Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast today is Thursday February eleven twenty twenty one, I'm John PATH towards the ever commentary magazine with me. As always: executive, editor, a Green Waldheim hygiene senior Christine rose and high Christine. I done and associate editor nor Rossman high on our agenda.

so we were all glued to our tvs yesterday afternoon. As that's what you know, you can do with you when you're full time journalist for paying, even You're on deadline watching the M watching the impeachment trial of doubt, the J Trump in that case that was being made yesterday was the events of January. Sixth instead Britain timelines. What was going on outside going on inside what was going on from a different perspectives of cameras and then what Donald Trump was doing. While all of this was going on in these three or four separate presentations- and I think we all agree that the

the one truly horrifying new detail that we are God, was this silent footage of the heroic capital policemen sergeant Goodman? Who was being the rioters away from the Senate chamber, he was served showing tell him to go the other way round. The one that initially, we were told was guy, you know, was part of a conspiracy to let the men I came upon Mitt Romney in the hallway, and do and told him missus all with no sound because of the security cameras until them him to go the other way, because the mob was coming and Romney turns, turns around and runs down the hallway the other way?

It thus indicating that, had this not happened had this encounter with with some sergeant good and not happened that he would have met the mob in a matter of forty five seconds thirty seconds like that- and can anybody doubt that them they would have killed him? Can anyone doubt the thing in those people who are yellow somebody as a tailor? Its belt and other people have these in a flagpoles at their smashing things and with, and there is meant Romney who voted for impeachment last year, who you know who voted for them has gave? He is like were trumps, may manna me and probably in party, so that that was my.

That was my horrifying take away and I think the way you look at, that is to say the tat. He really could have been a lot worse. A couple of certain deputies, things happen, including the according the presence in debt twice over of officer, Goodman Data that let that let that that made sure that the violence and the end of a bloodshed was was enough much worse and did not in fact directly at the elected members of our government. And it is astonishing to me that somebody like Lindsey Graham, could say that the presentation was offensive. It was pensive an insulting, which is what he said, because ultimately the whole point about this as they need to connect what went on in the capital with-

In order to make the case the trump must be removed. I must be convicted because you have to show the Trump was an animated force here, and so they do. That is either they knew you either have to go with that on if they decide that what he said and what he did function as an accelerant or as the, whereas the as the match and and and that that was knowing in order to prove and- criminal sense that he that he was the instigator or a better or the recent solely responsible for the further and so it is self evident and its laid out in the air in the presentation of the house managers, but one of them strategic approaches, which is sound is to essentially absolve all members in the chamber of any responsibility for, complicity in what occurred

but the video footage wasn't absolving at all on one moment that I had not seen before, which was particularly disturbing was this: you know little mob of traveller knights, who had invaded the Senate and were rifling through the documents. Looking for people too, in a string up in evidence to presented their show trial that they had their heads and down. One of these vandals was coming through papers on TED Cruises desk and misinterpreted them and said he had sold us out. And then another one reading a properly that of the objection to the certification of, I believe, Arizona as electoral counts Corrected him and said: none alone he's with us here with us. that's all you need. Well, that's why they re tat groups, so you need for everybody anybody who advanced the stop. The steel narrative was complicit. events, animated the siege of the capital

if you didn't need anymore evidence here, stay I mean all they have all of them. Can all of them said they were. There has trump made them. Do it at it very well we on camera and then this guy's angle, tat proves as part of the team something else that I thought fully shared. Almost most indirectly was the scale This was the size in so many of these clips, especially when he gets rid of beyond the outside. the sea of people behind and those at the front speaks to a movement that was so. Much larger. Then This idea that it was, you know, Ursus Small Group plan, this as a sort of break off group, though the the size of the thing speaks to us but the mass of people being corralled by a by truck from

in that. I think it's in John you alluded to this earlier, but I think it's important that anyone who watched the net that was built by the by the prosecutors. Yesterday understands now a little with a little more new ones in detail why capital, police and other law enforcement acted as they did on that day, there were Why does some of the funds that we got? Somebody camphor if, for example- and there were just these- did in and also some recorded messages of that alone- horsemen. You know talking to each other about what is going on there like. We can hold the line, they broke the line, and then they did, the command came like fall back like this is, and that was actually snippets of that stuff with circulating on the internet is look. The cops are actually letting the men, so I was glad to see there a lot of care. scrutiny, and also the protective detail of of you know The guy's, an and girls who protect people, like you, know, Chuck Schuman and Nancy Policy and vice president pens in particular how swiftly and and Well, they did their jobs at tat moment. We should really thank them.

At service, so even as the capital, police and law enforcement indices undergoing a lot of scrutiny as it should about what happened that day. A lot of those- men and women did their jobs in the face of less apes has a massive mob, and I will also say that I, but I found in interesting about yesterday, was how there now connecting not just what the incitement that occur. before the attack, but how reacted during and after people in their capital were calling in saying this is going on. You know at there is. There is a call about even pencil safety, and he did a thing or you didn't you that there is no reaction to that. There was no immediate response. The law enforcement folks here, outnumbered there were left to their own devices and the president did not his duty and protagonists alone now anyway. So that's the missing piece of the puzzle here as they have not outlined, maybe I don't, have the goods,

but then we don't know what the present was doing from between roughly one two three thirty p m that day and why there was a delay in the just in the release of National Guard troops to the capital. That's that's how people calling him in telling him what was going on right. We ve had a couple. There were a couple of Congress, there was a kind, so called and said this is happening In the absence of witnesses, testifying on the roads as to where the president wasn't what he was doing, we won't have a definitive answer to that question, and you know, I suspect that you can't reason Republicans out of their recalcitrance at this point is not a reason to position if they undergo it's a thought. I'd like you to tell me that position, it's all reason. The Israelis resources itself, preservation right the reason is that, the that their their voters in their base and all their side that they don't have evidence, are an indication that they would treat. This is anything other than a betrayal when so, and so you have a very stark contrast between or

or a character, testament everyone it between their own personal pull cool interest and what it means to be a representative politician to very complicated could point than a complicated question, not the easiest to resolve, and what they are seeing the evidence of their own eyes. Now they can, they can choose to react by saying but everything their seeing as illegitimate. That's what Lindsey Grain was going through. The whole thing is ridiculous. Trumped didn't do anything wrong or even if you did something wrong in detail, it was so little wrong that are really doesn't require. You know this measure and it's the people who are doing it, who are guilty of you know of a crime against in our democracy or something like that or or they can look at it and an TED cruised compare said that it was up there. was a tale of sound and fury which you now despite the com, the comic coughing, Andrea,

It's all thinking that that was a wine from Faulkner enough to Faulkner was quoting Shakespeare, was quoting Shakespeare and it is, you know, Macbeth. terminal nihilistic monologue, which is that you know life as a team told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. So what crews was saying as well they are seeing sick defies nothing, and so They can go on and try to make this argument. It's very hard after yesterday,. To see how the judge history is going to that history is going to look favourably on those who looked at this. and looked away. Having said that in a court of a criminal court, there were a couple of stretches. You know a couple of real

allusions over what is known and what is not known. So, ah congressmen Dean who made one of their presentations quoted from an article in the independent, the british newspaper that sad that in our trump knew what was good trump. That said, the Trump the Trump people monitor, read it and fortune while this very very, very closely in social media team, is very up on what's going on, so they would have known that there were, messages on the board planning for planning for their violence before the rally and therefore she uses that one article source lists to go on say they knew you

no first hand ever know firsthand accounted, they knew the artist itself, self, no proof for even analyse quotes, as I did that that they knew just said that dead. This was something they paid attention to and that in September, something you know. It's not like it's like an January now, so I was one bad thing right Then she also did a thing where excise duties Stacy Plastic, but where Carson Dean, then set the whole thing up about from speech all the stuff and from speech and then played the clue. Five trump saying we're: gonna, go down to the capital and go in peace ago peacefully and like that and she said, but enough. We use. The word peacefully were eight thousand words in the sweet any only use at once, but of course again

again, a court of law saying that he said peacefully would basically be the all you would need firm. You know a reasonable doubt or something like that or you know Simonov responsibility so that I think those were the bad moments in the presentation of the case, the good man, once we're every other moment. I'm in the good moments were, this was going on and two three hours later trumpet done. Nothing. While everybody else in America, was watching this on tv me, you didn't do anything. We have been waiting get me a inflammatory gangs, what they, Established free effectively is by item, I, the number of Republicans who in that moment were begging, the president to intervene? in this situation that he had no responsibility for creator.

There are few things. Don't so was my Gallagher congressmen from Wisconsin, whose a great guy he was one Kevin Macartney, Mccarthy, Lindsey Gram Right and then, of course, outside the outside the chamber. Chris Christie, you know who was literally saying he's in the only person who can stop. This is trump, so there was an understanding of the idea that he we could do something to stop at him. He didn't do anything. What we don't know is what was going on in there with him right and that's where not call witnesses not having subpoena power not doing anything like that is gonna. Leave that question unresolved until people write their memoirs, you don't know these we're just opening arguments We prejudged the evident but they had to presented during opening arguments, and we were wrong. They had more than we thought they had well again It is wise, as I keep saying to resign,

of judgement until we have the evidence of prowess. Ok. Well, that's an important point of course tomorrow that the case is gonna, wrap up, and then they have to vote on whether to have witnesses and were told, of course, that Chuck humanism want witness. right? He hasn't while witnesses and, of course, the Republicans no eye witnesses. So therefore a fifty fifty one up, ok, but what the Democrats, while witnesses, is structured, we're gonna cross over and vote with. Fifty Republicans to make it so there are no witnesses, sure if they dont have like a common agreement, that there shouldn't be witnesses. You could get forty forty, by having you could after what happened yesterday that whatever happens today and tomorrow, you could Democratic senators, insisting that they keep this going even though supposedly outward bide wants, and it's not what they want. I guess right I mean am cousin some point. You're then get hammock, weird thing where you gonna have ten Democrats

That's colluding with fifty Republicans to prevent the calling witnesses at at at at at at of trial. Those just reveal dino, very serious. Allegations against you know about the about a threat to our democracy. Show why doesn't Schuman need the cover of his entire, like unanimous consent not have witnesses? That's, I think, we're you're right now. I like I, don't know that we know where that's gonna go, but so the other question is is it was those things that I mentioned the weaknesses and there in there in their presentations this kind? Tromp new or should have now right or a Trump new,

and what he knew was everything he knew beforehand that they were coming. He knew beforehand that they wanted to do violence. He knew what they were doing when he was on the set and that he knew what they were doing while he was in the White House not doing anything- and there are a couple of there are a couple of weak links there, because we don't know what he knew I was struck watching. the horrifying footage like a by the by the size of the crowds and the fact that, of course, going into the building is a funnel, so the funnel obviously narrows the number of you know that the amount of volume that is gonna go in simply because you gotta go through doorways and things like that But I was also struck by an I was hate. These analogies when people like, after nine eleven say, was like a movie where you know that we now have planes are blowing up like independence day. I can't believe it. It's like a movie, but

what struck me watching? This was not that. I was watching it and thinking that this was like a movie, but that the rioters were acting behaving in conducting themselves as though they were extras in specifically to movies or three movies, Joker, the dark night and the dark night rises. all of which feature bizarre mob action and any kind of vigilante behaviour. And They seemed like they were cosplay for real in and that something had happened that broke free in them and that they were now suddenly.

In a movie like people who don't know that movies are real, that you know. If you go on a movie, sad and there's, you know, there's of their big stuff, then there's also like cameras everywhere in their walls, where there aren't sat them, and there are two hundred people standing round watching while people are putting make up on people. It's like they were in a three d realisation of their wildest political fantasy and they were having a fantastic time. What? What does that tell you? I don't even know what it tells me there was set. I was following a little bit along with the kind of life commentary that than your times is doing as the trial was going on, and indeed the kind of mainstream liberal media response was look at them, they're, just in their proudest themselves, their private themselves, and I think they can misconstrued. I think it's much closer. What you're talking about John? I think that they actually kind of became empowered almost

surprisingly, so at the moment they broke through and suddenly found themselves there, they started kind of fuel. They were the stars in their own movie. Right like it's like now, we're important look at home port where we are on the for the Senate. Rifling threw back they. It was the image of them. Opening up the senators desks actually, which it you know. Even if you're allowed on the floor, the city don't go, run rummaging in people's Desk Day living there and then no one do no. One said this on: our attention is late there living there. It's like unreal reality right there want to live in the unreality and turn it into a reality. In that's kind of this surreal moment on the floor of the cap, that you saw playing out in real time two guys in in kind of tat attack. Here, in a holding the the handcuffs, the plastic angers me. There was something very strange. They would have looked ridiculous and did look ridiculous just a few hours earlier when they left their hotel. But then they were. ridiculous and then suddenly, when there are high in the Senate the they realize it's real life there. There players

but I dont think it was that they were proud. It was something a little bit more pernicious. different than pride, like you know the mob in the dark night rises, which is a movie about a totalitarian take over of New York City, and if you haven't seen it, it's quite popular populist, total it's a I mean if you haven't seen its quite it's quite a brilliant movie that goes places. You don't expect him and has a real real guttural. We need a political impact for a superhero movie, certainly because it's a bad memory. But the point is that they weren't acting like the good guys. That's the other, weird part. I mean they thought they were the good guys, but the guy. Who was what what who is running through the hallway going Nan see now see where are you

see we're looking for you? That's not the good guy, that's the guy! With them. models on his fingers from the warriors going warriors come out to play. That's a horror, movie character, that's jack Nicholson in the shining. That's who they were embodying was a kind of Weird amalgam of black and white hats coming in to save democracy from the evil. You know liberals and villains out a horror movies I don't even know what a big help me I want to make this point very delicately casino wanted to seem as if I'm actually blaming this type of thing for for what happened, but there has been over the last few decades, this rise in adults playing at, fictional fantastical heroes. If it could be

You know, COMECON Means were Christie made me think I because you realize I had to leave their hotels, looking like that and so that. There is a fine line between her laughing at adults. You know it playing dress up and and seeing them serve. You know go do this in the in the real world. Applies also to like school, shooters, think they're in the matrix right. They pay black drenched code in the glasses, and they do, you know, And so on, so there there there has been trend in the culture of does losing themselves in these fantasies in the Indies scripted fantasies, it's true. I don't. I don't therefore we need to you no expansion, those things from the culture but but I think I think you can. You can see the connection, for

Tat impulse to kind of disappear into a into a group that has a mission and purpose is: is a very powerful human need a mean actually, when people trying to understand how anti far behaves and how they all they all have a uniform, they wear their black box. You know that they have a whole thing and you and disappear into that group and suddenly you're part of a group with a mission, and there was a sense I mean access for all the chaos once they actually got into the capital there, said, there is a distinct difference between the people, who were kind of wandering around sort of seeming a little shocked that where they were and and and maybe He too late realize you me were committing a felony and the people who were like now worried. Let's go so it strange how in some ways they were completely now, organised at the same time that that's why I think this is. Where trumps role is crucial because it we will talk about this a little bit yesterday. None of this would have happened without Trump and that

The political point that I think impeachment removal speaks to which isn't about you know, defining criminal court with witnesses. I will say to the witness point: the witnesses and a weird way might actually undermine the narrative that date, the prosecution has has already been building, This can be unreliable. They can think they said something that they didn't and there could be a lot of if you introduce a lot of that testimony into this trial. Some the clarity of events that we ve been kind of praising the prosecutors for for pain. taking me talking about the last few days, could get a little muddled. This gets to my darkest theory about why we're not going to get on the record, underpinned a perjury account of what the present was doing and why there was a delay in the National Guard, because it wouldn't implicate all the right people. as a lot of these restrictions were imposed after the summer riots. What The sea had its own preferences that

to a lack of mobilization on the part of the local national level officials in the National Guard and the Pentagon. So the front You gonna be enough there to get trump sure, but also enough to implicate everybody around them and not just Republicans, and if they were. To avoid that kind of a lack of clarity in June at the establishment of just two? white had some black had. Some are not gonna get the answer, this question and then we're not gonna get the answer to this question. What so ever until and unless you get some sort of by partisan commission that establish rights. A book about this thing, do you his later after there's nothing you can do about it. Just happened I would just central sorted edges added a points aside point but building, I would know, said that are now having seen this fuller picture of what capital police went through and the end how lifesaving and a heroic some of them were. In this case, I do think that Joe Biden calmly. Hers should offer of apologies for jumping on the,

If this were black lives matter, their cattle the police would have acted differently, bandwagon that was just shameful and flat out wrong and and and they jump right in the breach right away in the world where I could, but what a calendar of feeling Castro made the case that Trump maiden no attempt to reach national guard. What made no attempt that allegation is not substantiated to tell you stand that I wanted substantiated, certainly Republicans I'm interested in this, but I mean if you're gonna put the squeeze on them. You have to validate that claim. You know The truth is, though, is an interesting question about about about what what could be found out because the executive branches, a co branch of Government Congress practically speaking as a complicated issue, whether Congress can come I'll testimony, even from former, visuals about what went on between them and the prison in

our official maintenance of their official duties- ah they that that test, my canopy compelled because and when, when White House officials testified before commission then you know especial prosecutors and stuff like that, that that That is the result of lengthy negotiations with the White House. In order. make sure that we don't face these kind of test that we end up facing during the term presidency. You know where they were trying to call people and from within the car. I was the Supreme Court start getting involved in whether or not it has needed to be about in our a clock, ran out on all of it, but I dont another. We could get it if we wanted at the wheel question, is whether, in the halving of witnesses, is there or is there a dark night of the soul moment? I mean this is really out of a movie

a dark night, the solemn moment for my pants, who says I really have to go. I give my witness and tell people what happen. Of course you could do it well being in front receded given interviewing good right and a bad. He could explain what happened. He doesn't need to testify before Congress, but you could have some kind of there's a ten percent chance, somebody says I just can't main silent. The public needs to know what happened or were not, but I did I don't that there is a conscious understanding on the part of Democrats that that, if he'd, if you'd delve too deeply to this. Their own complicity with rioters in the summer would be would be more revealed like a data think they were rioters and they don't think that anything that that happened there was Nah I mean just have clarified the public reporting that we have is that restrictions were imposed on on the National guard. in Washington DC after the riots to avoid the kind of thing that we son,

during the summer, which suits. it's not a wisely, I'm scarcity per se right yet the riots it's it's after the fact and over correction right, but again- I do I do I is it my do. I think that that is consciously and cynically motivating Democrats to avoid witnesses. I doubt it I mean it could be. It gives a the conspiratorial on my plan. Well, nobody gives, I also gives them more more self knowledge them. I think they possess. I think they are still living in a brain. washed reality in which they are not allowed to look at everything that happened in the aftermath of George Loi. Does anything but righteous a mate, they don't and they they. They can't em. So, therefore, the notion that they would need to be the quiet. I think I wish it were true. I wish it were the wish that it works

a clear to them that they were being that cynical. But I I don't actually- and you know it all talk about people living on the line line rather than in the real world. It's important that people online understand what they are getting into when their online, particularly in their relation with the big tech companies which are trying to suppress free speech. They don't with, and why are we choosing to give them all of our personal data, because we do big taxes a clear which side thereon and now is the time to take a stand, protect your personal data from big tech with Vps. I trust for my online Protection expressway pm You know any time you go anywhere on the internet. Your ip address is registered your internet service right or knows where you were takes that data. Dell's into, whoever can think they can profit off knowing where he word. What interest you

So what I use expressway pm my connection gets rerouted through their secure encrypted servers, so those companies can't see my ip address at all. My internet activities, amalgam eyes, network data is collected and the best part is you don't need to be tech savvy it all to express a recipe just download the up on your phone of computer tap button in your protected. So stop handing over your data, the big tech companies whose aim is to censor you inspiring you defend your rights, protect your internet activity, the Vienna is everyday visit? Express we ve had not come such commentary. That's Ex p r s s me, p m d consular commentary to get three extra months free go to express a weekend. Our commentary right now to learn more just at a go back to the point about people who are living in our who seem to be living a fantasy in real life. I do think that there is an interesting. I don't think it's JANET,

rational, maybe it's cognitive, a perceptual divide, ah I have found in my life and this- why pretty much from the earliest days of video games that I I find them not alluring but kind of repelling and the deeper more intent, intense, they become the more I am aesthetically and somehow I dunno just like in my in my got kind of repelled unmet- gets deeper and deeper as you go into some like oculists in virtual reality, where, like I find the experience of that unpleasant, like I don't like the red, I dont like this, tat, were rewrite reality, orca, so layer over a different, a new kind of reality. It's not good enough. On the one hand, to make me laugh myself and the fantasy it's not effective enough and where it where it diverges. I

fine confine literally nauseating. I mean honestly like that weird thing where Europe, your perceptual gaps between what you're, seeing what you think you're seeing causes Naga, which is what you know, what damn car sicknesses or what motion sickness is in general, so that I feel so it's very easy for me to go. I don't know what the hell is going on, but these people, with the queue killed you and on shaman, and this guy walking around and doing the logging in, but you know getting involved in Cuba on fantasies and all this because its were its it. It literally repels me but I can shore understand intellectual. why it would be alluring to people who are, enjoying or liking their lives. Why wise you went on wire conspiracy, so the seductive not just because they provide

a narrative that makes things that seem comprehensively difficult, suddenly very easy to understand, but also because their fun, and you get to you move into you take that which is the pill you taken the matrix to see the real world is at the red one red ribbon, because we take the red pill and then you are part of a new, very melodrama attic understanding of how the world is working in which there are forces against you. All this I mean if you're, if your life is happy, if you owe a lot of money in your divorce, sir, this are you haven't. You know you're, like your view that with your family, any more you can find somebody to be where or your job is unsapped whatever it is, It sure is, along its shores, understand understandable why you would find this alluring risk. The risk igniting intergenerational conflict.

I am a video game consumer and enjoy it. I think they're immersive their increasingly cinematic and some of the best writing non figure. Fictional writing a narrative Serbian crafted for these platforms today, the notion here that this is some sort of a unique phenomenon that people losing themselves in a fictional narrative is video games as a historical, as has been with us for me millennia right, of course, for the best novels, are of people who lose themselves and affection. What handlers, when their own lives in pursuit of affection, lized reality? No, of course, I'm good look! A hundred million people and whatever play video games. So I'm saying that my perception is of a person who can't really participate in that way There's something in me that resists that I did not. I got domino resisted novels IDA, resisted and play Santa Rosa

resisted in like cos a video gaming. However great it is, I believe you that its incredibly alluring cause there's a reason that you put out an addict a video game in itself, two billion dollars worth of you know it sells itself two billion. on the first day that its release, like that's people, love it m standby. I do the minute. I take no point, but I do think there's something different going on today in terms of people living out, none reality for example, a metres as whole, simulation hypothesis, which has gained on the latter, popularity over the past ten years or so right in this is this is in some sense it's it's it serious serve philosophical proposal, that that the universe is in fact

a simulation, some sort of high tech and computer simulation and we are serve either. You know, errors, as you know, stars in it or none, not playing the characters in it? Something there and it. But if I think it's all of it speaks to there is such a formation, glut that conspiracy theories. Andy ended dive attuned non reality is a sort of way of handling. That is, who is one way of trying to to navigate This is insane amount of information and entertainment and data that thrown out. As I think that kind of the mirror image of that by the way is is wanting is this. need for like exports to make sense of everything inside took, this organism

This is a really good point, because it did speaks to the reality, part of any kind of augmented reality ray. I remember trying Google glass when they first came out. They got a group of us together like put these on sea when it's like it. I had just had the reaction that you disk, everything your games. It was kind of cool, but it was also us like a like by reality in this seems distracting from it. But if you dont, like a reality or as the tapes point reality is so confusing that you have to like cafeteria pick the parts of it that you want to focus on and believe and then reject the rest, then all meant a reality or or kind of costs playing the unreality becomes a lot more appealing, and especially when you can meet up with thousands of other people who enjoy doing that with you. So I there is a way in which a mean part of the reason why augmented reality technology has really taken, or is it to your point Noah? You can emerge yourself in fictional worlds on the screen that that are much more interesting and challenging, and in it are better storytelling than just

overlaying something on your own reality and marking around. I remember that the ethicist concern when things I googled last came out with the people would want to erase as they were down a city street pile garbage or homeless people. They wanted to get rid of all the ugly stuff that they might encounter so that that was the concern, ethically as it would become less and pathetic, human beings, if we could erase reality. But what, in fact we ve ended up doing is being able to have so much choice about the realities we focus on that we face. Tribes and then run with our tribe. Their wearing a Viking hat and painting their bodies, red white and blue? Not now, but it not only is this not new, but it is self destructive. Just just because you're living a modern version of my men, Bovary, doesn't mean you're gonna escaped the consequences which perennial- and this is just human nature right- but I mean you know- I think that that we're in combination of of of individual.

Of extreme individualism and then this weird communitarianism that are involved in these matters in a multiple online player games where, like people, are playing against tens of thousands of other people whom they don't know where they don't. They know some cause all their friends or doing it also, but this in so you have this kind of extreme in humanity or putting on a virtual reality? I now this is most of these games aren't like. Haven't you put on a virtual reality, helmet your somehow your turned into something else and someone else, and then you have These relationships with people that you dont know and they're, not right There are not real you're, not real you're, an avatar therein avatar. It this new, it's a new thing that is going on. A lot of this was the erratic. All right I mean like Madam Bovary Melbury wanted to live in a Roma novel and she destroyed her own life by acting like a character in a romance novel. But

that's one person behaving in a weird way. Yet I mean one representative per person This is a new thing where you can kind of absent yourself, not that literatures and about sending us, but you can always literally at Saint yourself from ordinary consciousness and like an end and go some it we're the feelings are real. Doesn't you cited unreal ass? This thing, that's most powerful about, isn't your you might be an avatar and playing with lots of people. You ve never met that the experience is actually emotionally real for you and that's its power and that's how the games are designed to explain that for pleasure. But there can. a dark side too, pleasures muslim, and now I want to say- and I don't want them back to their the reason that we have this, isn't the reason that we had the storming of the capital and you re six. I just think it's it's an end. It there's something indicative

if we're trying to understand it right, I mean, as part of the queue and on thing these brilliant pieces were over the summer. Explaining the queue and on is basically a game I'm in Q and on is a cure. is an unfolding pats like. We are gay it's like a long running cereal like lost or something where there's unrolling, conspiracy, that just gets larger and larger and larger, and more and more and more complicated and and and deeply involving, and you know that this has always been something that people on earth: cotton to the facts, it can be caught into simultaneously by millions of people. That's that's new right, and it's interesting. If you talk about the simulation hypothesis and this notion that we're all living- you know, I mean metaphor- This has always been a

theory. This has always been a weird kind of pig genetic theory. You know it's it's. It's cannot quote Shakespeare constantly, but, as eyes to want and boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their support in the world a pagan, We are game pieces on the other. the planet earth the Edward. Toyed with by by a moral, loving, beneficence God who wants what's best for us and once a slimmer, gradual moral code, but for their support, and I think the pay This point is very valid because I think in part what a lot of this is a kind of really this revival without religion I mean cause it did, who they are aiming at a kind of transcendence, any kind of community by that I mean it. You know anyone who died to this serve non material version. Of reality.

That is in part, two summits something that that was the domain of religion, which has, of course been on a steep, steep decline well, and this is why this is where a trump factors into debt, the partition, A part of that narrative that unspoiled on January six, which is that you don't fates, need martyrs and him turning himself into a martyr for this. You know glorious cause of vetoes the start. Then this is where the stop, the steel, which I was glad they pay some attention to during their argument. Yesterday, stop the steel, you know it trying to their they're coming to get their coming to get me. They hate me, they hate you, you have to rescue me. There is just it's a kind of evangelizing too. That mindset. I think that that's right, you know how I think I think it all. It all speaks to this. Clear crisis of meaning that we have in the United States that explains

the young, the opium epidemic, and this year, this wild increase in the number of suicides in the last ten twelve years that that we hear about it. All of that it is this like cried collapse of meaning and crisis of meaning, and people find it ourselves are so desperate for that day. find it wherever they can find it it sort of like the in the early nineties, Seventys with the right. as of courts in the United States, that freak everybody out you know, a horrifying, what are they doing? Their going into culture going into ashram are going there becoming moonies there. What going on here? This is terrible they roll with nice upper middle class, kids raised and loving homes what's going on, and what was going on was that They were starve for meaning and a grand they and wet where one point in their lives, looking for an anchor to grab onto less they drown. This is the thing that they attach too.

This yoga ashram this- you know streets this, this preacher On this I wrote it was it's the story of of of evangelical Christianity forever. You know, I know this. One story about the father of some of the other was a friend of mine several decades ago. Who was a lawyer who was travelling and travelled six months at the earth lived in? How do you know do like doing griefs and stuff like that and is drunk and he's sitting in a hotel room with his bottle by himself alone in front of a tv terms on the tv and Some tv evangelist comes on him. He says I know you're out there. I know who you are you're sitting in a hotel room, you're alone, it's dark. You have a bottle in your hand and glass in your other hand, and you feel like you want to die and Jesus loves you and he burst into tears and he became an evangelical christian.

at that moment, because it was the right moment it was so at any all these stories you read about Kulan on all these sorts of all. This The crisis that is resolved by wrapping bye, bye grabbing onto this, it's not gain turns, goes from again meant something other than a game and the law. as two months of the term presidency were millions of people grabbing on to this idea of the stolen election, and the end of that there was that there were. There was a force for good in a force for evil, and the evil force was doing whatever good to stop the good, and I don't know that we ve had a moment this quick, this faster this powerful before that, I can think of that, Sir Tens of millions of people onto believing something that was not true that all the other and so there I should have told them was not true and is crisis, a meaning they needed me. They needed to find meaning in

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His I'm go gallon in Houston, there's a day. It is a fascinating kind of heartbreaking story to read. He was administering vaccines. It they had. Some that word set to expire. Billy was ten shots. And so he decided I'm not going to let this fax and go to waste. He called strangers. Who, who is medical records? He was able to determine, put them at higher risk in a woman whose child was on a ventilator, so you know other people with breathing challenges, hoo hoo hoo who maybe weren't, went to bed at the front of the line. Had we think been done. Orderly, but you know his he little He felt like there was a ticking clock and whoever could get the vaccine should get it drove around set of meeting some of them came to his house and he administered all the doses, the final those he was intending to give to a man who then called and said I can make it your house in time before it expires. Sorry final does, gave to his wife, who has a has a breathing condition that certainly puts her it at some risk. If she contracts covered,

and for this he was fired he was fired. Unease is being prosecuted, the judge actually just dismiss one case, but there is clear he could face other other problems, and it was heartbreaking because one of the arguments made against him was that he hadn't practice the principle Of equity, and in administering this vaccine, there were too many. The indian sounding names on the list of people he had vaccinated, because he then went to work the next day and fill out the paperwork to show where the final does cod and It would have been better had he thrown out those doses than that, He administered them to people who would benefit from having them and which, by you know,. because we understand how heard immunity works, the more people who have that shot their armed safer. We all are especially those of us who are weighed down on the list to get a shot so kind of heartbreaking, but it was also extremely revealing. it it literally. It shows you how the equity talk in the equity mindset when prosecuted. To its logical conclusion. can cause not only cost people their jobs, but it

It would argue I would argue it can cause people their health and perhaps their lives. If your arguing that, in the name of equity he should have thrown out, those does is rather than administering admitted then that's what you're doing that equity argument taken to its logical conclusion is horrifying, absolutely horrified where that That is his testimony right he's. He told the report from the New York Times quote the official main the officials maintain that he had violated protocol and should have returned. The remaining doses to the office or thrown them away. The doktor recalled. He also said that when the official startled him by questioning the lack of quote Equity among those he a vaccinated are you suggesting that there were too many in the names and that group doktor GO call said he asked exactly. He said he was told. the directive communications for the Harris County public Health departments said the department was unable to comment on its protocols, the December twenty vaccination event or the vocal case.

Really other translator unable to comment on its protocols that public Health Department of Harris County Texas is unable to comment on its public protocols You know why, because they know that what happened here was true and that he better something I mean it's it's. yeah and then he got prosecuted by the discerning of Harris County. So this is all. You think where this is going is that there is going to be a clash. in the court's, perhaps even in Supreme Court- between the principles of equity, which are principles not not law and the equal protection clause Because the two things are at odds one or the other, must be subordinated We ve seen too much ass. We ve seen too much of this is not. This is the most extreme case, but

stand to which the principles of equity are used to justify the discrimination, yes and widespread. Who cares right in only two ways deserve their come up and that social justice, but Asian Americans who are successful on their own merits and merit itself is a suspect concept, so eventually we're gonna get around to a discrimination case that is justified by equity, but is at odds with the fourteenth amendment? Well, you know we ve been waiting. We ve been waiting for the Supreme Court to to resolve this problem form leave since the Barkie case in nineteen. Seventy eight, I believe- and they steadfastly refused to do so, and I think, even if it gets this point they will think about private institutions. Private institutions have come up and right in the dark before the Supreme Court,

we're gonna cut. We're gonna encounter a case where we have a public institution. While there is a right cause, that's fine words about his equity proposals that it is through. Every single branch of the federal government will practice these principles so he's actually stating this is how we're gonna go about governing at the federal level. Right I mean I mean that's the whole point about about these stories about offences against equity. Is that day is that they always involves something they don't always whatever, but they they fly in the face of common sense and one of the one of the causes of woking. There are one of the principles of weakness. In some sense, it feels like to say to you Our common sense is wrong. In fact, your comments is white supremacy? Your common sense is the enforcement. procedure or mechanism that allows the status quo to remain in place.

Because if somebody says Doktor Possum go call did a heroic thing. by making sure that those ten doses that we're gonna go to waste actually got into people's arms, and thus were you. Useful and better, rather than being thrown away because they don't violate protocol right. If he gets away with this what you're saying that's great but its. He is that, means that you're still living within the world in which the fur, choice. Isn't it Do this I have to go and fight somebody who fits a category to do? as otherwise the thing that's worse which is white supremacy will remain worse than cove. It will remain in place and am unchallenged, which is why, of course, the public health departments said that it was more important to protest after George Floyd than it was too of observe, proper

the protocol, because at nothing is worse than widespread. Nothing is worse than than not supporting. This evolutionary doctrine and I dont know how how this gets resolved, because nobody actually believes this. I'm nine hundred people- you tell them this story and they're gonna say will of course he did the right. Let leave the guy alone, We need the ideologists do need those Novia who will explain to you or the Nikolai jobs will explain to you why. This is a necessary, though Ten doses are unnecessary sacrifice to a vastly grey. Good I'm drunk or career is unnecessary sacrifice to a far greater good and gay, is the danger I mean. We know where conservatives talk too much about cancel culture guenaud, it ideological campaigns, the danger of those campaigns-

the more they succeed and the more they indoctrinate an entire generation of young Americans who, then you know, find their way onto took into jobs and into the workplace is that you will not have you'll, have more people like that prosecutor and Harris County, and you have fewer people like the judge. The judge took one look at this case and said this is ridiculous, get out of my court room and I fear with the as the that's why the indoctrination stuff is the stuff that conservatives we care about and it starts early because the mindset actually can people will and do believe it. I think I think you're wrong about that. John. I think we are very sceptical, but can see how people can be made to fit within that world view, even if they privately still question. I do not know, No, I mean I mean if you took this case lifted out of all, and you said there was a doktor there. Ten doses of medicine. He found people to put them in their only got fired that we have all. I am you say

then the M M and- and he went around the Pakistan anyone get pakistani reggie- would gave him to South Asians right, we'll get then it's like, but he didn't give them. You know you have to go. we're steps down to get to the all that you know what? Maybe you really should have been more diverse when he was looking for it? It's not that the ombudsman can, you say, is if you got Eric, is AIDS like well, who did The man who did you give it to Unless you start a new start from at the moment where you say what did he give them to african Americans? Do you give them to be but by pox you know- and if you don't say first then you're gonna, say well. It's not fair. in line with the extremely high spirited and optimistic vision. Of America, in human nature, as expressed on the show I do want to tell you that we will in just a matter four days have available for you are merged and, yes, we do have a crushing morality. T shirt

sweatshirt and I keep the cat a burning t, shirt and sweatshirt that will be available to you at an exorbitant price because they're really its material and cost a lot to make, and then we have the ship them to do so. Now we need to make a little money off it. So you wanna you're gonna pay through the nose and you'll like it. That's what I'm saying: you'll like it and you like Christine Rosen's essay in the new commentary, which we will have up on the website, tonight or tomorrow along with other stuff that I'll say about tomorrow? So for Christine, EVA Non Jump on towards keep the camera,