Judging Freedom - Dave Rubin's new book - "Don't Burn This Country"

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Dave Rubin's new book - "Don't Burn This Country"A conversation with the author#Woke #WokeismSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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You see that handsome face next to mine. My guest is a person widely known and greatly appreciated in the podcast world, a new friend of mine, but a man whose work I've admired for a long time, Dave Rubin of the Dave Rubin Report. Dave, welcome to Judging Freedom. It's a pleasure to have you here. Judge, it's good to be with you, and it's nice to be on the other side of the dave rubin report dave welcome to judging freedom it's a pleasure to have you here judge it's good to be with you and it's nice to be on the other side of the interview i i grilled you for an hour i understand we only have 15 or 20 minutes but i hope that you're able to uh challenge me as best possible we'll see if this freedom thing really is good i think this freedom

thing is good because i spent the weekend with a wonderful book called Don't Burn This Country, which is your new book. Now, you know I'm a big fan. So aside from the fact that I am crazy about you, why should I buy your book? Listen, this is the last chance. I really believe that. America is hanging on by a thread. We really are. You have to give the woke credit, the progressives, the left, the Marxists, whatever you want to call them at this point. A lot of times we can all joke about it and, oh, they're crazy. They don't know what gender is and they think everyone's racist and all of this stuff. We can mock them all the time. And by the way, I think some mockery is good because I think humor is a way to defeat some

of the madness. But you do have to give the devil his due. They have wrought such destruction on America, on our foundational documents, on our rule of law, on logic and reason and all those things that America of 2022 is barely recognizable compared to not just the America of, say, 1776, but how about the America of 2014, 2018? I mean, they have destroyed so much of what a guy like you has lived your entire career to defend, which is freedom and individual rights and liberty and all of those things. So this book, which in some ways I wish I didn't have to write, I mean, truly, and as

I was writing it, I kept thinking, man, we've really lost a lot because I have to write a book like this. It's a, it's a defensive America. And it's also really, it's positing a choice at the end, which is either you think the government is going to somehow magically save you right now, or you can try to save yourself. And frankly, I don't think Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or the rest of them are coming to save us. Well, the book, the book is a delight to read. It really is. And anybody who knows you, it's like they're listening to you talk. There's nothing that comes out of your mouth in this book that is not you. It's very much you. It's a comfortable read. The essence of the book, as I understand it, is your view and my view, and the view that most people listening to us and watching us now have, is that the country was founded

on the theory that the individual is sovereign, that government is the negation of liberty, that government only exists because we have consented to it existing. And the only powers that government has are the powers that we have given it. But the lefties that you demolish in this book believe in the collective. They don't believe in the individual. They don't believe in individual rights. They believe that we are grapes that should be crushed to make the wine that the elites want us to drink. Well said, my friend. That's it. They want us to be cogs in the machine.

That's what they want. That's why if you look at what they are constantly obsessed with, it is our immutable characteristics, right? They're constantly screaming about gay people and about women and about trans people and all of those things. I know gay people. I'm married to one. I know trans people. I know black people. I know women. My mom's one. I know all sorts of people. I don't know anyone that wants to be wholly defined by some immutable characteristic, but once they can pull that great trick on you, oh, you're black, you must think this. Meaning you're black. We obviously know your position on taxes, abortion, and foreign policy. Once they pull that great trick on you, they've got you for

everything, man. There is nothing that they can't get you to do. And that's why in the last two years of COVID, we saw so many people go crazy. We saw people that otherwise were sane, decent people who believed in American values somehow demanding that other people should have medical procedures or shots mandated on them. Other people, not what you were just going to do to yourself or have a conversation with someone in your family, what the government should do to other people. We saw, I think what they've, what they've actually unearthed is something, you probably saw this in the courtroom all the time when you saw, uh, difficult cases of why someone would do something, right? Whether people, you know, we can talk about nature versus nurture

or people born a certain way and are, they have a predilection to certain activities, whatever. But I think what's happened is the woke have, have ripped off a scab in America. We solve most of the problem. We really did. If you look back to a couple of years ago, gay people got equal rights. We really did not have rampant racism. Even I know a lot of people don't like to hear this, but we did not have a tremendous amount of cops shooting, innocent black men. It was something like 12 people in 2007, 2017, something like that. We had moved past most of these things. The liberal experiment worked. But unfortunately, as Chris Rock says, the cops need a certain amount of crime. And the liberal establishment said, oh, we've accomplished so much, but now let's keep moving.

Let's keep moving on it. And I would argue they're doing something very dangerous now, which is once you move from equality, which is what America is based on, when you make that move to equity, which is very different, that we should all be the same, that's very anti-human. And that's why so many people are so hysterical right now. Why do you think that the American public became a nation of sheep in the past two years and accepted the lockdown? I think I may have told you this story when we spoke on your show a few weeks ago. I was talking to a couple of state troopers. I live in a part of New Jersey where there's no local police. So the state police are the local police, so you sort of know them. I said to these guys,

after they had shut down Catholic churches and you couldn't go to mass, and an elderly Catholic bishop opened them, and then a half dozen state troopers showed up at his residence and said, you better close your 150 churches in northwest New Jersey or we're going to take you with us. And I said to them, don't you guys remember first day of the police academy? Rule number one, it is unlawful to obey an unlawful order. One of them said, yeah, we remember that, but none of us wants to be the first to go. None of us wants to put our head on the chopping block. Why did Americans become a nation of sheep?

Why did we accept this? Why did we wear masks and close our businesses and stay home and stay six feet away from people when we now know there's next to no scientific basis for any of that? Well, look, we all know the old phrase that all evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And why does that now ring true in an American sense more than ever? I mean, look, you know, I grant everybody, everybody a leash for those first two or even three weeks. We didn't know what the hell was going on with COVID. I came home, you know, I'm going to Whole Foods and I'm wearing gloves and I'm washing the bag before I take the eggs out. I mean, crazy stuff. But I grant everyone, we were, I don't know if it was that we were

lulled into some stupor and then they started saying all this stuff, but everyone gets a certain leash on the immediate, my God, is this the pandemic we've all feared? Is this what the movie contagion was about? And you know, all of those things I would say by a month in, I really very quickly realized this thing wasn't going back to normal. Once the phrase, the new normal kept coming up, I kept thinking this, this is, this does not feel authentic to me. Everyone in mainstream media, the corporate press is repeating this phrase, the new normal, and we won't shake hands anymore. And we won't do in-person interviews anymore.

We'll just do it through Skype. And, you know, things will be very different. Kids will remote learn and all these things. I knew things weren't coming back. So your question as to why, what is it? You're really asking what is it about humans that make us weak? What is it about us that makes us want to give into the thing that's going on? Why do we want to be popular when we're in 11th grade, right? It's, look, humans are social creatures.

We're social creatures and having human connection is important. And ironically, we live in a time of social media that has made us less authentically social. I think they have taken something from the ether about humans. They figure, I don't know who they is exactly. So you have to grant me a little bit of a leash on this, which is the system as it exists with the algorithms and media and everything else figured out something about us, man, freedom. They say they like it, but what do they really like? They like being told what to do. We can get these idiots to close their businesses. We can get

them to riot. We can get them to be depressed and be dependent on pills and watch porn all day and not go out. And they'll ask us for more. Look at California. Well, I am not surprised that the government did this because I've been a skeptic about government all my life. My libertarian friends would say, well, you worked for the government. No, I didn't. I worked for the constitution. The government paid my salary. Most of my rulings were against the government. Government loves power. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. Government paid my salary. Most of my rulings were against the government. Government loves power. Government is essentially the negation of liberty. Government doesn't believe in individual rights. Government believes in the collective. But why did the people cave? I think because of fear. You say quite correctly and quite articulately, Dave, the government found the button to press. The button to press is fear,

fear that the government might be right. Fear that if we don't listen to the government, we might get sick and die. And when people are afraid, contrary to what Ben Franklin famously said, they will opt for safety or the illusion of safety over the reality of Liberty. So we have the illusion of safety. We're going to be safe. If we listen to governor Newsom in California, if we listen to governor Murphy, uh, in New Jersey, nevermind freedom, the freedom will come back. That's the way I think the rationale went. Now people might not have actually reasoned that way, but they behaved as if they reasoned that way. Agree? Well, I think you're right. And it also shows you why it's so important to elect sane, not just sane, you really need to elect people who know why they're in

office. So I lived in California throughout the pandemic. I now live in the free state of Florida, and I'm probably the most proud Floridian in this entire state at the moment. I now live in the free state of Florida and I'm probably the most proud Floridian in this entire state at the moment. But when I was in California, every day, Gavin Newsom and Eric Garcetti, the mayor of LA, they'd get on TV and they'd tell you about more lockdowns and they'd tell you about more rules or they'd have, you know, the state assembly woman who would vote for the lockdowns and then she'd be caught eating at a restaurant that night or Gavin Newsom at French Laundry. They were flaunting this stuff in front of us. But to get to the human part that you're asking about, if they're presented, all of these people, politicians aren't the brightest people. They win popularity contests in essence. So they

get people to come to them and the people from the CDC and everyone says, there's a lot of scary stuff happening. You better do something. So in their mind, something is better than nothing. I think in retrospect, had we done nothing, we would have been in much better position. So Newsom says, OK, lock them down. Garcetti says put masks on them, close the schools, etc. Now, counter that to what's going on here in Florida right now, where DeSantis, who was presented with basically the same information. I mean, the CDC was giving everybody the same information. DeSantis very early on, say by April or so at the peak of the thing was being presented with information. And he was saying, all right, you're presenting me with something, but I don't think locking people down and shutting down

businesses and everything else is the right way to go about it. Now, why did he do that? Is he some sort of extraordinary human being who's always willing to stand up to the system? Well, two years later, I actually think he kind of is. But at the beginning, what he was was someone who just didn't lose their cool under pressure. I, you know, I told the story in the book about Rudy Giuliani during 9-11 and I lived in New York City at the time. And I remember living in New York city that it was like, thank God that Rudy was in charge of New York city at that time. Like he, he was born for that moment. He did not lose his mind in a time when almost nobody could, you know, could have dealt with the pressure and craziness. And those are the types of leaders that we need. We just don't have those leaders, but we need only look in the mirror because we're the ones that elect them. Wow. Look, I don't know where this is going to go.

I have been arguing that when you give up freedom to the government, it doesn't come back. The government now knows what it can get away with. The government knows that it can terrify us. The government knows that we prefer safety, not you and I, not most of the people watching and listening to us now, but the great masses prefer safety over liberty. And the government will exercise this power again. Your book, I'm not saying this just as I like it, which I do, but your book is an eye opener because it is an easy to read lesson in the values of individualism and the triumph of the individual over the state. You and I believe the individual is sovereign. By the way, do you know anybody that's consented to the government?

I don't. Why do we just accept all this? Jefferson wrote that no government is licit without the consent of individuals. Coming from crazy LA, the day that this woman, her name is Sheila Kuhl, she was just a state local official. I mentioned it a moment ago, but she literally, she was the deciding vote, three to two, to close the outdoor restaurants in LA. And then what did she do? Literally, she left the meeting and she went to her favorite Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. Santa Monica, which in essence had been destroyed by the riots just a month before, but her restaurant was still good. So she went there. I went to her house the next day to protest. I didn't like the idea of going to someone's house to protest. I much would prefer to do it at a public park or at, uh, you know, on, on the street somewhere that's where they

chose to do it. Uh, we never saw her and obviously I wouldn't have been for violence or mobbing her or anything like that. But I went to the, I went to the protest there and it was one of the most eyeopening things I had ever seen because what I realized was the people that were there protesting, they were not right wingers. They were not conservatives. They were not libertarians. This is LA. They were all business owners. Almost everyone there was, I got my restaurant. It's now closed. I owned a little sneaker store. I can't pay the bills anymore. And they were angry that this, you know, this, she's an appointed woman. I owned a little sneaker store. I can't pay the bills anymore. And they were angry that this, you know, this, she's an appointed woman. I don't even think she was elected, but it's

irrelevant to actually that these people through no use of science, through no use of logic and reason, just, I am a human and I like to exercise power over people decided to close down restaurants more in LA where the weather is 80 and sunny every day. Those are the ideas that we have to shut down. And you're right. People, individuals have to say enough's enough. This is how I want to live my life. And I'm not going to let you take it from me. So your book has a very Dave Rubin-esque, if you'll pardon that word, happy undercurrent to it. It's an easy read and it's a happy read to book, even a book to read, even though there are stories in there that are quite unpleasant. The story about the girl

escaping from North Korea, becoming a sex slave in China. And then what happened to her in the streets of Chicago is just, uh, is just mind boggling. However, where do you think we're going? Do you think 10 years from now, we will have more freedom or less? Well, Judge, I suppose I can give you the tease for my third book, because this feels like a trilogy, right? It was don't burn this book, don't burn this country. And I don't think I have to lead people to what the title of the next one might be. I think it's pretty obvious. I would answer it by saying this. I think America, no matter what happens right now, is about to go in two very different directions. The woke, they've destroyed a lot, as I said at the beginning, and they are going to continue

to destroy a lot. And there are places where that destruction will continue to flourish. I would put California at the top of that. I think New York has a version of that. And some of the other blue states that often follow along are going to have their own problems. I think the red States and I put Florida at the top of this are going to flourish. I think people have realized what's what I think the people that are fleeing, even your state of New Jersey, which got pretty freaking close to flipping red. I think people are realizing what freedom is all about. So every day here in Florida, I meet all of the refugees because people come up to me when I go to the store, Dave, welcome to Florida. I just moved here from Jersey. I just moved here

from Connecticut. I just moved here from Cali. They're coming here for the right reasons. So in many ways, I think the country is about to split in a very bizarre way. I'm not, that's not a call to civil war or anything like that, but it actually is a call to federalism, which is what our foundation was built upon, that the states should have far more to do with your life than the federal government. Our federal government is at, at worst, I would say at best incompetent and at worst negligently horrible. I've had enough of it. I've had enough of it. I've had enough of it. And I want to live in a place that is in line with my values.

I think almost everybody watching and listening to us now agrees with everything you've just said. My own view is that the federal government, like a dinosaur, will collapse of its own weight, won't be able to pay its bills. No one will lend money to it. It'll stop printing money or people will stop using the money that it prints. Yep. And the country will break apart into smaller republics. As Ronald Reagan used to say, you can vote with your feet. But this time you'll be walking or moving or traveling to another country. You want to live in a land of great regulation?

Come up here in the Northeast where everything is regulated. You want more freedom? Go to Dallas or go to Miami. Hey, look, I told you, I know you're out there in your safe farm in Jersey, but eventually, Jersey, because of its proximity and connection to New York, and I say this as a born and bred in New York, I love what the idea of New York is. I love the New Yorker that you are, right? You remind me of everyone I grew up around, right? All my friends were Italian, Jewish, or Irish in Long Island growing up. That culture of freedom and ethnicity and food and music and craziness and yelling and blah, blah, blah. I love all that. I don't know that there's

going to be a space for that in what I think the future sort of New York tri-state area is going to be. I think that there will be a space for it in Dallas, in Miami, in Tennessee, and some other places. I think that's just a sad reality. How many trips are you making to sell the book? Will you be all over the country? Are you doing everything from where you are now? No. So I'm going to do about 20 stops on this tour. We were going to do something much bigger, but you know, when, when we were setting up the tour, the lockdowns were still happening and the mandates. And I said to my guys at CAA, I'm not going to do any place where they're going to have

any vaccine passport or any mask mandate or anything like that. So we had to cancel a bunch of venues. I'm going to do about 20 for this initial leg. And then we'll just kind of see how I feel. You know, I just moved to Florida. I'm loving life here. There's a lot of things I want to do around my house. So I'll get out there for a little bit and we'll see what happens. Well, if you come back to New Jersey or New York, find me. Be great to great to get together. I love chatting. West Nyack, I believe on April 24th, Megyn Kelly is opening for me.

I'll get you a seat in the front row, my friend. Wes Nyack is about 30 minutes from where I live. Well, now you have to come because otherwise it would be very awkward. So that's it. You're coming front row. I'll email you. Don't burn this country by the inimitable Dave Rubin.

Dave, it's a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Judge, I love that we've connected. And as I said to you last time, I look forward to breaking bread in person, perhaps in West Nia. You got it. Judge Napolitano with Dave Rubin for Judging Freedom. This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself? Talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person?

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