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Good to see you, sir. Oh, so good to see

you.

>> What's happening? How you been?

Doing great. Got big news. I'll talk

big, very big. Before I start with that

Okay.

drops

the book

Suicidal Empathy. A quote that we use

all the time. That's right. Yeah, it is

it is a good quote and it is a very

accurate quote for the times. I like

this where they're carrying a sign, free

the wolves.

The lamb is carrying [snorts] Well, I

wanted the the cover to be as evocative

as the the concept, right? Dying to be

kind.

>> There you go.

And they are just in the last two days

there have been so many new cases of

suicidal empathy that I regret that I

couldn't include them in the book.

Like which ones? So, did you hear about

the one where the the guy who tried to

assassinate President Trump?

>> Oh, yeah.

>> The judge then went and said, I am so

sorry that you know, you're not being

treated nicely. You have a

a room without a window. This is just

it's mean. Oh, see I don't think that

that's suicidal empathy at all. I think

that's signaling.

I think that's signaling that he wishes

that that man was successful and that he

supports his endeavor.

Fair enough. The second example actually

today Dave Rubin shared it with me. It

was the one where a felon of color who

had just been released ended up pushing

right? And and the the previous person

that he had been entangled with didn't

want to whatever press charges because

she didn't want another black man to be

in prison.

>> Oh, boy. So, uh Boy, boy, boy, boy. So,

we can So, I hope we to get into the

book in a second, but the other big news

is that this past year I've been a

visiting scholar at Old Miss,

uh

University of Mississippi. I had taken a

two-year leave from my school at in

Montreal.

Starting this

uh summer, we are moving permanently to

Oxford. So, the Lebanese Jews Canadians

are going down to Oxford, Mississippi,

and we're very excited.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah, yeah. Um so, you're going to be

there for 2 years? So, how does that

work? Do you get a green

>> years. green card or a visa?

>> the the previous 2 years that I did, it

was a leave of absence. So, I didn't I I

only had to get a TN visa. But now that

we're moving,

uh we're I applied for an EB-1A visa,

which gets you a green card. It's one of

They're called extraordinary visas. Mhm.

>> You have to pass certain criteria to

them.

>> extraordinary, aren't you? And rather

easy on the eyes.

>> [laughter]

>> And so, uh and so, that went through,

thank God. And so, yeah. So, we're very

>> Congratulations.

>> Yeah, yeah. So, and hopefully this will

be a fast track to

My inner spirit is American, but maybe

we can legalize it and turn turn the

Saads into Americans. Wow. You're going

to join You're going to join the team.

All right. If If you'll have me.

>> Ah, we'll have you. Come on. Welcome

aboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> more people that are thinking straight.

>> So, that's the big news. But

>> That's awesome, man. Congratulations.

That's a fantastic thing. That's

beautiful. Do you want to get into the

book and then we talk about other stuff?

>> Sure. Whatever.

>> So, I I thought maybe I'd give you

because I I know that you know The

Parasitic Mind really well. And so, I

wanted to kind of contextualize this

book in relation to that book.

>> Mhm.

So, we are a thinking and a feeling

animal,

right? Both our cognitive system is

important and our affective system is

important. For example,

uh advertisers recognize that. If I'm

trying to sell you a mutual fund, I need

to engage your cognitive system. Here

are the seven reasons why you should buy

my mutual fund. If I'm trying to sell

you perfume, I don't tell you this is

what Harvard physiologists think about

the science of olfaction, right? I need

to engage your affective system. So, in

that case,

I will show you a pretty girl on a horse

with beautiful hair, and the the brand

name will be Mystere, right? I'm just

engaging your emotional system.

Well, The Parasitic Mind was the story

of what I need to do to hijack your

cognitive system, your your your ability

to think rationally. And hence, there

were all these parasitic ideas that

destroyed your capacity to think. But,

for me to completely zombify you and

hijack you, I also need to zombify your

affective system. That's where social

empathy comes in. So, if I can hijack

both your cognitive and emotional

systems,

you become a wood cricket, which we

could talk about what that reference is,

if you want.

>> What's a wood cricket? So, the wood

cricket is a an an insect that abhors

water. It wants nothing to do with

water. But, when it is parasitized by a

neuro parasite called the brain hair

worm,

>> Oh, I've seen this.

>> Right? The hair worm needs the wood

cricket to happily and merrily commit

suicide by jumping into the water,

because that's the only way that the

hair worm

can complete its reproductive cycle. So,

once the hair worm hijacks the the wood

cricket's ability to think and to invoke

its survival instinct, it erases its

survival instinct, then it is owned by

the hair worm. And so, I use that

principle to explain social empathy.

Yeah, we've actually shown videos of

that. It's very strange. The cricket

really commits suicide. It jumps in the

water, drowns, and the worm wiggles out

of its body. Exactly. And that's how

it's born. Exactly. And And So many

There's so many cases of that in nature.

Indeed. Yeah. And so, the way that I had

originally had the epiphany to use the

parasitological framework

So parasitology is this is just the

study of host parasite interactions. So

a tapeworm is a parasite but that

parasitizes my intestinal tract. But a

subfield of parasitology is neural

parasitology. Those are the parasites

that need to go into your brain altering

your circuitry to suit their interest.

Including ideas.

>> And that's how I came up with the

parasitic ideas of the parasitic mind.

But

in order to fully tell the story I then

have to say but but a lot of the the

mechanisms by which people seem to be

completely hijacked in terms of their

ability to think critically is really

coming from an affective place. And so

how can I explain that? And so what I

argue in the book and then we we can

drill down to endless examples if you

want.

I'm not saying

that empathy is a bad thing cuz even

though the book is just dropping there's

already been maybe 10 articles that have

been hit pieces against the book which

of course people that means people

haven't read it yet where they say you

know here comes the the dark Jew who is

trying to promulgate the idea that

empathy is a bad thing. He's a neocon

right-wing guy an Elon guy a Donald

Trump Trump Donald Trump guy. I'm I'm

not saying that empathy is bad. Empathy

is actually a very important virtue to

have in order for you and I to have a

meaningful conversation I need to put

myself in your mind and vice versa.

That's called cognitive empathy. Right?

Theory of mind is something that

typically autistic children fail on very

early in life. That's how you diagnose

them as being autistic. So there's

nothing wrong with well-modulated

empathy. The problem with empathy like

most things in life is if there's too

little or too much of it.

Aristotle explained this to us

thousands of years ago via his golden

mean. If if a soldier is not courageous

enough, if he's cowardly, it's not good.

If he's too courageous, he becomes a

reckless martyr, that's not good.

There's a sweet pot spot in the middle.

I argue empathy follows exactly that

rule. Too little of it, you're a

psychopath. Too much of it, if it's

hyperactive, if it is invoked in the

wrong situations, toward the wrong

targets, you end up with societal

empathy. Yeah, I don't even necessarily

know if it's empathy at that point. It

It could

completely becomes illogical and

ideological.

You just subscribe to whatever the

ideology says, and you ignore the

reality. Like this man that pushed that

guy in front of the train. Right. Like

this is a violent criminal, and he had

been arrested numerous times. I think

more than a dozen. Right. And it was

very clear there's something very wrong

with this person. He probably shouldn't

be just running free, victimizing

people. There was another one where um

someone pushed this old guy down five

flights of stairs into the subway and

killed him. Yeah. Same situation. Same

kind of person. Person that had been in

and out of jail.

You know,

every one of these people starts off as

a child. Every one of these people

starts off as a baby. And I can only

imagine what kind of household they

developed in. I can only imagine what

kind of abuse they suffered. I can only

imagine what happened to them. And

that's horrible. But once they reach

adulthood, and they start victimizing

other people, we've got to do something

as a society.

>> Exactly. Now, I don't know what the

tools are to rehabilitate a person like

that, but I know that they're not being

employed.

Uh there's not a whole lot of evidence

of there's any successful program where

they're taking a person like that and

doing something with them that

completely changes their personality and

the way they interact with humans and

releases them out in the world and

become a much better person than they

used to be.

So, I call them In the book, I call them

blank slate felons, because if you

remember the term blank slate

it So, in the Parasitic Mind, I talk

about social constructivism. Everything

is a social construction. It's the

tabula rasa premise. We're born with

empty minds with with no individual

differences in our potentiality and it's

only our unique life trajectories

and our unique patterns of social

socialization that end up making us who

we become. Which in a small sense,

that's true. My life experience and

yours is an indelible part of who we are

as individuals. But there are individual

differences. That people are born with

different proclivities eventually of

committing crimes or of being NBA

players or of being the next Einstein.

It's a very hopeful message though to

start with the blank slate premise.

>> Yeah, it's just not accurate.

>> Exactly. Because it if you you and I are

both parents, I would love to subscribe

to the idea that if only I knew the

exact schedule of reinforcement of my

how to ensure that my child becomes the

next Lionel Messi or the next Albert

Einstein, he too can become that. That's

a lot more hopeful than thinking, you

know what? I don't think my son has the

morphological features that are ever

going to make make him to be the next

NBA star. He's too short. He doesn't

have the right athletic tools.

And so

it's it's easy to understand why people

can be parasitized by these ideas. This

this person of color

was born into a white supremacist

society. So, he's already been

victimized by society. And for you to

now punish him by having him, you know,

in the penal system, you're doubly

punishing him. So, shouldn't you give

him a second chance? And by second

chance, we mean 186 chance. That's part

of suicidal empathy. But suicidal

empathy doesn't even apply to only that.

The victims of rape are themselves are

suicidally empathetic towards their

rapist. Can I share some of those

incredible stories?

>> Sure. Uh

So, I start off in the book with an

example from a Norwegian man who had

been sodomized by a Somali migrant.

Uh because the Norwegians are very kind

and empathetic, they don't believe in

long sentences. He served maybe, I don't

know, 3 years or 4. Like a pretty short

sentence for a rape of another man.

When he was being released, he was going

to be deported, the victim of that rape

had this huge existential

angst and guilt

because now that, you know, Ahmed was

going to be released back to Mogadishu,

he wouldn't end up being able to

maximally flourish that like he should

be. Well, our emotional system did not

evolve to be empathetic toward our

rapist. That would be an example of

someone who's being suicidally

empathetic. Another great example,

uh What happened in that case?

Uh what in in terms of whether he was

deported or not? I think I don't want to

misspeak, but I think he was deported to

the screams and lamentations of his

victim. of the his victim. Uh there is a

woman who was raped in Germany, and when

the authorities were trying to find out

more about who the perpetrators were,

she lied to them and said that they were

uh speaking in German even though they

were speaking in Arabic and Farsi

because if she had truly said what their

language was, then those communities

would have been marginalized.

>> Ugh. So, and you So, you know, there's

just an endless number of like a litany

of these examples.

And therefore, suicidal empathy is is

really pervasive once you [snorts] I

could recognize the mechanism.

>> But, when you look at the root of that,

how do How is it so common? Like, what

what happens?

>> So, I think that That's a great

question. I think again it goes back to

the one-two punch of parasitic mind and

suicidal empathy.

In order for the fertile grounds to be

available for suicidal empathy to barge

in, I first have to have certain ideas

that are implanted in your brain. So,

let me give That sounds very abstract,

so let me give you a concrete example.

Cultural relativism

is a parasitic idea that I discuss in

The Parasitic Mind. It basically says,

"Who are you to judge the beliefs and

the practices of another culture? Shut

up, racist." Right? So, there are honor

killings, shut up. There are

child brides, shut up. There are female

genital mutilations, shut up. Don't

judge other cultures. Well, if you

internalize that parasitic idea that it

is not appropriate to ever judge the

cultural practices of another culture,

then that renders you impotent

when you're making judgments about who

should be let into your country, about

whether you want an increase of people

who hold those views or not.

That Therefore, that leads to the

suicidally empathetic position that all

immigrants are equally likely to

assimilate within the American ethos or

the Western ethos. So, we started off

with internalizing a parasitic idea

called cultural relativism, and that

lays the foundation for then the

suicidal empathy of open borders.

Well, there's no pressure at all to

assimilate. You're more than welcome

What That's one of the weird things.

You're more than welcome to establish a

Somali community in Minnesota, where no

one speaks English. Exactly. You know,

it's it's very odd. It's very odd that

people want to come here, but when they

come here, they want to essentially turn

it into a smaller version, at least

their neighborhood, of where they came

from. Right. And a lot I mean, if it

were only that you don't speak English,

I mean, to me that's bad enough in that

you're not going to be part of the

fabric of the greater society, but fair

enough, that's not an existential

threat. But if you're then going to be

advocating for many of the

cultural beliefs that are perfectly

antithetical to the whole society, then

we have a problem. Yeah, and a lot of

the cultural beliefs that are illogical,

they have to be based on something else,

and generally that's religion. Indeed.

Yeah.

>> Uh and you and I have talked, you know,

very often about, you know, Islam and so

on.

Some people I think I mean I wonder what

you think about this. Do you Do you

think more Americans are willing to have

a honest and open conversation about

this issue, or are most still sort of

the proverbial ostrich,

and they think it's gauche to talk about

religion? Well, I I think it's really

divided in party lines. You know, people

on the right are more than willing to

talk about it. There's very few people

on the right who are empathetic about

some of the

differences that these religions have

and hold, and some of the rules that

they would like to apply, like Sharia

law.

Whereas there's a lot of people on the

left that are terrified of being called

racist.

Terrified of being called Islamophobic,

or, you know, fill in whatever phobia,

transphobic, whatever it is. They're

just terrified. They're terrified of

being labeled. And it's interesting

because that side of the political

spectrum, the the people on the left,

are the quickest to pull the trigger and

accuse someone of being something, being

racist, sexist, homophobic, whatever it

is.

They're They're the quickest and the

most vicious when it comes to attacking

people based on them not

not going along with whatever narrative

has been established, which is

interesting because

they're the ones that also like to call

people fascists. But that is a form of

fascism. It's not like If you look at

fascism, it's It's essentially most

people think of it as right-wing

authoritarianism.

But it is also, if you look at the

definition of it, it's also a complete

adherence to whatever narrative

is being promoted.

>> And you don't think about that when it's

left-wing, like left-wing progressive,

like left-wing progressive fascism

sounds like an oxymoron. But it's it's a

mindset. And [snorts] it's the the

problem is you're hiding this mindset in

an ideology that you think is righteous.

And this is you could say the same thing

about religion because this is also what

people do with religion because it is

the right thing. It's the right thing to

do. So, throw the gay off the roof. Like

that's like it's it's really kind of

fascinating. Like when you when you see

like queers for Palestine, you're like,

"Hold on." Like [laughter]

like it is a wonderful thing to

empathize for the Palestinian people and

to think that they shouldn't be bombed

into oblivion and I'm with you 100%. But

when you start supporting Hamas and

saying, you know, we're queers for

Hamas, like and I've seen that. I've

seen trans people for Hamas. And it's

like, "Good lord, what are you saying?"

>> So, I've got I've got a a whole verbatim

transcript between a street interviewer.

You know these guys that just

take someone off the street and they

tape it. Yes.

>> his name

Yeah, so

>> So, we were we just had a little

technical glitch. So, you were talking

about one of those guys that interviews

people in the street.

>> So, he he goes and intercepts this woman

who's at a I guess like a you know, free

free Palestine

you know, rally.

>> Mhm. And he says, "Oh, you're you're for

Palestine?" She goes, "Yes." She goes,

"Well, what do you think about their

positions on you know, queer people?"

She goes, "Well, I'm queer." He goes,

"Oh, you're queer? So, what what do you

think about what they would do to you?"

She goes, "Well, they would kill me." He

goes, "But then you still support them?"

She goes, "Yes." He goes, "But it

doesn't bother you that you're

supporting a group that would kill you

for the way that you are?" She goes,

"No, the fact that they would kill me

doesn't mean that they don't deserve my

support." Well, that's the wood cricket,

right? I mean, there is no evolutionary

mechanism that says I'm going to build

an affiliation with a group that I know

would kill me. But, she is so kind,

she's so empathetic, she so transcends

the earthly survival instincts that she

has ascended to a higher plane of

suicidal empathy. So, it literally is

straight out of what you said. Uber Eats

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Right, but in that situation, what

they're doing is they're being motivated

by what they see as a complete

destruction of Gaza.

>> Right. So, it's it's a different

situation. Because if if that if like

there was no attacks on Gaza and Gaza

was its own,

you know, autonomous or completely

separate state, and it wasn't controlled

by Israel,

and there was no conflict, I doubt they

would have the same mindset. Like, the

mindset is coming out of watching the

destruction of Gaza. And so, then

instead of saying, "Hey, we shouldn't

just be bombing this city into oblivion

and supporting this,"

instead they go all the way and support

the ideology of the authoritarian rulers

of this area,

which is kind of kooky. Yeah. But it's

like it's but it's much like a religion.

It's a you can abandon all logic

as long as you adhere to and you you you

have to in fact if you want to be

accepted. And this is one of the the

things about the left is like there's

never someone left enough.

And when you think you're left enough,

they move the border. They move the

boundary lines. The goal posts are like

a mile further to the left. You're like,

"Oh god, I got to support drag queens

teaching kids now by themselves? No

parental supervision?" Twerking? It's

like

it just keeps getting nuttier and

nuttier to where any protest of it is

heresy. Yeah. And that's where it gets

very strange and it behaves in

completely like a religion.

>> Yeah.

Other examples of suicidal empathy, uh

so I tell I talk about in the book about

something I introduce as cultural theory

of mind. Right, so theory of mind is as

I discussed earlier, it's at the

individual level. For you and I to have

a meaningful conversation, I need to be

in your mind and vice versa.

>> Right. Cultural theory of mind is the

same principle, but it operates at the

cultural level. So, if culture A has a

set of values that it adheres to and if

it presumes that those values are

processed in exactly the same way by the

other culture and that's that's a wrong

presumption, I argue that that culture

then lacks cultural theory of mind

because it is assuming that its values

transcend in exactly the same way to

other cultures. Now, why is that related

to suicidal empathy? So, if you take for

example the values that we hold dear in

the West, magnanimity,

generosity, kindness,

empathy,

they're interpreted in other societies

as weakness, weakness, weakness, and

weakness. And this is why I I'm I don't

remember if I mentioned this to you

before on the show or not. In Arabic,

when people would speak to me, I mean

many years ago before I mean now they

recognize me, so they're they're not

going to be as forthright in their

positions, but 25 years ago, they would

all tell me the West is a woman to be

mounted. Well, the reason why they're

saying that

>> all tell you that?

>> not all, but

but it was a it was a saying that is

often,

uh, you know,

intimated.

>> Was this when you were living in

Lebanon?

>> No, no, no, in in Montreal.

>> Montreal.

>> In Montreal.

>> You should tell people just my

background. Yeah, because it's it's, you

know, it's it's very pertinent. Sure.

Uh, so I was born in 1964 in Lebanon. My

family were part of the last remaining

minuscule community of Lebanese Jews.

Historically, there was always a a

small, but, you know, uh, pretty vibrant

Jewish community. Most of the Jews had

left prior to the start of the civil

war, which happened in '75. I was 11.

Uh, because they'd already read the

writing on the wall. So, most of my

extended family, my aunts, my uncles, my

grandparents had left to various places.

Most of them to Israel, but some of them

to Montreal, Canada. That's why we ended

up going to Montreal ourselves. But, my

parents had refused to leave because

they were very, well, entrenched within

Lebanese society. They had nice business

and so on. My older sibling I have three

other siblings. One is 14 years older,

one is 12 years older, and one is 10

years older. The one who's 10 years

older is the Olympian judoka that that

played in the that competed in the

Montreal Olympics in 1976. Uh, so they

already had left Lebanon prior to the

start of the civil war because they had

started facing some Jew hatred

difficulties and even in tolerant,

progressive Lebanon.

Unfortunately for me, being the last 10

years younger than everybody else, I was

still a kid.

We got caught up once the civil war

broke out.

Some really bad things happened during

that first year, but then we were able,

thank God, to escape to

Montreal.

But then my parents kept returning to

Lebanon

uh because they still had business

interests. So, they would go back to

Lebanon from 1975 to 1980. On one of

their return trips to Lebanon they were

kidnapped by Abu Nidal's group

Fatah.

And some really, you know, bad things

happened during their captivity, very

much like the stuff that you hear about

on October 7th, but luckily, they

weren't killed. They were able to, you

know, be freed. I mean, they weren't

freed through a commando operation. They

were freed through the connections that

my parents had.

Uh my mother's um best friend was a

Syrian woman, Syrian Muslim woman,

who was the personal dresser of Hafez

al-Assad, the

the the father of uh Bashar al-Assad,

the the one who was recently deposed.

And so, through him

uh my my

uh siblings reached out to this woman.

Her name was Ehsan. I think she's passed

away now. Uh she got uh the father

involved. He reached out to Yasser

Arafat, who was the head of the PLO back

then.

Uh

as I understand the story,

Yasser Arafat said, "Well, I don't even

know whether they were with one of our

groups. Let me do you know, make some

calls."

But at the time, there was sort of a

battle between Yasser Arafat and Abu

Nidal. And he said, "If if he if it's

the Abu Nidal gang that took him, you

know, good luck." And it was the Abu

Nidal group. But I'm guessing there was

some money that was exchanged. My

parents were freed.

When my father returned, he had a

a temporary facial paralysis akin to

when you have a

really severe stroke and your face is

completely disfigured and asymmetric.

What Guillain-Barré? Is that what it's

called?

But it was it it got resolved. And so

for about I don't know how long it was,

maybe a month or two, his face was

completely Yeah. asymmetric, probably

due to Stress. the things that happened

to him. Yeah. Uh and actually I I mean,

some of the stuff I may have briefly

mentioned on this show, but here's a

part that I I'm almost certain I didn't

mention.

At one point that the the militia group

was trying to get my parents to um sign

a confession letter that they are

Israeli spies, which if you met my

parents, you would know that that's not

a very likely a reality because it turns

out that if they sign that,

then they could legally execute them.

And the guy who had started this whole

thing was the owner of the building

where my dad owned the store. And if

they could now get rid of them, the

store would

So it wasn't even like a religious

thing. It was for one of the seven

deadly sins of greed, at least as I

understand it. And anyways, and so at

one point they had separated my parents

and they were trying to

put a lot of pressure on each of them to

sign this thing. And they go to my

mother and say, you know, you know,

admit that you know, you're a spy or

whatever, Israeli agent. And she's like,

are you are you crazy? I mean, just go

ask my husband, you know. And they they

kind of mockingly say, "Oh, well, your

husband has gone to join his God."

Meaning that they've already killed him.

So then my mother is in her little cell

and they you know, they're doing bad

things to them. And she hears my dad

late at night in some other part of

wherever they were keeping him. He had a

very

whooping kind of cough, like a like a

cough as if like I actually I have a

similar cough. I used to be asthmatic,

so I I have this very deep and loud

cough. And so, she was hearing that

cough, but she wasn't sure if she's just

hallucinating this in her thoughts or

whether it was real. Well, it turned out

that it what they hadn't killed them,

but they were just trying to lean in on

her.

And so, that's the background that I

come from.

Yeah, so you are very tuned in to what

could possibly go wrong.

Unfortunately, yes. And and

this is why I mean, many times when I've

come on this show, you know, I've talked

about some of those difficulties that,

you know, all religions

are not indistinguishable from each

other. All religion I mean, religions

have certain features that might be

transferable from one religion to the

other. Right. But, there are many

elements that are very specific to a

given religion. Sure.

If you're an

extremist Jain, then you really take

your

uh

using this

uh the

sweeping thing. When you you know, when

they walk, they use a broom so that they

inadvertently don't step on an ant and

kill it. So, an extremist extremist, in

quotes, Jain, someone who really takes

his religion seriously, is someone who's

going to be extremist in his pacifism.

Right. Right? Now, that religion has

very very different ethics about how to

conduct yourself even when you're

walking on a sidewalk than maybe will an

Abrahamic faith, whether it be Judaism

or Christianity or Islam. So, the idea

that ultimately all religions are simply

preaching the same indistinguishable

thing in slightly different ways is

simply not true.

But, it feels good to think that, right?

It's empathetic for us to think that. We

should never speak amongst mixed company

about politics and religion. So,

therefore, if I start saying something

that might be

pejorative of another religion, that

feels icky, that feels gauche.

Right? And that's why by the way,

earlier you mentioned that when we're

talking about this uh

when I asked you, are Americans more

likely now to talk openly about Islam,

you said, well, the Democrats are more

terrified to do so than the Republicans.

But even the Republicans are to some

extent suicidally empathetic because if

you watch, even the ones who very

forcefully criticize Islam

as being incongruent with, you know,

American values, they'll always use

linguistic coverage to protect Islam.

So, it's Islamism. Yes.

>> It's radical Islam. It's radical

>> with that?

No. No? Not at all. So,

a political Islam and Islamism

is a indelible, inherent feature of

Islam. Much of Islam is Islamism. So, if

you do a content analysis of all of the

canonical texts of Islam, which are the

Quran, the Hadith, the the deeds and the

sayings of Muhammad, and the Sira, which

is the biography of Muhammad, you could

do a quantitative analysis of how often

is it preaching brotherly love, how

often is it really concerned about the

infidels, how And so, Islam in its

nature is political. Why? There are many

reasons why, but let me just give you

one. And then if you want to drill down,

we can do so.

Islam is a fully proselytizing language

religion, meaning that it is incumbent

in an ideal world to turn the entire

world into the one true faith. It is a

peaceful religion if by peaceful it

means the following, eventually

the entire globe, every millimeter of

the globe will will united under the

unifying flag of Allah.

Now, let's take for example Judaism, and

it's not because I'm Jewish, but it's

it's just to compare.

Judaism is precisely the opposite. It is

it is an anti-proselytizing

language. You're not allowed to

proselytize. As a matter of fact, if you

proselytize,

let's say I try to convince you, Joe,

"You know, why don't you join the

tribe?" And you say, "You know what? I

think I'd like to." It's a grind. It's a

grind, exactly.

>> My uncle did it. Well, there you go.

Thank you. So, the it is literally in

the canons of Judaism to try to dissuade

the prospective convert to coming into

the fold because the the idea is to have

a costly signal of your commitment, your

your your religious piety to want to

join the group. So, it is a grind. It's

very hard. In Islam, you just have to

say the one proclamation, the Shahada,

one sentence, and you're in. Now, try to

get out. There are apostasy laws against

you getting out. So, the the the

circuitry

of Islam is one that is expansionist.

That's why you have 2 billion Muslims.

One out of every four human beings is

Muslim, and it only took 1,400 years for

that. So, from a marketing perspective,

as someone who studies consumer

behavior, Islam is a brilliant marketing

religion. It has found a way to get a

lot of customers and adherents. Judaism

sucks at marketing because the entire

circuitry of Judaism is meant to keep it

very, very small. And so, which one is

likely to lead to greater problems? The

one that is meant to ensure that all of

us become Muslim, or the one that says,

"Even if your uncle wants to become

Jewish,

we're going to put the barriers so so

high that nobody will ever become

Jewish." So, we still have only 15

million Jews roughly in the world,

almost the same as we had before the

Holocaust. So, Judaism sucks as a

marketing religion, Islam incredibly

successful.

In this country, the concern with

Judaism is the support of the Israeli

military. Right.

>> That's the concern. The The concern is

the amount of influence that it has on

the United States government, how we got

into the Iran war, why we give them so

much influence over our military, over

our decision-making,

over our politicians. I mean, AIPAC

famously

promotes and supports a tremendous

amount of politicians in the United

States. That's That's the big fear, is

that there's there's an inordinate

amount of influence that Israel has over

foreign policy, our our decisions,

and even our political structure in the

country. Right.

Several ways to tackle this.

Say the Iran war. Take Israel out of it.

Do you think that the Do you think there

are multiple countries that would share

in the recognition that probably a

Iranian regime that hasn't uh

eschatology that basically says the end

of times requires that there is sort of

death to everybody before the final

uh you know uh Imam comes back.

Would it be a good idea for the Brits or

the Romanians or the French or some of

the other the the Gulf countries, would

they be happy if Iran had a nuclear

weapon? So, to to to frame the issue of

the US is attacking or is involved in

the attack on the Iranians as, you know,

the United States doesn't have personal

agency. They're all wood crickets that

are being puppeteered by this incredibly

powerful lobby called Israel. That

simply doesn't pass the smell test. Of

course, Israel has shared interests with

the United States as most allies would

where they both agree that probably an

Iranian regime that has nuclear weapons

should would not be a good thing for

world world peace. And so because these

two countries have maybe greater

testicular fortitude than the NATO

countries, it seems as though the the

Israelis are puppeteering the the the

the the Americans. But do you really

think that Donald Trump is sitting and

saying, "You know, had I not been such a

weak guy with no personal agency, I

wouldn't have fallen sway to the

incredibly influential Zionist lobby?"

Well, it's not just incredibly

influential. It's the amount of

financial support they gave his

candidacy.

And again, all the different politicians

that are beholden to Israel. That's the

concern that a lot of people on the

right and on the left have here in

America. So I

>> Most people in America do not support

this war.

It's the the the large percentage of

people think it was a bad idea. What are

your What are your thoughts?

>> I don't think it's a good idea. But I

Well, because first of all, it doesn't

seem to have a clear resolution, right?

It's like

we went over there because we were told

that they were very close to developing

a nuclear weapon. But if you paid

attention to what Netanyahu has said

over the last few decades, it's always

been they're a year away, they're 2

months away, they're whatever it is. I

mean, he's been doing this forever. Ever

since he spoke at the UN and had that

giant cartoon bomb. Remember the the

Looney Tunes bomb? Yeah, yeah,

yeah. When he spoke at the UN, I

remember that.

>> enrichment of uranium.

He's wanted this for a long time.

There's also deep concern that he is

only in office because of the war. And

he has corruption charges in Israel. And

that in order for him to stay in power

and for him to avoid going to trial, he

has to continue war.

Can I comment on that?

>> Sure.

Let's suppose you go to see your

physician and your physician says, "Hey

Joe, God forbid, it looks like your

blood sugar is very high and I'm going

to classify you as now, never mind

pre-diabetic, I think you're diabetic.

And if we don't manage your sugar

levels, there will come a day where I

can tell you exactly what's going to

happen. We're going to have to amputate

your extremities. You're probably going

to lose your eyesight. You're probably

going to have sexual dysfunction and

you're probably going to have some

cardiovascular incident."

That doesn't happen on day two of you

having been diagnosed with diabetes.

Like there's a trajectory and at some

point there'll be a tipping point where

until then none of the diabetes

complications happen. And why am I

saying all this?

Because I I can't comment as to whether

he's been lying all the times when he

said it's there's two more years left or

one more year or six more months.

But surely we can grant the American

government enough leeway to presume that

if they thought that at this point it's

the right time and it is now intolerable

for them to go another day with the

current reality that they probably had

some intelligence that suggests that

they are close. So I can't comment

whether

Netanyahu was pulling our eyes. But

surely it can't be that the Israelis are

so manipulative in their puppeteering

that they've pulled the wool over the

American eyes and really there's no

danger that the Iranians were posing and

we've convinced the Americans to go to

war. Do Do you think that it it is that?

Do you Well, I wouldn't say there's no

danger, right? So here's here's one

thing that we do know. They had said

[clears throat]

that their missiles could only reach uh

a certain distance. That proved to not

be true.

>> Right. Because of the Diego Garcia

missile launch. Right. So, they they

have missiles that are capable of

reaching Europe. And that was not

something they had said before. Um we

know that they have enriched their

uranium beyond what they need for

nuclear power.

>> Right. And that they're within striking

distance of developing a nuclear weapon.

>> Right. But wasn't it true that they had

put See, this is It's hard to know as me

as a person sitting on podcast studio in

Texas exactly what their ruling had

been. But that they had only done this

in order to

avoid the possibility of them being

attacked. That they would get close to a

nuclear weapon, so at least it would

it would deter some some potential

attacks on them. And that they were

doing this out of self-interest.

Um

there's a a large group of American

politicians that did not want this war,

that did not think it was warranted to

attack Iran at this point. Can I Yeah.

Okay.

So, I think I've mentioned on the show

before these this distinction between

deontological ethics, absolute

statements, it is never okay to lie

versus consequentialist ethics. It's

okay to lie if it is meant to spare

someone's hurt feelings, right? So, if

your wife says, "Do I look fat in those

jeans?" You put on your consequentialist

hat and you say, "You've never looked

more beautiful." because maybe she's put

on a bit of weight, but you don't want

to hurt her feelings, so you lie to And

And for most of us, we go through life

on most instances putting on a

consequentialist hat, okay? And I'm

going to link it now to to our

discussion.

To have, for example, a deontological

principle that says that I am always an

isolationist. Do you understand what I

mean by here deontological? Meaning that

it doesn't matter what the environment

is out there, I, as America, will never

interfere in wars over there. That can't

be an optimal strategy, right? Because

So, for example, if you were a

deontological pacifist, you say,

"Under no circumstances do I believe

that violence is the solution." Well,

what would usually happen to a society

if it adhered to deontological pacifism?

>> They'd be attacked. They'd be

eradicated, right? So, it can't be that

for some of these geopolitical issues

there is a rule that in its nature is

deontological. So, many of the Americans

that are

anti this war are very, very staunchly

steeped and sort of a

libertarian/deontological

isolationist perspective. Now, in many

cases, I would completely agree with

that position in that it's not the

Americans

position to have to go and be the

policeman of everywhere in the world.

But, let's contrast, let's say, with

with when World War II was about to

happen, the appeasement strategy of

Chamberlain, right? This guy with the

little mustache says, "Don't worry about

it. I absolutely have no desire to do

anything about You swear, Adolf? It's

all good. Yeah, yeah, don't worry.

Promise you really don't even though

you're moving all of your stuff, you're

a good guy, right? I can trust you.

Yeah, yeah, of course you can." So,

appeasement only works if the other

person is someone that can be fully

trustworthy. It is almost incontestable

that if the Iranian regime in its

current form could ever cause great

damage to everybody, not only Israel,

right? I mean, the Gulf countries are

not exactly putting up barriers against

this war because

they're also are the enemies of the

Iranians. So, the

it's undoubtable that of course the

Americans have the Israelis in their ear

pushing for their self-interest. But,

that's also called the reality of every

nation on earth. Every Every entity

fights for its own interest. But, that

doesn't mean that the Americans are so

lacking in personal agency, are so

gullible, are so easy to puppeteer that

it there must be the Zionist lobby that

otherwise is pushing us into an

unnecessary war.

Maybe another 3 years. Maybe another 5

years. Maybe another 10 years. It would

have resulted in a disaster. So, if you

are a universalist and you want the

Iranian people to maximally flourish,

forget about Israel. Don't even mention

the word Israel. Do you not want these

90 million people called Iranians who

have a deeply rich historical,

you know, heritage to flourish? I've had

many graduate students who are Iranians

in my classes and so on. They're some of

the most modern, secular,

outward-looking Westerners that have

been choked for 47 years by a really

nasty regime. So, maybe we could

celebrate that if all if all this goes

well, 90 million people are going to be

freed and I could say that statement

without ever invoking Israel. What do

you think about that? Well, I think the

reason why they're in the situation

they're in in the first place is because

the United States. It's cuz the United

States and the British Petroleum

Company. It's because they were trying

to nationalize oil. That's what That's

what happened in the first place.

>> Revolution?

>> Yes. This is how it started in the first

place. They realized that the British

Petroleum Company was making a ton of

money and they wanted to nationalize oil

and we got rid of them and they

installed this Islamic regime. And

look at it

there's a lot of consequences for that

down the road. Obviously, the worst side

of it was what happened to the Iranian

people.

When you look at the photos and the

videos of Tehran from like the the 1950s

and 1960s, I mean my god, it looks like

a Western society. Women wearing skirts

and everyone looks it looks very modern

and Western and then it became

this

fundamentalist religious country that it

is right now. This Islamic country that

it is right now. They're they're under a

regime that

murders protesters. Um they famously

murdered um some high-level wrestlers.

There was an Olympic gold medalist in

the United States. Uh the UFC tried to

get involved and tried to keep him from

getting murdered.

Um yeah, they they do horrible things.

There's no doubt about it. It's a

terrible regime.

But there's a really good argument that

that terrible regime is in place because

of the CIA and because of the United

States government, because the British

Petroleum Company, because we

intervened.

And we've done that in the past. We did

that with Libya, right? There's a reason

why Muammar Gaddafi was out. You know,

we had uh Russell Crowe, who's a

brilliant guy, on the podcast was like

explaining the history of Libya and how

great it was for Libyan people when

Muammar Gaddafi was in power that

if anybody wanted to get an education

anywhere, they had some certain skills

or talent some certain area, they would

fully pay for their education overseas.

They gave everyone a house. Everyone who

lived there had a home. They I mean

people were educated. They And he was

trying to set up something akin to the

United States, but the United States of

Africa.

And you know, and they were like, "We

can't have any of that." And so they got

rid of him and Libya became a failed

state. Like we have monkeyed in other

countries for our own interest for a

long time and with horrible consequences

for the people in those countries. And I

think Iran is an excellent example of

that. So, how much of

the Islamic regime coming into power in

1975,

if you have a hundred points that you

want to allocate to either it's the US

that causes it versus there's an Islamic

regime with its theology that is really

nasty, how would you allocate the points

in terms of uh

uh you know, the the cause of of that

reality?

>> That's a good question. That's a

question that would be answered by

historians rather than me, but I think

there's no doubt that we played a major

factor in that.

Don't you agree with that? So, I mean,

yes and no. So, let me explain why I say

yes and no. When you have a complicated

geopolitical system,

you can always look You remember the old

butterfly effect, right? There's a

butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon,

and then how that reverberates into a

cyclone somewhere else, right?

>> of though.

>> No, the But but I mean, the principle of

Great. It's great if you don't

understand how the weather works. Fair

enough. But the idea that there are

causal networks is such that in this

complicated web of causal networks, you

can always find a particular entity that

you can try to link back all of the

causes to that entity.

>> But the overthrow of a foreign

government and supporting

uh an Ayatollah to take their place,

it's it's a pretty big factor. But so,

that's why I asked you the to allocate

the the hundred points. I I wouldn't I

wouldn't be the guy to answer that.

>> I'm going to answer off the top of my

head, and it's completely speculative.

So, so, the numbers I'm going to say are

not

Uh let's ascribe 10 out of the hundred

points to whatever

power the US wields in that region to

have allowed that regime to come in.

But, that regime carries the other 90

points of the 100 because they are the

ones who for the next 47 years

implement the reality that the common

person is going to experience.

Everything in [snorts] the world can

ultimately be be linked back to oxygen,

to the United States, to the military

complex, to the Zionist lobby because in

some very facile way all of those

entities are connected in a meaningful

way in this causal network. But, is

using Occam's razor

is does it really make sense to blame

For example, people say ISIS is really

due to whatever Israel.

I mean, in some facile way

you could draw the causal link of how

there was a vacuum that was created by

the US when they debathized you know,

Iraq that allowed the next year. So, do

we blame ISIS on American policy or the

Zionist lobby or or does ISIS itself

have any personal agency in terms of

what it then does for the next 10 years

that it's in power? Do you see what I'm

saying? I do. So, so

this is the old story I I'm I'm going to

butcher it, but I quoted it in the

parasitic mind. For the man who has a

hammer, he only sees the world as being

made up of the nails, right? So, this is

when you're

you're presuming that there is greater

explanatory power to a particular

cause than there really is.

Every Look, I'll give you an example.

Okay.

Let's suppose that the night before

uh an eventual dictator

that was going to become a dictator, his

parents felt particularly amorous that

night. And what made them amorous to

then eventually conceive that guy who

became a dictator who killed 3 million

people is that they played Barry White

music. Because Barry White music is

baby-making music. So, it is in a very

silly way absolutely true that had Barry

White not been such a great singer with

a deep voice that makes the ladies drop

the panties, then those two parents of

the eventual dictator would not have had

sex that night. I will stop you right

there because I don't think there's sex

that's ever been had because only of

Barry White. I think people have been

having sex since the beginning of time.

I don't believe it. It's wonderful

music. I don't think it causes sex.

>> Do not criticize Barry White.

>> criticizing. I just say it's great

music. I don't believe it. I think

people have been getting it on from the

beginning of time and they probably

would have done the exact same thing

that night if it was Barry White or

Barry Manilow. I don't think it matters.

>> So, let's not put Barry White. There was

some facilitating mechanism that

rendered them amorous on that particular

night. Whatever that mechanism is, it is

absolutely true that we can lay the

blame some blame of that dictator

eventually killing 3 million people. He

would have never been born had they not

had sex exactly at that moment.

>> that's a bit of a stretch. But, I think

it's a bit of a stretch when you

actively work to overthrow a

democratically elected government.

I mean, so this now we're talking about

what? When they

>> Well, well, and not not even

democratically elected government cuz

Libya wasn't a democratically elected

government, right? Like, not really.

Like, let's be honest, right? Like,

Putin's not really a democratically

elected

president of Russia. But, you know what

I mean? But, we 100% funded the rebels.

100% to kill Gaddafi. Right.

That's it's our responsibility why Libya

fell. Okay. But if Okay.

In that position. [clears throat]

>> 100%.

Gaddafi, the way you made him out to be

was I mean he was Robin Hood, right?

Gaddafi was a pretty nasty guy.

>> no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

egalitarian

beautiful leader out there. They've

never existed because the cold, hard

reality of running enormous groups of

people that are in conflict with other

groups of people is you're going to have

to crack some eggs. You're going to have

to do some terrible things.

>> especially in those regions of the world

where if you don't have an incredibly

strong armed guy, then religion comes in

and it becomes the strong guy. So, you

have you have it in Egypt, you have it

with Saddam Hussein. So, in

with

Hafez al-Assad and then his son. So, so

those guys are

if you're a universalist who wishes for

individual liberties and freedoms to

flourish for everybody around the world,

then you're probably not supporting

these guys. Right. Well, okay, we can

use Saddam Hussein as an example. Look

at Look at what happened there. I mean,

it became a complete and total disaster.

Resulted in the death of at least a

million innocent people

and didn't do anything positive in terms

of turning that into a beautiful

Western-style democracy.

>> Yeah. But by the way, that last

sentence,

I would argue that that's because of the

Americans lack of cultural theory of

mind because they presume that the

desire to have democracy around the

world is exactly what everybody wants

and therefore they're culturally blind

to the fact that other places around the

world may not share our own affinity for

democracy.

>> just that, but culturally ignorant to

the fact that there's Sunni and Shia

Muslims and they were going to fight

with each other.

>> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Now, but you Okay, so

so the Americans come in, they create a

bad set of ecosystems that permits for

ISIS to flourish. At what point would

you, in your causal link of

explanations,

shift from

the catalyst of the Americans having

done something that allowed ISIS to

flourish to then saying, "Starting at

time T, my causal weaponry is going to

be targeting ISIS moving forward." Well,

it's a good question because like why

did ISIS flourish in the first place?

Was it because of the removal of Saddam

Hussein? Was it because of the

overthrowing of the country? I mean,

wasn't that

>> It It was. Yeah. So, if that didn't take

place, what would

Iran and Iraq look like right now?

Right. But So, think about all of the

people that have suffered horrifyingly

as a result of ISIS.

If you are a

individual that's walking around who is

the recipient of that brutality, what

would make more sense if you're engaging

in statistical inferencing? Would it be

to say, "You know, the guy that's about

to stick string me up because I looked

at a girl wrong and he's going to cut

off my penis and my arms because I

touched the girl.

I really can't blame ISIS because really

it's American foreign policy that

intervened in Iraq." That's not how

people navigate through their day.

>> you get to that? I mean,

the guy getting his penis chopped off

and his arms chopped off, where did you

How did you get there?

>> like you know how under Sharia law there

are very strict rules about that govern

the dynamics between men and women,

right? So, I was just being hyperbolic,

but let's say whatever the punishment

is. You You stole a loaf of bread under

Sharia law, we cut off your hand, right?

So, let's say you're a 12-year-old kid

who just stole a loaf of bread from the

souk, and the ISIS commanders have

caught you.

And they're about to institute Sharia

law by cutting off your hand because

you're a thief. Would would would it be

natural for you or your parents, the

parents of the 12-year-old, who are

crying because they're about to see

their hand the hand of their child cut

off, would they say, "I really can't be

upset at ISIS and their brutality

because I ultimately ISIS only came in

because of the geopolitical intervention

of the United States?" Do you Do you

think that that would be a reasonable

account?

>> The the whole idea sucks.

Like the

And that sucks.

>> complete imprisonment of any group of

people under a totalitarian regime is

terrible. But that's it, full stop.

>> is how were they funded? How did they

get into the position that they got into

in the first place? How did they rise to

power? But nothing can happen.

>> how much of it is because of our

meddling that they rose to power in the

first place? So, let's suppose we hadn't

meddled. We So, we meddled, we meaning

the United States, let's say. We And I'm

glad that I'm now including myself with

the we

>> We. Almost. You're close. You're getting

there. So, we meddled because whatever

calculus, some of it was incorrect.

Maybe there was no weapons of mass

destruction. I mean, Saddam Hussein was

a horrifying guy. I think if if you

asked me to rank all of them, maybe in

terms of pure evil, he might have been

the biggest of all the thugs, right? Uh

and and this is

>> sons are greater than their father.

>> worse, maybe, right? Horrific.

>> that they were doing. It's just really

defies

Complete serial killers. Exactly. Yeah.

Okay. So, now if I am a typical Iraqi

who's going about my business, I really

would like to not live under Saddam

Hussein's

thumb, and I probably don't want to live

under, you know, ISIS' thumb. In an

ideal world, I could live with complete

dignity and and, you know, liberty and

so on.

The Americans with all of their

miscalculations maybe naively thought

that we'll come in and then Kumbaya, we

will create a new democracy in Iraq.

They completely miscalculated.

But the root cause of the daily evil

that the Iraqis go through cannot be put

on the broad shoulders of the Americans

because then that removes the personal

agency of the actors in their daily

lives that are causing them all the

pain. But there is a reflex and there I

say, forgive me, a suicidally empathetic

reflex that renders you somehow

progressively sophisticated if you

always turn all of the world's ills on

your own society. I agree with you and

what you're saying, but the reason why

we're there was not because we wanted to

help people. The whole reason why they

came up with this fake weapons of mass

destruction narrative is because they

wanted to control the oil.

I I I really can't speak to that. You

You could be right.

>> Oh, 100% I'm right. Yeah. There's

We're not doing that for

to help people. We didn't go to Iraq to

help people. It didn't even make sense

that we were in there. They weren't

involved in 9/11. The whole idea was

nuts. Okay, so let me I think the whole

weapons of mass destruction narrative

was complete that was cooked up

to give it an excuse to go over there

and take over the oil.

>> willfully so. It's not they made an

error, they knew it was

>> Yes. I mean, I think there's a lot of

evidence to that. There's There's no

evidence that they had weapons of mass

destruction as described by everybody to

give the motivation for us to support

the war. Okay, so let me

maybe as the

distinguished professor of the

Declaration of Independence Center for

the Study of American Freedom, I hope

University of Mississippi will be happy

that I'm defending the United States

as a Canadian, not yet American, but

inshallah soon. Uh

>> [laughter]

>> Is it not true that

the default reality of every unit,

whether it be an individual, a grouping,

a country, will typically, all other

things equal, try to pursue policies

that are in its best interest, right?

So, when when when Trump says, "America

first, MAGA, and all this." That's what

he's appealing to, yes?

>> So, does the US ever do things that

might be

uh less than savory because they're

pursuing their selfish interests? 100%

and we can come up, right? But, that

makes them a country made up of these

things called human beings. In other

words, no society has ever been created

that is made up of these utopian

machines that, as they navigate the

world, they look to the other for their

unless they are suicidally empathetic.

So, the US is made up of real human

beings endowed with real brains whereby

they might say, "Hey, maybe if we take

their oil and concoct a strategy, make

Now, is that good or bad?" We can debate

it. But, in the grand buffet of

societies that have ever held power,

does the U and never mind the the power

asymmetry that the US has vis-à-vis

everybody else, is it the most

restrained society ever? If the United

States today said, "We need more

beaches. All the Caribbeans are becoming

the 51st state." Could anybody do

anything about that? No. Yet, they

don't. So, I think it would be good,

certainly for Americans and me as an

honorary American, to say, "Does Does

America do sometimes things that are

less than perfect in a utopian world?"

100% yes, you're right. I can see that.

Does it wield its power in the most

gentle ways compared to what it could do

and in compared to what other societies

if they had that power would do. I think

that America does pretty well, no?

Am I too Am I too rosy about my views of

America? Well, that's

an interesting question because China

doesn't meddle in other countries the

way we do and they have a similar

military might.

Not quite commensurate, Yeah. but pretty

similar. Like you don't see them

invading other countries and doing the

type of things that we do and I don't

know if they threatened to Taiwan.

But they believe that Taiwan is a part

they call it Chinese Taipei, right?

>> So, I'm going to use here some Arabic

words which I'll try to explain in

English, but maybe to your Arabic

listeners they'll appreciate it. The

Chinese have greater what honey and nest

nasty. They are duplicities in the way

they do that stuff, right? They caress

you

>> They caress you this way while they

take, right? So, yes, they are using a

different modality to wield their power

compared to the brash rah rah rah

Americans, but let's not sort of

romanticize what the Chinese could do,

right?

>> taking advantage of the openness of

American society. They're they've

infiltrated universities, they've

infiltrated a lot of tech sectors.

They've sold American military a bunch

of cell phone towers that are

surrounding military bases that may or

may not be transmitting data. We've had

to kick Huawei out of the country

because it turns out that a lot of their

equipment could be used for spying. Like

they buy farmland all around military

bases. They're doing a lot of things to

take advantage of our silliness, but

that's because we should have better

laws to prevent

you know, what's essentially

not our friends from doing that.

>> Yeah. I mean, you can call them an enemy

nation or whatever you want to call

them, but we shouldn't be allowing a

foreign nation that we're in conflict

with to control land around military

bases. That's just stupid. But, that's

because of our capitalist society. I

mean, you can't even you can't own a

business in China. You can't go over

there and buy stuff. Like, you you can't

do it. You can be in business with them,

and then you know what they do? They

just kick you out and take over it.

Right.

>> Change the name of it and take over all

the IP, and you're gone. Bye-bye. And

there's not a thing you can do

about it because they don't have an open

society like we do. Well, and think

about I mean, if if we're doing the

ledger of sort of cruelty and evil, we

could talk about how the US versus China

wields power around the world. But, how

about internally, domestically? We had a

guy called Mao Zedong that was kind of

pretty brutal. That if we do the history

of China in terms of how many millions

of people were killed by that regime

versus anything that's happened in the

US.

Has the US been perfect in the past 250

years? Absolutely not.

>> No, there's never been a perfect regime.

>> Exactly. So,

>> There's no perfect regimes. And you

know, look look at what they did just

with their one-child policy. There you

go. I mean, there's a lot wrong with the

way China does things, you know, but So,

to me, once I

Maybe that's why

University of Mississippi was keen on

having me come be

I look at the United States as someone

who

Thank you for your earlier question

about sort of where do you come from,

Gad? Tell us your story.

Some of the biggest defenders of the

United States are typically It might

sound paradoxical, but if you think

about it, it's not. Are usually

immigrants who have sampled from the

wide variety of buffets of societies out

there. Mhm. Therefore, we know that the

anomaly called the United States is

truly an anomaly. Whereas, the American

wakes up in his life, and he thinks that

the liberties and freedoms that you have

in the United States are just a default

value. That's just the way it is. It

isn't. That's what makes the United

States great. So, for me

By the way, that that also explains why

people think, for example, that I defend

Israel because I'm Jewish. There is an

element to that. I mean, most of my

family's in Israel. But, it's really I

defend Israel because many of its values

are congruent with those that we hold

dear in the United States. So, given the

region of the Middle East, if I'm going

to send my daughter or yours to some

university to study, I would much rather

for her to be in a society in Tel Aviv

or Haifa than I would in many of the

other places. So, it's in that sense

that I'm pro-Israel. So, if you ask me

to allocate 100 points to how much of my

support of Israel is due to the fact

that many of its foundational values are

similar to those of the United States

versus the fact that I'm Jewish and

Israel is a Israel is a Jewish state, I

would say 80/20 former for the latter,

meaning that I am defending the

civilizational values of Israel in a

very, very difficult and belligerent

neighborhood. Does Israel always do

things perfectly? No. Do they have

politicians that are corrupt? Yes. Uh

have have

pedophiles who did bad things here try

to go there and have a legal up

meaning get residency there uh and run

away from thing Yes, but it could also

be the case that a bank robber or

pedophile goes back to Thailand if there

are no extradition uh you know,

mechanisms to bring them back to the to

the United States. So, my position of

defending the United States or Israel or

whomever else really stems from some

foundational values of liberty and

freedom. There is no conceivable place

in the world where, given the

neighborhood that Israel exists in, one

would conceivably defend any of those

other societies instead of Israel if the

metrics that you care about are personal

liberties and freedoms. We could then

debate specific policies and you'd be

completely in your right to say, "I

don't like when the Israeli government

does this." But,

well, let me ask you and forgive me for

asking you a personal question. If,

let's say, your daughter today said,

"Dad, I'd like to go and just study one

year abroad."

And it's going to be somewhere in the

Middle East. You, Joe Rogan, how likely

would you be to support her going in the

Middle East to a university other than

in Israel?

That's interesting. Um

when you say the Middle East, you mean

like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates?

Cuz I think it's pretty safe there.

Okay, so I'll get You're right, that's

true. And and I'm By the way, I'm loving

the openness that many of these

countries are exhibiting and I'll tell

you I'll tell you a quick personal story

and then I'd I'd love to then hear your

your

I was approached by Al Arabiya. Al

Arabiya is the premier news network from

They're Saudi.

But they were actually

located in Dubai.

And Riz Khan, who was the anchor that

was flying from Dubai to interview me in

Montreal for Al Arabiya, he used to be

the

main anchor, I think, at uh BBC Global

or CNN Global.

I said to Riz, "Are Are we going to be

talking about things like Islam and

these kind of He goes, "Yeah, yeah, feel

free to talk about whatever you want." I

said, "Well, I'm I'm not worried so much

about me, but you're going to have to go

back to that region. Are you

comfortable? Like, can I I mean, I'll be

very professorial and proper, but I will

say some difficult truths." He goes,

"Say whatever you want."

That aired. It was a 2-hour conversation

where we you know, we talked about all

sorts of things, but we talked about

Islam. And then he said, "They loved

you." About a month or two later,

another state another show contacted me,

and I went also on Al Arabiya, and then

they even wanted to offer me a show.

Now, the Saudi group is offering the

Lebanese Jew who's often been critical

of some of the tenets of Islam. So, I'm

very optimistic about that. So, I agree

with you that if your daughter wanted to

perhaps go to some places in the Gulf

countries,

you'd probably condone it and support

it. But, that would make it too easy.

So, let me choose which country should I

go

>> too easy, but that is the Middle East

and they are there are Islamic

countries.

>> Well, because those countries are having

a revival of modernity. So,

>> Right. Well, maybe that's what we should

talk about because is that possible with

Islam that they could have a revival of

modernity across the entire country?

Like imagine if Iraq, Iran, all these

countries were run like Saudi Arabia or

run like the United Arab Emirates. You

would have a a much more peaceful

environment, wouldn't you? Uh yeah. So,

I'm going to be now very optimistic.

There is a

package of cultural richness in the

Middle East like no other.

And I come from the region. Arabic's my

mother tongue. The the spirit of

generosity, the spirit of loyalty when

you're in the group, the hospitality is

like no other. Actually, I recently was

telling some folks in Mississippi that

the the Mississippians remind me as

though they were honorary Lebanese

because they're so it's that southern

hospitality. Really like over-the-top

wanting to make you feel good. So, there

are elements of the Middle East that

have such a fabric of richness that if

we can mine that and and quell all of

the tribalism associated with religions,

I think it could be one of the most

fertile and rich in places in the world.

Now, it depends what we do with Islam.

If Islam is something that you practice

privately as part of a long historical

narrative. So, for example, I'm Jewish.

I'm very wedded to my Jewish identity,