard to find lately. Anytime you go to the store, they're just gone. And there's one place that you can purchase these little boxes from, from this one outlet. It's a limited window, and it's unique. And so it's more valuable. it's more valuable than the traditional box that you would find in the store the same boxes, it's just this one's a little bit different comes with a little extras comes some extras or whatever uh market price is the same price of those two boxes if you go to the website and buy it, you can get it from this one website at a limited time 60 bucks you can go to the store get the same box it's not special 60 bucks, And I traded the one that I had that I got from that limited viewer, that limited website, whatever. I traded it with a buddy, a buddy at work. And the reason why we traded is because he was getting into the hobby and he was really excited. And I had two. So I said, hey, I'll trade you my special box for your regular box. We both paid the same price. It's the same exchange. This one is worth more. You don't have to open it if you don't want to. You can keep on. I don't care. Just give me the one that you got. I'll give you the special one. It'll be fun. We'll make a memory.
[1:34:17] So you're like a drug dealer.
[1:34:20] Yeah!
[1:34:20] Hey man! Free samples. Have a good time. Anyway, go on.
[1:34:25] Yeah. Yeah. Well, he didn't know about it. And I told him about it. He's like, oh, I got to get the next one. OK, sure. Yeah, whatever. We'll have a good time. It's fun. It's shiny cardboard. Now, the dilemma, right? So I gave him a more valuable box. He gave me the regular one. But out of the box that he gave me uh, one of the shiny cardboard that I got in there was was one of the most valuable of the set the set that the box was for and uh it's worth nominally, way more than the box itself the special box that I gave him and um, I I told him that uh you know I'll let you know what I get right because you would have gotten anything that's in there we traded cool You were up to it. I offered it. You took it. You got the bigger value at the time. It's all gambling. It's just a random chance. We don't know what's going to be in there. But the odds of getting card that I got, it's like one, like one and a half percent. So it was very, very, very, very unlikely. Now, my dilemma is that card's pretty valuable. And if I tell him that I got that card, he's going to feel a little put out because he's like, oh, man, maybe I shouldn't have traded. This is such an uncommon occurrence that, damn, that sucks. Maybe I should have held on to it. Maybe I shouldn't have made the trade. And I'm a really big fan of making memories and just kind of doing the right thing, and...
[1:35:53] Okay, sorry, I think I, I think I get the general idea, sorry to interrupt, but I think... so, so you traded a box with him and his box that he traded with you has something really valuable in it and you're not sure whether to tell him.
[1:36:06] Well, I want, I want to tell him but I also want to show him that I appreciate that he was open to the trade. Um, I want to, I want him to know that this couldn't have happened unless you were out for it. And yes, this was a very, very uncommon thing that could have and should have happened. And so...
[1:36:26] Okay, so again, I understand the general. So can you boil it down to a question?
[1:36:32] The question is... Should I show him any appreciation towards that in the form of exchanging value?
[1:36:42] Oh, no, no. You should set fire to all of it.
[1:36:45] Yeah?
[1:36:46] How old are you?
[1:36:48] I'm in my 30s.
[1:36:49] You're in your 30s. Are you married?
[1:36:52] I'm engaged.
[1:36:52] Okay. Congratulations. And are you planning on having kids?
[1:36:58] I am.
[1:36:59] Okay. Congratulations again. I think that's wonderful. So, I mean, my daughter was into Pokemon cards a little bit when she was younger. We actually did order one giant Pokemon card from amazon for her, she really enjoyed. And then of course she doesn't know where it is anymore because that's the nature of these sorts of things. So for how long have you been into Pokemon?
[1:37:20] Uh, as a child um I'd say...
[1:37:23] Okay so 20, 20 years plus right because you started as a kid?
[1:37:28] I played it for a little bit and then I stopped for about 15-20 years, so it's more recent to me than...there was a bit, there's a huge gap is what I'm trying to say.
[1:37:37] Okay. Do you play the game or do you just collect the cards.
[1:37:43] I do a little bit of playing, but nothing socially, just with my partner.
[1:37:48] And are your cards a financial investment or are they more recreational?
[1:37:56] So each set that comes out, I buy one from the special place and I hold on to it and I just keep it in a box. I'm going to keep that until I'm old... older. And then the other one I just open just for fun, just to see what's in there, just to see the cards and see the art and, and, kind of have... so a little bit of both.
[1:38:20] Okay so you don't play much.
[1:38:24] Correct.
[1:38:24] Because you can lose the cards, is that right, like if somebody else wins?
[1:38:28] No, you don't lose any cards. You just lose the game.
[1:38:31] Oh, okay, sorry, I thought that you if somebody else won you lost the cards. Okay, so you don't play very much, and your fiancé plays, is that right?
[1:38:39] Sometimes.
[1:38:41] And is she the person who got you back into the game?
[1:38:45] No, but I'm the one who got her into it.
[1:38:48] Okay, so you hadn't played for like 15 years, and then you revived your interest in the game to play with your girlfriend or fiancé, is that right?
[1:38:58] I said, yeah, we're here at the store, I saw a pack of cards, let's go grab it, let's see what's inside. Oh, that's cool and just kind of carried that through.
[1:39:06] And how much money do you think you've spent over the years on Pokemon?
[1:39:11] Uh, for investment purposes, or just for opening?
[1:39:13] No just...
[1:39:14] 'cause...
[1:39:15] ... in total.
[1:39:16] Oh, in total? um, probably about $5,000.
[1:39:24] Okay. And how much time do you think you've spent roughly on Pokemon research, buying, playing, collecting, organizing, talking about, and so on?
[1:39:36] For the special sets, it's usually about once a month that I'll make that order. I'm sorry, not once a month, once every two months.
[1:39:43] No, I just need it. I don't need every individual breakdown. I mean, would you say 500 hours, 1,000 hours, less, more?
[1:39:50] Oh, gosh, I don't know. It's less than an hour a day. it's it's not even it's not even some days it's it's uh maybe like once or twice a week I don't know if I can boil it down to a minute, sorry I don't know what you mean by a minute I I I can't tell you how long I'm sorry I just don't know I'm not I'm not obsessed with it but um it's just it's just something that I do for investing and just for fun.
[1:40:11] So like three hours a week.
[1:40:14] Probably less.
[1:40:15] Two hours a week.
[1:40:17] Yeah, one to two, I'd say.
[1:40:19] Okay. All right. So it's very much a semi-inconsequential hobby that may or may not have value in the future. Is that right?
[1:40:30] I think with the sealed things that I have, they will have value in the future. They have value now. I've not really found anything that is a better investment in terms of cost to output.
[1:40:41] So you've never found a better investment?
[1:40:45] Yeah.
[1:40:45] Have you heard of Bitcoin?
[1:40:48] I have.
[1:40:49] I mean, if you put your $5,000 into Bitcoin back in the day, you'd be a multimillionaire.
[1:40:54] Yeah, hindsight's 20-20. I don't know what to say about that. Well, what I can say is, and I'm not trying to sell it to you, but what I can say is the moment you place the order on the special website or the special box, the value immediately is triple. And so the moment you make that order, it's already worth three times as much. And so-
[1:41:13] I'm sorry, I know enough about economics to know that that can't possibly be true, because then every investor would simply be tripling their money every day by ordering these boxes.
[1:41:23] Well, they're only available once every few months within a limited window, and we're talking about an hour or two.
[1:41:30] Okay, so it's a very rare thing and so on. But, I mean, you would just put $10,000 in and you'd get $30,000 out every couple of months and you'd be making a fortune.
[1:41:43] No, you can only buy one or two at a time, they limit it.
[1:41:46] Okay, so it's not a good investment opportunity if you can only buy one or two every couple of months.
[1:41:53] It's a low risk, high reward.
[1:41:55] Okay, so how much money do you invest? How much money do you spend on these things every couple of months?
[1:42:01] Well, I would say every couple of months, it's only about $60 for the box.
[1:42:05] So then you get, so you invest $60 and then it's worth $180. Is that right? Like three times?
[1:42:11] By time you place the order, the pre-order, and by time it arrives, yeah, it's worth three times as much.
[1:42:16] Okay, so every couple of months, you get to make $120.
[1:42:22] Immediately realized, in the moment, yes, future value as they're sitting there, as they go out of print, that value only goes up.
[1:42:32] Okay, let's say it triples and you make $360 every couple of months.
[1:42:38] Okay.
[1:42:39] I'm just telling you, it's not a very good investment vehicle. I mean, you can do it for fun or whatever, but if you're going to try and tell me, like I've been studying economics and investment for decades. And if you're saying I have the potential to make, you know, $500 a year or $1,000 a year, that's not much.
[1:43:00] You don't feel that tripling your investment at the point of purchase isn't a good decision?
[1:43:07] $6,000! $60,000! Yeah, you're talking some serious money. But if you take $60 and turn it into $180 potentially, yeah, that's not much. I need you to raise your sights a little bit here, right?
[1:43:24] Okay. Are you familiar with the original set of Pokemon, for example? The original set that came out.
[1:43:31] I have no idea what what that even means. I assume, that the first cards that came out?
[1:43:35] Sure.
[1:43:35] Yeah but that's like, that's like the first edition of Superman, right? Like, they're very rare.
[1:43:40] Well right right but that carries through the sets right um immediate value, at the point of purchase isn't much but over time you can expect it to increase.
[1:43:53] Okay. Well, I'm, if... you know the world better than I do. So with regards to your friend, I mean, if you exchange lottery tickets and you win the lottery, I mean, I guess you could give him a bit of money or something like that. But he had the better opportunity. And you also have to think with regards to your friend, if the situation had been reversed, what would you do? Like, I remember there was a bank manager. I actually, sorry, the manager of a bunch of banks I interviewed him many years ago on the show, wrote a great book about the housing crash.
[1:44:24] And he was in a bank and one of the customers of the bank had called and said you know you got to reduce my mortgage man because my house is worth less than I paid for it this is during the housing crash right I bought the house for a million dollars it's only worth five hundred thousand dollars you've got to cut my mortgage and he picked up the phone and he said listen man, if your house had gone from a million dollars to two million dollars, would you be giving us a cut of the profit? And he said, well, no, because everybody knew you don't sit there and say, oh, Mr. Bank, man, I've made a bunch of money on this house. Let me give you some part of those profits, right? People just take the money and run giggling into the hills and buy leprechaun feet or something like that. And so he said, look, so the fact that you wouldn't give us any profit if you made money on the house, we're not going to take a loss if you lose money on the house, right? Because that's sort of fair, right? It would go both ways. So with your friend, you can, of course, give him some other valuable card to make up for it. If you believe, and maybe it's the case, that your friend would do the same for you. If your friend would be like, you know, sucks to be you, I got a great card, then I wouldn't necessarily, I'm not saying that he would and probably wouldn't. But if you want to share some of your good fortune, let's say you have a card that's worth $500 and you have another card that's worth $50, you can give him the card that's worth $50 so that he doesn't feel so bad or something like that, right?
[1:45:43] But, you know, people take their chances in life. And if you've swapped lottery tickets and you've won the lottery, you can give him a bit of money if you want, but there's no absolute requirement for it. And of course, you can ask him, what would you do? And you could ask him ahead of time if you want. You you do if there was a really valuable card in the one I gave to you? What would you do, right? And if you're like, oh, I'd keep it, you know, I'd be excited. Like, well, there's your answer. If he's like, oh, I'd share the fortune with you. It's like, there's your answer. So you can ask those kinds of questions because reciprocity is key in relationships.
[1:46:19] Yeah, I agree with that. And I think exchanging the value for the value of, you know, just doing the trade and everything, it feels like, you know, kind of like the right thing to do just because it was such a rare occurrence. And I was really just curious, again, I mean, you already told me, but I was just curious on your thoughts about that.
[1:46:37] All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And in general, I would say don't look for making a couple of hundred bucks every couple of months, potentially, as a big win financially. I generally think it's probably worth, especially if you're relatively young, taking a few more risks than that.
[1:46:53] All right. Last caller tonight. If you want to spit your syllables, I will attempt to catch or admit them.
[1:47:03] Hey there, Stef.
[1:47:04] Hello.
[1:47:07] I've talked to you once before in a private call. I had some problems with my wife, and man, you nailed it. Unbelievably helpful. Anyone who's listening, who's thinking about maybe calling in, do it. He's cheaper than a therapist and more accurate. That's my preamble.
[1:47:24] And a lovely preamble it is. Thank you so much. Nice to chat with you again. And yeah, call.freedomain.com. If you want to set up public or private calls with me, I would love to chat. And yes, I will, with all due humility, say, I think I do some pretty fine work.
[1:47:39] Yes, absolutely. And on your original topic about the Karmelo-Anthony trial, I've got sort of a philosophical or personal question, which is that there are these people in society who are willing to break societal rules, antisocial behavior, think of, you know, playing loud music in public. And if you are to confront them and say, hey, turn your music down, they might stab you in the heart.
[1:48:07] So I acknowledge that. That's real. But how do we build a society? How do we maintain social structure if we can't confront these people? And from a personal angle, this just happened about a week ago to me where I was, I mean, I'm from a small town in the Midwest. I was at a grocery store and there was a group of black, I wouldn't say teenagers. There's maybe 20, maybe six of them men and women arguing loudly in an aisle, and I needed to get to the milk. And I was in my head like, do I just say, excuse me? You know, treat them like normal people and get to the milk? Or is that taking my life into my own hands? Do I just, you know, wait a while, do my other shopping, and then come back for the milk later? Or do I do the Karen thing? And I don't think Karen's giving credit for enforcing societal norms. I'm saying, hey, you're being rowdy in a public place, calm down! Um, I guess I'm just looking for a practical solution for how I should act, and a philosophical solution, which I guess are the same thing.
[1:49:11] Sure.
[1:49:12] What do you do?
[1:49:13] Well, it's not your property, it's not your store, so... no, regardless of the race, you know, if there's people having some sort of violent or aggressive altercation,in a store, I say, okay, I play things out of my head just as a habit. And I sort of say, okay, what's the cost benefit here? And I'll sort of give you a silly example. So every now and then I come across a diving board. They're increasingly rare for probably legal liability reasons or something like that. But when I was a kid, diving boards were everywhere. And I used to do these great double flip dives when I was on the swim team, the water polo team, and I would go diving and so on. And every now and then I've thought, wouldn't it be cool to do one of those again? Right. And I do this sort of cost benefit analysis, right? And I'm like, oh, you know, oof. I mean, it would be minorly cool to do something I haven't done since I was a teenager, and I'm sure I have the muscle memory and so on. But then I think, okay, but what if I go a little too far, my legs flip over, my back twists, or, you know, what if something, right? What if something happens? Then I would look back and I would say, that was stupid.
[1:50:23] Like I saw this guy on X the other day, he posted a picture of himself doing this with a loud gun by his head. And he said, I popped off some fake gun for some video I never even posted. And that's given me tinnitus for the last decade or something like that. And now it's just doubled in volume. And it's like, screw you, past self, you're an idiot, you know, for this sort of stuff. And so the sort of cost benefit stuff, like, I think it was a couple of months ago. No, sorry, it was late last fall. My daughter was sprinting. And I thought, you know what? I haven't sprinted in a while. Let me just go full tilt. And I got myself, I was a very fast runner when I was younger and I was able to sprint, no problems and all of that because I try to keep myself relatively in shape, but I hadn't gone full tilt in a while. And so, you know, I'm happy that I can still sprint, you know, I'll probably try to do it a couple of more times, but at some point you get that sort of lumbering Leslie Nielsen run where you just can't sprint or whatever it is.
[1:51:21] So, I got to enjoy it. Hang on, let me finish. Let me finish. I'll enjoy it. I'll enjoy it while I can. it. So sort of the cost benefit stuff in life is important. There was an old Mad Magazine article or like cartoon where the guy's wife says, oh, there's a nickel on the sidewalk. You should pick it up. And he's like, it's a nickel. And she's like, a nickel is a nickel. Pick it up. This is back when a nickel was, I don't know, like 50 cents or something. Anyway, so the next thing is he's in traction because he hurt his back or something picking up the nickel. And the doctor says, this is going to be very expensive. And he says, oh it's fine doc my my wife can give you a nickel as a down payment like the sort of cost benefit like you now end up with thousands of dollars in health care bills and significant discomfort for the sake of a nickel right there's cost benefit things you've got to do in life.
[1:52:09] As a whole so I was out with my daughter and friend of hers my wife and we went to a zipline place where you go and and we had zipline races right we had zipline races where you you you in a in a play center, you zip and you go back and forth really, really fast. And we had these races, you go back and forth six times and so on. And after like six times, they're like, let's do more. And I'm like, cost benefit. It's a little, a little squeaky. And you know, my wrist is a little sore from all of that because it's not exactly a usual motion of mine. And we did this other one where you sort of fly around, you hang on, you jump from place to place. I was able to do that and all of that, but there's sort of a cost benefit thing. So, It's not your store. It's not your job to enforce. Leave that to the store owner who has far more familiarity with these people. Right. So not these people being black people, just these people being the neighborhood people. Right. So the store owner maybe knows these people. And if the store owner isn't intervening and he's got a lot more experience with this kind of stuff than you do, then I would defer to the store owner and say, OK, well, if the store owner isn't coming over and saying, hey, guys, you know, just relax and, you know, take it outside. If he's not intervening, even though it's not good for his store to have people arguing and yelling, I generally take local expertise over my own perceptions. So I look at the store owner, if he's not doing anything, then it's probably a good idea for you not to do anything. It's certainly not your job to enforce social standards in his store. That's his job to enforce those standards. And if he's not doing it, and he's got a lot more experience with rowdy customers than you do.
[1:53:36] You know, if there's some guy getting violent in the bar, and all the bouncers are slowly moving away, then that seems quite important. That's sort of important information to have, that he's probably quite a dangerous guy. If the bouncers don't want to take him on, you probably, you certainly don't want to take him on. So I would sit there and say, okay, so if I go and get my milk and there's no problems, then I've got my milk. Okay, whatever, right? So good. I guess you could say it was a good decision. However, if I go to get the milk and there's a problem, you know, somebody pushes me, I get caught by an elbow with somebody in an altercation and things get kind of chaotic and confusing and so on, then what I'm going to do, if they end up with significant problems, is they're going to say, well, that two liters of bilk really, really wasn't worth it now, was it?
[1:54:23] And so you've got to do that kind of cost-benefit stuff when it comes to, whether it's worth it or not because it's not a moral obligation. If you've got home invaders like then you've got to do something to deal with the home invaders because that's not an optional situation, but the cost benefit is really really important when you're in an amoral situation where you don't have a moral obligation, to deal with people then it is really important to do that cost benefit calculation, if your kid, your kid in the baby carriage is on the other side of the fighting people then you're probably gonna have to go through and get your kid in the baby carriage, but a jug of milk ain't that. And so generally I would say if the local person's not dealing with it and the milk's not that important, I'm doing a do-si-do moonwalking back out through the front entrance and go find my milk somewhere else or do without if that makes sense.
[1:55:14] Oh yeah absolutely I think the cost benefit for myself personally is clear like you know don't don't mess with that but at what point how do you factor in the cost benefit for your community as a whole. Like at some point, someone has to step in and it's a small town, once again, where the store owner is going to be a guy just like me with the same question. How do we weigh the cost-benefit for society, for culture, compared to our own personal safety?
[1:55:41] Well, let me ask you this. How many people in your small town took the vaccine, the COVID one?
[1:55:50] I have no idea. Um, probably less than the general population just being out in the country.
[1:55:56] Okay and uh I won't ask you any of your medical questions but were you pro or skeptical of the vaccine?
[1:56:05] Incredibly skeptical.
[1:56:06] Okay.
[1:56:07] I'm a long time listener.
[1:56:08] All right, and I don't want to assume, right? So, if you're skeptical of the vaccine, how did your conversations go with people in your community about the vaccine?
[1:56:19] Good point. Good point. Okay, we can talk it through. Not good. They were not open to skepticism. They were not interested in building a community in that way around logic, reason, and open dialogue. They were more interested in pushing ideology or what they heard on the news. I guess you're saying if they're not willing to go to bat for me, why should I go to bat for them?
[1:56:46] Not willing to go to bat for you? Did they want you fired for not taking the vax?
[1:56:54] I know... it's never ended up in that situation, but some of them probably, yes.
[1:57:00] Did you face any social ostracism for not taking the vax?
[1:57:04] Yes.
[1:57:05] Did anyone come up to you and apologize after it turned out that you had some pretty good arguments about the vax?
[1:57:13] Not once. Nobody ever.
[1:57:15] Well, then good luck, community. Until you're willing to apologize for standing on our fucking necks during COVID, y'all can take a long walk off a short pier, and I'm not doing shit for community standards.
[1:57:31] Oh. I recognize that makes sense. I hate that answer, though. Like, how do we have community? Well, I guess they decided that already. Oh.
[1:57:39] Hey, I'm happy for community, but people got to actually have community. And if people are just like, yeah, you shouldn't be allowed to travel. If you, you can't have a job, if you don't take this experimental, DNA, mRNA, mystery joy juice, even though they've completely shielded themselves from liability, they won't release the data, and they never even tested for transmissibility.
[1:58:07] And if people just like swallowed the propaganda, good luck, everybody. I got to tell you, I loved all of that stuff. I can't even tell you how much it released me from responsibility to fix society. Oh, I didn't love COVID. I didn't love the vaccine, to put it mildly. But the fact that everyone was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, you should totally not be able to travel in society. You shouldn't be able to buy groceries in some places. You shouldn't be able to travel. You know, in Canada, they were locking you out of leaving the country, locking you out of buses, trains, planes.
[1:58:46] There's some places where you couldn't go to big box stores and you had to try and survive on the kind of grocery offal that they serve at gas stations. And, you know, and everybody was most, for the most part, just cheering along. Now, Canada did have a very successful trucker convoy that kind of broke the back of the government as far as that went. So, you know, more props to that. And I look for fellow freedom lovers. Society as a whole can go pound sand, as my old friend from the army used to say, go pound sand, which is, you know, like if you're hitting the wrong target, you're just pounding sand in the desert. You're not hitting. So yeah, society as a whole, I mean, and for me in particular, and maybe this matters to you as somebody who's listened to me for a long time, for me in particular, I tried my very best to bring absolute rational and healthy truths to society. And society mostly ganged up and cheered on my deplatforming. And like even my listeners, like three to 5% of them followed me one website over. The rest couldn't really be bothered. And that's fine. I actually am very relieved for all of that. I'm very relieved for all of that, because it means that I don't continue to have to put my life in harm's way. Like I was speaking under bomb threats, death threats, you name it, right? Being chased all over the city by leftist lunatics in Australia and other places.
[2:00:05] So when people turned out to not really give a shit about what I was doing, thank you all so much. My life has been a joyous, giant steps of what you take walking on the moon do-si-do up to the lower atmosphere to see the sunset half an hour after everyone else saw it. it's just been a beautiful experience. So I hear what you're saying. Hey, community standards. Absolutely. The moment that society comes to me and says, oh, you know, we're real sorry. Like, I don't know if you've been following the SPLC stuff, but they funded a lot of the Charlottesville stuff. They've been sending money to the KKK, like literally funding the people that they claim to be fighting. It's just the most wretched thing in the world. Now, if the media says, oh, you know, we believed all these terrible things that were said about you. It turns out the people who some of the people who said this kind of stuff are pretty sketchy to put it mildly themselves. Hey, the moment that society is like, I think we kind of got it wrong and, you know, we're all sorry and all of that. Hey, I'm back, man. I'm manning the ramparts. I'm doing all the good things. But society, you know, if society doesn't even work a tiny bit to protect its truth tellers or at least give respect to the truth tellers after it's been proven that they were telling the truth and taking a lot of bullets thereby, if society wants people to uphold their standards, if they want us brave moral warriors on the front lines taking the bullets, they better give us a little fucking respect or they can go pound sand.
[2:01:32] Yeah, I like that answer. That's good. Is it possible that society can be a smaller group? Like, can I reach out to the store owner, reach out to my neighbors and establish, we're going to enforce these rules and then enforce them?
[2:01:52] Sorry, I just missed that. You reach out to the store owner and say, what?
[2:01:57] I mean, I guess, because I don't know the man personally. I don't know his his take on COVID or anything else I don't know who he is but if I were to and find out he's aligned with me...
[2:02:08] No, no, hang on, sorry, sorry to interrupt, I'm sorry, I apologize for being rude. We're not talking about the store owner other than we know that he doesn't want to enforce those rules. So if the store owner doesn't want to enforce the rules that's his that's on him. It's not your job to enforce his rules in his store. We're talking about, because I thought we were talking about not the store owner in particular, but society as a whole, so, social standards as a whole.
[2:02:34] And you tell me. You tell me, what in your society you're going to go and risk your life to defend? That's an interesting question. I don't have the answer to it. I know I'm not going to go get Charlie Kirked for the sake of people who can't even bother to follow me one website over. You know, my viewership crashed. My income crashed. Deplatforming worked not because of the people who deplatformed me, but because all of the lazy people, who, oh, Stef, yeah, you know, he's a real noble warrior for truth. Oh, man, did he go one website over? Do I have to type in a different website? I mean, even my podcast feed stayed the same, right? So, deplatforming worked because people are too fucking lazy to go one website over and give me that kind of support. That's not on the people who deplatformed me. That's on the audience. Now, most people are happy to castigate me. A few people were willing to support me, and very few people were willing to support me when I went one website over. And again, I know this sounds, oh, he's so bitter. It's like, no, no, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[2:03:43] Because it's sort of like the people who, the World War I soldiers, you know, some soldiers were sent out on missions the morning of November the 11th, 1918. They were sent out on missions, knowing that the war was over, the former declaration of peace had not yet occurred. I mean, those people were, I mean, they've every reason to be completely pissed at that whole situation because they're being sent to wounding or death for no reason. The war's already over. It's just that it hasn't officially ceased hostilities.
[2:04:14] And so I was like putting life and limb on the line. I was a absolute warrior in the sights of truly psychotic enemies. And when people are like, we don't care about this war. I'm like, oh, thank God. Oh, thank God. I could go and write my novels. I can go and have my call-in shows. I can go and enjoy myself because I'm not a big one for, you know, putting myself. I don't get off on putting myself in harm's way. Some people are kind of sadistic or masochistic that way or whatever. And I have responsibilities outside of the show, of course.
[2:04:49] So when people are like, what are you fighting for? We don't even care about this fight. I'm like, oh, thank God. I thought I was fighting for everyone. It turns out people don't really give a shit. And so I can focus on what's best for me, my friends, my local community, my family, and so on, and have lovely conversations like this. But putting myself in the danger zone for people who can't even be bothered to go one website over like my de-platforming could have done the exact opposite it could have totally strisand affected me right I could have gone even to the the very top and so on right like Joe Rogan had me on like three times and then he gets one bitchy set of comments from Ana Kasparian and then he completely turns on me in a really bitchy sucker punch kind of way hey come down man I'll have a great show and then he got all the stuff queued up to get me and it's just it's just sad and pitiful but he's such a cuck. What did he marry a single mom? It's really sad. So, yeah. So as far as that goes, hey, if you can find me this community as a whole that's worth fighting for, I'd be thrilled. But society as a whole is filled of people who either stab you in the back or step over your body because there's a nickel on the other side of you. See how I tied all that together? Sorry, go ahead.
[2:05:58] Very good, very good. So follow that question up, I guess, to give you more context. I'm in Minnesota. I'm sure you've heard about Minnesota. I fled from the cities which have a large growing population of Somalians and Muslims. And I moved up to the country to escape that, to escape the crime and the degradation. And even without them trying to conquer, I don't know if they're trying, they're probably trying to conquer, but their birth rates are just very high. So they're going to spread. At what point do I stay where I am and try to push back or do I just move to another state and continue to run? And will that just follow me?
[2:06:36] Yeah, I don't... Look, honestly, I'm a moral philosopher. So as far as like practical, dealing with these kinds of issues, I mean, I don't have any particular. I'm sorry. It would be like if you asked me a medical question because it's not a moral philosophy question. That's sort of a practical life question. So I don't, you know, there's nothing that any particular individual can do about these kind of sweeping social changes.
[2:07:04] I mean, people to a large degree voted Trump in to try and deal with some of these large sweeping social issues. And I mean, sort of look what happened, the quote, most powerful man in the world. So the powerful do what they want and everybody else just tries to dodge the feet of the dinosaurs as a whole. So I can't tell you practically what you should do with regards to these sweeping social changes. But I will tell you that you can't. You can't will... I mean, if you talk about, you know, topics of ethnicity and religion with people, mostly they don't want to talk about it. And maybe they're right. Maybe I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. Maybe they're right. But you and I can't change these kinds of things. Lord knows. I did give a shot trying to deal with broader social issues. And I was very easy to de-platform and nobody wanted to follow me over. And again, I know this sounds like, oh, it's so bad. It's so bad. It's like, nope, it is not at all. I'm incredibly thankful and very happy to be out of that fight, because it turns out I was taking bullets for people who didn't care. And that is not a wise thing to do as a whole.
[2:08:09] So sorry, Richard, I have to stop here. I've already done three call-in shows today and then this show. So I am a little fried and I'm going to go and relax and spend some time with family and recharge.
[2:08:21] So, freedomain.com/donate. Please, please, please help out the show. Still trying to recover financially from the de-platforming stuff. It's a while ago now, but it really does have a big effect. So, freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Shop.freedomain.com for your tasty merch and freedomain.com/books. You can get physical copies of my books now, suitable for non-de-platforming. And last but not least, peacefulparenting.com to share that. I would really appreciate that. Have yourself a lovely, lovely night. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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