Joe Rogan Experience #2153 - Dave Smith

Narrator 0:00 (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (heavy guitar music) Did you see, uh, Hochul, what she said, that, uh, young Black kids don't know what a computer is?

Dave Smith 0:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:21 Did you see her say that?

Dave Smith 0:22 No, I didn't see that.

Joe Rogan 0:23 Oh my God, it's ... And all these dudes did these hilarious videos-

Dave Smith 0:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:26 ... where, uh, these young Black guys, like, got around a computer, and they stared at it-

Dave Smith 0:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:30 ... and bit it and took it. (laughs)

Dave Smith 0:33 (laughs) There's like a ... It's like an age thing too 'cause that, that used to kind of be the line that, like, uh, liberals would say. "You know, the problem with Black kids is they just don't have any role models. They've never been exposed to this." But that's just totally not true anymore. And sometimes now, 'cause they're from a different generation, they'll still say that. And you're like, "Are you ... Have you been around Black people lately?"

Joe Rogan 0:54 But saying young, poor, Black kids don't know what a computer is is so crazy. (laughs)

Dave Smith 1:02 They've got one in their pocket.

Joe Rogan 1:05 It's such a dumb thing to say. It's amazing that you could something like that and be the governor of a major state. Don't even know what the word computer is.

Dave Smith 1:18 Oh, they don't ... They're not even familiar with the term?

Joe Rogan 1:20 They don't know these things. Like, is she doing a survey? Ma'am, where did you get this data?

Dave Smith 1:27 (laughs) Well, this is why Malcolm X said that, uh, there's nothing more racist than a white liberal.

Joe Rogan 1:32 Yes.

Dave Smith 1:32 'Cause of shit like this.

Joe Rogan 1:34 Well, they're weak. Weak people are dangerous. Weak people that don't like strength are dangerous. They're dangerous 'cause they wanna suppress everything. That's what's spooky about it. Weak people scare the shit out of me, more than even, like, totalitarians do sometimes, 'cause they eventually become totalitarian. You know, it's like the bullied become the bullies, you know. They want payback. But it's just that weak liberal men are, to me, they, they're so detestable, the weak ones. I mean, there's some intelligent, brilliant liberal men that just, that's their philosophy. And I think if you're not exposed to the, the pitfalls of liberalism, if you don't see what happens to your state when those policies get enacted, specifically when things go south. If everything was going great, like, if ... No one gave a shit who the mayor of Los Angeles was in 2015.

Dave Smith 2:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:32 'Cause everything was great.

Dave Smith 2:33 Right.

Joe Rogan 2:33 You know? It was like there was no problems. Obama was president. The economy was doing good. We weren't at war really. Kinda we were, but-

Dave Smith 2:40 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:41 ... it wasn't affecting us.

Dave Smith 2:42 Right. Well, there's something, um, on, on that topic of, like, weak, the weakness of modern liberals. 'Cause I, I was in, um ... Like late last year, I was in San Diego, and I haven't been to ... I mean, I've been to LA a couple times but much less than I used to go, like when you were out there. Um, and I, I haven't been to San Francisco in years. But I was in San Diego, and it's like, you know, um ... You've been there. It's like a beautiful city downtown, and where, where we were, uh, is a great comedy club, the American Comedy Company down there.

Joe Rogan 3:12 Going?

Dave Smith 3:12 No, I'm good.

Joe Rogan 3:12 Great club.

Dave Smith 3:13 Great club. Love that place. Um, and I'm, like, downtown, and, uh, we were g- going... Me and my buddy, Rob Bernstein, uh, very funny comedian who was, uh, with me on the trip. We're, like, walking around, and the great restaurants, really nice little town. But then there's just blocks-

Joe Rogan 3:27 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 3:27 ... that are taken over by these homeless encampments.

Joe Rogan 3:30 Yeah.

Dave Smith 3:30 And right next to 'em, it's like all these young professionals and these nice restaurants and this nice city, and I was just thinking about that. Like, how, how are all of the men here so weak that they won't just kinda, like, put their foot down and be like, "Hey, no, we're not gonna put up with this"? Like, "We're not just ..." It's almost like this, um, like niceness has taken over to the point that you can't even defend this cool city that you have here. And I- I'm not saying, like-

Joe Rogan 3:59 Yeah.

Dave Smith 3:59 ... bash the homeless people with clubs or anything like that. I'm just saying, like, why are you allowing this to happen? And it is, like, a profound weakness-

Joe Rogan 4:07 Yeah.

Dave Smith 4:07 ... that, "Well, we'd feel like bad people if we were to say we don't want junkies covered in shit right next to our outdoor dining."

Joe Rogan 4:14 (laughs)

Dave Smith 4:14 And you're like, "No, that would just be reasonable."

Joe Rogan 4:17 Well, what they need is a reasonable plan to help these people.

Dave Smith 4:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:21 If you really care, if you really care, you gotta do something. Like, you, you can't just let them exist everywhere, and then ... In San Francisco, the most recent bizarre one is they're gonna give them alcohol. They're gonna give money and alcohol. What is it? Is there ... Are they giving them actual booze, or are they giving them money to buy booze? Help me out with this one 'cause it's just so San Francisco. San Francisco was amazing. I lived there in the '70s. I lived there during the Vietnam War when I was a little kid. It was incredible. It was weird.

Dave Smith 4:56 I'm sure.

Joe Rogan 4:56 It was like it shaped, it shaped the way I view things 'cause, like, if I had grown up in, like, a very conservative environment with, like, my sensibilities, like my hard work ethic and my belief that, you know, you get very fortunate in life, in like how you're, you're gifted things, like how you get lucky. Like, if you're beautiful, for instance, if you're a beautiful woman or man, you're ... What a roll of the dice.

Dave Smith 5:21 Sure.

Joe Rogan 5:21 I mean, good Lord, good Lord, did you kill it in the fucking genetic lottery. I mean, you can't do anything about that. You can't earn that.

Dave Smith 5:28 Yup.

Joe Rogan 5:28 You can't go out and get beauty, you know? But after that, whatever hand you, you've given, you've been given, a lot of it is on you. A lot of it is on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, terrible things happen to people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Violence happens. Crime happens. Disease happens. Yes, 100%. Misfortune happens 100%. We're all ... Anyone listening to this right now is lucky you can hear, okay? There's people that can't hear, right? But put that aside, and there's a factor that we need to take into consideration. That factor is discipline. That factor is hard work. That factor is focus. And we should cherish that, and we, we, we shouldn't think of it only as negative 'cause it always ...People always think it manifests itself in greed and in callous disregard for other people's lives. But that's not necessarily true. They're not mutually exclusive. Like you can have discipline and be a kind person, and be a compassionate person, and be a liberal person. But so often, liberals in, in this country, they do not want to take that into consideration, that discipline is a factor. Conservatives always value discipline. They value hard work. That's why when they wanna sell shit to those people, what do they do? They show a guy on a farm cracking open a beer, a guy who's just been working his fucking ass off for 10 hours a day, "Cracking a beer. Around here, it's all just about hard work."

Dave Smith 6:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:56 And the guy just sh- throwing back a cold one.

Dave Smith 6:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:58 You know? I mean, that's what they're selling you. They're selling you hard work. They're not selling you, you know, this poor farmer, you know, who's born into farming life, and it's not equitable or fair, while there's billionaires out there who just make money trading money. And it's bullshit, and we need to distribute wealth. And like, no. No, that's not the answer either, stupid. Like that's-

Dave Smith 7:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 7:18 ... not the answer. But you do need programs to get these people out of homelessness, and you can't, uh, just encourage them to keep doing it. It's bad for them. It's bad for you. It's bad for the city. It's bad for property values. It's bad for everything.

Dave Smith 7:32 Yep. I couldn't agree more.

Joe Rogan 7:33 San Francisco gives actual alcohol. (laughs)

Dave Smith 7:37 (laughs) We're not talking rubbing alcohol here, right?

Joe Rogan 7:39 (laughs)

Dave Smith 7:39 They're talking like booze?

Joe Rogan 7:40 Oh, they're so good. They're so good. They sp-... But these, it's the old hippies, they're still there. They're wearing masks right now while they're listening to this, screaming, "No, no, no, no!"

Dave Smith 7:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:49 They're, they're-

Dave Smith 7:50 No.

Joe Rogan 7:50 ... all lost.

Dave Smith 7:51 See, the, like to, to your point, it's like a, look, it'd be ridiculous if, if someone just completely dismissed the first part of what you were saying.

Joe Rogan 8:00 Yes.

Dave Smith 8:00 Like that there are some-

Joe Rogan 8:01 Fortune.

Dave Smith 8:01 ... things that, fortune, luck. You know?

Joe Rogan 8:03 Luck is huge.

Dave Smith 8:03 That w- we all d- didn't get leukemia as little kids, and died.

Joe Rogan 8:06 Absolutely. If you get shot in a drive-by-

Dave Smith 8:07 Um, yes.

Joe Rogan 8:08 ... as a little kid.

Dave Smith 8:08 And also, there are just parts of the world, like a lot of what you're saying really applies to like first world advanced countries, that they're-

Joe Rogan 8:14 Yeah.

Dave Smith 8:14 You could be in a country that's just a war-torn third world country, and you're screwed-

Joe Rogan 8:18 Right.

Dave Smith 8:18 ... no matter what you do. Um, but, so we'd be silly to dismiss that, but it's also equally ridiculous to dismiss the other aspect to it? That, th- like, okay, there are... Every person, every single person who's successful has con- conquered, uh, self-pity. 'Cause like everybody's had points in their lives where they've just felt really bad for themselves. We've all had it. We all do it. Um-

Joe Rogan 8:41 It's a part of human nature.

Dave Smith 8:43 Th- that's right, but it's also poison. And anybody who's successful has learned how to conquer that, and not just sit here and feel bad for yourself, and to say, "Nope, I'm gonna take control of this. I'm gonna, uh, no matter what happened to me, the, I'm gonna not focus on that. I'm gonna focus on what I can control." And the problem is that on, on either side, if you dismiss one of them, you, you come to really stupid conclusions.

Joe Rogan 9:07 100%. And it's not lost on me, the irony of two rich white guys, one of them smoking a cigar-

Dave Smith 9:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:13 ... talking about this.

Dave Smith 9:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:15 (laughs)

Dave Smith 9:16 I would say I'm, I'm climbing my way toward there.

Joe Rogan 9:18 (laughs)

Dave Smith 9:18 I don't know about rich w- by, by global standards, sure. But I'm-

Joe Rogan 9:21 Bro, you're fucking killing it. Shut your mouth.

Dave Smith 9:23 By global standards, I'm on Elon Musk level.

Joe Rogan 9:24 Yeah, I mean-

Dave Smith 9:24 That's true.

Joe Rogan 9:25 ... I'm poor compared to Elon.

Dave Smith 9:26 That is true. You are broke. Do you think-

Joe Rogan 9:28 I'm so broke.

Dave Smith 9:29 Do you think he laughs-

Joe Rogan 9:29 (laughs)

Dave Smith 9:29 ... about you, like when you're not there?

Joe Rogan 9:31 Yes.

Dave Smith 9:31 He's like, "Uh," 'cause-

Joe Rogan 9:32 That poor little bastard.

Dave Smith 9:33 He goes, "I got Rogan-

Joe Rogan 9:33 "Have a-

Dave Smith 9:33 ... coming over to the house."

Joe Rogan 9:34 How's he eat?"

Dave Smith 9:34 "Put away the good china."

Joe Rogan 9:36 (laughs)

Dave Smith 9:37 (laughs) He goes, "Oh God, the Rogans are coming."

Joe Rogan 9:39 This levels-

Dave Smith 9:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:40 ... of people. I'm, I'm friends now, this is a bizarre thing to say, with multiple billionaires.

Dave Smith 9:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:47 I know multiple guys that are billionaires, and they're very nice people. They're very nice. And I could see how it happens, 'cause-

Dave Smith 9:53 But you're also friends with the cool billionaires.

Joe Rogan 9:55 Yeah.

Dave Smith 9:56 You know? Like-

Joe Rogan 9:56 Yeah.

Dave Smith 9:56 ... you manage to find the cool ones.

Joe Rogan 9:58 Well, Elon's the coolest. He's my favorite billionaire. That, that dude's wild. He's a wild boy. I will buy Teslas as long as they sell them just to support that dude.

Dave Smith 10:08 Just to, just to keep Twitter going.

Joe Rogan 10:10 And they're dope. But yeah, just to c- to support him, man. The, the, you, you, you, goddammit, you need an Elon Musk in this world.

Dave Smith 10:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:17 You need a wild boy. You need a dude-

Dave Smith 10:19 Dude, how great-

Joe Rogan 10:19 ... who's got $200 billion who dunks on people.

Dave Smith 10:22 Dude, how great-

Joe Rogan 10:23 (laughs)

Dave Smith 10:23 ... was watching him realize in real time how stupid Don Lemon is?

Joe Rogan 10:27 Oh my God.

Dave Smith 10:28 Like you could actually see on his face-

Joe Rogan 10:30 Yeah. Oh my God.

Dave Smith 10:30 ... as he's asking the questions, and he's like, uh, "Well, if you lower standards, then you're gonna get more incompetence." And Don Lemon's like, "So you're saying Black people aren't competent?" And he's like-

Joe Rogan 10:38 Ugh.

Dave Smith 10:38 ... "No, that's not what..." And he slowly starts to realize like, "Oh, I have 80 IQ points on this guy."

Joe Rogan 10:45 It's not just that.

Dave Smith 10:46 Like-

Joe Rogan 10:47 He said a very important point. He said that Don Lemon was doing CNN outside of CNN.

Dave Smith 10:51 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 10:51 And you don't have to do that. You just, don't, nobody wants that anymore.

Dave Smith 10:55 I'd say you can't do that. It's not gonna work.

Joe Rogan 10:57 It's not gonna work. But more importantly, you shouldn't do it because it's not good for you. Just be a human. Don't be this thing, this journalistic, probing, bullshit thing that's trying to spin a narrative. Actually have a conversation with this human.

Dave Smith 11:13 Yep.

Joe Rogan 11:14 You will probably agree with a lot of the things he says. You will understand his perspective, even if you disagree. You could see how an intelligent person would come to this conclusion. This is how we can talk to each other now. We don't have to be confined by these five-minute segments where you have producers and executives that are pushing an agenda that's on a network that's run by a bunch of huge fucking corporations that have a vested interest in swaying the narrative one way or the other. You don't have to do that anymore.

Dave Smith 11:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:43 That's not necessary- it's bad for people. It's bad for humanity.

Dave Smith 11:47 Uh-

Joe Rogan 11:47 It's a bad way to distribute information. It is literal propaganda, whether you think it is or not.

Dave Smith 11:53 Oh, dude, I mean, I've even, I mean, I've done like a fair amount of like cable news shows. And, uh, you know, they'll do these things where it's like a panel, and there'll be like three people on the panel and the person hosting the show. And nothing agai- like there's some people who I really like who, uh, I've been on their shows. But it's like, you're trying to talk about the most important topics, and everyone gets 20 seconds.

Joe Rogan 12:13 I w-

Dave Smith 12:14 It's so ridiculous.

Joe Rogan 12:14 I want you to imagine a scenario. Imagine a scenario where COVID breaks out.Um, and for whatever reason, the mainstream media is saying that we should be very careful about experimental drugs. And they start... These journalists start bringing up all these stories about different drugs, where you could see how they chose very specific tests, and that some of their tests, some of their studies didn't go well at all, and they buried those, and they're allowed to do so. And about how they've killed thousands and thousands of people with these drugs they knew were bad for them. And if the journalists were saying this, but the podcasters were all going, "You need to trust the science."

Dave Smith 13:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:01 "Everyone should be vaccinated. Be vaccinated or you're a fucking plague rat." Imagine, imagine if the podcasters were calling the unvaccinated plague rats. Imagine if the podcasters were encouraging medical misinformation.

Dave Smith 13:17 Doesn't it seem...

Joe Rogan 13:18 But, but what I... my point is, imagine the backlash right now where there's none coming their way.

Dave Smith 13:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:26 There's zero. It's like everyone forgot about it. It all went away.

Dave Smith 13:31 Well, I'm debating Chris Cuomo, uh...

Joe Rogan 13:32 We would be in jail.

Dave Smith 13:33 I'll be debating Chris Cuomo...

Joe Rogan 13:34 I know.

Dave Smith 13:34 ... uh, in a few days.

Joe Rogan 13:35 That's the set-up.

Dave Smith 13:35 So that'll be, that'll be fun for that.

Joe Rogan 13:37 Bro, we would be...

Dave Smith 13:37 But, dude, doesn't it...

Joe Rogan 13:38 We would be in jail.

Dave Smith 13:40 Does-

Joe Rogan 13:40 All these people that are dropping dead, all these people with strokes, all these people with heart attacks, all these people with... What, what was the AstraZeneca thing that I sent you today?

Dave Smith 13:49 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it-

Joe Rogan 13:51 AstraZeneca, they were saying that 11% of the people had an adverse side effect.

Dave Smith 13:54 And like, serious...

Joe Rogan 13:56 Serious.

Dave Smith 13:56 ... adverse, uh, uh, side effects. Yeah. But, uh, even as you lay out this scenario, doesn't it almost in some way be like, i- it feels like that makes more sense? What would make more sense was that comedians, like me and you, would have just been saying the dumb thing and repeating it.

Joe Rogan 14:11 Yeah.

Dave Smith 14:11 But the person in a suit and tie at CNN, I mean, this dude's a professional newsman.

Joe Rogan 14:15 We-

Dave Smith 14:15 Like, he knows what's going on.

Joe Rogan 14:17 They would make a very good argument for ending podcasts.

Dave Smith 14:20 Sure.

Joe Rogan 14:21 They'd make a very good argument for prosecuting people, class action lawsuits, all the people that encourage these podcasters with their limited... You don't even have a medical degree.

Dave Smith 14:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:32 And you're on the internet telling people what to do, which is exactly what they did.

Dave Smith 14:36 They did, even though we were getting everything right. And now most of 'em will admit that we were right.

Joe Rogan 14:42 Now when you see Chris Cuomo and Patrick Bet-David spinning it...

Dave Smith 14:46 Listen, I don't want to go too hard right now 'cause I want him to show up. Uh.

Joe Rogan 14:50 (laughs)

Dave Smith 14:50 But the fact that, the fact that... And I will make sure to bring this up to him. But the fact that when he, what he said, and if you listen to it, he literally goes, as he's explaining that he is on, um, ivermectin, he goes, "Now a lot of people are gonna say Joe Rogan is right." And, and then he has a moment where he pauses, realizes he can't even come up with anything, and he goes, "All right, Joe Rogan was right." And then goes on to say exactly what you've been saying for years now, that l- just the most basic thing that anyone who did five minutes of research could have figured out, which there's no cont- uh, controversy in any of this. That ivermectin has been given to humans billions of times, that it's a safe drug, and that there were some indications that it might help with COVID. And that it's not horse dewormer, and that... But the fact that that's not a- attached to, like, a profuse apology. Like, "Hey, I'm..." Like, if I, I couldn't imagine a scenario where I had like viciously smeared someone for something, then realized he was 100% right and I was 100% wrong, and when acknowledging that, I wouldn't also go, "Hey, I'm really sorry about that."

Joe Rogan 16:01 Dude, I think there's a cult-like thinking in mainstream media, whether they're, they know they're being influenced by their sponsors or they're not. But I don't even think they understand how crazy it is. When I had Sanjay Gupta on... Sanjay Gupta is a very nice man. I think he's a good man. I really do. And he's, he's a surgeon. I mean, he's very busy. The guy's constantly working. And he comes in to give medical information and, and give this, you know, lay things out for CNN. And I think he thinks he's doing the right thing. When they asked him to be on the podcast, I, I don't know what they thought was gonna happen. I don't think they... I think they thought they were right. I really do.

Dave Smith 16:45 I think... My, my guess, and this is just a guess, um, but I have been in that world a little bit. Like, I, I worked for CNN for a year, and I've done a lot of shows on Fox News, and I've met a lot of people, you know, and, and talked to a lot of people who work at CNN and Fox News. And my, my guess on it is that, number one, he had a book. So they wanna sell copies of the book, and they know you have the biggest show. And so they're like, "Oh, this will be really good." And then I also think this thing, there's this thing where they all, yeah, they all really do feel like we're the experts. And they know they're the experts because, I mean, "I just got off the phone with, you know, the Chief of Staff of the White House," and I know... You know, they're very into that kind of, like, that world where I've talked to everyone with status. And I think there, there's hubris involved, where they're like, "You'll be able to handle whatever a comedian throws at you." Like, "You're a medical expert and he's not." But then you would just ask really basic questions, which my favorite was, uh, when he goes, "So are you gonna get the vaccine?" And you were like, "Well, no, I just had COVID. I have natural immunity." And you were like, "Why should I get the vaccine?" And he had no answer. And this was at a time when they were rolling out vaccine passports. And he, he just dem- They were... The whole line was just, "You have to get the vaccine or you're a bad person. This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated." And then he just demonstrated on your show that there was this huge category of people, people who have had COVID already, who he had no argument for why they should get the thing.

Joe Rogan 18:14 Not only that, there had already been research that showed that natural immunity from previous infection was up to seven times better at preventing new cases of COVID.

Dave Smith 18:24 Which is consistent across viruses.

Joe Rogan 18:26 Of course.

Dave Smith 18:26 Like, it's always better to have natural immunity.

Joe Rogan 18:27 Just, just like-

Dave Smith 18:28 The, the, the vaccine is always trying to simulate natural immunity.

Joe Rogan 18:30 This is what was so fucked...... look, I'm no scholar. I'm not a smart guy. I'm a normal person. I'm, there's nothing special about my brain. And I'm seeing all this stuff and I'm like, "W- why isn't anybody speak..." I started to feel like I was going crazy. Like, am I going crazy for not just letting them shoot me up with this stuff after I got COVID just so I let everybody know I'm on the team?

Dave Smith 18:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:58 'Cause there's this pull, there's a fucking societal pull that even me, even me who was like, "This is, I know this is ridiculous. This is making..." I, all the people I've talked to, all the research I've done on previous disease, and bo- my research is reading other people's re- I don't, I'm doing r- it's a bad word.

Dave Smith 19:14 Sure.

Joe Rogan 19:15 From all the-

Dave Smith 19:15 But, sure.

Joe Rogan 19:15 ... reading that I've done, Jimmy D- Jimmy Dore has a great bit about that.

Dave Smith 19:18 Oh, it's so funny.

Joe Rogan 19:19 About-

Dave Smith 19:20 I love it.

Joe Rogan 19:20 ... don't, don't do your own research. It used to be called reading. (laughs)

Dave Smith 19:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:24 Jimmy Dore's-

Dave Smith 19:25 Ah, it's such a-

Joe Rogan 19:25 ... awesome, I love him.

Dave Smith 19:26 Love Jimmy Dore. But it's a great bit.

Joe Rogan 19:28 I, i- in my limited looking at this, I was like, "Something's wrong here." There's this mass societal push. People are, they're trapped in like a mind virus of this one particular solution. And Dr. Robert Malone laid what that out, what, what that is, like psychologically what happens when one thing is offered that seems to be the solution out of this existential crisis. Horrible situation that we're in. And anybody who opposes that opposes getting out, and you gotta be on that side all in, and you gotta believe even in the pharmaceutical drug companies.

Dave Smith 20:07 And like, there's, there's this weird, you know, 'cause we're weird social, psychological creatures. And you know, if you think about like the Milgram experiments and how, what people will do if there's a person in a white coat telling them to do it.

Joe Rogan 20:20 Yes.

Dave Smith 20:21 And part of like the culture-

Joe Rogan 20:22 Explain the Milgram thing so that-

Dave Smith 20:24 So-

Joe Rogan 20:24 ... people don't know, so it's kind of like-

Dave Smith 20:25 So the experiment was kind of like a, basically they, they come in and they're like, "Okay, you're here for some type of scientific experiment." I forget exactly how they, they described it to them, but they're testing, um, you know like negative reinforcement within learning or something like that. And so they have a guy in a white coat and he tells you every time a guy gets an answer wrong or something like this, you're supposed to push the button and it zaps him. And they keep pushing the button and it, and the person, you can't see them but they're like behind a wall or something, keeps hollering in pain and it gets worse and worse and worse. And for the experiment, I think there were a few people who like refused after a while, but the overwhelming majority of people would keep zapping them until they seemingly died.

Joe Rogan 21:07 Yeah.

Dave Smith 21:07 And, 'cause they stopped hollering in pain, and then they would tell them to do it again, and they would just keep doing it because there's like an authority figure here. And this guy's got a white coat on. And they kind of, in these corporate media environments, and I don't wanna discount, I'm not discounting the conspiracy aspect of this, because I also think there are people within these agencies who are straight up like intelligence assets and are, know exactly what they're doing. But I think for the most part, it's like they create this culture of like, well all the wise people, who by the way you get to go to a cocktail party with this really like, this guy with all this status, and he is the leading expert in this, and they all say this. So are you a respectable person? Or are you like an outcast who doesn't agree with this conventional wisdom?

Joe Rogan 21:51 Right.

Dave Smith 21:51 And people fall in line with that shit, man. Like it's-

Joe Rogan 21:54 They fall in line with it.

Dave Smith 21:55 They really do. Even people who really, really should know better.

Joe Rogan 21:58 Yeah, but it's become socially their group too.

Dave Smith 22:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:01 And then they get influenced by the group socially.

Dave Smith 22:04 Well one of, this is one of the things I'm really interested to talk to Chris Cuomo about. Um, and by the way, this, that's on Patrick Bet-David's show, uh, on the 31st. Um, but y- you know, these guys, I'm kind of fascinated by the people in the corporate press, as much, um, contempt as I have for them, because it's amazing to be working, you're working in this industry where, okay, before COVID, the, the corporate media had the lowest, uh, approval numbers since they've been keeping track of them. Like trust-

Joe Rogan 22:32 Well they, what happened was-

Dave Smith 22:32 ... trusted media had evaporated.

Joe Rogan 22:34 ... there was the, the war with Donald Trump. That's really what it was. It's like social media was all controlled by the left wing media, and the left wing media was all in on this war against Donald Trump.

Dave Smith 22:47 It was a huge part of it. I mean, I would say the backdrop is the war on terror, the, the terror wars, getting all of that wrong, the financial crisis, not seeing that coming and kind of getting that all wrong.

Joe Rogan 22:58 The weapons of mass destruction thing.

Dave Smith 22:59 Yeah, that's, all that stuff, Iraq and Afghanistan being disasters. So that's kind of in the backdrop, and then you have the worst financial crisis in, in a hundred years. So that happened, but then th- there's no question, I mean, p- and particularly, not just the war with Donald Trump, but particularly the allegation of a conspiracy with Russia, that they said-

Joe Rogan 23:18 Yeah.

Dave Smith 23:18 ... every single day, all day for three years long. I mean, if you think about it, it's the big, if true, it's the biggest news story in the history of the United States of America.

Joe Rogan 23:27 Yeah.

Dave Smith 23:27 They're claiming that the current sitting president is guilty of treason. He was installed by a hostile foreign power who overthrew our elections in order to install him. It was quite a claim to run with 24/7, and then to find out after three years that we have nothing. Not like, there's nothing, no evidence pointing toward this conspiracy even existing. So that, their, their trust had already evaporated. But then after COVID, they will never recover.

Joe Rogan 23:55 But people will still go on Bill Maher and argue this. They'll still say there's evidence.

Dave Smith 23:58 Right, they got nothing.

Joe Rogan 23:58 It's like people still wanna, they still wanna say there's evidence. They, they'll still say it.

Dave Smith 24:01 Not only isn't there, there's not even evidence that Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 election. The best they have is like there are some bot farms that they can trace to Russian IP addresses, which is like, I'm not a tech guy. Jamie, you know this better than me, but they say it's the easiest thing to fake, is an IP address. The, the fact that an IP address traces to Russia is like almost more indicative that someone's trying to frame Russia than it is that Russia was involved.

Joe Rogan 24:29 Wow.

Dave Smith 24:29 But even the guys who they got-... they, they-

Joe Rogan 24:31 Dude, imagine if we found out that that's what the case was.

Dave Smith 24:32 The connection was, like, he knew Putin.

Joe Rogan 24:34 Imagine if we found out that the, the Russian troll farms were, like, completely insignificant. (laughs) And it's all just, like, government-controlled troll farms.

Dave Smith 24:41 Well, I mean, look, even if they were all from Vladimir Putin, they were fairly insignificant in terms of, like, interfering in elections with other culture and with other countries and how it works.

Joe Rogan 24:51 No, but their most effective strategy was funny memes.

Dave Smith 24:54 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Joe Rogan 24:54 I mean, it really was a very effective strategy because it makes some... When you mock something, it makes, makes it much more easy to dismiss that in terms of whether or not, like, that's the right choice for president.

Dave Smith 25:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:05 If someone can, like, openly mock... And why do you think they openly mocked Donald Trump's... They even made stuff up, like about his hand size.

Dave Smith 25:12 Yep.

Joe Rogan 25:12 Remember, they were, there, there was this thing that he had little hands. (clears throat) Dude, I was shaking his hands. He's got normal fucking hands.

Dave Smith 25:18 (laughs) Yeah, it's been confirmed.

Joe Rogan 25:19 (laughs) You know that, he's a big guy.

Dave Smith 25:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:21 He's a big guy. Like, he's-

Dave Smith 25:21 Well-

Joe Rogan 25:22 ... he's got a big hand. Uh, I was like, this is the mo... I, I remember the first time I shook his hand, I was like, "This is the most ridiculous thing."

Dave Smith 25:28 Well, look, uh-

Joe Rogan 25:28 That everybody said he has little hands. (laughs)

Dave Smith 25:30 Mo- mo- mocking people is a powerful tool, dude. It's a very-

Joe Rogan 25:33 That's a crazy one because you're mocking something that someone can't change. This is always against, that's against left-wing ideology.

Dave Smith 25:40 Mm.

Joe Rogan 25:40 Leftist-

Dave Smith 25:41 Not, not when it serves their purposes.

Joe Rogan 25:42 Right, right, but that's the thing.

Dave Smith 25:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 25:43 Just, like, you're willing to violate the rules.

Dave Smith 25:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:45 In or- for your side to win. 'cause progressives have always supposed to been a-against body-shaming. Y- y- you're-

Dave Smith 25:51 They-

Joe Rogan 25:51 You're supposed to be kind. You're supposed to not, not mop, not mock a person's appearance. Why would you do... Especially, like, f- what they're born with? The hand size?

Dave Smith 25:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:59 And the dick size? Like, really? That's okay to mock?

Dave Smith 26:02 Dude, there was a, uh, a segment, I remember watching this. Um, it was in the 2016 election, and it was on Joy Reid's show on MSNBC. Her show at the time, whatever it was. And she had a whole segment, um, about, uh, like how sexist the coverage of Hillary Clinton was, and it was, you know, every time they'll say she's shrill or she's this, but if a man was like that, it'd be this. And she went through all these words that have been used to cover Hillary Clinton and how they're loaded, sexist phrases and all this. And then at the end of her show, she has this segment called Who Won The Week? And all the guests on the panel get to pick their own, like, what happened this week and r- And her choice, not one of the people on the panel, her choice of who won the week was this, uh, guy in Union Square who made a naked statue of Donald Trump with a micropenis. And was just, like, literally, like, just making a thing like, "Aha, he's got a little dick." And after, literally, her fir- her last segment was o- on the sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton and then her next pick for who won the week was a guy mocking Trump for having a micropenis, that he just made up and made a statue of. And she did not even, like, seem to see the contradiction in any of that.

Joe Rogan 27:18 (snaps fingers) It's beautiful.

Dave Smith 27:18 Like that you just said this.

Joe Rogan 27:20 It's beautiful. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun to wa- I'm glad those people exist, they're fun. They're fun to watch 'cause they're so ridiculous and they're so fake.

Dave Smith 27:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:30 And it comes off, it, it's obvious that they're not f- they're not really engaged. They're not really talking about it like a human. They're just propagandists. And that's the only way you can do that job. If you wanna do that job, you have to be a propagandist. Or you have to be some sort of straight-faced Jake Tapper dude who just kind of, like, straight faces everything. But if you want, you know, you wanna have The Joy Reid Show- (laughs)

Dave Smith 27:53 Yeah, you gotta go, you gotta go for it.

Joe Rogan 27:55 ... you gotta say Joy Reid things.

Dave Smith 27:56 Ye- yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:56 What was that one she got in some bizarre argument with some woman recently? I think it was a transgender issue. Was that what it was, Jamey? Where it was like, it w- it w- it went viral because, like, I forget what the debate was about, but I remember it being a, just a preposterous argument the way she was looking at it.

Dave Smith 28:18 Yeah, she's pretty out there. I'm not sure which, what, uh, segment you're referring to, but she's got a whole lot.

Joe Rogan 28:23 But it's-

Dave Smith 28:23 A whole lot of great hits.

Joe Rogan 28:24 ... it's not, yeah. It's, like, you have to be on that network. Like, you can't exist in a podcast world.

Dave Smith 28:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:31 It's not... You, you... (laughs) What is it? Oh, no, this is something newer than this. Absurd argument Republicans vote on race, no... No, that's not it. No. (sighs) Ah, fuck, I should've saved it.

Dave Smith 28:42 That-

Joe Rogan 28:42 I probably did save it somewhere on my phone. I could find it. But it's just these... It was some- I, I believe it was some sort of a trans issue, if I'm correct. But it's just, ah, these fucking people on these shows are trapped. You're trapped. You're trapped in this world of five minutes. You're trapped in this world of commercials. You're trapped in this world of networks and executives. You're trapped.

Dave Smith 29:05 Dude-

Joe Rogan 29:05 And if you wanna make it, you gotta be full of shit. (laughs)

Dave Smith 29:07 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:08 You gotta be full of shit.

Dave Smith 29:09 And, and-

Joe Rogan 29:09 That's the gig.

Dave Smith 29:10 ... and it's just, like, you, you point this out all the time, but it's so, it's just not enough time-

Joe Rogan 29:15 Man...

Dave Smith 29:15 ... to have a real conversation-

Joe Rogan 29:17 It's impossible.

Dave Smith 29:17 ... on any of these shows. Dude, I did a, uh, I did a debate for, uh, Zero Hedge, um, a couple months ago on, like, the Israel-Gaza, uh, conflict. And there were, it was a two-on-two debate and it was two hours long. And the only thing I could think at the end of it was like, "That just wasn't nearly enough time."

Joe Rogan 29:34 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 29:34 It's like two hours-

Joe Rogan 29:35 I know, isn't that crazy?

Dave Smith 29:36 ... four people. You get, like, a half hour... Uh, you know, uh, roughly, not... I don't know exactly if we all spoke even time, but roughly a half hour each. That's not nearly enough to go through, like, the history of all this shit and what's going on now and to really make your points. And that's a two-hour debate. They, they'll do that same segment on the news in 10 minutes-

Joe Rogan 29:54 Five minutes.

Dave Smith 29:55 You're like, "This is insane."

Joe Rogan 29:56 It's insanity.

Dave Smith 29:57 You're just trying to hit whatever the best point you can hit is. And in the same way that Twitter, I mean, now you could, like, post longer stuff, but you know how Twitter just because it's short, it just, like pushes you into, like saying just, whatever just can destroy that guy-

Joe Rogan 30:10 Yes.

Dave Smith 30:10 ... in one sentence.

Joe Rogan 30:11 Yes.

Dave Smith 30:11 It's like it pushes you into that. It's, it's-

Joe Rogan 30:13 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 30:13 It's just not-

Joe Rogan 30:14 It's headlines.

Dave Smith 30:14 Yeah. That's all you can do.

Joe Rogan 30:16 It's not... And when you're dealing with something like this, just the depth of it all is just so perplexing. You know, when you just lay out, like, when Mike Baker's on and he lays out the history of, like, Palestine and Israel and the conflict in Egypt and this and that and Hamas and Hezbollah, and he lays it all... You're like, "Jesus Christ."There's so many layers to this fucking cake.

Dave Smith 30:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:42 And most people are just getting, "Free Palestine, from the river to the sea. Yay!" You know, you're just getting these, like, slogans that you yell out, and you're seeing, who knows how much of what you're seeing is even real today. I mean-

Dave Smith 30:56 Well, you mean, like, with the, with the protests?

Joe Rogan 30:59 With the footage. The footage.

Dave Smith 30:59 Oh, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:59 The footage of things. Even footage of, uh, p- like people fake things now.

Dave Smith 31:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:05 And they fake things specifically for propaganda, and then they hide things. One of the most terrifying videos I saw recently was one of the Israeli hostages. She was in the back of a Jeep, and they drag her out by her hair, and she's got blood all over her, and they, they had hacked her heels to make sure she couldn't run.

Dave Smith 31:24 Yeah, mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 31:24 Bro, it's so terrifying. It's so s- And they're all screaming, "God is great." Go- "Allahu akbar." Oh, man.

Dave Smith 31:32 Yeah, dude. I know, I think there's a thing... I don't know if I could word this exactly right, but I think there's a, for some reason, I think comedians have this thing that they're kinda able to go to these places. Do you remember, do you remember when you had Bill Burr on your show and you played this video... I don't know why I just loved this moment so much, but you played this video of a dude, like, ripping something out of a little girl's hand. And it was something, like the guy, like... She had a piece of paper, something, that he want- He was way aggressive. Like, there's a gr-

Joe Rogan 31:58 I think it was a protest, yeah.

Dave Smith 32:00 Yeah, it was like a grown man going up to, like, a little girl and ripping it out. And you, uh, like immediately, you were like, "Oh man, that'd be real bad if that was my kid. Like, I'd be in jail the next day over that." And then Burr was like, uh, he was like, "Oh, you went through a dark place there." And you were like, "Yeah, I do that a lot." And he was like, "I do that all the time too." (laughs) It was like-

Joe Rogan 32:16 (laughs)

Dave Smith 32:16 It was just something about like... Comedians, for whatever reason, do that, and-

Joe Rogan 32:19 Well, also parents.

Dave Smith 32:20 Yeah. Well, that particularly. But I just-

Joe Rogan 32:22 It's-

Dave Smith 32:22 I- it's just very easy for me. I don't know why. This always just came very natural to me. Whereas I think some people have so much trouble with this. But I, it's very easy for me to do this on both sides of this conflict, to just go, "Okay," like, I got two little kids. I could just tr- just start to imagine if somebody did something to one of my little kids and I wasn't able to protect them. And what I'd be willing to do, like, how dark a place I could go to. And it's just, like, immediately very easy to me to see how anyone in Israel, after October 7th, would support fucking flatten Gaza and how anyone in Palestine, after what's gone on the last 50 years there, would be like, "Yeah, I'll sign up for Hamas. I'll support these guys-"

Joe Rogan 33:02 Yeah.

Dave Smith 33:02 "... who are gonna do this shit." Now, I do think-

Joe Rogan 33:04 100%.

Dave Smith 33:04 And this is the point that Darrell-

Joe Rogan 33:05 Both sides.

Dave Smith 33:06 Well-

Joe Rogan 33:06 Both sides, 100%.

Dave Smith 33:07 For sure.

Joe Rogan 33:07 Which is really what's m- the most scary thing about the conflict.

Dave Smith 33:10 Sure. And, well, that's, and that's why it's gotten to such a bad point, right?

Joe Rogan 33:13 Yeah.

Dave Smith 33:14 'Cause, like, this is the cycle that keeps going. But I do think, and this is what Darryl Cooper, who, like, I, uh, I brought him up last time I was on. He has that fantastic, uh, series called The Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 33:24 Um, and, uh, he's just totally brilliant. G- I love that guy. Uh, but he said, and I think this is right, is that he's like, "Okay, so you can totally see where if you're on either side there, you'd just be like, 'I don't care. I see red. I wanna kill as many of the other p- side as I can.'" But for us, as Americans who are not in that situation, it's kind of incumbent on us to be like, "Okay, let's, let's try to kind of have a sober analysis of this and not do what so many people seem to do, which is, like, almost try to just, like, egg on the other side."

Joe Rogan 33:54 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 33:54 "And cheer on their side."

Joe Rogan 33:56 Yeah.

Dave Smith 33:56 And then this total, like, demonization of either all of the Palestinians, like they're all just human garbage, or all Jews are whatever, evil or something like this, and-

Joe Rogan 34:08 Yeah, yeah. Young kids in America who are Jewish are complicit. They're somehow or another responsible.

Dave Smith 34:11 Yeah, which is, like, totally ridiculous.

Joe Rogan 34:13 You see Jerry Seinfeld, they're heckling at his shows now. There's, like, some organ- organized protests. They came to his show, and they were screaming out in the middle of his show.

Dave Smith 34:20 It's also just like, guys, like, take it... Look, like, I understand wanting to protest this, this war. I got my issues with the, uh, the young college leftists who are protesting it. They're not my people exactly. (laughs) Um, but, like, you know, there's an Israeli embassy here. There's a congress. There's... Like, take it at least to the halls of power.

Joe Rogan 34:39 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 34:39 Like, I don't think Jerry Se- ruining, you know, like, other people's ability to enjoy Seinfeld's standup show is really gonna solve the issue.

Joe Rogan 34:47 Yeah, because they're not really thinking well.

Dave Smith 34:49 No, of course not.

Joe Rogan 34:49 And most of these people that do this, they come from wealthy families. They're young, really idealistic kids, and they glue themselves to paintings. And they throw fucking soup at masterpieces. Did you see the one stop oil now person sliced up this fucking painting from the 1800s? Some priceless-

Dave Smith 35:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:08 ... painting. Just pulled out a, a razor knife and just started slashing this thing up.

Dave Smith 35:13 Isn't it weird how sometimes it feels like their, like each side's foot soldiers are working for the other side? You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 35:20 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 35:20 Like, when you do stuff like that, you're almost like, "I just want to drill for more oil now."

Joe Rogan 35:24 Well, this is the problem with teams, man. This is a problem with teams, if you have a team that anybody can join. Like, if... The, the Republicans are basically like the Christians, they'll take anybody.

Dave Smith 35:35 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:35 Anybody. You know, if you wanna be a Jew, you gotta go to work. Okay? You gotta learn a bunch of shit.

Dave Smith 35:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:40 My uncle converted. (laughs) It's a lot of work.

Dave Smith 35:42 It is true. They make you work. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:43 It's a lot of work. You gotta fucking learn some stuff. I remember, uh, I was doing this, uh, this episode of Joe Rogan Questions Everything, where I was talking to religious people, with a bunch of different religious sects and religious scholars. And I was talking to this one guy, who's a rabbi, and there was, uh, a woman there that was converting to Judaism. And I got to ask her questions about, like, how she's doing it and, like, how hard it is. I'm like, "It's fucking y- It's like getting your pilot's license or something." (laughs)

Dave Smith 36:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:10 "It's a lot of fucking shit you gotta remember."

Dave Smith 36:12 It's like, uh, it's like the way citizenship is, where, like, when you're born Jewish, like I am, or born an American, like I am, and you're like, "Oh man, I couldn't have passed that test. It's a good thing I was born into this shit."

Joe Rogan 36:22 It's a hard fucking test, yeah.

Dave Smith 36:24 You're, they really, uh, they make you work.

Joe Rogan 36:25 Well, I think the Jewish one's harder than the American one.

Dave Smith 36:28 Yeah, probably.

Joe Rogan 36:28 But the American one-

Dave Smith 36:28 Well, these days, you could just walk in. But if that, but if you don't get citizenship-

Joe Rogan 36:31 If you don't walk in, you're fucked.

Dave Smith 36:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:32 If you don't walk in, then y- if the, you fly in from Europe, they're like, "Uh-uh."

Dave Smith 36:35 Which is-

Joe Rogan 36:35 "You flew first class."

Dave Smith 36:36 Which is tot- which is-

Joe Rogan 36:37 "Listen, we're gonna make it really hard for you to become a citizen." (laughs)

Dave Smith 36:39 Do you, which is-... do- by the way, it sums up everything about modern-day America, Anarcho-tyranny.

Joe Rogan 36:45 Yeah.

Dave Smith 36:45 It's just like, it's kind of like, it's like you live, you have the worst of anarchism and tyranny all in one, where if you follow the rules, you get totally fucked.

Joe Rogan 36:53 Yeah.

Dave Smith 36:53 And if you just ignore the rules, you get rewarded. The worst incentives.

Joe Rogan 36:57 And everybody wants to be on a team. So if you have a team that's open to anybody, you're gonna get the dumbest fucking people that are super enthusiastic about that team.

Dave Smith 37:09 Yep.

Joe Rogan 37:09 And they're gonna ruin everything. And they do it with everything. They do it on the right, and they do it on the left.

Dave Smith 37:15 That's why I say, my message is always reject the teams and come be a Libertarian and lose with me.

Joe Rogan 37:20 (laughs)

Dave Smith 37:20 Just keep losing. Come and just enjoy losing. There's something freeing about knowing you're not gonna win.

Joe Rogan 37:26 They're the most reasonable people I've talked to, politically.

Dave Smith 37:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:29 But is also like, but it's also, the system is so deep, like you ain't getting in.

Dave Smith 37:34 Well, that's the, the real question. I mean, there's almost like two... Figuring out what the solution is, is almost the easy part. And then actually figuring out-

Joe Rogan 37:43 Aliens.

Dave Smith 37:43 ... how to implement it-

Joe Rogan 37:45 Aliens.

Dave Smith 37:45 ... w- aliens are just-

Joe Rogan 37:45 Aliens have to land.

Dave Smith 37:46 They have to land and just take-

Joe Rogan 37:46 They literally have to land and go-

Dave Smith 37:47 Maybe you're right.

Joe Rogan 37:48 ... "Enough." 'Cause we're like on our way to a kingship. We're on our-

Dave Smith 37:53 AI-

Joe Rogan 37:53 We're on our way.

Dave Smith 37:54 AI just has to be like, "Listen, we read all of the books in human history, and we figured this out pretty quickly."

Joe Rogan 37:58 And that's what... That might be the thing that saves us and ruins us at the same time, is President AI.

Dave Smith 38:03 President AI? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:04 President AI will be logical.

Dave Smith 38:05 There's like, there's a scandal?

Joe Rogan 38:06 And if it's on the blockchain, we'll know exactly if President AI is being influenced by money.

Dave Smith 38:11 What, wouldn't it be great if AI just turns out to be as human as us and is just corrupted? And they're like, "President AI got a blowjob in the Oval Office."

Joe Rogan 38:18 (laughs) President AI.

Dave Smith 38:18 And, uh, the, the power went to his head.

Joe Rogan 38:21 He just started making AI whores. (laughs)

Dave Smith 38:23 (laughs) This guy's, he's gotta give a press conference. He's like, "I don't know what I was thinking, man."

Joe Rogan 38:27 Uh.

Dave Smith 38:27 "I was pretty good until I got in there." The ring of power just ruins everyone.

Joe Rogan 38:31 We, we are gonna bypass biological needs, and we're gonna do it pretty sh- pretty soon. It's gonna be real soon.

Dave Smith 38:37 Well-

Joe Rogan 38:37 It's gonna, it's gonna, sex, regular sex is gonna seem ridiculous in 20 years.

Dave Smith 38:41 We're gonna be the like old school guys who are like-

Joe Rogan 38:44 Yeah.

Dave Smith 38:44 ... "I still do sex the old-fashioned way with my wife."

Joe Rogan 38:46 I remember when I was in-

Dave Smith 38:47 And people are gonna be like, "What?"

Joe Rogan 38:48 ... high school, we got hand jobs.

Dave Smith 38:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:50 These kids are fucking robots.

Dave Smith 38:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:52 Even their sex.

Dave Smith 38:53 People, people are gonna be like, "You have sex with your wife? That's insane, dude."

Joe Rogan 38:56 Why are you doing that? What if you guys get diseased?

Dave Smith 38:59 Oh, man.

Joe Rogan 38:59 People die from those diseases.

Dave Smith 39:01 I do think, like, I mean, I... Look, obviously, like I'm, I'm biased on the... Like I have my own opinions on, on these things.

Joe Rogan 39:10 But everybody does, right?

Dave Smith 39:10 But I do, but I do just think that, um, one of the things that I've, I've found kind of amazing, and I've thought this with some of the people who have, have come on your show since the last time I was here, is the, um, the way that people can defend what Israel's doing in Gaza does kind of blow my mind.

Joe Rogan 39:27 It blows my mind too.

Dave Smith 39:29 It, 'cause it, well, it reminds you that it's like, you're like, "Oh, okay, look. Throughout all of human history," right? I'm not saying there's anything unique to Israel, like th- they're the only ones to ever commit atrocities or that they're not dealing with atrocities committed to them.

Joe Rogan 39:40 What they're doing is super standard.

Dave Smith 39:44 Sure, in some sense.

Joe Rogan 39:44 In terms of like world wars.

Dave Smith 39:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:46 In terms of like-

Dave Smith 39:46 Yes.

Joe Rogan 39:46 ... Dresden and-

Dave Smith 39:47 Well, yeah, if you could-

Joe Rogan 39:48 Yeah.

Dave Smith 39:48 But that's the thing. If you compare it to the worst things that are, have ever happened in the history of the world.

Joe Rogan 39:52 Yeah.

Dave Smith 39:52 But I'm just saying, throughout all of human history, there's been atrocities and there's been genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns and slavery and all, but at every single point, there was someone there willing to rationalize it.

Joe Rogan 40:02 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 40:02 You know? Like, someone there who'd be like, "No, no, no, listen, this is what we have to do because otherwise, this..." And it's amazing the mental gymnastics that people can come up with to justify something that is so clearly on its face just horrific.

Joe Rogan 40:18 But I think the difference is back then, your understanding of it was much more limited.

Dave Smith 40:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:25 You weren't watching videos on it. They didn't exist.

Dave Smith 40:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:27 If you saw it on television or on, on the movie theater, it'd be a small clip that was played, and everyo- and it was played before the film, but everyone knew that the reason why we're here is 'cause people went to war and won, or you escaped a war-ravaged country and you came to America. Everyone knew it.

Dave Smith 40:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:49 Everyone had an understanding of that. So when we were at war, people were signing up to go to war. There was no need to draft them. By the time Vietnam rolled around, people were starting to get more information. And they go, "Hey, I think this is a bullshit war," which is like the first time ever in this short history of our country where we're like, "Hey, this one sucks." But-

Dave Smith 41:10 It was kind of no defending it.

Joe Rogan 41:12 It was... And then when you find out they were right, at the, at the end of it all, when you find out many, many years later that the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag, you're like, "What?"

Dave Smith 41:20 Which they didn't even need in order to be right, but then you find out, you're like, "Oh, the whole thing was just-"

Joe Rogan 41:25 Oh, God, the whole thing.

Dave Smith 41:25 But-

Joe Rogan 41:25 And then you go, "What did you guys do with all that heroin money?"

Dave Smith 41:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:30 Where did all that money go? 'Cause if I was the government and, and I was willing... Just imagine if Eisenhower's correct, which is insane. How could he be?

Dave Smith 41:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:40 And that there was a real influence of military-industrial complex. If I was the military-industrial complex and I was willing to fucking start a war with North Vietnam for no fucking reason, for no reason-

Dave Smith 41:53 Yep.

Joe Rogan 41:53 ... mak- no... So 100% I'm gonna kill X amount of people and a bunch of Americans, and then you're gonna actually make these people, these Americans, you're gonna draft them and force them to go 'cause they don't wanna go. Uh, you don't think that's all heroin?

Dave Smith 42:07 (laughs) Like that would be your line? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:11 Do you think-

Dave Smith 42:11 Narcotics?

Joe Rogan 42:12 Well, hold on. How much are these guys making?

Dave Smith 42:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:16 How much are these fucking dudes making? How much?

Dave Smith 42:20 A lot.

Joe Rogan 42:20 How many billions? This is what percentage of the world's heroin supply? And then when you see the same trick played out in Afghanistan, when you like... My, my favorite was Geraldo Rivera interviewing the troops, rationalizing why they had to guard the poppy fields.

Dave Smith 42:33 Why they had to guard the poppy fields.

Joe Rogan 42:35 The poppy fields.

Dave Smith 42:35 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:36 We have to guard the heroin.

Dave Smith 42:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:37 For the good folks. (laughs)

Dave Smith 42:38 Well, I couldn't... 'Cause if heroin falls into the wrong hands, it could be lethal.

Joe Rogan 42:41 There's no way America would sell this heroin.

Dave Smith 42:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:43 There's no way. The, the, the output of heroin out of Afghanistan, I wanna say it was n- a 96% increase.... 80% global supply.

Dave Smith 42:58 Oh, so you're exaggerating, Joe. Don't even get into this.

Joe Rogan 43:00 No, no. That was, that was Joe's answer. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was responsible for 80%.

Dave Smith 43:03 Ooh. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:04 They, they were re- responsible for most of the global supply of heroin. And it, the production went up after we invaded. So, "Opium poppy, which grows extensively in Afghanistan's-

Dave Smith 43:14 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:14 "... southern fields, contains main opiate ingredient used to manufacture heroin. Afghanistan was previously the world's top opium producer, responsible for over 80% of the global supply and a major source of heroin in Europe and Asia." So, how much did it go? Oh, plunges by 95%. When was this? Under the Taliban. Now, that's now. Yeah. Yeah. See, the Taliban doesn't want everybody on heroin. They want people to get back to work and make Afghanistan great again. (laughs)

Dave Smith 43:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:44 (laughs)

Dave Smith 43:44 The Taliban just ran on a Trump message.

Joe Rogan 43:46 Bro, they, they fucking kicked out the drug dealers. That's what happened. Yeah. They kicked out the drug dealers. Dude, they were, there was a giant part of the supply of heroin to the world. The idea that we didn't, "Well, we are not interested in that at all. We just wanna push freedom."

Dave Smith 44:02 Yeah. And by... And I think even people who are... Even the people, I think, who are lying about this shit rationalize it in their own head.

Joe Rogan 44:08 Bro, where'd that money go?

Dave Smith 44:10 Yeah. Well, that's, uh...

Joe Rogan 44:11 Where'd all that heroin money go?

Dave Smith 44:12 Well, I know you were... I was listening to, uh, the Mike Baker, uh, podcast you had on where you were, uh, talking about the, like, the money in Ukraine and where it went. And he, even he was like, "Ah, yeah. No, we don't really know where the..." I thought one of the funniest things about that was that-

Joe Rogan 44:23 I'll tell you where some of it goes. (blows raspberry)

Dave Smith 44:25 Well, well that's for sure.

Joe Rogan 44:27 Whoo. (laughs)

Dave Smith 44:28 That's... I think that's for sure. But-

Joe Rogan 44:30 The Taliban is not... Our tax dollars have 100% paid for some cocaine.

Dave Smith 44:35 Oh. Certainly.

Joe Rogan 44:36 Yeah, yeah. "The Taliban's successful opium ban is bad for Afghans and the world." (laughs)

Dave Smith 44:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:43 (laughs) "The ban is not a counter-narcotics victory and will have negative economic and humanitarian consequences, potentially leading to a refugee crisis."

Dave Smith 44:50 De- see, th-

Joe Rogan 44:51 Oh, unlike us leaving-

Dave Smith 44:53 R-

Joe Rogan 44:53 ... in the middle of nowhere, allowing the Taliban to kill all the people we worked with.

Dave Smith 44:57 But you see... You get my point about how humans can rationalize anything?

Joe Rogan 45:00 Yeah.

Dave Smith 45:00 Like, they could just come up with-

Joe Rogan 45:01 Propaganda.

Dave Smith 45:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:02 That's propaganda, bro.

Dave Smith 45:02 Well, yes, of course. But there are-

Joe Rogan 45:03 That's propaganda.

Dave Smith 45:04 Yes, that's true. That's also true. But even people who are, like... I mean, I'd like... Look, I thought...

Joe Rogan 45:10 The only way you could say that, that, what that guy made sense is if you're advocating that heroin should be legal.

Dave Smith 45:16 Yes. But those same-

Joe Rogan 45:17 If you're advocating that heroin should be legal and this is your full perspec... Okay, now I'll accept it. But if you really think that heroin is a scourge and if you really do appreciate that 100,000 people died last year of opioid overdoses-

Dave Smith 45:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:30 ... 100,000. It's a real fucking crisis.

Dave Smith 45:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:34 If there was a disease killing 100,000 people, we would freak the fuck out.

Dave Smith 45:39 Well, look. I mean, I do think there's a strong argument for legalization, but there's also a difference between that and the government kind of, like, sponsoring-

Joe Rogan 45:47 Damn, this says 90%.

Dave Smith 45:48 ... the trade of it.

Joe Rogan 45:49 "90% of heroin globally and more than 95% of the European supply. More land is used for opiate in Afghanistan that is used for coca cultivation in Latin America." (laughs)

Dave Smith 46:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:01 Bro, do you don't think that has something to do with it? Is that... Am I silly?

Dave Smith 46:07 No, I think it's insane to ignore that. I mean, like, come on.

Joe Rogan 46:10 Where is that money?

Dave Smith 46:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:12 Where is that money?

Dave Smith 46:12 Well, that's... So, I was gonna say-

Joe Rogan 46:13 (laughs)

Dave Smith 46:14 ... dude, Rand, Rand Paul... I thought this was so funny. It was during-

Joe Rogan 46:16 Ugh.

Dave Smith 46:16 ... during one of the rounds of, uh, of aid to Ukraine and Rand Paul stood up and said, "Look, we, uh, we don't know where any of this money is going. If we're gonna send them this money, can we at least have an inspector general so that we itemize, like, where all the money is going?" And it failed. The vote fa-... Like, even in-

Joe Rogan 46:37 Of course it failed.

Dave Smith 46:37 ... in, in the Senate-

Joe Rogan 46:38 That's communist talk.

Dave Smith 46:39 Yeah. Like, even in the Senate they were like, "What? What are you talking about?"

Joe Rogan 46:42 Communist talk.

Dave Smith 46:43 (laughs) "We're gonna know where our money is going? Nah, that's lame."

Joe Rogan 46:46 Yeah, we don't need to know.

Dave Smith 46:47 "Just send it over there."

Joe Rogan 46:48 Just send them that shit. Send them everything they need and more. And then do you have one of their flags? You should wave it around.

Dave Smith 46:54 Yeah. And we'll, we'll provide the flags.

Joe Rogan 46:56 Wave it around in Congress.

Dave Smith 46:57 We'll provide the flags.

Joe Rogan 46:57 We can give you flags.

Dave Smith 46:57 Don't worry.

Joe Rogan 46:58 We can give you flags. They're all uniform, same size. It's not like people bought them from different vendors. No, they all got them from the same... Well, they got a box of them.

Dave Smith 47:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:04 "Hey, make, make sure you guys grab your flags."

Dave Smith 47:07 All right, just-

Joe Rogan 47:07 It's fucking bonkers.

Dave Smith 47:09 It's also just so... The, the thing that's so wild to me is that after... And I know I've talked about this, I'm sure, on previous episodes, but just after 20 years of the terror wars and what a disaster those were, and to the point that everyone agree... Uh, John McCain wrote in his memoir that the war in Iraq was a mistake. That's how universally agreed upon it is.

Joe Rogan 47:29 Which is hilarious.

Dave Smith 47:29 That the war in i-... Even John McCain would acknowledge we got that one wrong. So, and it's not like anyone else is defending any of the other terror wars at this point. But then as soon as we kind of get out of them, we're not even fully out but we're mostly out, we just get into these proxy wars in Ukraine and now in Israel that are clearly wars of choice for America. Like, we don't have to be involved in these. We're just still deciding to continue this war machine going.

Joe Rogan 47:54 These last two are really important. When they get done, we're done. We're no-

Dave Smith 47:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That, that's right.

Joe Rogan 47:59 These last two-

Dave Smith 47:59 This is j- this is it.

Joe Rogan 48:00 This is it.

Dave Smith 48:01 Right. You know, it's... Uh, anyway, man. I do... I will say that I think, um, a lot of, a lot of the defense of the, the war in Gaza, which I kinda feel weird even calling a war 'cause it's not ex-... Doesn't exactly feel like that's what the term should be.

Joe Rogan 48:15 Well, it's like the Bill Hicks joke. It's only a war when two armies are fighting.

Dave Smith 48:18 Well, right.

Joe Rogan 48:18 Remember that joke he did about-

Dave Smith 48:19 Yeah, vaguely.

Joe Rogan 48:20 ... uh, uh, I... About Iraq? They said, "Oh, Bill, Iraq is the fourth-largest army." He goes, "Yeah, but after number three, there's a big drop off." (laughs)

Dave Smith 48:30 Right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:30 He goes, "The Salvation Army's number five." (laughs)

Dave Smith 48:33 (laughs) Yeah, that's a great bit.

Joe Rogan 48:35 It's a great bit.

Dave Smith 48:36 T-... Well, I mean, but-

Joe Rogan 48:37 He had some great bits about the war.

Dave Smith 48:37 Look, but in the case... But in the case of Gaza, it's not even like... There's not even a government. I mean, there are stateless people who have been captive by the Israelis since 1967. Um, so-

Joe Rogan 48:48 And, and then they're captive politically in their own country by Hamas.

Dave Smith 48:54 Right. Who's-

Joe Rogan 48:54 And then Hamas does do what this, this accusation is that they, they have their bases under schools and hospitals. They actually do do that.

Dave Smith 49:03 Yeah, I think it's, it's certainly exaggerated at times by the Israelis, but there is no question that they are... Look, they're in this... Gaza is a... Dude, it's five miles wide.

Joe Rogan 49:12 I know, it's crazy.

Dave Smith 49:13 Gaza's, Gaza's, you know, like, you could-

Joe Rogan 49:14 So little.

Dave Smith 49:15 You could jog from one side to the other without taking a break.

Joe Rogan 49:18 It's literally-

Dave Smith 49:19 I would take a break.

Joe Rogan 49:19 ... way closer, way smaller than here to my club.

Dave Smith 49:24 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:24 Now imagine that. Imagine, imagine. Like an extra 10 miles.

Dave Smith 49:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:29 That small tract of land in the last five miles is what's getting the fuck blown out of it.

Dave Smith 49:35 It is, it's, it's, uh, I think 25 by five, so it's like a marathon by a jog.

Joe Rogan 49:41 (laughs)

Dave Smith 49:42 You know what I mean? Like that's how... That's Gaza.

Joe Rogan 49:44 It's so little.

Dave Smith 49:45 And so... No, look, so I'm just saying part of this... And this isn't... I'm not, like, making any excuses. I mean, there's no question they ha- there have been incidents of Hamas, like, embedding themselves in civilian locations, but also, it's not as if they have a military or a government. It's not as if there's gonna be two armies that meet themselves on the battlefield here. There is one is... Hamas is essentially a gang in an Israeli prison that, like, rose up as the toughest gang there. And yet, in, in such a densely populated area, that's the way, um, as they call it, asymmetric warfare, is gonna work.

Joe Rogan 50:20 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 50:20 Um, I do... Look, man. I... 'Cause I do... I took issue with, like, a few things that some of the guests you've had on recently have said, like, um, I know... I think all of this, a lot of times, it comes down to framing, like how you wanna look at an issue, and particularly the people who are way behind Israel on this, I feel like always rely on this very strange framing-

Joe Rogan 50:40 (laughs)

Dave Smith 50:40 ... so they don't have to confront exactly what's going on and they can kind of look at it in more of an abstract, removed way. Like when you had, uh, uh... I'm, I'm sorry if I'm saying his name wrong, but y- uh, Gad...

Joe Rogan 50:51 Gad?

Dave Smith 50:51 Gad S... How do you say his last name?

Joe Rogan 50:52 Saad.

Dave Smith 50:53 Saad. Gad S... Uh, so I've read his stuff before but I, I don't... I always butcher names. Um, but so one of the things he said, which I know is... I've heard this in every debate I've done on the topic so far, but he g- said the thing, same thing Dennis Prager said to me when we debated, was, he was like, "Well, look, if Israel laid down all their arms-"

Joe Rogan 51:08 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 51:08 "... there'd be a genocide. If Hamas laid down all their arms, there'd be peace." And forget the fact that I will say I don't agree with the second part of that. I don't think that's clear at all. I think if Hamas laid down all their arms, which essentially the Palestinians are as close to have laid down all their arms as could be-

Joe Rogan 51:26 But isn't everyone looking at it too binary? Like-

Dave Smith 51:29 Well, yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:29 Even if you're... Even if you are supporting the Israelis, e- even if you're from that position, you have to acknowledge the attacks on AIDS workers. Like it seems to be there's a bunch of targeted attacks on people-

Dave Smith 51:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:43 ... bringing in food.

Dave Smith 51:44 Well, there's-

Joe Rogan 51:45 Like José Andrés' people.

Dave Smith 51:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:47 And then there's been more of those. Like there's, there's all these... I think... How many documented attacks are there on, um, AIDS supply? 'Cause it's a big number.

Dave Smith 51:58 There's been several, I know, for sure.

Joe Rogan 51:59 I think it's a big number.

Dave Smith 52:01 Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's been ha-

Joe Rogan 52:02 It's creepy.

Dave Smith 52:03 Well, I remember when you had, um... Well, an-anyway, just the point I was making about-

Joe Rogan 52:07 But the point is, like-

Dave Smith 52:07 ... Gad's thing is that it's also this, like... I just hate when people retreat to almost these hypotheticals. It reminds me of Sam Harris's argument about why you were really wrong with the, uh, at least eight times.

Joe Rogan 52:19 Eight times.

Dave Smith 52:20 Yeah. That's, that's a lot.

Joe Rogan 52:21 So eight times, Israeli forces have attacked humanitarian aid convoys and buildings in the Gaza Strip, at least eight times since October, despite being given coordinates to ensure their protection, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. So they're, they're targeting these people. Some... So you've got some members of the Israeli military that don't give a fuck and they wanna stop these people from getting food.

Dave Smith 52:44 And... Well, look, and this has kind of been, like, egged on. Look, there, there'll be so much, like, scrutiny over w- like some college kids chanting, "From the river to the sea."

Joe Rogan 52:54 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 52:54 And look. B- for the record, if I was in charge of those protests, I'd say stop chanting that, because even if you don't mean it to-

Joe Rogan 53:01 It's genocide.

Dave Smith 53:01 ... mean the Jews o-

Joe Rogan 53:02 Yeah.

Dave Smith 53:02 Even if you don't mean it that way, which some people will argue they don't, and that's fine. Maybe that's not what you mean. Maybe you mean is from the river to the sea everyone will be free and, and whatever. Maybe that's how you mean it.

Joe Rogan 53:12 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 53:12 But it's also the same thing Hamas chants and they clearly mean something else when they say that.

Joe Rogan 53:16 Exactly.

Dave Smith 53:16 So, like, maybe just use a different term.

Joe Rogan 53:17 Right, you can't-

Dave Smith 53:18 But for the s-

Joe Rogan 53:18 ... use a swastika for its old-time abuse.

Dave Smith 53:20 Right. It's... Or l- like, if nothing else, it's a bad idea.

Joe Rogan 53:23 Yeah.

Dave Smith 53:23 However, for all the scrutiny there'll be over what these 20-year-olds are hollering at Columbia, when Benjamin Netanyahu is saying they're Amalek as you're going into this area, which, you know, the story from the Bible is that you're supposed to kill the women and the children. And the story is that they fucked up by not killing all the women and the children. And then, like, they came back. And like th-... Now, even if you could argue he doesn't mean it that way, it's like, okay, but you're saying that-

Joe Rogan 53:48 Is Am- Amalek the, the story from the Bible?

Dave Smith 53:49 It w-... The story is they were, like, a tribe who was, like, an evil tribe and you had to kill all of them, kill the women and the children, and that's the specific, like, lesson of that story, is that you're supposed to kill the women and the children. And then you conduct a campaign like this? This is... By the way, this is what was in the k- the South Africa case that they brought to the, to the UN, and that they... You know, the ICJ basically said that Israel is plausibly committing a genocide. And they, they didn't exactly... You know, they haven't yet determined that it is or isn't, but they said it's plausible. Um, but anyway, to my, my point that I'm making about what Sa'ad was saying is that it, it reminds me of Sam Harris, where he sits here and he goes, uh, he goes, "Well, imagine this hypothetical. Imagine COVID was 100 times as deadly and the vaccine was perfect against stopping transmission and there were no vaccine injuries. Well, hey, now you don't look so good anymore, do you, Joe Rogan?" And you're like-

Joe Rogan 54:42 No, he wasn't saying, he wasn't saying that. He was saying you c- you could... When someone's saying you could never mandate a vaccine or argue for a mandate-

Dave Smith 54:52 No.

Joe Rogan 54:52 And he was saying if there was a vaccine... You could. He was making an intellectual argument, and he's correct, that you could argue that if there was a vaccine that had zero side effects and was 100% effective, and if everybody took it, the disease stops, you could make that argument. But that-

Dave Smith 55:09 Well, what he was saying was that-

Joe Rogan 55:11 But it doesn't exist.

Dave Smith 55:11 ... then how would we feel? But he goes-

Joe Rogan 55:12 Right.

Dave Smith 55:12 ... "Then how would we feel about what Joe Rogan is saying and what RFK is saying when they were te-..." You know what I mean? But the point is that-

Joe Rogan 55:19 The point is that thing doesn't exist.

Dave Smith 55:19 That's not the hypotheti-... Like that... Okay, fine.

Joe Rogan 55:21 Well, not only that, it doesn't exist-

Dave Smith 55:23 Yes.

Joe Rogan 55:23 ... in nature.

Dave Smith 55:24 Right, right.

Joe Rogan 55:25 Like there's no vaccines that are 100% safe with no side effects.

Dave Smith 55:28 I-

Joe Rogan 55:28 None of them.

Dave Smith 55:28 I'm just saying I'm not against engaging in a thought experiment to think about, like, what that scenario would look like. But at the same time, you're like...It does seem like that's serving, in this case, as a distraction from the real world scenario that's going on here. So like, if you're gonna say, if Israel... Like, yes, I would not recommend Israel lay down all of their arms, completely disarm themselves, and then open up the, the wall to Gaza and allow Hamas to come in. What? But that's not on the table. That's never gonna happen. So like, even thinking about that as a thought experiment doesn't really prove that much. What's actually going on here is like, what Israel is doing to Gaza, and you know-

Joe Rogan 56:10 Right. But if you could flip it around, the opposite would be true. Like, if Hamas did lay down all their weapons, and if they did completely give up, you're gonna have some Israeli soldiers that do not give a fuck, that still wanna shoot them. But for the most part, if there was nothing, if they completely gave up, which is also not gonna happen, but if that did happen, you couldn't see a situation where Israel just continues bombing.

Dave Smith 56:38 Maybe not, but then where... What do they go to? Just being subjugated by the Israelite- back to the status quo of just being a stateless people-

Joe Rogan 56:45 That's-

Dave Smith 56:45 ... of permanent-

Joe Rogan 56:45 That's the question.

Dave Smith 56:45 ... permanent refugees-

Joe Rogan 56:47 Right.

Dave Smith 56:47 ... with no natural rights whatsoever, no ability to trade with the world, no ability to come and leave. You can't have an airport. You can't have a seaport. You can't go out fishing past where some IDF guy decides you're not allowed to. So like, yeah, if, if Hamas laid down all their arms, perhaps Israel would stop the bombing campaign-

Joe Rogan 57:04 But they would still-

Dave Smith 57:04 And they would just continue subjugation forever, which has been the Likud Party official policy since they were created by the terrorist Menachem Begin. Like sin- literally since the, this party that is the ruling party in Israel was created, their goal has been that the Palestinian people never get their own state, they never get their own freedom. And that's been, uh, and that's resulted in this. And-

Joe Rogan 57:27 And if you don't give them their own fr- there's no way you can justify it. No way you can justify that a whole entire group of people never get to be a country. That are tol- they don't get the rights of the Israelis. They don't get the rights of, of, of a sovereign country. They're trapped.

Dave Smith 57:44 Yeah. Nothing. Literally no rights whatsoever. And-

Joe Rogan 57:46 That's kind of crazy that that's being done by Israel, if you really think about it.

Dave Smith 57:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:51 It's kind of crazy.

Dave Smith 57:52 Well, in some way, in a way it is. And then in another way, it's kinda not. It's kinda like there's this weird, you know, hurt people hurt people type thing.

Joe Rogan 58:00 Mm-hmm. Right.

Dave Smith 58:00 Like, when you kinda suffer this trauma and, and, and this, we're speaking collectively here, so it's not exactly the same as an individual. But like, you suffer this trauma and then you use that to justify doing whatever the hell you gotta do so that you never suffer that trauma again. And then you weirdly end up kind of like inflicting something on another group of people.

Joe Rogan 58:18 Yeah.

Dave Smith 58:18 And kind of in a weird way, holding them responsible for the trauma you suffered even though they really, really had n- very little t-

Joe Rogan 58:25 Well, it's-

Dave Smith 58:25 ... nothing to do with the actual trauma. Um-

Joe Rogan 58:27 It's really an ancient kind of conflict. The, the, the Israel-Palestine is very, it's very ancient in the fact that it's like, the hate between them is so strong and they're right next door to each other.

Dave Smith 58:41 Yep.

Joe Rogan 58:41 Which is how people used to rock it back in the day.

Dave Smith 58:44 Yup.

Joe Rogan 58:44 You know what I mean? That's, that was the fear of neighboring tribes, that people from the other side were gonna come over and rape the women and children and kill your babies and, and slaughter the men. And-

Dave Smith 58:54 And not like an irrational fear, like a fear based on-

Joe Rogan 58:56 It was real. Real.

Dave Smith 58:56 ... this really happens. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 58:58 And it's happening in Israel. I mean, that's what's crazy. I mean-

Dave Smith 59:01 But the other thing though is that, that, uh, and that's tr- all true. But the other thing is that, you know, there are these examples, right, like where there's Ireland and England and they're right next to each o- and like things are just cool now. And France and Germany are right next to each other and they're just cool now.

Joe Rogan 59:15 Yeah, but-

Dave Smith 59:16 And even in-

Joe Rogan 59:16 But Ireland and Northern Ireland were at war with each other forever.

Dave Smith 59:19 Right. No, but I'm, I'm just making the point that, and then it's over.

Joe Rogan 59:21 Right.

Dave Smith 59:21 And now they're not at war anymore.

Joe Rogan 59:22 Right.

Dave Smith 59:22 And like Egypt, Egypt went to war with Israel, uh, four times between the, uh, was it 1948, '56, '67, and '72 or '73. Four times.

Joe Rogan 59:34 Did I say that wrong? Was Ireland at war with Northern Ireland?

Dave Smith 59:37 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause they were-

Joe Rogan 59:38 Southern Ireland was at war.

Dave Smith 59:39 Well, they, they were br- the British-controlled-

Joe Rogan 59:41 Right.

Dave Smith 59:41 ... like the, the, um-

Joe Rogan 59:42 But it was really England.

Dave Smith 59:44 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was-

Joe Rogan 59:45 Yeah.

Dave Smith 59:45 ... by proxy, England-

Joe Rogan 59:46 Yeah.

Dave Smith 59:47 ... basically dominating the Irish. Um, and then, by the way, the Irish, uh, turned to terrorism when they were being, uh, dominated by the English.

Joe Rogan 59:53 Shocker.

Dave Smith 59:53 And, yeah. Which is another thing that people, another real interesting-

Joe Rogan 59:56 That's how you have to do it. It's the only way to go to war.

Dave Smith 59:59 Well, look-

Joe Rogan 59:59 If you don't have a s- if you have a smaller army and they have all the money, you gotta figure out a way to get them.

Dave Smith 1:00:04 Well, here's the craziest part of this, right? Is that, and I thought, we talked a bunch about the history of this last time I was on, but I don't think I mentioned this. Maybe I did. But, the craziest part of all of it is that the Israelis, or I shouldn't say the Israelis. The Israelis five seconds before they became Is- Israelis, like right before the creation of the state of Israel, they embraced terrorism. And by the way, these, these terrorists who were the leaders of these terrorist organizations like, um, Menachem Begin and, uh, Yitzhak Shamir, they went on to be prime ministers of Israel, but they were terrorists. And I'm not like, I don't mean this as a pejorative, like self-described terr- like they embraced terrorism with-

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 What was their organization called?

Dave Smith 1:00:44 With, uh, um, Menachem Begin's was the, um, the Irgun, that was his militia. And then there was, uh, Lehi or the Stern Gang. Um, and then there was the Haganah who was like the biggest one. Um, and they were not quite as terroristic, but they also were involved in a bunch of it. And their justification for it was to drive out the occupying force, which was the British at the time. The, after World War II, the Zionists who were in Palestine were like, had enough of the British, uh, occupying the area. And they wa- they were very angry because they had limited, uh, Jewish migration during the run-up to the Holocaust. Um, so they had a real beef with the, the British at this point, even though the British had kind of like allowed them to...... have a chance to establish a Jewish homeland there, but so they embraced terrorism to drive them out. Go, you can go look up the King David Hotel, uh, killed a whole bunch of innocent people, including Jews-

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 (laughs) .

Dave Smith 1:01:40 ... um, in, in the hotel because they just wanted to use terrorism to drive out an occupying force. And then they actually introduced terrorism into that region. And many of the same tactics that the Palestinians went on to embrace were stuff that they picked up from the Jewish terrorists at that time. But then the same Israelis will turn around and be like, "Well, I don't know why these Palestinians have embraced terrorism." And like they're telling you, it's for the same reason, it's to drive out an occupying force. Now of course the major difference there is that Israel, Israelis came to stay, whereas the British were there, you know, they had their... This was a satellite. They had their home country back in Europe and they could be driven out. It's a whole different thing to dri- try to drive someone out who's like, "No, we're setting up our homes here." Um, but-

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 And there's more of us.

Dave Smith 1:02:26 Yeah, well not that man- I mean there's, there's Palestinians and, and Israelis is pretty close if you count all of them.

Joe Rogan 1:02:33 Well you're, you're also backed by America.

Dave Smith 1:02:36 Well that's, that's the major difference.

Joe Rogan 1:02:37 (laughs) .

Dave Smith 1:02:38 Well and th- so that's, but that's basically my essential argument is that America shouldn't be, uh, playing this role. And that-

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 This is, this is being argued out now.

Dave Smith 1:02:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 You know, this is, this is uh, a big point of contention now politically, right? Because the Biden administration is not giving the same amount of support to Israel that it was-

Dave Smith 1:02:56 They've been giving basically, I mean what's really going on is that Joe Biden, this is a disaster politically for Joe Biden and something like... I mean looking at the polls recently-

Joe Rogan 1:03:06 I think you and I have-

Dave Smith 1:03:06 ... 50% of his base-

Joe Rogan 1:03:07 ... different Twitter followers because, uh...

Dave Smith 1:03:11 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 1:03:11 What do you mean? My fa- I mean the, my Twitter feed seems like he's doing a great job.

Dave Smith 1:03:15 Really? D- does it? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:16 (laughs) .

Dave Smith 1:03:16 He's doing excellent. He's totally got it down.

Joe Rogan 1:03:18 There's a lot of people that are arguing that.

Dave Smith 1:03:19 Did I say, I sent you-

Joe Rogan 1:03:20 The creation of jobs.

Dave Smith 1:03:21 I sent you his, uh, his latest, uh, clip from a speech that New Biden just dropped and it's the newest-

Joe Rogan 1:03:27 Yes.

Dave Smith 1:03:27 ... the newest one he goes... And by the way, it's not... He, he meant to say I think financial crash, but he said pandemic, but he said during the pandemic when he was vice president-

Joe Rogan 1:03:36 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:03:36 ... Barack Obama sent him to Detroit (laughs) and you're just like, "Dude, what?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03:39 Why did he send him to Detroit?

Dave Smith 1:03:41 What is happening? Why, why would they send you to Detroit to deal with COVID?

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 But no, I saw someone saying that perhaps it was the H1N1 pandemic which did happen during the bind administration or during the, uh, Obama administration when he was vice president.

Dave Smith 1:03:54 I don't think, I don't think, I think he was talking about the-

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 He would have probably said a previous pandemic.

Dave Smith 1:03:59 Yeah. The point is just that he does it so much.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 He would have said, "Remember back in 2009." He's out of his fucking mind.

Dave Smith 1:04:03 If it was an oc- if it was occasional, people would let this stuff go. Um...

Joe Rogan 1:04:07 Yeah.

Dave Smith 1:04:07 But a- anyway, just to the... Look, I, I, I also thought because some of these guys by the way you've had on your show, like I like them. I'm not even like, you know, like Coleman Hughes, I don't know him personally, but I like him and he seems-

Joe Rogan 1:04:18 He's great.

Dave Smith 1:04:18 He seems really smart.

Joe Rogan 1:04:19 Very smart.

Dave Smith 1:04:19 And I, I haven't read his book, but I bet I would love it. Like I think-

Joe Rogan 1:04:22 Well you two together would be a fascinating conversation just about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Dave Smith 1:04:27 Yeah, well I would love to have a con- because I think he's a good faith guy and I think like-

Joe Rogan 1:04:31 He is.

Dave Smith 1:04:31 And he's very smart, but he also kind of, um, you know... There were two things that kind of rubbed me the wrong way, uh, when he was on the show. Number one was that he started by kind of getting into this argument about, um... Which I see a lot of people who are supporting this conflict doing. The argument about like, "Okay, well here are the number of total civilians dead and here are the number of Hamas militants dead. And let's look at that ratio and then is that ratio that m- far off from what you find in a typical war?" And there's a few problems with this. Number one, the numbers are totally unreliable. And so you're having this conversation-

Joe Rogan 1:05:07 On both sides, right?

Dave Smith 1:05:08 Yes, on both sides. I mean, both sides are totally incentivized to exaggerate the numbers. And also in the fog of war, it's very hard to keep up with these numbers. We never really know the numbers of dead in war until like years later when the excess mortality is calculated and then you get a better idea of what was really going on there. Um, the, the Israeli government talking about the number of Hamas militants they've killed seems to be them just pulling numbers out of their ass. Like they drop these bombs, they don't know how many, who got who and who was a part of-

Joe Rogan 1:05:36 Are they going in there and checking dog tags?

Dave Smith 1:05:38 Y- yeah, they're not. You know what I mean? And, but anyway, but even that, I just think... Even if the numbers were right, it's like, look dude, if you look at the population density and you just look at the number of bombs that Israel has dropped and you just see a lot of the footage that we've seen and you just listen to stories that doctors are telling. I literally just saw an interview, uh, a couple of weeks ago with a doctor who just got back from Gaza and he was talking about how they have a major anesthesia, uh, shortage over there. So just think about the implications of that, like what that means.

Joe Rogan 1:06:08 Whoa.

Dave Smith 1:06:08 It means they're operating on kids without anesthesia, you know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 1:06:12 Jesus Christ.

Dave Smith 1:06:12 It's just... So, so the point is that if you're talking about, okay, well this many Hamas people are dying compared to this many innocent babies are dying. That's not the question. Okay? Like when you're inflicting this level of human suffering on people, the question for any decent civilized person is, is this absolutely necessary?

Joe Rogan 1:06:32 Is, is this the only way to do it?

Dave Smith 1:06:33 Is there any other option besides doing this? And as soon as you frame the question that way, you realize that, oh yeah, there actually is. And that it's not true that Israel... There will just be October 7th after October 7th if Israel stops doing this. The fact is that, uh, of course Netanyahu has never allowed a real investigation into October 7th to happen. But everybody pretty much concludes that Israel dropped the ball in a massive way, in a massive way. That their security was just in shambles. And all they really needed to do was not rely so much on these, you know, machine gun robots and have actual soldiers at the border. They could easily just stop this right now.

Joe Rogan 1:07:12 Well wasn't there an issue of protests where the soldiers were allocated towards-

Dave Smith 1:07:16 Yes, they, they... Yes. It's, basically they had... So as a, I think as a result of, um, the protests against Netanyahu, he had start- he had started to ally with some even further right-wing groups than he normally would have. And to appease them, he was pulling soldiers off of the Gaza border and putting them over, uh, uh, toward the West Bank, which is what the religious Jews on the right really care about. And yes, they basically got caught with their pants down. Um, so but I'm just saying they could just stop doing this. It's not they all die or they keep doing this. They could stop and Israel would, can still protect itself. In fact, I'd argue their security would be enhanced if they stop doing this. Um, but the other thing which you brought up...... uh, to Coleman Hughes, was that you, you mentioned to him (laughs) which, uh, you said, "What about the, the... Didn't Israel, like, prop up Hamas? Wasn't that part of their strategy for a while?" And he... I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and maybe he just doesn't know about that detail of this as much, because I... If not, he was kinda being dishonest, but he, but maybe he just wasn't familiar with all of this stuff. But he kinda went... You said that, and then he kinda dismissed it by saying, "Well, there's, um, there's a quote that's attributed to Netanyahu, but it wasn't on videotape." So, like, we don't... Ba- essentially being like, "We don't really know if Netanyahu said this or not," and then just kinda moved on to the conversation away from that. But I find this, I found this in all of my debates that I've done on this, and I've done, like, eight debates on this since the war broke out. Everybody on the pro-Israeli side does not wanna grapple with that point because it really is like a... It's a narrative-shattering point-

Joe Rogan 1:09:00 Mm-hmm.

Dave Smith 1:09:00 ... once you acknowledge it. But, so-

Joe Rogan 1:09:02 Right, but-

Dave Smith 1:09:02 Well, look-

Joe Rogan 1:09:02 But if it isn't on videotape, he has a point as well.

Dave Smith 1:09:05 Well, here... Well, let me... Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 Right?

Dave Smith 1:09:06 So here's the deal, right? So the quote that he's referring to was a quote by Benjamin Netanyahu. It was something along the lines of, "Anybody who wants to thwart the Palestinians having their own state needs to support propping up Hamas, bolstering Hamas, transferring money to them, to main..." Right? So there was a quote like this, and here's-

Joe Rogan 1:09:24 So Hamas maintains power.

Dave Smith 1:09:24 Right. So Hamas maintains power so that they never, we never have to give them a state because we can look to the international community, we can look to liberal Jews in Israel and say, "Look, we have no partner for peace. They're a crazy terrorist group." So we don't, we never have to make a deal. We don't have to fulfill our promise that we would give the-

Joe Rogan 1:09:40 And wh- how, how was this attributed to him?

Dave Smith 1:09:41 So basically, th- this quote particularly, okay, this was at a closed-door meeting with the Likud Party. So this is Benjamin Netanyahu's political party, his far-right party that's in power right now in Israel. So it's true that this was a closed-door meeting and that it's not on tape. Um, so what happened is, as far as I can tell, the, the first person who reported this, I believe, was a, a, a lady who's a reporter for the, uh, Jerusalem Post. And then it's been run in a bunch of other newspapers since then. So what, basically what happened is an eyewitness who was there at the meeting, so another Likud Party member in Benjamin Netanyahu's political party, came and told her that he said this. And then she went and checked with somebody else who was there, and he also confirmed that, like, "Yes, Benjamin Netanyahu said this." And then a third person, who was also at the meeting, came out and wrote about it in his book or wrote about it in another newspaper article or something like that. So you