EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,125 words- 0:00 – 3:05
Catching up: a new war, anxiety, and binary thinking about conflict
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience. (drumbeats)
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music)
- JRJoe Rogan
Hello, Dave Smith.
- DSDave Smith
Hello, Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you, my friend.
- DSDave Smith
You too. Always good to be here.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) You have an air of seriousness about you, like you pre- prepared yourself for this conversation.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
We've been fucking around all night last night.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Having a good time.
- DSDave Smith
Now I have to transition.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, you, you, like, you, there was an immediate shift. I can see, you're like...
- DSDave Smith
(sighs) All right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Here it is.
- DSDave Smith
Well, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of shit going on.
- DSDave Smith
Well, we got a, a brand-new war to end, so, uh...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
It's, you know, gotta be a... So, what, uh, when, when I first started coming on your podcast, what was, I, I just measure it in how many wars ago that was? Like then, what was that? How many wars ago was that?
- JRJoe Rogan
We were still in Afghanistan back then.
- DSDave Smith
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
So we did get out of one.
- DSDave Smith
We did get out of one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sorta.
- DSDave Smith
We did it in flawless fashion. Um, but, uh, that's, uh... But yeah, no, that is true, we did end one. And then I think we took, like, a two-week break before we, uh, got into Ukraine. And then, uh... (exhales) And now, now there's thi- this one is pretty serious. And, uh, the, there's a, a big possibility of, like, a wider war, uh, being started. So, pretty bad. Not great.
- JRJoe Rogan
No. Not great. It scares the shit out of me. I've brought it up many times, but when, when I really get, uh, anxiety is, like, late at night when I'm alone and I think about the world like that, at any moment, it could just go haywire. Like, think about October 7th, right? It happens out of nowhere. M- in one, one day, everything changes, right? That can happen anywhere. That can happen right here. And people thinking that it can't, and then, people that are just not even inquisitive about anything that interferes with their narrative, not even thinking, "Okay, what, what is the big picture here? What is actually going on? I know this side says one thing, and the other side says another thing. So, someone's gotta be wrong. So what is happening? Either Israel is evil, or Hamas is totally evil." You can't be, "There's a lot going on," right?
- DSDave Smith
For sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
"There's a lot going on."
- 3:05 – 4:32
Israel–Palestine crash course: 1947 partition, 1948 war, 1967 occupation
- DSDave Smith
And reality is almost never anything like that. It's always enormously more complex than that. And, um, I think that's, you know, that's the truth with the history of, of Israel and Palestine, is that it's not... And I'm, I'm Jewish, so like, I, I grew up very much just only hearing the Israeli side of the story. And it j- it's basically... You can still get this in a Ben Shapiro video, you know, that millions-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ugh.
- DSDave Smith
... of people watch. But it really will. Their story is just kind of like, "Uh, the Jews, uh, came here. And we just said, 'Hey, we wanna be independent.' And then in response to that, the, all the Arab nations attacked us. And then we just keep offering you peace, and they just keep saying no, and they just want, you know, we just wanna live in peace, and they just wanna kill Jews." And that's the story, and there's nothing else that you need to know that's relevant here. But that's just so not true. There's so much more to it than that. And if you're gonna, if you're gonna tell this story and you wanna zoom out and really understand what's going on here, i- it's just, if, if you're going to ignore the fact that the creation of Israel involved kicking a whole lot of people out of where they were living at the time, and had been living for hundreds of years, um, 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were, were kicked out of their land. They, many of them were forced out, many of them, uh, fled, and then were never allowed to come back. And then-
- JRJoe Rogan
And this was in-
- DSDave Smith
So th-
- JRJoe Rogan
... '47?
- 4:32 – 10:20
Disclaimers, propaganda labels, and a quick detour into “Putin supporter” accusations
- DSDave Smith
So in, in, well, it started in 1947. Um, so, uh, and le- let me just say, by the way, and I'll just do this quickly, but I just, like, like a disclaimer, which I never did when we were talking about all the Ukraine stuff with, uh... 'Cause, you know, like, when I, the last few times I've been on the podcast, we talked about the war in Ukraine a lot, and I totally opposed America and, and, i- uh, American involvement. And I put a lot of blame on America and NATO for kind of provoking the, the war and continuing the war. And all types of people who disagreed with me, they say, uh, like, "You're a Putin supporter," or, "You're spewing Russian propaganda."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
But I never felt the need to kind of be like, "No, I, by the way, I'm not a Putin, you know, agent or something," 'cause it's just so stupid. There's like, no Americans are sworn loyal to Vladimir Putin. There's zero people like that. But there are actually people who hate Jews. And so just to be clear, that's not my perspective at all.
- JRJoe Rogan
I actually know a guy-
- DSDave Smith
I love, I love Jewish people. I, I actually like, I love Israelis. I think there's lots of cool things about their society. And what I'm saying, if I say like, "Hey, the way you got your land was really fucked up, and you kill a lot of innocent people," that's nothing I wouldn't say about my own government as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And I love America. So just, that as the first disclaimer there. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I know a guy who actually did move to Russia and loves Putin.
- DSDave Smith
All right, fine, so there's one. But... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Jeff Monson. He was an MMA fighter.
- DSDave Smith
Oh yeah, he fought Tim Sylvia, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. He fought a bunch of people.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fought Chuck Liddell. Um, he fought Fedor. And he, uh...
- DSDave Smith
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He moved to Russia.
- DSDave Smith
Really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Speaks Russian, yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Okay. All right, so I overstated my case a little bit.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) He loves Russia.
- DSDave Smith
There's Jeff Munson. Nobody else, though.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's got a hammer and sickle tattoo.
- DSDave Smith
Okay, all right, so there's, there might be an exception, uh, to the rule.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's a wild fellow.
- DSDave Smith
Um, no, but so you said... So yeah, so in 1947, and this is, uh, like, right in the aftermath of, of World War II, and the British Empire, uh, was basically crumbling. And they had been, they had been ruling the territory of Palestine under a, a mandate. And so they basically, uh, washed their hands of the situation. There, there, there had been issues for years already, um, and they kicked it over to the United Nations. And the United Nations was a brand new organization. They were like a year old or something like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
And, um, they, they had no authority to, like, create states out of nowhere. They just... It was a recommendation. They go, "We recommend this partition plan," that would have given, uh, 56% of the land to the Jews for a Jewish state and 44% of the land to the Arabs to have an Arab state. And at the time, Je- the Jews, uh, the Zionist settlers there, they owned about 10% of the land. And so this recommendation was that they get 56% of the land. And so immediately, the, the Zionist settlers accepted. They went, "Yes, great deal. We'll take 56% of this." And the Arabs were like, "No, that's not a fair deal at all." And then pretty immediately after that, there's a great book, uh, by Sheldon Richmond called Coming to Palestine if you're interested in the topic and you wanna see it. But pre- immediately after that, a bunch of essentially, like, Zionist militias started kicking Arabs off of the land. Like, "Hey, the UN said this part's ours." And like, and at first a civil war broke out, and in this process, hundreds of thous- I mean, uh, between 1947 and 1948, the total number is around 750,000, uh, Arabs who were forced out or, or fled. Um, and then in 1948, Israel declared independence, and then in, uh, as a response to that, outside Arab nations invaded, got involved in the fight. Israel won, and then after Israel won the war, they seized about 80% of the land. So they were, they were offered 54% or recommended 54%, they won a war, and then they just took 80% of it. And then in 1967, so this is in 1948, then, uh ... But at that point, at, at the end of the war, the, the portion that is p- uh, the Pal- uh, Palestinian territories today, that was the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that was controlled by, uh, Jordan, and Gaza was controlled by Egypt. And then in 1967, Israel launched a preemptive war, and, uh, they won again, and then they just took 100% of it. And then they just took control of the West Bank, all of Jerusalem, and Gaza, and they've had it ever since.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus Christ.
- DSDave Smith
They won a war in 1967, and they've occupied these territories ever since, and the Palestinians in these areas have jo- they just have no rights. They have no natural rights. They have n- there, just nothing. Like, they are... The, uh, Government of Israel, um, they, for most of the time, they were literally occupying it with, with the IDF, like of, like not, worse than martial law, 'cause it's like a foreign military, like foreign occupation, um, and th- they've always maintained control of everything that goes in and out, what supplies, how much food, how much water, how much electricity, all of these things. And look, it's just, if you're gonna talk about this situation, as so many people do, like so many people in like Ben Shapiro's camp or that, they talk about this conflict, talk about October 7th, and just leave all of that out. A- and, and if you do that, you're just not really having a conversation about what's going on here. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 10:20 – 13:21
Oct. 7 aftermath and mass protests: organization, outrage, and escalation risks
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't it fascinating that on two occasions, 9/11 and in October 7, there's an initial response from the world, like anger, outrage, hor- hor- horrific scenes, and then because of the attack and the response to the attack, then most young people now... Like when I was in New York City, uh, two weeks ago for the UFC, and there was the Free Palestine march, it's wild, dude.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, the fucking streets were filled with people. It looked very organized. And, uh, they attacked the UFC bus, and they slashed the tires of the bus while Robbie Lawler and Jamal Hill were on that bus.
- DSDave Smith
Really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Yeah. Apparently-
- DSDave Smith
Hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there was a thing where they were blocking traffic, and the bus tried to get through before they got there, and they got angry at the bus, and so they attacked the bus and smashed windows and slashed tires.
- DSDave Smith
Jeez. Yeah. That's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're so lucky that Jamal Hill and Robbie Lawler didn't get off that bus (laughs) and just start putting people into orbit.
- DSDave Smith
Dude, I don't know how many protesters it would take to beat up those two guys, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Z- zero, dude, you have zero chance.
- DSDave Smith
Uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jamal?
- DSDave Smith
It's a lot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, Jamal can crack.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's a big fella too.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's a big fella and he can crack. People are running from him. He's-
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... gonna crack one or two people, and everyone's gonna run.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, prob- yes, probably.
- JRJoe Rogan
100%.
- DSDave Smith
Yes, I've, I, my money is on-
- JRJoe Rogan
And then-
- DSDave Smith
... the professional fighters too.
- JRJoe Rogan
... someone's gonna recognize Robbie Lawler.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- 13:21 – 19:45
Hamas, Israel’s response, and the provocation logic of terrorism
- JRJoe Rogan
And Elon had a very good point. He said, "How many with, these people die, how many more future members of Hamas are they creating?"
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because of these attacks.
- DSDave Smith
There's a, uh, there's a great clip of, uh, Pat Buchanan. And it's a- I, I, it was like around 15 years ago or something like that. And he was, he was, uh, like debating on MSNBC, uh, with some, uh, with, with some other guy, like a pro-Israeli guy. And he ju- and he made that point at where he was like, 'cause I, something had just happened like Israel just did a, a raid or a bombing campaign and some, some innocent, you know, uh, Palestinians died. And he was l-, uh, he was just saying, he was like, "W- who are the ..." Uh, like, uh, like a little girl died or something like that. And he was like, "Who are the brothers and the nephews and the cousins of that girl gonna grow up to be?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
And you know, the, like if you look at the timing of it, they're probably right around the age of the, the Hamas fighters there. And you know, that's not of course to justify terrorism at all, because it's never justified to go kill, uh, target innocent civilians. But you do have to understand we're, we're kinda trapped in this cycle where when some of our people die, we wanna go kill some of their people. And then we kill some of their people so they wanna come kill some of our people. And then, and back and forth and back and forth.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Um, and that's the, you know, the awful thing about all of these wars on terrorism, is that they always just become ... And you can see it. Look, this is what Hamas ... This was the whole point of it too, right? I, it's like this is now the best propaganda and recruiting tool that Hamas has ever had. Because now they get the, look they, terrorism is almost always about trying to provoke a reaction. Like this is why Osama bin Laden did 9/11, is that he knew he couldn't like militarily defeat the United States of America, but he thought he could pull the same trick on us that we taught him to play on the Russians and get us to invade Afghanistan and bankrupt ourselves. And so what, do you think Hamas ... Look, uh, Hamas pulled off a fairly sophisticated attack. I mean, they came by like land, sea, and air. They took out the Israeli surveillance which is supposed to be the big, you know, the greatest surveillance system in, in the world. Um, and they pulled this off. Does anyone think that they didn't expect an Israeli response from this?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
It's like no, of course they knew exactly what Israel would do. And this is what they were trying to provoke them to do. 'Cause Hamas doesn't care about innocent Palestinians dying. But what they wanted was to turn, you know, the world against Israel, and particularly turn the, the Muslim world. I mean, not that it takes much to turn them against it, but to really put pressure on some of these other governments who had, you know, signed onto the Abraham Accords, um, which basically was y- using US tax dollars to buy off these other Arab countries to sell out the Palestinians. So wha- the, basically for, for years, the, uh, these other Arab countries w- like wouldn't recognize Israel, wouldn't normalize relations with Israel because they were sitting there saying like, "Hey, this is totally unfair. Like you, you kicked all of these people out and you don't really have a right to this land. And they a- are, they need to be, you know, treated with whatever, the, given independence or, or something like that. And so we won't normalize relations with you." And then basically Trump's plan and Israel's plan was like, "Well how about we just bribe you to normalize relations with Israel even though we're not giving the Palestinians their freedom?" And he got a bunch of them to sign onto it. And so for the Palestinians, this was like, I mean you can almost imagine the hopelessness, 'cause now this was kinda your only hope that someone else was gonna catch your back. And now everybody's basically agreed like, "Yeah look, you're never getting your state, you're never getting your independence. We're never going back to '67 borders. You're just, this is life forever." And like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like an open air prison.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. I mean, you know, people get, people like get upset about that characterization and it's not perfect.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's-
- DSDave Smith
But it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not perfect, but it's-
- DSDave Smith
It's close.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's containment.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's some kind of containment.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well I mean look, it's, it's imagine, you know, if you, the all you gotta do with all of these things, this is why I would, like Ron Paul is the greatest American hero t- in, in my opinion, 'cause like this was his whole central point on foreign policy, was always like you just have to try, just try a little bit to put yourself in their shoes. And how would you feel-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... if you were like occupied by a foreign government, which essentially isn't really a foreign government. It's really your government because they're the ones who run, who really run the place. And then how would you feel about that? You know the, in the, in the West Bank where they're still under, uh, military occupation, you know these guys, the, the IDF run in and scream, "Curfew." And you gotta run inside your house when they do that. I mean just like that, even just that-... level of like-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy.
- DSDave Smith
... being controlled-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... by a group of people who are not your people, you know? Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
I- isn't the most crazy thing that pe- that human beings still behave in these patterns, where we have groups of people that don't know at all, that have no personal interaction whatsoever, with other groups of people and they're willing to murder them?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, and this, it's, it's sort of like a default mechanism of the, the default part of the human system. L- human beings, when they have control of massive amounts of property and, and, and resources, they, they default into that mode. And that's just what's really insane about all this, is that I would've thought by now we'd have figured that out. And moved past some of the most ridiculous ideas, but we haven't. Still, battles over religion, battles over territory, like holy shit, it could be the end of us over the dumbest battles.
- DSDave Smith
And, and you just, y- y- yeah, it seems like you would think that just with what we have, you know, like the level of civilization that we have, the level of technology and medical innovation, like all these-
- 19:45 – 31:34
Netanyahu and internal Israeli politics: propping up Hamas & judicial-overhaul protests
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that Israel believes they can dismantle Hamas and install a government that they can reasonably discuss things with?
- DSDave Smith
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Even if there was a reasonable discussion, like what would that entail?
- DSDave Smith
Well, okay, but here's, th- this is what I'll say, right? I think that totally could happen. I mean, i- i- it's a little, it's tricky. But the history of it is, this'll kind of blow your mind, and by the way, um, for, th- this is, is gonna sound like a, um, a conspiracy theory if you haven't heard this before, but this is totally 100% true and it's been run in ... The, the day after, uh, on, on October 8th, there was a big piece in the, in the, uh, Times of Israel about this. There was a front page of Haaretz. These are big newspapers in Israel, and if you want to, you can go to, uh, antiwar.com, uh, my boy Scott Horton and Connor Friedman just wrote this great piece, um, a- about this. And they've got all the quotes in it, so you can just go read it for yourself. And this is in their own words, th- that this is admitted, that b- it was Benjamin Netanyahu's strategy for years to prop up Hamas. Specifically because then there would be no negotiating a state for the Palestinians, because no one in the international community is gonna look at Hamas, this terrorist organization, and say, "Yeah, we recognize them." So the plan was to undermine the more secular, uh, Palestinian Authority types so that they wouldn't be in control, Hamas would be in control, and then no one would ever negotiate their state.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- DSDave Smith
So just to be clear here, this is ... And, and by the way, I mean, the, you can find direct quotes from Benjamin Netanyahu saying this in his own words, saying that you must support Hamas, we must continue funding and supporting Hamas so that they can never get a state, specifically for that intended reason. So basically, what Be- what Benjamin Netanyahu did was for years prop up this terrorist organization and then fail to defend his people from them, uh, on October 7th. Um, and it's just, you know, I, like again, it's, it's m- mind-boggling to me that this element gets left out of the conversation in America.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
But by the way, it's not left out of the conversation in Israel. Like their newspapers are all talking about this, how this plan blew up in his face. Um, but it's really, you know, this is what happened here. It's not that there's this desire at the highest level of the Israeli governments, 'cause this is what they always say, "We have no partner for peace, we have no one who's willing to negotiate with us." But it's just not true. M- every time they have had somebody who s- who, who steps up ... And, and look, just to be clear here, when I was talking about 1947, 1948, how Israel, like the, the state of Israel was created, th- then in 1967, what they, when they took control of everything, what everybody always says ... I shouldn't say what everybody always says, there's people who say crazy stuff. But what Arafat said once he rejected terrorism, even what Hamas said when they first, uh, uh, you know, g- gained some power in, in Gaza, was '67 borders. They wanna go back to the '67 borders. So they're not saying, "We want 100% of this back," at least at those points in time. They were just saying, "Give us our 22% back." You know what I mean? "And let us be an autonomous, independent nation."
- JRJoe Rogan
So what, what would have to happen for that?
- DSDave Smith
Um, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
First of all, that seems, that seems like there's no way Israel's gonna accept something like that.
- DSDave Smith
It seems, it seems-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that ...
- DSDave Smith
As long as the Likud Party's in, I don't think so. I mean, I think what you really need is like the Likud Party and Hamas have gotta go, and like a new generation, uh, you know, of leadership has to come into power somehow. And there has to be like a, a desire to actually end this thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there any support in Israel for this idea that they should give them more land and that they should give land back?
- DSDave Smith
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, there has been. F- for years there's always been kind of like the liberal wing of, of, uh, Israeli citizens who are totally, who are totally against building the settlements in the Palestinian territory, who are, oppose the occupation, who are for return to '67 borders. I mean, look, Yitzhak Rabin, uh, if you remember, he was the prime minister in the '90s, and he was kind of ... He, he was at least saying, I don't know if the, I don't think this was like completely true, but he was at least saying like that's what he wanted, that he wanted to make a deal to give the Palestinians a state. And there were, this was at the beginning of the Oslo Accords, and if you, you remember when-... Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin came over and shook hands with Bill Clinton and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
And they, and there was at least talk of like, "We're going to do this." And he, he had support from his people. Now, a right-wing Israeli murdered him for that, 'cause they thought he was being too soft and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- DSDave Smith
... you know, negotiating. So, there's a, like, there's a split for sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- DSDave Smith
But it's not as if there isn't any desire for this. Now, I'm sure if you do polling, you know, on October 8th in Israel, I'm sure they were very pissed off. And, you know what I mean, like, that isn't the domin- the dominant belief.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And if you do polling in Gaza right now, I'm sure they're very pissed off at Isra- you know what I mean? 'Cause there's the, the rally around the flag effect when-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... there's terrorism or when there's war. But there have been, there have been people on, on both sides of this who ha- had a desire for peace-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- DSDave Smith
... uh, for a long time. And that's just, like, you know ... By the way, if you're, if you're interested in this stuff, you wanna do like a deep dive, uh, on the whole history, uh, Darrell Cooper, he, uh, who, um ... D- do you know, did I ask you last night if you, you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, you did. We talked about it last night, but tell everybody who he is.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. So, he's Darrell Cooper. He, his, uh, Twitter handle is martyr_made, and he, uh, is, uh, he co-hosts a podcast with, uh, Jaco. Um, it's one of his podcasts they, they do together. But he did on his, on, so on Darrell Cooper's solo podcast, he did this deep dive into the history of, of Israel and Palestine. Uh, it's, I mean, it's, it's a time commitment for sure. It's like, a, 25 hours or something like that long. There's-
- 31:34 – 34:16
Propaganda, the new information ecosystem, and government pressure on platforms
- DSDave Smith
... that he ha- backed out of it. But then again, there's like the white pill, which is like the, the ho- the case for optimism.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
Is that, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Protests work.
- DSDave Smith
Well, and not just protests but just... I mean, protests can work at times, but also just if the percentage of the population r- is so against something, then many times, it doesn't get done. Like, the, the thing that I think gives me the most, the most cause for optimism and hope, is that th- there's a reason why the gov- governments use propaganda on their own people. There's a reason why they propagandize us, and it's because at least they believe, and I think they're correct in this, that they can't do what they wanna do unless we, at least tacitly, support it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... or will accept it. And that you've seen this several times before. I've talked about it before on the show with you, where there are these, these instances where they try to push something and it's just there's so much resistance to it that they're just like... They kinda dip their, their toe in the water to see if maybe... They float an idea, and then everybody's just like, "No, we're not doing this," and then they go, "Okay, we're not gonna do that now." And, and at the same time, while we have that dynamic, um, there's... We now... W- we're in a, like, a revolution in terms of the way people get ideas and stuff like that. I mean, you're a, a pretty gigantic part of that. But there is no longer this kind of monopoly control on the means of information that the American people, or people of the world, can receive now. And so we kind of like... I do think we have a tremendous opportunity. I mean, you can look around at everything that's, like, going on that's really bad. And I know I, you know, focus on that a lot. But we have, like, a tremendous opportunity now, unlike ever before, to kind of counter the propaganda of governments. And so I actually think there's a lotta hope, uh, for humanity. Um, and then, you know, AI will kill us all in a few years, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
What was this?
- DSDave Smith
... in the meantime.
- JRJoe Rogan
There, there's... The government is trying to, in some way, control things on social media. And what was the latest with the Biden administration? 'Cause I know they've instituted some shit in Canada that freaks people out. And, you know, they're clearly trying to get regulatory power over internet content.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well, they're, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because it's against their narrative too often.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well, they're... And they're pretty furious with your boy, Elon, for, uh, for-
- JRJoe Rogan
For buying X.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. He did a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
He really committed a crime against the establishment by, uh, saying that not every single social media, uh, platform now will be on board with the program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
Um, so tha- but you see the way they're kind of coming after him? Um-
- 34:16 – 39:14
Elon, ADL controversy, and how sloppy posts become political weapons
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he kinda put his foot in his own mouth with that one.
- DSDave Smith
With what?
- JRJoe Rogan
The, the, the Twitter, uh, thing, exchange, that he got in trouble for.
- DSDave Smith
What, what? How do you-
- JRJoe Rogan
The one where he kept on saying that he's antisemitic.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, oh, oh. What, what was that specific one?
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Jamie will find it.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, oh, it was one... He, like, responded to an antisemitic thing or something like that? Is that what it was?
- JRJoe Rogan
And said, "You are saying the actual truth," or something along those lines.
- DSDave Smith
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which-
- DSDave Smith
I, I vaguely remember this.
- JRJoe Rogan
The thing is-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, if you're shooting from the hip like that (snaps fingers) and saying things that are... That's a, y- that's... If you have, like, an ex- explanation for what you're saying... Are you saying the, uh... What i- what are you saying? The ADL? Like, what is it?
- DSDave Smith
Correct.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is, what is the thing you're, you have a beef with? Yeah. Uh, "Elon boosts antisemitic tweet, claims ADL and other groups push anti-white messaging." See, I don't... 'Cause I think the tweet said something about... I don't think it's specifically mentioned the ADL. So if it did specifically mention the ADL, then I would say, "Oh, he's talking about the ADL doing this thing." But I don't think that was exactly how the tweet was phrased-
- DSDave Smith
It says, "Jewish comm- Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectic hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. See-
- DSDave Smith
Okay. Yeah. They said... Yeah, so they didn't say-
- JRJoe Rogan
See, it's Jewish communities.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He's not saying the ADL.
- DSDave Smith
Right. Right. Yeah, that wasn't... That probably wasn't a good response.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then so Elon says, "You have said the actual truth." So if he said the ADL has been pushing these things, then you could say yes. But he's saying Jewish communities. Is the ADL a Jewish community? Yes, it is. But you just can't lump them all into one group-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, well, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
... like that.
- DSDave Smith
So, like, you could argue a case of, on a technicality, like, they are a Jewish community. But still-
- JRJoe Rogan
But still-
- DSDave Smith
But you just say it that way.
- 39:14 – 45:23
From protest slogans to gun debates: ignorance, tribal ideology, and libertarian enforcement logic
- JRJoe Rogan
So then he, uh, scores points on the other side by saying, uh, that agreeing that that phrase, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," that, that is implying genocide, he's saying.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. I mean, I... Look, there's definitely people who say it who mean that by it.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's like-
- DSDave Smith
I don't know what-
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you seen people that get interviewed when they're, they're chanting and then these people interview them? Like, "What do you mean by to which river and which sea? Like what are you saying?" And they're like, "What? Why are you asking me questions?"
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "I'm just trying to find out, like what river are you talking about and what sea does it go to?"
- DSDave Smith
Well, yeah, but dude, this is, this is protests in general because I r-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Yeah, I remember videos of, um, the, the March for Our Lives, uh, when they were marching for gun control. And they had like these big protests up in Boston and stuff and they'd go around interviewing them and just ask them. You know, they'd be like, "So, uh, you know, what, what is it that... What policy do you want?" And they're like, "We want a ban on assault weapons." And they'd be like, "What's an assault weapon?" And then, uh, you already see them being like, "Um, well, it's the scary ones."
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, Joy, Joy Behar was on The View talking about shooting a deer with an AR. There'd be nothing left of the deer.
- DSDave Smith
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just...
- DSDave Smith
I j- just have no idea. Just has no idea.
- JRJoe Rogan
Five-five-six is small round.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
ARS don't shoot a big round.
- DSDave Smith
Oh-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not like a .300 Win Mag. It's not like a big rifle round.
- DSDave Smith
It's a...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a, it's a fairly small round.
- DSDave Smith
All right. Huge percentage of these guys, 'cause this is... Like, so many times I've seen people make this mistake. A huge percent of them think the AR-15 is a machine gun. Like, they th- You know what I mean? Like, the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... there's... A lot of them don't-
- JRJoe Rogan
It just looks like a tactical gun. And there's, uh, some people that, like, don't like the idea of using it for hunting because it's a semi-automatic. But realistically, a semi-automatic is more ethical for hunting than a bolt-action revol- ri- rifle.
- DSDave Smith
Right, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
A bolt-action takes too much time to reload. So if you hit an animal and then you wanna hit it again while you can still see it, you wanna be able to go bang, bang.
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You wanna be able to get a second shot into that animal. It's more humane.
- DSDave Smith
Right, right.
- 45:23 – 54:05
Crony capitalism, fiat money, and why inflation forces everyone into ‘gambling’
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's, there's a lot of problems, right? One of the problems is that it's profitable to put people in cages.
- DSDave Smith
That's for sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's with everything in this world. When it becomes profitable, they figure out a way to justify whatever the fuck they have to do, whether it's lie about side effects or lie about the dangers of certain food additives or lie about the effect of pesticides or herbicides. Whatever the fuck it is, they've always shown that they will find a way to justify what... Even if they, if it's the sugar industry bribing scientists to pretend that saturated fat is the problem.
- DSDave Smith
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
It will find, they'll find a way if money's involved. So if money's involved in that, why would it be any different? And it's not.
- DSDave Smith
Well, right. So, and this is basically kind of the beauty of free market capitalism, which we have so distorted with this kind of giant crony capitalist system that we live under, is that in, uh, in a free market, um, you're, i- i- if there's no government, um, involvement and you're in a free market, there's still all of those incentives that you're talking about. The, all these companies wanna make as much money as possible, but what it kind of does is channel that into something where like, "All right, how do we make as much money as possible?" Well, you gotta make something that people really wanna buy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
You gotta make something that they really want. You know what I mean? And that, I'm not suggesting there can't be any corruption in that type of system, but once you get the government involved in it, now the way, the, the way to make the most money is to force things on people. You get the government to write a rule and now the people have no choice. And so these incentives that can s- somewhat exist in harmony with doing good for society in some conditions is now totally corrupted, right? Like it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
... totally. So even if you think about something with like, let's say there's, uh, you have like the vaccine or, or s- a vaccine or something like that. And theoretically there's no collusion between the government and pharmaceutical companies, and you wanna get people to take, uh, your vaccine. Well, you're gonna have to like convince them that it's really good for them. You're gonna have to sell them on like, "No, look at, look at this data. Look at how many pe- how much this reduced the, you know, the rate of death from this. Look at all this great information about the vaccine." But if you have the government involved, then you're like, "Well, you know what? Just go lobby the government to make it mandatory."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
"Then, then we'll rake in profits." That's, the, that's so much more of a profitable direction-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... to go. And so, you know, there's all these things get corrupted and particularly i- i- today, we just, um, you know, the size of the US federal government is that's the biggest organization in the history of the world.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
It's, there's nothing, e- there's not even a close second.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's, uh, got survival instincts.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It doesn't wanna give up ground. It doesn't wanna give up power.
- DSDave Smith
Well, this is-
- JRJoe Rogan
It wants to keep expanding. It wants more funding for its projects. It wants to hire more people to deal with something in an incompetent way. And it's not like the free market where it, like if it's incompetent, like there's gonna be a competitor that comes along and does a better job and you're gonna lose the market.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- DSDave Smith
No, you ever look at the, um, if you look at like the, uh, the list of the richest counties in, in America, and they're like, I forget the exact numbers. It's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's all lobbyists. (laughs)
- DSDave Smith
Well, it's like ten of the f- they're all, not all, but the vast majority of them are right outside Washington DC-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
... and right outside New York City.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DSDave Smith
And so like, what is that? This, is that, is that capitalism? Is, do you go to Washington DC and you go, "Oh, there's al- there's more millionaires there than there are in any other part of the world in the suburbs around Washington DC"? Is that 'cause there's great big factories and they're making so much stuff that everyone wants to buy?
- 54:05 – 1:01:27
Bank runs, bailouts, and fractional-reserve banking explained (with movie references)
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you remember that time about a year or so ago where banks started failing?
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Remember that?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Remember how spooky that was?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where banks started going under and there was a real concern that it would cause a, you know, a cascade effect?
- DSDave Smith
They were very, very concerned about that. Yeah. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it didn't, but it got close and we had never heard about that many bank... I mean, there was a savings and loan crisis. Remember when a bunch of-
- DSDave Smith
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... those places went under?
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I remember that. I found out about that because Vinny Pazienza, the boxer, lost a, a bunch of money in one of those.
- DSDave Smith
Oh, really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Like, you know, I think his life earnings. I think he lost a shitload of money. Like quite a few people have lost a lot of money in these fucking things.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where banks go under.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah. Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
All of a sudden you lose everything. Like what? You don't have my money?
- DSDave Smith
Well, and of course-
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no money.
- DSDave Smith
... in, in 2008-
- JRJoe Rogan
Bye.
- DSDave Smith
... the- was, that was the big one, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
In 2008 and they really set a precedent there with that kind of too big to fail-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
... line of logic where if that's true that the banks are too big to fail and then you bailed all of them out and now they're bigger than they were then, then they're really too big to fail now, right? So it kind of perpetuates this idea that we... Listen, the banking system, and everybody kind of knows this, the banking system is built on a house of cards. Um, and it could collapse at any moment. And if it does, the federal government's gonna have to come rob you of your money to give to a bunch of bankers again.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sh-
- DSDave Smith
That's our system. That's our financial system.
- 1:01:27 – 1:15:05
COVID mandates, medical authority, and distrust of institutions
- JRJoe Rogan
It can happen anywhere. It is a, uh, a way human beings behave. But one, one of the things that is always stunning to me is this...... willingness, this desire to ignore the fact that almost all these shooters are on psychiatric medications.
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And if you bring that up, somehow or another, you're a conspiracy theorist. We are literally talking about chemicals that alter the way your mind works, and there seems to be some connection, whether it's because only a crazy person would wind up being a mass shooter, maybe.
- DSDave Smith
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe that's it. But the fact that there's no discussion of maybe there's a connection.
- DSDave Smith
Can it be ... It, it, it also might be, uh, because I don't know if, if we actually know this or, like, if you're drug testing these shooters after, but it could be also, like, being on this medication and then suddenly going off of the medication. Uh, you know, like, it's hard to tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- DSDave Smith
But that's still a concern about the medication itself, is that like-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's also-
- DSDave Smith
... how are you gonna make sure this person isn't going off it? If that's the issue.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you can't control it.
- DSDave Smith
But th- r- right. And then, but look, even on, on a lot of these, uh, like, SSRI, uh, uh, psychotropic drugs, they'll, it, they'll say in the disclaimer, like, side effects can be like, uh, um, depression, thoughts of suicide-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DSDave Smith
... things like this. Like, there are ... The, the, we're, we're messing with chemicals in your brains and they're saying, "Well, for the most part, we think it makes people feel less depressed. But there are some people who it actually makes feel more depressed." And then they'll even put suicidal thoughts on there. And so you're like, are you telling me that it's a crazy leap to think that if a drug might make you have suicidal thoughts, it might make you have homicidal thoughts? Because that, is that crazy to say? And then-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not crazy to say at all.
- DSDave Smith
... you know, and look, obviously, like, you're, what, what you're saying here is, like, there's, there's kind of like a circular, like, aspect to the argument, because you could also make the point that you're like, "Oh, no, the reason why so many of these mass shooters are on these drugs is because they're the type of people who would need these drugs."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
But there's at least something to look at there where it's like, yeah, but is it possible that the drugs itself are making this worse? Because look, we just, when it comes at least to the school shooting, you know, stuff, we did not have this problem before. There, there was a time in American history when this just was not happening.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
And it was a time before we had this dr- these drugs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DSDave Smith
So there's at least, at least raises the question of, is it possible that this is actually what's going on? And, and how exactly can it be that, like, what, like, through all of human history, it was just wrong, and the truth is that children must be medicated? Like, children must be on drugs as they're being raised up? And it is, it is, um, criminal, it is criminal how quickly the vast majority of, of, uh, psychiatrists will just prescribe a little boy, uh, Adderall or, you know, I think that's more popular than Ritalin now, or whatever the other one that, new one that's the, kinda like Adderall is now. They'll just put them on drugs. Like, "Ah, he can't sit still. Put him on drugs. Drug him." That, like, you're not even talking about like, like perhaps there is an argument to s- there, there are, there are certain people, I think, who need to be on medication. I mean, I've, I've known people who have like a bipolar disorder and, like, if they don't take this medication, they're going to be in a very bad place. You know what I mean?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DSDave Smith
Um, but the idea that just, like, every little boy who can't sit still needs to be drugged is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- DSDave Smith
That's just insane.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you've paid attention to the relationship between pharmaceutical drugs-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and the salespeople and then the doctors and the, the, the cozy relationship that these people all have, and you realize, like, well, there's a lot of money to prescribing-
- DSDave Smith
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:50:34
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