The Michael Knowles Show - Michael Knowles REACTS to ANARCHY and "The WHITE Pill" | Michael Malice

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

Michael Malice joins the show to explain what it means to be a true anarchist and why he has hope for the future. Michael Malice is the host of the You're Welcome podcast and author of The Anarchist Handbook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Michael Knowles, and this is the Michael Knowles show. Finally, after years and years of anticipation, we're bringing on to the show one of the most interesting guys in the political media space right now, Michael Malice, who I've been following for a long time, follow him on Twitter and everything. And I said, Michael, I can't believe that you're just coming on the show now. And he reminded me that he DM'd me like two years ago and I missed it. Like I miss every DM, like I miss every text. But I'm so pleased that Michael could be here today.

for coming on the show. You know, Michael, interesting is always a euphemism. You know, do you have dinner with this guy? What was he like? Oh, he was interesting. He was interesting. Yes, that's true. You know, one thing, Michael, that I, so I should mention, you need no introduction, but you're the author of one of the two best titled books in human history, Dear Reader, the unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong-il. The only other book of an equally great title is when Harry became Sally by Ryan Anderson. The author of The New Right, A Journey of the Fringe of American Politics, the author of The Anarchist Handbook,

and this is especially what I want to talk about, the author of an upcoming book about the white pill, a cause for hope in our absolute decayed, disgusting, collapsing ruins of politics. What is the cause for hope, Michael? Well, you just said it. It's a collapsing ruin. Politics is a disaster.

There's no possibility. for freedom through a political venue. So to watch, you know, the elites basically cannibalize themselves, it's very hard for me, whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent, whatever, to look at Joe Biden, literally voiding his bowels behind the resolute desk and think to yourself, this is a symbol of an empire at its strength. This is someone who really is on top of things,

as opposed to, you know, a weekend and Bernie situation, which we should be looking at with great comedic applause. And that also follows, you know, President Trump. Donald Trump was basically a third party candidate. He had no roots within the Republican Party at all. Historically, he endorsed Romney, but that barely says anything. And he managed to beat every single Republican candidate in the primary. So this just speaks to, in many ways, the complete decaying weakness of both of our major political parties, which from my perspective is a very healthy thing for a free country.

Now, most people would say the collapse in support for the, not just the political parties, but for basically every public. institution is terrible. It shows you that the country is falling apart. I myself am a little worried about it, although for some institutions, I think, bye-bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out. But you're saying from your perspective, the collapse of trust in these institutions is a wonderful thing. Yeah, I don't think things like the Ivy League and the state are redeemable, the New York Times elements like that. And I think what conservatives fail to appreciate is that these institutions have been this way for a very long time. There's an argument in conservative circles

that Hollywood's been taken over by the liberals, but at the same time, conservatives do appreciate that Ronald Reagan was president of Screen Actors Guild, and as president of Screen Actors Guild, and previously, he was very concerned by the depths of literal communism and not just communism, Stalinism, within Hollywood. So at what point wasn't Hollywood a venue of the very hard left?

In the 20s, when they didn't have talkies? Well, yes, I guess if you can't. can't talk, you can't spread leftist ideas. But I mean, Woodrow Wilson is another great example. He was a college professor. The first college professor became president. He was president in 1912, and he was advocating things far to the left of what even Bernie Sanders would advocate for today. So I think conservatives by and large are supposed to learn the lessons from history, but unfortunately that seems to not be the case very often. And this is why it's a big reason for optimism in the future. Woodrow Wilson is a far more nefarious foe, far more talented,

individual far more charismatic than what, AOC? I mean, there's just no comparison, in my opinion. But there was this sense among the old right, you know, I mean, these terms old right and new right, they change every 20 years because you get new people and older, but, but, you know, of what we would have called the old right and say the 50s, they really were concerned with getting rid of the New Deal. They were fighting against FDR. They were fighting against Wilsonianism. And then that just kind of went away, you know, over the ensuing decades. the conservatives just gave up, they kind of made their peace with the New Deal. In some ways, they adopted a Wilsonian view, at least a foreign policy. And so, you know, that, that to me

speaks to the absolute entrenchment of these sort of leftist progressive policies. You think, though, maybe they're not so entrenched. Maybe we can upend them? Oh, they are entrenched, but let's talk exactly what we talk about. In 1950s, you had the nomination was between Dwight Eisenhower, who no one knew what his political resume. was at all, both the Democrats and Republicans tried to recruit him. He was a great war hero. And the Republicans had Mr. Republican Robert Taft, who was a conservative Republican. Taft got his ass handed to him, partly because of liberal Republicans, like New York State Governor Thomas Dewey, you know, who ran against FDR twice, who was a Romney Republican before the term existed.

They later called him Rockefeller Republicans. So I think this idea that the Republican Party has historically been a venue for shrinking the state is really kind of an a historical fair tale along the lines of the 1619 project. When push comes to shove, they've never really cut budgets at all. The other example to that was 1964 with Barry Goldwater, of course, who's a great conservative hero, and he got his butt hand to him in that election, which of course presaged the Reagan election in 1980. But the relationship between conservative ideas or limited government ideas and the Republican

parties is far more nuanced than I think a lot of people appreciate. True. And actually, going back all the way to the founding of the Republican Party, let's not forget, Abraham Lincoln ran on tariffs. I mean, the party was anti-slavery pro-protectionism. So that's not exactly a small government policy. And, you know, even after, I don't think anyone would call Abraham Lincoln a small government sort of president. The guy suspended habeas corpus. You know, rightly, I think, but still, he did it. And so, yes, the Republican Party has not always had this small government ideology. And it very rarely. has it expressed it even in the 20th century. So then where do we go from here? If the 20th century conservatism was basically a flop with a few nice moments during the Reagan and Trump administration, with Trump, I guess, being the 21st century, what's the future look like? Because you have hope, whereas I'm a little more skeptical. You know, I think conservatives are basically like diabetics who are trying to choose between Coke and Pepsi and wondering why their feet keep getting cut off. At a certain point, you have to realize that if you can't vote yourself free and Mitch

McConnell will always be a lot closer to Hillary Clinton than he will be to you and your values. So to stop looking toward Washington for answers and also to start looking to where the toxicity starts. If you're fighting in Washington, by that point it's the fourth quarter, you can only play defense. You're not going to win. You need to point your guns toward the universities, because that's where these ideas are first promulgated, where they train young people to be the shock troops for the progressive militia, who then run Hollywood, who would then. and work in newspapers, and they're the ones who shape the ideas of the country, especially for young people. A lot of people frequently invoke 1984 and George Orwell with this hard authoritarianism.

The book I would recommend people read is Aldous Huxley's Great New World. I totally agree. The persuasion is not, you know, with a stick. The persuasion is go work at this crappy job, go home and watch stupid television. We will provide for you. We'll give you food. We'll put a roof over your head. Don't think and don't question us.

And I think that model, the realization that the corporate press has not just recently been a mechanism to sell narratives as opposed to information and to guide public opinion, but that this has been going on for a very long time. Let me give you one example, which I think everyone can appreciate. We're all taught back in the day of William Randolph First, the Spanish-American War, yellow journalism, and that basically that led us into war during the McKinley administration. And then there's a record scratch, and the corporate press is supposed to be objective. and decent, that never happened. That's just one of the big lies that the media likes to tell about itself. Yeah, I certainly agree with that. And, you know, this sense of, you know, the objective media just grew out of this liberal establishment that, you know, I guess, sort of thrived in the middle of the 20th century and increasingly is collapsing. I totally agree.

You know, Orwell was Huxley's student. I think Huxley was his French teacher. And Huxley wrote to Orwell I like your book, but what you're missing here is the subtlety. You're missing how the regime is going to use drugs, promiscuous sex. It's going to use pleasure ultimately to enslave people. Yeah, and it's not, at that point it becomes kind of like this Greek myth of the lotus eaters. Like you're in, you know, one of the terms that, you know, I've popularized, which has become kind of loosened in this definition, is the concept of the red pill. But if you go back to that movie, The Matrix, the people who are on the Matrix are having a pretty nice life. They have food.

They have a job. They have a family. They don't have to think about anything. And therefore, they don't have to worry about anything. And it's very useful if I would like to be an elite to have a population, which basically I can farm, who aren't going to question my choices and just do what I like. The problem is at some point, people wake up, both on the right and the left, say this isn't working for me.

And then it's the media's job to tell the rest of the population how to analyze this and how to perceive it. So one of the things why I'm hopeful, and I'm positive you'll agree with me on this, after the 2020 election, for the first time in my lifetime, and you and I both fairly young, the Republicans and the right, broadly speaking, didn't turn their sights on Joe Biden. They turned it on media outlets. They realized that Biden is a symptom of a larger issue, that Biden himself is nowhere near as malevolent as many of these other entities. and to realize, okay, these are the people who made something like a Biden happen or the lockdowns happen, that I think that healthy analysis of who is against you is a much stronger position. I'll just make one more point. If you look at Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, and if you look at, let's oppose,

the Harvard Law Faculty in the New York Times editorial board, which one of these groups really has more contempt for you and your lifestyle? And I think this is a very easy question to answer. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're certainly right. The ruling elite involves a lot more than just a couple politicians in Washington, D.C. Frankly, they're not even the most important people in that equation, right? You've got higher education, lower education, big tech, Hollywood, the media, all of these supernational, international organizations. And then you've got dottering Joe Biden, who doesn't know which end is up. Absolutely. Now, your answer to this is a very naughty word. And... Freedom? Freedom.

Yeah, free... That's what I just said freedom. Well, now, so I think we've agreed basically on everything thus far. But now I think we're going to disagree. All right. What made you come to identify as an anarchist? How would you define anarchism? This is notoriously difficult to define, and people have lots of different definitions for it.

And what does it mean practically? If we said, okay, enough of our political system, we're going all in for anarchy, baby. Sure. So anarchism can be defined in one sentence. You do not speak for me. Everything else is simply application of that concept. It is the idea that political authority is inherently illegitimate. And just because a law is past does not give you any moral impetus to respect or follow it in any respect.

It also means that when you look at the Republicans and Democrats, you're looking at literally two different gangs who are fighting for turf war, neither of which have your interest at heart. So the black flag is the traditional symbol of anarchism, and I have the expression, the black flag comes in many colors. So the reason I wrote this anarchist handbook is it's different anarchist thinkers from the last 200 years explaining what anarchism means to them and how it applies. In terms of what that would mean right now, it would mean things like an increased skepticism of police because they are the ones who are forcing you in your home. They are the ones who are enforcing gun control laws and every other edict that Gretchen Whitmer, Mario Cuomo, and Gavin Newsom put into place. It is having an increased skepticism of concentrations of power, whether it would be Jeff Bezos, the Ivy Leagues, or the federal government, as well as state governments.

And understanding that this idea of, well, you and I disagree, but I'm going to respect your opinion, when the person disagreeing with you is a politician and have the ability to enforce their views upon your family, you are under no obligation to take them seriously for one second. and you should instead regard them with an enormous amount of contempt. Let's take the gun control issue for a second. A politician sits forward and says, I'm going to make it harder for you to get a gun to protect your home and your family. That's not a time for debate.

That's a declaration of war and everything else proceeds accordingly. Typically, historically, anarchism is more associated with the left than the right. In some ways it's associated on the right. But generally speaking, a lot of the people who developed anarchism as a political theory, were some of them were communists, some of them associated with communists, trying to work things out in the 19th and 20th centuries. So how is it that you, a right winger, you know, quite firmly on the right, how do you reconcile that? This movement that came largely from the left is now the movement you'd identify with. Well, I don't know that I would call myself firmly on the right,

but I think also this is an example of when labels and binary thinking are fault people. The biggest criticism of Marx, and I include the essay in my book, was by Mikhail Bakunin. He was Marx's rival for the early kind of leadership of what the would become communism. But in 1867, 50 years before the Soviet Union existed, he was predicting what it would look like and why it would be an enormous disaster. Emma Goldman, who was deported by Woodrow Wilson and J. Edgar Hoover to the Soviet Union, she wrote a book in the early 20s, denouncing how bad the Soviet Union was and warning the left that this is even worse than the czar, and this is not what we're for. So you mentioned Orwell as well earlier. Historically, the strongest opponents of the totalitarian state have been

these leftist anarchists because they realize, guys, and they're arguing from leftist principles, this is not what we're about. So we have to have respect. And this also in America, there have been many Truman certainly did his job taking on communism as well. There have been many people who would be on the left who have historically been very skeptical of the state and certainly the totalitarian state. Now, in America, when anarchists have come to prominence, they tend to be terrorists. I'm not, I'm no terrorist. You might be the one exception. No, I mean, there are obviously exceptions to this. But you think the most prominent anarchists today are Antifa, some of Antifa, some of them are communists too. And So, Sacco and Van Zetti, you know, and some of

these terrorists from the early 20th century. So if the idea is you dissolve the state, you're all just pursuing your own interests, you have totally voluntary associations. I'm obviously oversimplifying anarchism. No, that's pretty much it, yeah. That's a broad, you know, kind of general view. What happens when every time anarchism has tried to to be put in practice, at least in recent history, it's led to lots of violence and terrorism and things like that. Anarchism isn't a location, it's a relationship. So you and I are currently in an anarchist relationship, even though neither of us is in a position

of authority over the other. It's your show, so I'm deferential to you because it's your space, but neither of us is, I'm in a position to tell you, Michael, you have to do this, and you're in our position, tell me you have to do that. So in fact, the vast majority of our interactions are anarchist and bases. They're voluntary and peaceful. This Thomas Hobbs idea that if, you know, if there wasn't a strong government, we'd all be raping and murdering each other, it's absolutely abhorrent. If anyone listening to this, ask themselves, would you rape someone if you could get away with it?

The idea would be unconscionable to them. Now, the question is, what do you do about the bad people? And historically, the left anarchists that you mentioned, I think have a weak track record on this because their argument is, well, if fewer people were poor, there would be less crime. Okay, that's true. what about the ones who are left? What are you going to do about them? So an anarchist system would involve a very heavily armed population. It would involve not having a government monopoly on security,

but encourage voluntary and private security. And it includes having choice for how people can protect themselves and their purpose. Antifa is a different example because they do take a lot of inspiration from some of these left anarchists. but at the same time, they tend to be pro-state and certainly are much bigger fans of violence that I would be comfortable with myself. But in terms of our anarchist relationship, we obviously have a voluntary relationship, you and me,

but it is mediated by lots of other people. It's mediated by producers, it's mediated by the tech giants who could cut us off at any time. And ultimately, it's mediated by the state. I mean, you may want to, let's not say, commit violence on me, but let's say you want to make a pass at me,

turn our anarchist relationship into a sexual relationship. That's mediated by laws, thank you very much. Is that why you're dressed in that modern family shirt, Michael? Is that what's going on here? Give me some camera in? Trying to be really enticing here, you see through. I mean, what I mean by this is, you know, to use that phrase, true socialism has never been tried. One could easily say true anarchism has never been tried. And then someone will point to 10th century Iceland or something, which I think is a dubious example. I agree with you. Yeah, I just think, sure, I get this in theory, although I have questions about some of the assumptions of anarchism.

But how do we get there? You know, you say we trust the police less. Okay, well, that's fine. I certainly trust the FBI and the CIA a lot less than perhaps I once did. We should be more skeptical of the universities. Yeah, I'm completely, I'm basically ready to take a wrecking ball to them. But does this really mean then we dissolve the state because we think it doesn't have a look? legitimate authority? Yes. And how we get there is at a certain point, the costs of law and postment

become more expensive than the benefits. So it means having things like having politicians feel uncomfortable in their person. It means not engaging in political discussion with a straight face because it's inherently illegitimate. It means causing existential threat to people who would have control over your life and your family. These are just some steps that would get you there. And just because, you know, you're making the argument true anarchism has never been tried, I mean, you could also easily say that we've never had a true Democratic Republic. We've never had true republicanism. We've never had true democracy.

So in one sense, yes, there is any ideal is going to be in like some kind of platonic sense, not practical to reality, but certainly private arbitration, private security, peaceful interactions in human beings, these are not some kind of abstraction. These are in fact, if not the norm, at least certainly something. we could wrap our heads around. You know, it's like saying, well, if you can, we have to have socialized medicine because a free market in medicine has ever been tried. It's like, okay, I mean, I think that's kind of an argument you wouldn't make either. Right. Right. I certainly, I certainly would not. I do think there are degrees here. I think, you know, I think states have

approximated democratic republics better than, you know, but, but still, I totally grant that point. And I'm going to say one more thing. I think certain laws are certainly much more legitimate than others. I mean, laws against murder are legitimate not because they're laws, because you cannot violate someone's rights and hurt them. And certain other things, like, if there's a government program for food stamps and this is the extent of the state, at that point, I'd be like, fine, I don't really care. I'm not going to fight this one. I don't want people starving and hungry, especially children.

And if it's wasteful as well, I'm fine with that too. So when you say the law against murder is legit, not because it's a civil law, but because you have a right not to be murdered. You're saying, you're drawing a distinction between the civil law and the moral law. The moral law is eternal and the civil law is constructed by politicians. Fair enough. Yes. But then the moral law seems to imply a moral law giver.

And would you go that far that it implies that God exists? Whatever gets you there, I'm happy with it. I mean, I'm not an atheist at all. But I think this is such a complicated, very personal issue for a lot of people that if they have to have it grounded in this or that, whatever reason it takes for you not to be hurting other people, I'm fine with you getting there, as long as you agree to live peacefully and benevolently with your fellow man. But I suppose the reason I even bring it up is not to make lots of arguments for the existence of God, but because if we grant, if we keep referring to the moral order and

we grant that the moral order implies a moral lawgiver, then we're granting legitimate authority to someone above ourselves. And furthermore, I think we can easily infer that we must put some limits on the pursuit of our own passions, that if God really exists and if we are creations of God, then we owe something to him. We have obligation. We are not merely born with rights, but we actually are not permitted by that moral law to pursue our own passions. We put limits on our freedom in that way. I don't know that I would use that exact verbiage, though. I would agree with the message in between the lines.

I went to yeshiva as a kid. We came here from Russia and I went straight there. And one of the things we were taught about how to look at life in this perspective is under Judaism, the worst thing you could do is kill yourself. Because God has given you this gift of life. It's this amazing adventure. The Christian focus on the afterlife is something that, you know, in Judaism is not really a thing because it's kind of like, why are you fast-forwarding the tape when you've been giving this most miraculous gift that you should push toward its fullest and do to the utmost what you can with it?

Now, at the same time, that is also in many ways the ideology of Ein Rand, who's a violent atheist, very against the kinds of religion of God. So, I mean, as I said, the black flag comes in many colors. My goal is a voluntary, peaceful society. and I think religion for many people, if that's the means to get there, I'm certainly not going to be the one telling them that they're wrong. I'm also not the one telling them that that's the only path towards being peaceful and kind. But I suppose then even taking this further,

it creates this problem for anarchism, because I'll just use Christianity as the example as the dominant religion in the West. Sure. Romans chapter 13, St. Paul says, writing infallibly, right, that or inerrant, inherently that political rule comes from God. The civil authority is instituted by God. He says explicitly, submit to your rulers. Now, over time, this has been, this idea has been developed.

St. Thomas Aquinas famously recognizes some exceptions to this and causes for political revolution, even though they have to be quite extreme. But then if one is a believing Christian and one says, submit to your rulers, one sees that the civil authority is legitimate and instituted by God. How can he be an anarchist? I don't think he can. But I'll just make two more points. First of all, I don't think the American concept is that the people of Washington are rulers, but leaders. And I think there's a very important distinction to be had there. Two, if you want to tell me with a straight face that Bill Clinton was heaven sent, that is a perfectly valid position, and I really have

no argument to tell you. I mean, I don't understand how someone could look at Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi, I think this is a choir of angels. It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. But I will also point out that that Christian perspective is not at all, of course, within Christianity universal. Tolstoy, who is one of the most prominent authors of all time, was a Christian anarchism. And in the anarchist handbook, there is an entire chapter of his views about why his Christianity leads him to have an anarchist perspective. Yeah, no, I think of Tolstoy. You know, he, you wouldn't call him the most Orthodox Christian, but he did, he certainly had Christian views.

And yes, and you see, you do see this develop, especially in the last few hundred years. There have been people who try to reconcile this thing. I mean, there are even people who try to reconcile Christianity with socialism, although many, many popes say, don't do that. It's a very, very bad idea. Well, I don't know if you know this, but what would Jesus do came from Christian socialism. It is a heretical concept, but the guy who put it forward, this is in the 1870s, not only was that he explicitly was for spreading socialism. He also invented cancel culture. Because if you read that book in his steps, one of the things he points out is if you're running a newspaper, you shouldn't be talking about

boxing because Jesus wouldn't like people punching each other. So we should pretend it doesn't exist. So there's a lot of then diagrams we had historically. And I think it's absolutely fascinating how Christianity has been tried to be ported to different ideologies, including many Christians, very disappointingly in the 30s pastors who were advocating for Stalinism. Because they thought this was this ideal of equality. How they wrap their heads around this between like what priests are being murdered and by force

encouraged to denounce their faith. I don't know, but a lot of people, I don't have to make excuses for them. Well, you know, so this brings up actually the coalition of right wingers, call it the new right, call it conservatives. They come from very different perspectives. And so

you know, famously in the kind of Buckley, Frank Meyer, fusionist coalition, you had the traditional conservatives, the libertarians and the Warhawk Democrats, and they came together because they all hated the Soviet Union. To some effect, or they defeated the Soviet Union, though they ignored a lot of things at home. But you've got then, you've got anarchism, which, you know, as you say, is basically incompatible with Christianity, though there are some exceptions. I did not say that. I thought you said that if you were a believing Christian who believes Romans 13. I said if, no, no, no, if you believe those specific aspects of Christianity that you have to obey your rulers,

and that these rulers are basically God sent, that that is not compatible with anarchism. But if you're a Christian, you believe that the Bible is inerrant, unless you're a heretic like Leo Tolstoy or someone else. Well, I mean, I would think Tolstow would regard you as the heretic here. But he's wrong. It's the wrong.

I mean, you know, neither of us will ever be as great a man as Tolstoy. I think it's fair to say. I think we're both much better men than Leo Tolstoy, by the way. He was a degenerate. He was a very good writer, but he was an absolute degenerate of a human being. Well, in all fairness, you and I both did him. hit the number one nonfiction book in Amazon, which I don't think he ever did. So in one sense,

we are better writers than Tolstoy. Yes, no, that is true. And, you know, Tolstoy, he needed all of those words to write. I mean, God, that book goes on and on. And, you know, at least my, my first book didn't need a single word at all. So I think, okay, so then you've, okay, you've got Tolstoy aside. But let's say you've got now on the new right, you've got anarchists, such as yourself and other people, and maybe some followers of Einrand or, you know, kind of from that wing. then you've got traditional just knuckle dragging to the right of Genghis Khan Conservatives that I would place myself in that camp. Throne and altar, apotheocratic fascist, I don't know, whatever term they want to use.

Yeah, yeah. Then you've got, I don't know, today on foreign policy, I don't even know what would constitute a conservative. My question is practically. You know, I mean, is it the Bush era thing? I don't think it's that. Is it the non-interventionist? Yeah. So how do you get enough people together to unite that?

Because, you know, for all of the many faults that Bill Buckley had as he was trying to build this coalition, he did manage to bring people together and win at least a couple of elections. How can we do that now with all these disparate factions on the right? So I don't think that it's a numbers game. I think if you look at, let's suppose if someone's pro life, right, or pro choice, that only took nine people to make that decision. The anarchist view and Emma Goldman discusses this, you know, in the anarchist town book is the majority cannot reason. So these vast numbers. of people today will be arguing for, you know, Black Lives Matter. Tomorrow they'll be wearing the yellow ribbons to support the war in Kuwait. They're really not of relevance. They're kind of ballast. And history is always made. There's a book called the Machiavellians with James Burnham, who's a national review writer

mentioned. It's always about elites who are making history and making decisions. And if you and I both know, the number of people who are making political decisions in choice and moving political thinking in America, it's got to be under 2000. people. It's actually a much smaller number than people appreciate. If you add in the people to think tanks, you know, all of Congress and Senate, all the governors and all of us jerks on Twitter, maybe we're hitting 5,000. So people tend to, and that explains why you could go from Obama to Trump to Biden and to W before that. This seems to be a vacillation. You realize people

are not politically involved necessarily. And even if they are involved, they're just really not, they're going to be able to have perfectly contradictory views. So democracy is not a mechanism towards view of freedom and is in fact antithetical toward freedom. Yeah, that used to be considered a very conservative view. I mean, it was the view of the founding fathers even, you know, as they were constructing this constitutional republic. Now, though... But they were terrorists, though. Yeah. You know, George Washington had several warrants out for his arrest.

They were saying we have to hang together or we're going to hang separately. They were ready to kill all those founding fathers. And that's right. That's right. They certainly, you know, had they lost the war, they all would have been hanged without question. Oh, yeah. But now, I don't know how this happened, but now we're told, that if you in any way question mob rule, or really, if you in any way question the ruling elite, that you are a threat to our democracy,

our sacred, by which of course they mean they're oligarchy, right? But our genie. Our hegemony is what they mean. Oh, if you, I had that tweet, if you replace our democracy with our hegemony, everything becomes much more clear. And the reason they needed to be hegemonic, they need to have a monopoly on the microphone,

because before you and I were born, you had three networks and you had ABC, CBS, and NBC. So you had the impression of choice. But these were all strongly left of center anchors presenting things in a strong left of center context. But it gives the illusion that, oh, I made this decision. I pick B instead of C. I'm an independent thinker.

This is a big lie. Now, they're still apoplectic that Fox News exists, right? And they're trying to regain a monopoly control over cable news while at the same time, fewer and fewer Americans, especially young people, are, watching cable news is a means of getting their information at all. They're turning toward the internet and Daily Wire and other podcasts and other resources like that. That's another reason to be enormously optimistic. People are no longer trying to argue. They're just turning off the television. And if the audience isn't listening to you, it's really hard to control them.

Yes. And, you know, I love your observation about this illusory choice. The idea we think, oh, yeah, good, my team won, except I'm not getting really anything I voted for. And no, now their team won a way they seem to just be pursuing. I refer to the phenomenon sometimes as the court jester conservative. I think, you know, Romney types. Their whole job is to- That's Buckley. Buckley was the court jester.

He was making the jokes. Don't you dare. Okay, make your case. Because I still like Buckley. But what's the argument? Buckley was the, my book, then you're right, demonstrates why Buckley is the great villain of conservatism because his job was to be the court jester. The National Review slogan is standing.

a thwart history yelling stop, right? Well, some of us actually want to stop it. So you can stand there and yell all you want, but that's a declaration of impotence and of powerlessness. And, you know, he had some great lines when he ran for mayor in New York City. They asked him, what would you do if you want? He said, demand a recount. He was very clever and very witty.

But at the same time, he's putting on this pantomime while he's being completely steamrolled by the left. And his biggest accomplishments, politically in many ways, was kicking out people to his right and declaring them unpersonation. Now, he had that power back when media was more tightly managed and controlled, but now, you know, it's very hard for anyone for better or worse. Certainly, there's worse aspects as well to have that position to be like, okay, this person no longer exists. Yeah, I do see a lot of the criticisms of Buckley. My defense of him, though, is when you look at basically the Wilson era through 1950, when he comes out with God and Man at Yale, conservatives had just consistently lost, even when we had Republicans. So he just consistently lose. And so Buckley comes in, and he says, I'm going to stand a thwart history yelling stop.

He starts to turn the conversation slightly. That first book, he makes a mockery of academic freedom, goes after the institutions, which I love. By the way, there are many conservatives today who will defend academic freedom on leftist terms. Buckley in the 50s realized that was crazy. His next book defends Joe McCarthy, which I love. I think that's a fabulous book. He was still defending McCarthy a dozen years later, though he later came to kind of temperate.

So I agree. It's very sad. A lot of the 20th century was just a process of conservatives losing. But I do think, you know, Buckley, I think he deserves credit for what he did with what he had. And I just, I'm not convinced that there were others who could have done much better. That's possible. I'll just say one more thing. A big difference in me and Buckley is he wants to fix Yale and I want to burn it to the ground. Yeah. So, and I think that is just an ideological difference in perspective. in terms of goals and values. And by the way, I think of Roger Scruton, the late great conservative philosopher,

very famously said, you know, the difference between conservatives and leftists is leftists want to destroy things and conservatives want to just build them. It's harder to build than to destroy. But by the end of his life, Scruton was asked what he thought about academia? And he said, knock it down.

You got to, it's irredeemable. When these riots were happening last year, I was like, can't someone toss them a map to Cambridge? Yeah. I know. And there's also this question of in the 1950s or 60s, was there a chance to try, you know, before the conservatives had really been routed in every aspect of the culture, was there a chance to save it? Maybe or maybe, now, maybe it was misguided even to try to do that. But I certainly think now the much more appealing option is knock down these institutions. You know, when a house is so rotted out that it's no longer a structure,

sound, you just got to knock it down and start again. Welcome to anarchism, Michael. I'm glad to have brought you over. So I- Knock it down and build voluntary, private, helpful institutions instead. All you're conserving at this point is Woodrow Wilson's accomplishments. Yeah, you know, the only thing that I would disagree is I do think we need a for greater focus on localism.

I do think that the minute we look at Washington, D.C., we are losing. Especially for charity. Let's talk about that. When you're talking about poor people, there's at least two kinds of poor people, right? People are criminals and just like lazy. And then people who, through circumstances, maybe they grew up in the wrong neighborhood, they really didn't have opportunities. If you have these programs voluntary, even through the state at a local level, it's much easier to sift out. Same thing with public schools, right, in the inner city. You have the kids who have terrible upbringings, their parents don't care about them. And then you have the kids who are acting out and violent in school.

why are they locked in the same room together that is completely antithetical and downright and humane. But now, I think the difference might be this. If you tomorrow were offered the opportunity to knock down all of Washington, D.C., or to hold political power somehow, the people gave you power and you were able to kick out enough bureaucrats that you actually could wield political power, which would you take? Would you wield the arm of the state for good? salt the earth so much, it would look like the dead sea. A, A, I'm pressing the button so fast, my finger's getting a blister. That's fair enough. I, you know, I, I'm sort of of the opinion that the left managed to do a lot of things at once. It managed to destroy Hollywood, take over the institutions, take over, and wield political power. And I, I think that conservatives for a long time have, have tied our hands behind our backs because we've had a lot of procedural arguments about, well, We're originalists, but not conservatives, and we don't actually want to do anything.

And we just want to be elected so that we can do less and let the left basically run the government. And I just think if we wielded some political power for the good, the true, and the beautiful, if we made these kinds of distinctions, that could be great. But I agree with you practically. That's probably not going to happen anytime soon. And so a focus on local power would be much more effective. And I would say one more thing. I don't think the left took over these institutions. I think the left built these institutions.

If you look at the Ivy Leagues, they were designed to train the next generation of elites. Well, this was the progressive model. You know, you have these kind of smart cadres in Washington. You had the brain trust with the FDR where it's kind of its apex. And they're the ones who are educated and they know what's best for everyone. And you could see this in example, Dr. Fauci. We can assume for the sake of argument that Dr. Fauci is the most brilliant doctor who's ever lived. This person has not been elected and can't be unelected.

So you see how their model isn't, even though they play lips. service to our democracy, when push comes to shove that people who are put in positions are not democratically accountable to anything. But are you anti-elite per se? I'm anti-unjust. Right. So, I mean, you know, the fact that Harvard and Yale were seminaries, though I don't particularly agree with their denomination, but I, you know, it doesn't bother me that they were producing preachers and elites and statesmen. They still are. And they still are. And they still are. secular preachers. I mean, I'm not joking. Rachel Maddow is literally a televangelist for her evangelical faith. It's just she doesn't mention the Bible, but she gives you moral lessons. She tells

you who the bad people are, and then you go to your office the next morning and you promulgate the sermon. It's literally a televangelist. But this is my point then. If we're not anti-elite per se, rather than just totally demolishing all sorts of hierarchy and institutions and coercive power, either in civic associations or in the government, why don't we on the right just become the elites? Frankly, I think we already are the elites philosophically and as a matter of, you know, recognizing how a society ought to function. We just don't have the political power right now. So why don't we just become the elites?

Because central planning and political planning is not practical. So even if you're in Washington, you can't design a program that's going to work at all competitively to the market. You're never going to have a, like if you're saying, well, let's have conservatives run socialized health care. No, no, I'm not saying. No, but I'm saying like any kind of as one example, if they're going to be running any program, that program

inherently is not going to be able to work because there doesn't have information that markets provide you. You're not going to have information about supply, you're going to have information about price, because you're going to have all these market distortions because the use of force, which is the essential aspect of government, is going to cause externalities.

No, I agree with that, but I'm saying, why don't we run the universities so that we can, rather than indoctrinate in a bunch of ridiculous nonsense, we can teach good and true things. Why don't we run the courts so that we can have just systems of laws? I mean, so that would be an... There's no such thing as just law. It's a complete fallacy. If you read the book, the essay in my book, The Myth of Objective Law by John Hasnes, who's a Georgetown Law professor, he talks about how this concept of just law is really nonsensical.

And I'll give you one example that you will agree with. It's in the book as well. There's an old lady, and she basically signed a contract with some Samba instructor for $10,000, What's the just approach? One can say the point of law is so people don't get exploited. We have to break the contract. The other person could say the contract is the basis of law. It's not the court's job to be an activist judge. We have to honor the contract.

Both of those are perfectly reasonable, perfectly objective, and demonstrate that no matter who the judge is, they're going to bring their preconceptions to the court system. If you had a decentralized, hold on most sense, if you had a decentralized system where you can choose what kind of rules you follow, it will have much more just and efficient and cheaper outcomes. But isn't that only a problem if you believe that the free consent of individuals and maximizing individual autonomy is the end of government? You know, if you really believe that this woman has some right to, or the Samba instructor has a right to sign a $10,000 contract, whereas if you think that's hogwash and you believe that justice is the end of government and you believe that you don't

actually have the right to do wrong and you don't have the right to just pursue whatever whims your will tells you, then couldn't you appeal to a higher authority? Couldn't you say it's immoral, it's exploitative, it violates some aspect of the natural law rather than... So you're in favor of judicial activism when it suits your purposes. Oh no, I'm in favor of the natural law and I'm in favor of justice. If the basis of government is justice, why is it so darn bad at delivering it? Well, if I, let me hold on, if I'm going to go to a restaurant and they're serving sushi, And the fish keeps getting cooked. At a certain point, this is not a sushi restaurant.

Sure. But, you know, this is a fallen world. I mean, I suppose this would be one of my divergences from some anarchists or some sort of proto-anarchists. I'm not arguing that the words not fall. I don't think this is a utopia. I don't think utopias are possible. I agree with you that there's a lot of depravity in any country and that is inevitable. So, so therefore, any system of justice is going to be imperfect.

There's no question about that. Sure. So granted all of that. you know, some systems of justice are better than others. Sure. I'm more interested in peace than justice. And, you know, if you and I, you know, maybe you invited me out to dinner and then basically you stiff me with the bill, justice would be like I'm going to pitch a fit. But the same night could be like, okay, that's Michael being Michael, you know, it applied both.

We're both Michael. So either of us can be the jerk in the situation. And we could roll our eyes and not pursue justice. So that's charity, right. And sure. And I love charity. I've always relied on the kindness of strangers. But I'm also biting my tongue, right? Because you did do me an injustice and you didn't pay for the bill like you would promise, right? We all have to have these little compromises in our day-to-day lives. So I think justice as a term is overrated. Let's talk about criminals.

I perfectly have no problem with someone who's like an assailant on children or a violent criminal. They void their right to life, right? I have no issue with that. At the same time, my biggest concern isn't retribution. My biggest concern is how do I make sure this person is never in a position to harm people again? That to me is a far bigger priority than seeing justice.

be had necessarily. But, but I recognize that temptation. I think it's widespread now to make rehabilitation or deterrence. I didn't say rehabilitation. No, I didn't say rehabilitation. I just said the goal of the prison, why prison is important in many cases, isn't justice, but like we got to get this guy off the streets because if he's on the streets, he's going to be killing people. But if that is the primary purpose of the prison, then don't you open yourself up to all sorts of moral quandaries? For instance, if, as I believe it is, the purpose of prison is retribution for people who have primarily retribution, although deterrence and rehabilitation are secondary matters. Then a guy commits a crime, you bring them up on trial, you throw them in the camp. If the primary

purpose of prison is to get bad people off the streets, then couldn't you throw someone in prison before they've committed a crime, right? Because they're very likely to, because some social scientific data set has suggested that they're likely to commit one. Well, that is the progressive mindset, right? That if you follow the science, and I don't think at all, I think you, if someone has to have demonstrably actually done something before they're likely to do something. I don't think that are you, you obviously don't think that that's the case. I don't either, but I think that if you come to the conclusion that you and I have, then you must also conclude that the primary purpose, the sort of predicate for criminal justice,

is retribution rather than some secondary goal. But I don't think it's retribution if the person hasn't done anything. What are you retribute? What are you being retributive for? That's what I mean. I don't think you should go to prison if you haven't done anything. But I think that therefore, the primary purpose of prisons, for instance, is retribution. That is to say it is justice rather than some secondary aspect of imprisonment.

I wouldn't agree that retribution and justice are anywhere near synonymous. And I think a lot of times, again, and my goal, first of all, the prison system's a whole other conversation, which I'm sure you and I can have, because there's lots of people who weren't in prison. And the thing you as a Christian certainly would agree is things like the death penalty and innocent people being killed, although you might argue that that's overblown, when that individual is innocent, that is something that is really a knock against the society and something that should not be taken lightly. Camus had this great essay called Reflections in the Guillotine, which I think I would encourage people to read. So this is a very complicated issue. One of the knocks against anarchism is that it's utopia, right? And I would argue, and I'm sure you would agree, when you have criminals and who are accused criminals, you know, you don't want to put away innocent people.

and you do want to make sure you get the ones who should be removed from society. So how you get there is not going to be easily answered under any system. Yes, I agree. And I also agree, speaking of this non-utopian stuff, the most important thing right now, you know, this word praxis comes up in a lot of sort of anarchist or communist discourse. And the praxis is very important here because we actually have to do stuff. And so I, you know, I know that there are some conservatives, and Buckley, to a degree, certainly indulged in this, who punch right a lot of the time. And I just think it is madness right now for people who in any way consider themselves on the right, whether the traditionalists, religious right, libertarian, anarchist, whatever ism you want to add. There is now a consolidation of power at the level of the ruling class and liberal establishment that is about to prevent us from using PayPal. It's about to prevent us from using, I mean, actually PayPal made this announcement today.

They're teaming up with the ADL. I mean, this is really terrifying stuff. And so I agree. is a, we need to boot utopianism and figure out a way to push back against it. And Michael, you are offering us a white pill. And I'm going to say one more thing. If I, if anyone's listening to me, listen to my advice, focus on government schools. Because government schools are literal prisons for children and the only place many people

experience violence in their lifetimes. And now that's one of the silver linings of these lockdowns that increasing numbers of people, regardless of the ideology, realized just how depraved and dangerous these schools are and are taking their kids out. So if conservatives are skeptical of the government, as they say, do not hand your children over to these people to raise them for you and be surprised when they come out, despising you and everything you stand for. Yeah. I mean, and you even see the extension of school. It went from first through 12th, then they added kindergarten, then preschool, then now subsidized college. They're going to eventually have your kids for like 20 years straight.

I kid you not, a relative of mine sent a kid to preschool at like two and a half. half. I don't even know what that preschool is. And it shape, it obviously shapes your child's mind. It educates them, right? It develops who they are. And very important not to give, give the state that power, to give the ruling elite that power. Michael, you are seriously. I say this sincerely, one of the most intelligent people out there in the right-wing media today. You haven't convinced me on anarchism yet, but we'll have to save that for next time, perhaps. And thank you for being so interesting. Yeah. Wait a second. Hold on here. Michael Malice, the new book,

The White Pill, the other book, The Anarchist Handbook, and then my favorite title, Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong-Yil. Michael, thank you for being. Oh, where can people find you, by the way? On Twitter, Michael Malice, the white pill will be out later this year, but anarchisthandbook.com. I look forward to speaking again, Michael. Take care. All right. Good to see you, Michael. Thanks.