ChrisCantwell

Tonight's guest requires no introduction for many of you. He has been in political media far longer than your humble correspondent, and has earned no shortage of notoriety. For those of you so deprived as to not know who Ian Freeman is, I look forward to introducing you to this man, without whom you might never have heard of me. Born Ian Bernard, Mr. Freeeman adopted the moniker turned legal name during his adventures in libertarianism, a school of thought to which he still adheres. He founded an open phones talk radio show while still living in the state of Florida, and for a brief period I was a co-host of that nationally syndicated show. That production served in no small part as the inspiration for the format you today enjoy on SurrealPolitiks. Inspired by activism he saw in this state, Mr. Freeman moved to New Hampshire and joined the Free State Project, a libertarian political migration wherein adherents pledge to commit the maximum possible effort to ensuring the maximum role of government is the protection of person and property. Maximum being an important part of this phrase. Mr. Freeman has described himself as a voluntaryist. Last I checked, he would prefer there were no government to speak of, and that all human interaction was voluntary. A noble enough goal, whatever its feasibility. In pursuit of this ideal, Mr. Freeman started the Shire Free Church, and through this spread the gospel of Bitcoin as a means by which to remove the coercive element of government currency from our economic dealings. For this he was hunted by the FBI, hauled before a jury to answer for preposterous allegations of money laundering and tax crimes, and convicted. At the time of this writing, he faces more than 800 months in federal prison at a sentencing date imminently before us. Ian Freeman is a dear friend of mine. He has stood by me when it was not easy to do. I am deeply troubled by the challenge he has ahead of him. It is my honor to present to you tonight his fascinating history, and his cautionary tale. SurrealPolitiks airs live every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern Join us https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start

I had the pleasure of being featured on Night Nation Review last night. It was a very engaging conversation and I am sure you will enjoy it. Please note this contains some curse words and mentions of racial topics, but none of which is gratuitous. Originally posted to NNR's channel at; https://odysee.com/@NightNationReview:5/NNR730:6?r=Bk7Fo6SYXoefKxwn5WRNJkG4RR7Y9fYi

As one who has dedicated his life to media and activism for over a decade, I am not infrequently asked, in a variety of contexts "How can I do more?" for whatever cause it is the questioner may find him or herself involved in. There is of course no singular answer to such a question. To begin, "more" is a relative term, and so, what counts as "more" depends very much on what one is doing in the moment. Then there are the specifics of the cause at issue, the circumstances of the moment, questions of geography, the choices one has made to date, and ultimately, one's innate capacity. But I will today begin something of a crash course in how one goes about giving the maximum they can. To streamline one's life in such a way that as little as possible may interfere with the passions. I am calling this Part 1, because there is no possibility to cover all of this material in a two our recording, but we'll cover some very useful information which will help you in all areas of your life. SurrealPolitiks airs live every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern time on Rumble, Odysee, and the GetMeRadio App for Smartphone, Roku, and FireTV. https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start

When one attains a certain depth of understanding about politics and world affairs, it can have a psychological effect referred to in some circles as the "black pill". This is essentially a sort of depressive state in which hope becomes hard to come by, as evidenced by real or imagined factors. It stands in contrast, as one might expect, to the "white pill" in which hopeful news is delivered, and messenger and recipient alike may do some celebrating. (We had some problems with the live stream, so I recorded this off air and uploaded it after) There is little good news to be had in the world today, and far less of this from Eastern Europe, wherein a fratricidal war fueled by Western malfeasance rages on, and exacts a steep toll in blood and treasure from all involved. A startling reminder of how intelligence agencies have been allowed to run amok, the Ukraine conflict factors heavily into inflation in the United States and throughout the world, has destabilized food and other commodities markets, created dangerous shortages in US arms supplies, and piggybacked onto COVID hysteria as an excuse for censorship of social media, as it was recently revealed that the FBI was passing on requests from Ukraine's SBU for social media companies to censor accounts posting disfavored information. Then there are the pregnant Ukrainian women on the front lines, and all of what might be described as the more routine horrors of warfare. While this has been a boon to Blackrock and human traffickers (who already had a booming business in Ukraine) and other nefarious types, scarcely can anyone of good character be said to have benefited from this mayhem. But in the midst of all this wreckage one very tasty white pill has emerged. At the recent Turning Point Action Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, a poll was taken of attendees which asked if they favored continued US involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. A stunning 95.8% said they do not favor this, a consensus nearly unheard of in conservative politics, and exceeding even Donald Trump's 85.7% support in a poll asking who attendees favored in the upcoming Republican Presidential Primary. Those numbers could not be more out of step with the donor class and the Mitch McConnell wing of the GOP, elements of our society more inclined to let the Democrats wreck the country than to forfeit their own positions within the Party. While Americans as a whole are more evenly divided over the Ukraine issue, and questions of degree predominate in that broader spectrum of opinion, it is clearly becoming the position of the Republican primary voter base that involvement in the Ukraine conflict is against American interests and should stop entirely. Because of this, Republican Presidential hopefuls like Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, have signed their political death warrants by co-signing Biden's subsidy to his financial benefactors. At a recent event, Tucker Carlson interviewed GOP hopefuls in front of a large studio audience. "Not my concern" trended on Twitter as Mike Pence offered a poorly worded response to a question of his priorities. Carlson had listed a staggering illustration of how America is falling apart internally, and contrasted this with Pence's support for the Ukraine conflict by saying "And that's your concern?". Pence responded by saying "That's not my concern" and the line was seized upon, arguably unfairly, by commentators who said Pence expressed a lack of concern for America falling apart. The traction this quickly got says something in itself. Even though Pence's words were unfairly seized upon, such is the nature of politics. Fairness has little to do with it. He was, for some time, to some number, seen as caring more about Ukraine than about America, and whatever he meant to say, that was easily believed by many Americans, and not without ample justification outside of this rhetorical error. There is precisely zero benefit to America meddling in Eastern Europe on behalf of the Zelensky regime. If there was anything for America to be doing there, it would be to make better relations with Russia and to return to the Nixon/Kissinger strategy of playing Russia and China against each other. Biden's failure to heed this wisdom has pushed these two powers into an alliance that threatens American hegemony, and is destabilizing the world order with results that cannot be predicted. Republican primary voters, perhaps better than any other subset of the population, understand this. They understand also that the Bidens got rich in Ukraine through corruption, and that the Democrats' Russia hoax was little more than an attempt to distract from their own malfeasance in Ukraine, and the SBU's interference in American elections on their behalf. This has the effect of exposing Republicans who prostrate themselves before Zelensky in the name of "democracy and freedom" as frauds and traitors, and presents for us an avenue to power within the GOP. Be what helps a conservative faction oust these traitors from party leadership in your area, and you will have gained a foothold within the Party. Play your cards right from there, and in a few years it would be you they curse when speaking of "the establishment". There is more good news to speak of, and I look forward to sharing it with you, and taking your calls, this and every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern on Rumble, Odysee, and the GetMeRadio App for Smartphone, Roku, and FireTV.

If you accuse of wrongdoing, anyone in government who happens to be held in favor by the Leftist media, you will likely be accused of being a “conspiracy theorist”. The term is left intentionally vague, of course. It shares this feature with epithets like “racist” and other Left wing buzzwords which serve little purpose in the mind of the informed other than to identify the target the attack as a “non-Democrat”. These are catch phrases which have become more a reliable standby for the most disgusting people in our society to silence critics, than they are actual terms of any linguistic value. Rather than explain, they confuse. Rather than provide meaning, they hinder discernment. For the informed observer, the person hurling these epithets is a crime suspect. They are not informing the community of a problem by shouting warnings, they are trying to divert suspicion from their nefarious behavior by shouting nonsense distractions. This was perhaps never clearer than in the recent controversy over a film titled “Sound of Freedom”. Your humble correspondent has not at this time seen the film to speak of it, but I what I have seen is a familiar pattern of behavior by the usual suspects which sheds light on a very important subject closer to home. The film in question asserts what is now a controversial value judgement. Namely, that molesting children is bad. Because of this crimethink, the film has been branded a “QAnon Conspiracy Theory” and outraged people in the media are panicking that anyone might dare say something so dangerous as “Molesting children is not okay”. What I know of QAnon is Telegram spam, so I have no use for this, quite clearly, but I too happen to hold child predators in disfavor, and in this I am in the good company of popular opinion, a rare accomplishment for your humble correspondent. But it is conspicuous indeed how the media and many people in government seem to hold the unpopular view that child predators are somehow less dangerous that the people who express outrage at their proclivities. It also explains a great deal, I’d say. I plan to open tonight’s show with the story of a child pornography bust that shocked the conscience of many. Few realize that the FBI actually ran several child porn sites for a period of time, installed viruses on thousands of computers with the purported aim of tracking down the people who used the site. Then, in some number of cases, either simply declined to do so, or waited many months, only to pounce at a politically opportune moment. This, I suspect ties into many modern political phenomena. The Epstein story is almost too obvious to need mentioning, but also the case of a Federal Judge’s wife in Charlottesville, a Patriot Front member who got a conspicuously sweet plea agreement, and surely many more to come. In Realpolitik terms, it is important to understand the depths of depravity that the regime will sink to for their grip on the reigns of the State, and cautionary tale to all those who would Right the ship. SurrealPolitiks airs every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern on Rumble, Odysee, GetMeRadio and MyTuner.

If you accuse of wrongdoing, anyone in government who happens to be held in favor by the Leftist media, you will likely be accused of being a "conspiracy theorist". The term is left intentionally vague, of course. It shares this feature with epithets like "racist" and other Left wing buzzwords which serve little purpose in the mind of the informed other than to identify the target the attack as a "non-Democrat". These are catch phrases which have become more a reliable standby for the most disgusting people in our society to silence critics, than they are actual terms of any linguistic value. Rather than explain, they confuse. Rather than provide meaning, they hinder discernment. For the informed observer, the person hurling these epithets is a crime suspect. They are not informing the community of a problem by shouting warnings, they are trying to divert suspicion from their nefarious behavior by shouting nonsense distractions. This was perhaps never clearer than in the recent controversy over a film titled "Sound of Freedom". Your humble correspondent has not at this time seen the film to speak of it, but I what I have seen is a familiar pattern of behavior by the usual suspects which sheds light on a very important subject closer to home. The film in question asserts what is now a controversial value judgement. Namely, that molesting children is bad. Because of this crimethink, the film has been branded a "QAnon Conspiracy Theory" and outraged people in the media are panicking that anyone might dare say something so dangerous as "Molesting children is not okay". What I know of QAnon is Telegram spam, so I have no use for this, quite clearly, but I too happen to hold child predators in disfavor, and in this I am in the good company of popular opinion, a rare accomplishment for your humble correspondent. But it is conspicuous indeed how the media and many people in government seem to hold the unpopular view that child predators are somehow less dangerous that the people who express outrage at their proclivities. It also explains a great deal, I'd say. I plan to open tonight's show with the story of a child pornography bust that shocked the conscience of many. Few realize that the FBI actually ran several child porn sites for a period of time, installed viruses on thousands of computers with the purported aim of tracking down the people who used the site. Then, in some number of cases, either simply declined to do so, or waited many months, only to pounce at a politically opportune moment. This, I suspect ties into many modern political phenomena. The Epstein story is almost too obvious to need mentioning, but also the case of a Federal Judge's wife in Charlottesville, a Patriot Front member who got a conspicuously sweet plea agreement, and surely many more to come. In Realpolitik terms, it is important to understand the depths of depravity that the regime will sink to for their grip on the reigns of the State, and cautionary tale to all those who would Right the ship. SurrealPolitiks airs every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern on Rumble, Odysee, GetMeRadio and MyTuner.

I spent all weekend composing a document that at the time of this writing stands at about 17,000 words.I'm not done yet, and it requires some editing, but I'm going to cheat a little bit and use it as show prep today. The level of detail involved I don't think makes for good audio, so I promise not to come back with a repeat later. This is something designed to be read, not listened to. I will adapt it to audio for today's purpose by excluding a great deal of information. The working title is "Sustainable Action on the Path to Sovereignty" and it lays out a substantially detailed plan for acquiring the resources to purchase land and house activists with the aim of taking control of local government by democratic means. Delving into the specifics of our plan will necessarily focus on measures which, taken individually, provide little inspiration to high minded and ideologically motivated Nationalists. Lest we fail to capture the readers' attention, this necessitates a broad description of our purpose to illuminate the meaning of each step. The basic idea here can be described as an effort to capture, through lawful political means, control of a municipal government. Then, using that territory as a base of operations for outward expansion of influence, and ultimate territorial sovereignty. A government by and for our people, complete with our own carefully designed citizenship and immigration policies. To accomplish this goal, the strategy attempts to illuminate three key elements; A well defined, but broadly acceptable, objective. *The Fourteen Words *Political Action Toward Territorial Sovereignty Prominent challenges to achieving that objective. *Terrorism *Disreputable Officialdom *Censorship and Media Manipulation *Financial and Economic Barriers Means by which to overcome those challenges. *Productive Industry *Property Acquisition *Political Migration *Political Capture *Territorial Expansion In broad strokes, we attempt to identify and navigate current challenges according to the circumstances we are met with, accepting with all humility the compromises this requires. This is done in the interests of survival as we work toward establishing sustainable revenue streams through entrepreneurial pursuits. The revenue of those pursuits are put toward providing geographically independent employment to our own people as we expand those industries, with surplus going toward acquiring land on which to house those employees. While making money will be a nice feature of this, profits are not the primary purpose. Contrary to primarily profit driven enterprises, which aim to reduce labor costs as much as possible, our goal is to increase our sustainable labor demand as rapidly as possible to accomplish a political purpose. We are using market principles to accomplish political goals. For more on this see SurrealPolitiks S01E006 - Misesian Socialism and Radical Agenda S06E009 - Economemetics. The land acquired is chosen based on criteria explained in some detail in that section, but as a teaser here, we can say that a 200+ acre plot of land can be purchased for under $1900/acre in a city of under 1900 residents. That plot of land, if it were fully developed, could easily house enough people to outnumber the entire electorate of that city. We would be in complete control of the municipal government and only a rival migration doubling the population could hope to displace us. This would put us in control of a police department and provide us with taxing and local legislative authority. The city is currently controlled by Democrats. If you know anything about me, you already know that I'd mean to flip that city Red. This not only provides us with power locally, it puts us in control of a segment of the New Hampshire Republican Party, which will help facilitate outward expansion. Under the protection of that institution, we then repeat and expand all of the preceding measures, to include less mobile forms of industry, and widen the territory under our control to encompass defensible borders and sustainable natural resources. With these in place, should the need arise, we may declare independence. and do all that comes with such a daring maneuver. Though the details of such a thing we dare not commit to writing so prematurely. While the main points of overcoming the obstacles will warrant their own categorical responses and sections of this document, as we describe these challenges, we will conclude each section with some brief notes on mitigating these obstacles along the way. Noticeably absent from this document will be any in depth discussion of public policy. This subject, though of tremendous import, is almost entirely theoretical until we have obtained political power, and is thus of minimal strategic benefit for our current purposes. Distant as we are from that objective, there is little sense in fostering dispute amongst Nationalists with such discussion. Under our own territorial sovereignty, such debates will take on a vigorous and high minded character, the eloquence and substance of which will make for a rich history. For now, we focus on the present, with an eye toward the future.

To speak of the news today, would be to speak of a recent coup attempt in Russia. I have no small degree of concern for the implications of this, and will beg the pardon of the audience if I appear at times to be exceedingly cautious. I have made a name for myself with unfiltered commentary, and even in this decidedly tamer format than earned me my notoriety, I have made every attempt to be as forthcoming as I can be about how I view a situation. Today, by contrast, I am a bit more reserved. The destabilization of the Russian Federation is a thing I fear no less, and perhaps just a bit more, than the chaos engulfing my own country. Russia is to me a symbol of hope. A post communist society, led by a ruler who enjoys the support of his people. Vladimir Putin retains this support despite his long reign, hardships on his population, and the necessity, at times for measures deemed harsh by many. Americans who have run afoul of the ruling class have found safe haven in Russia. Edward Snowden, and Tara Reade, are just two of the more prominent names on this list. But the list is longer than most of us could hope to know, and it will be beyond the scope of my preparations today to rattle off more names. Prior to my compulsory vacation beginning in early 2020, during the first annual impeachment of Donald J. Trump, I had come to believe that Ukraine played a central role in the corruption of our politics, and that Russia had been made a convenient scapegoat to distract from Democrat malfeasance. All that has unfolded since has only made me more certain of this fact. So, Russia matters to me, and to you, a great deal. They are fighting, in some sense, the same forces as we are. They have, in no small part, the same enemies and, importantly, the resources to wage that conflict. And so, quite unilaterally, which is to say, without reciprocity, I consider Russia an ally. I do not want to criticize the Russian State, or Vladimir Putin. And yet, I do not think my interests are best served to make an enemy of the Wagner group either. I have enough trouble dealing with the US Government, its criminal element, and the Ukrainian SBU. If Wagner can wage war in Ukraine, then take a trip to the outskirts of Moscow, threaten Vladimir Putin, and then go take a rest in Belarus without losing a man, then we are dealing with the sort of entity that necessarily operates by a different set of rules than you or I are equipped to deal with. Let us also dispense with the obvious: The perpetrator of the coup, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is Jewish. The relevance of this is hardly lost on me, of course. There is an ethnic stereotype, considered offensive by some, which could predictably result in the utterance of phrases unbecoming of the SurrealPolitiks business model. One might be inclined, for example, to deem it foolish for Vladimir Putin to permit such a man to command his own private military, especially while waging a military conflict against a neighboring country with a Jewish president. Of course, there is cause to question the wisdom of any government allowing any private citizen to command his own military, and so, it is not as if we cannot explore this a bit here. In the first episode of SurrealPolitiks, I identified Putin as a "master of the art" of Realpolitik. I have not reconsidered this position. Whatever you think about Putin, he is not foolish. The man worked for the KGB, and has governed the world's largest country for more than two decades, while the most powerful forces on the Earth have worked tirelessly to destroy him and his people. He has done this, perhaps most remarkably, with very popular support. Whatever you or I may think we know, we can be certain that Vladimir Putin knows more, and is in a better position to make judgements based on this knowledge.

I recently had occasion to consider a subject too often overlooked, which forms in no small part the foundation of all politics. It does so because it is at the heart of all human motivations. One might say, without it, there is no such thing as motivation. It is the question of value. While this is in some portion closely related to our talk from Episode 6, it ought not be mistaken for a purely economic phenomenon. Value is central to all human relationships, not the least of which are those we define as political. Value is often mistaken as money, or objects exchangeable for money. Services, as well. though too often too narrowly defined. I'll bring some examples of why so much thinking about value is flawed, and how we can better understand this concept to improve our political discourse and economics and personal relationships. SurrealPolitiks airs live every Monday at 9:30 pm US Eastern time. Join us https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Cash App $EdgyChris Bitcoin bc1qcg97hwdy8d463794wm0uq3np0px49acw6505gm Ethereum 0xa29441bF858c529E374960A34e16f21abc0970E8 Monero 46Li94X1o95GaKPxMdsqds3FPJmc2tTvQi3zSuLHbttWTMLbtV9jHGU86wxqvKyVBVRUGhY78uA1HJ5aQn53zc7uRinB96q

One may or may not be shocked to learn that I still have friends who call themselves anarchists. Not of the Molotov cocktail variety, but rather of the Murray Rothbard sort. Libertarians who take their love of liberty to the ultimate extreme and say the State ought not exist and should instead be replaced by a system of private law governed by property and contracts. I once counted myself among these types, hence the prior existing friendships, but I was forced to reconsider my ideas, largely as a consequence of immigration. Say what you will about the merit of the ideas these folks hold, one thing I have typically found is that most are anxious for the opportunity to discuss them, and they have, for the most part, been well trained on how to do this. They have a tendency to see themselves as the most rational of creatures, and to prove this to themselves and others, their style of discussing politics tends to abide by predictable rules which are if nothing else civil. And, though their self perception is of the eminently rational, they also tend to be preoccupied with the concept of morality. They are typically driven by a desire to be good and decent people, and to operate in a fashion typically not unbecoming a religious person, whether they happen toe believe in God or not. Some of the features here described are more universal than others. The sexual proclivities of some, of course, would be quite unbecoming to any recognizable religion, but that is a different topic than I aim to address today, and by no means universal. Probe them long enough, and you will occasionally get them to admit this property based order looks a lot more like monarchy than anarchism. Essentially, one concludes this amounts to government by landlord. The property owner is king, and those who reside on his property are his subjects. Without the restraint of constitutions and little concern for democratic consequences, the range of potential outcomes borders on limitless, depending almost entirely upon the character of the property owner. But even if they come to agree with this, they still tend to say it is anarchism because there is "no State". This gives way to conversations about what "the State" is and to what extent other forms of control may exist without deriving the title. From where does the State derive its legitimacy? Or is such legitimacy even possible? These concepts are not limited to friendly debates with civilized libertarians. So much of our failed political discourse today stems from a lack of consensus on the nature of the State and its purpose, what powers it has, and from where its authority derives. We run around in endless circles debating the merits of policies, without ever stopping to consider that the foundations of our discussion are eroding beneath us, and we wonder then why things spiral out of control and we appear to be racing towards civil war. This evening, I intend to make a basic case for what I believe the nature of the State to be, and to make a defense of its mere existence. I do not expect this to satisfy all questions, and it will have to be returned to again and again, but I am convinced that this is actually among the most important concerns of our time, and this evening, I mean to scratch the surface. And of course, there is plenty in the news to discuss, and your calls are welcome. Catch SurrealPolitiks every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern on Rumble or Odysee

Freedom of speech is axiomatic to most Americans. They reflexively say they support it whether they actually believe they do or not. It is sort of understood, as a cultural matter, that there are few ways to more rapidly make a pariah of oneself than to renounce this central feature of the American psyche. Nobody actually supports "free speech" though. We all have our limits. The most comical people in American politics are not the censor happy PC crooks who ruin everything, it's the "free speech absolutists" who are occasionally compelled to confront the contradictions of their own Utopian fiction. Though, this is surely due in some part to the fact that it is increasingly difficult to find the menace of Leftism humorous, while the naivete of well intentioned free speech advocates still manages to pass for cute, in a sense. This is one of those areas that best illustrate the point I made at the beginning of this production. The Left, disconnected though they may be from reality, make better assessments of the political battlefield than what passes for the Right these days in America. For the Left, the capacity to stifle their political opponents is axiomatically evidence that they should do it. The idea that they might forgo the opportunity to expand their power is preposterous to them. The only answer you hear from the Right on this is "free speech". This is not only far from reciprocal, it's silly, at best. The Right used to understand that free speech is supposed to be a means by which men of good character say what they believe to be true, and engage in discussion to discover error. It is not, contra popular superstition, the right to host a drag queen story hour at a public school for kids. William F. Buckley understood this. His first book, God and Man at Yale, bore the subheading "The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom'". Published in 1951, Buckley had become quite frustrated with his alma mater's habit of denigrating religion and promoting communism. He thought it preposterous that a prestigious university would platform such harmful ideological poison, and he called on his fellow alumni to pressure them to stop it. That Buckley and his cohort failed to stop Yale from doing this has led to the state of affairs we see today. The Left had freedom of speech. They used it. Then they gained power. Then they began to crush the opposition. Such is the product of "free speech". Now you can teach kids about deviant sex acts, but you can't criticize those teaching it. Had people listened to Buckley 72 years ago, we wouldn't be dealing with "Pride Month". I've got plenty more to say on this subject, and I think you'll find the growing list of LGBTP holidays quite amusing, so I'll go over that tonight. Your calls are welcome, of course. We do this every Monday at 9:30pm US Eastern. Become a member https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join Get on the email list https://SurrealPolitiks.com/newsletter Other ways to watch/listen https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start Pay me https://GiveSendGo.com/spm https://SurrealPolitiks.com/donate Cash App $EdgyChris Bitcoin bc1qcg97hwdy8d463794wm0uq3np0px49acw6505gm

I am very proud of the opening monologue I have prepared for this evening, it is very moving. I also have a couple of really great reads from other outlets which I'll share with you. Here's a teaser from the open, and I'll plan on seeing you tonight at 9:30pm on Odysee, Rumble, or our other platforms. Today being Memorial Day, it might be fitting to speak a bit about military service. Of course, the martial character of human conflict emerges elsewhere besides the military, and perhaps it would be still more fitting to speak in such a broader generality. There exists no shortage of bold men who will not be hailed as heroes, despite courageous sacrifice, be their names known or not. Some, the news records as villains, and our task is in some measure to see history do them greater justice. The United States is not the only country with a monument known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. No culture survives without reverence for its warriors. Some do a better job than others of recovering their dead, but whatever their military prowess, combat is unpredictable, and people go missing. It is both fitting and important then, that there be some shrine to their sacrifice. In the United States, ours is at Arlington National Cemetery. It is guarded, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as “The Old Guard.” They perform a visually impressive routine when changing guard, and Sentinels, as they are known, have a creed which reads; “My dedication to this sacred duty is total and whole-hearted. In the responsibility bestowed on me never will I falter. And with dignity and perseverance my standard will remain perfection. Through the years of diligence and praise and the discomfort of the elements, I will walk my tour in humble reverence to the best of my ability. It is he who commands the respect I protect, his bravery that made us so proud. Surrounded by well meaning crowds by day, alone in the thoughtful peace of night, this soldier will in honored glory rest under my eternal vigilance.” While there are over 4,000 unknown soldiers buried at Arlington, the monument contains the remains of but three. One from World War I, another from the second World War, and one from the Korean war. An empty third crypt represents missing service members from Vietnam. When power changes hands, perhaps it would be best to leave the Arlington Memorial to those who died in uniform overseas, but it might also be fitting to establish a new one for those who died, or otherwise had their lives destroyed, right here. The menace we face has surely left more than 4,000 corpses in its wake almost entirely unremarked upon. Many millions more yet walk, but are no less dead, disappeared, and forgotten. I don't want to give the rest away, so please tune in for the live show at 9:30 pm Eastern. If you can't catch the live broadcast, be sure to catch the podcast. Other ways to listen https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start Become a member https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Newsletter https://SurrealPolitiks.com/newsletter Twitter https://Twitter.com/TalkRadioGod Telegram https://t.me/surrealpolitiks

Here at SurrealPolitiks, when speaking of power, there is a well reasoned tendency to speak of matters pertaining to electoral victory. This on account of the fact that the State is the ultimate arbiter of disputes, and its capacity to use force without repercussion renders State power the supreme means of imposing one's will upon society. But we have been careful to note from time to time that much happens before election day. The inner workings of the Party have featured most prominently in our prior discussions, as one example. Of course, as Andrew Breitbart famously noted, politics is downstream from culture. Culture is a many faceted thing, but at the center of culture's impact on politics, are the stories we tell ourselves. And since few of us are the creators of these stories, they are in large part the stories we are told by others. The stories might be true or false, and while their veracity is by no means irrelevant, it is rather besides the point as to whether or not they impact our politics. If people believe it, this will be reflected in culture, and it will transmit to politics, and ultimately, to State imposition. It might go without saying that the Left has enjoyed near total dominance in this arena for as long as many of us have been alive, and near certainly for as long as any of us have been paying attention to politics. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of them ethnic in origin, and those are best discussed elsewhere. Today I want to discuss reclaiming the narratives of our politics. If you get to decide what people believe, then the outcome of the election is rather besides the point. The narrative shapes the conversation, the conversation dictates the terms of the debate, and if the people are left to choose in a term of years between two candidates who are equally immersed in your narrative then the outcome of that contest is rather besides the point. You won long before the primary. I have a couple of prominent examples of this to discuss. One was a story that brought me great joy to discover. I had, years ago, written a story about an abortionist who bragged graphically about the horrors she carries out on a daily basis. Someone had asked her on Twitter if she hears the screams of the children she murders, to which she responded “You know fetuses can’t scream, right? I transect the cord 1st so there’s really no opportunity, if they’re even far enough along to have a larynx. I won’t apologize for performing medicine. I’m also a ‘uterus ripper outer,’ if that’s how you’d like to describe hysterectomy,” I just found out that, while I was without Internet access, she had he medical license suspended pending an investigation. She was allowed to return to practice, but in the wake of the Roe reversal, her Alabama practice is in jeopardy and she claims to live in fear. The Guardian wrote up a 4,100+ piece, making her out to be a hero under assault. I won't trouble you to read the whole thing on the air, but I will provide some choice excerpts and discuss the implications. Another pertains to Taylor Lorenz, a Washington Post propagandist who made it her life's work to destroy the lives of decent people. She doxed the creator of the Libs of TikTok account, in violation of Twitter rules, and rather than be kicked off the platform like the people she targets, she was actively protected by the upper echelons of the company. It turns out Lorenz had a working relationship with Twitter's censors, and used it to great effect. She was not the only Left wing "journalist" manipulating the platform in this way. Now that Elon Musk has fired most of these people, Twitter is a very different place. Though "hate speech" policies still exist, and one must be careful what one says about subjects like race, Twitter now abounds with videos depicting migrant and inner city crime, as well as entire popular accounts dedicated to showcasing the lunacy of the transgender movement. Lorenz said Musk was "opening the gates of hell". But I would go so far as to say, he is closing them. All this and more, plus your calls, tonight at 9:30pm Eastern. GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Other payment options https://SurrealPolitiks.com/donate/ Podcast https://SurrealPolitiks.com/start/ Newsletter https://SurrealPolitiks.com/newsletter

Next month marks the 20th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival in Lancaster, New Hampshire. This event was in no small part what inspired me to move to the Granite State more than a decade ago. Hosted by an outfit calling itself the Free State Project, it has been in precipitous decline since my expulsion nine years ago. It used to be a Ron Paul fan club of sorts, but not so much these days. Vices were indulged. I myself partook, but the event was by no means centered around this. Most political events I've attended serve alcohol, and it just so happened that this one also had a great deal of marijuana and mushrooms and that sort of thing. It was not made hostile to families by this, the libertarians I knew then understood that with freedom comes responsibility and that to corrupt children was no way to get along with one's neighbors. Gays were of course tolerated, and treated with the same respect as everyone else. Perhaps just slightly more, since they did have one event during the week specifically geared toward them. Titled "Buzz's Big Gay Dance Party" the eponymous event was conjured from the mind of a lesbian calling herself J Buzz Webb, and at the time nothing foreshaodwed the bitter enmity that would later emerge between us. I had struck up a conversation with a pretty girl who was no lesbian, and we got quite friendly. She asked me to come with her to the big gay dance party and I adamantly refused. "I'm not gay" I told her. "Are you?". She assured me she was not, in more ways than one. But it was sort of deemed that this was expected of me. That by refusing to go, I was somehow expressing disapproval, and as it turned out, I was, which I did not think to be such a big deal. Live and let live, seemed to me the libertarian way. You go have your big gay dance party over there, and I'll keep on doing my hetero thing over here with the pretty girl. Not such a big deal at the time. But I did meet some social disapproval, and while I thought this curious, I didn't much care. Later years would come to feature panels on polyamory, a degenerate sex cult which only thinly disguised its contempt for the family. "Ethical non-monogamy" they like to call it, or "Consensual non-monogamy" or ENM or CNM, all the jargon that make up the indicia of a cult. It's a form of statism to demand your partner be faithful to you, they say. Freedom is the freedom to penetrate and be penetrated without consequence. Birth control has in the snap of the fingers abolished all the human drives and realities that once came with the burden of pregnancy, which is now seen as a harmful side effect of failing to take one's medication. It might go without saying that gender, being an oppressive social construct, in their view, had to be abolished along with the State, and inevitably, this leads to transgenderism. I was informed not long ago that this year's Porcupine Freedom Festival would feature one or more of the much talked about "Drag Queen Story Hour" events which have caused so much trouble in recent years. That inspired today's theme. I went to check the event schedule, and hadn't spotted anything officially sponsored, but if I was sexually grooming children I might make some effort to disguise the activity myself. PorcFest still markets itself as "Family Friendly" you see. It's right there on the front page of the site. You wouldn't want the parents who buy the tickets for that beautiful White child in the image to think she'd be told to sterilize herself and cut off her breasts once they arrive, so you would have to keep this sort of thing under wraps. Not that they have been sworn to secrecy. A woman calling herself Bonnie Freeman, who purports to be married to a friend of mine, announced on Twitter that "Also you might not want to go to Porcfest because a ton of us are planning kid-friendly drag shows on our spots." The Tweet was in reply to another Tweet, from an account that is now suspended from Twitter, because that's what happens when you come up against the lobby of the Rainbow Mafia. Freedom of speech today includes sexually grooming children, but not criticism of this behavior, even under the tutelage of Elon Musk. The good news is, Mrs. Freeman's announcement met near unanimous hostility from the ensuing comments. I should emphasise the near part... Dennis Pratt was a notable exception. he is prominently featured throughout the event's schedule on the website and describes himself as "designer (and Chef de Village) of our most recent (and most successful!) versions of PorcFest." He states, in relevant part, "This year some folks are "very concerned" because there might be - somewhere on the 116 acres of PorcFest - some guy dressed in drag reading Tuttle Twins to a small group of kids (whose parents consent btw.)" Mr. Pratt assures us that nothing of the sort is on the schedule, yet, but if one were to be announced, "it would be dutifully included in the Schedule - along with hundreds of other attendee-created events." And if you don't like that, Mr. Pratt has some advice for you... "If the idea that someone somewhere within a mile radius of you might be doing something that you personally don't like, PorcFest is just not the festival for you." My guest this evening, disagrees. He calls himself "N of 1" and he is the founder of something called "Liberty+". I stumbled across it browsing the PorcFest schedule, and he'll be hosting a talk titled Good Night Alt-Right and Hello Liberty+! You might guess an event titled "Good Night Alt Right" with an alternative reminiscent of Atheism+, this would be the perpetrators of many a drag queen story hour, but my investigation turned up a decidedly different result. Intrigued I reached out to the website operators, and the founder graciously accepted my invitation. I expect this to be an intruiguing discussion, and I do hope you'll join us for the live show at 9:30pm US Eastern time. Watch live, chat, and tip on our Rumble stream. Other options include Entropy Odysee DLive Our own audio/video feeds on this site

Well, it's happened again. Another "Hispanic White Supremacist" has killed a bunch of people and of course this means we have to give up our guns to the people who want to open the borders and put the former President in prison. If this site is not working properly at showtime, please try the live player on our website. https://surrealpolitiks.com/live/ Were this theme not so familiar, we might find ourselves asking if there was any conceivable situation which the Democrats would not purport to prove the correctness of their positions. But it is familiar, and we know the answer. All events prove the point that guns are bad and White people are the only reason these weapons of war are still killing people. Were it not for guns and Whites, the man who went on a shooting spree at a Texas mall recently, would be a mere noble savage, living off berries and communing with nature. It reminds me of a bit from the comedian Katt Williams. It's too profane to repeat here word for word, but he talks about pimps as controlling their flock by telling them things that don't make any sense, and simply demanding that they go along with it. "Go on turn some tricks, and we gonna take over all of Stone Mountain!" to paraphrase, to which the subjugated female responds "I don't know what he sayin' but I'mma do my part". News reports are that a man by the name of Mauricio Garcia, aged 33, killed 8 people and wounded several others during a killing spree at an otherwise gun free mall in Texas. Garcia is reported to have had a patch on his chest that read "RWDS" - a phrase familiar to anyone who has been to SurrealPolitiks.com/shop, where we sell hats that say this. It has been interpreted in some circles to mean "Right Wing Death Squads" and since the Left has tried to racialize our politics all things Right wing are White Supremacy, which makes our Hispanic killer a White Supremacist, and if you believe that, then, well, let's go take over all of Stone Mountain. It coincides with another theme we often hear from these lunatics. That opposition to transgenderism is White Supremacy, too. This is the tacit acknowledgement that what they mean by White Supremacy is what other people call normalcy, and while it is facially preposterous to suppose that non-Whites have less gendered views of the world than White people, the normalcy part is not without some degree of merit. We do this every Monday at 9:30 pm Eastern time. Open phones at 217-688-1433 if you would like to be on the program. Become a member https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join Follow Me on Twitter https://twitter.com/TalkRadioGod Donate https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Crypto and more https://SurrealPolitiks.com/donate

I recently took some amusement at Marjorie Taylor Greene's 60 minutes interview, in which she called the Democrat Party pedophiles. Leslie Stahl feigned bewilderment, as if this was the most outrageous thing a person could say, and stated, without evidence, that Greene had no evidence of this. Greene responded, in essence, by saying that pushing transgenderism on kids was about as straightforward an example as one could hope to observe, and since this was anything but a secret, Stahl was predictably without a refutation. That's kinda how this works, you may have gathered. One of my favorite radio guys, Chris Plante, often says "the media's most insidious power is the power to ignore". They do a lot of that. "Oh, you mean that evidence? Well, let's talk about something else now..." They'll dedicate inordinate amounts of time trying to convince you that White Supremacy is a threat to the survival of democracy and all that is decent, and it may go without saying that this requires substantial effort. It's not the pedophiles you have to watch out for, you see... It's those QAnon nuts who criticize them that worry our chattering propagandists. Perhaps they are just eager for a challenge. Disinterested in the low hanging fruit maybe. The pedophiliac tendencies of our ruling classes are simply too obvious to bother with these days, so they get energetic about things not nearly so prevalent. Or perhaps the truth speaks less charitably to their motives. Jeffrey Epstein's "Private Calendar" has been published, according to the Wall Street Journal. In it, Epstein is said to have had three appointments in 2014 with then Deputy Secretary of State, who now runs the Central Intelligence Agency. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan. There are plenty of other interesting names to speak of, but let's stick with Mr. Burns for the time being, because the espionage angle is very interesting to me. A convicted child sex predator meets with a high ranking government official. When power changes hands in Washington, the pedophile gets arrested again. Days before his bail hearing, the billionaire pedophile with an army of lawyers and a track record of getting sweetheart deals, commits suicide while the cameras are not working and the guards are taking a cat nap. Power changes hands again, under very dubious circumstances, and this high ranking government official now becomes one of the Administration's top spies. The 911 tapes pertaining to the suicide, they are mysteriously missing. The only guy on television willing to call this what it is, he gets fired. I guess noticing this continuity of events makes me a conspiracy theorist. I had read a couple of interesting books that referenced Epstein while I lacked Internet access. You can find the titles and our affiliate links on where to buy them on my Recommended Reading Page at https://SurrealPolitiks.com/readme But that's enough of a teaser for now. I hope you'll tune in for the live show, or download the podcast.

In the practice of Realpolitik, it is typically considered ill advised to go out of one's way to antagonize the greatest possible number of political participants with one's speech. Today we break that rule with our episode title "Misesian Socialism". The phrasing derives from the name of one Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist of Jewish ancestry who rather famously held socialism in the utmost contempt. Thus at first glance, we might appear to be dealing with a contradiction of terms, and be presumed to have made a failed attempt at humor. Fail we just might, but humor is not the goal. In recent discussions, here and elsewhere, we've delved into economics at some depth. The manner in which we have done this has created substantial confusion in off air conversations, and one suspects this is because it does not seem to fall into the pre-defined categories most are familiar with. The approach we have taken is to apply the teachings of what are commonly considered "classical" or "free market" economics to the task of central economic planning, and the achievement of what are typically considered socialist ends. While it may strike the casual observer as bizarre, there's nothing actually forbidding this in economic thought. The classical economists have accurately described, for the most part, how an economy works. They make well reasoned complaints about inefficiencies created by government interference in the market, and go on to make suggestions of political reforms with the aim of eliminating those interferences. But the political programs are not economics. They are politics and, more to the point, they are ideological in nature. If a government program reduces the rate at which wealth is grown, or distributes it in ways an individual finds distasteful, that does not necessarily mean that the program should not exist. This is simply an observation upon which one forms a subjective preference. It may well be the case that the people of the country, or the governing authorities, find this forfeiture of economic efficiency a worthwhile trade-off for other economic or non-economic benefits produced by the program, or circumstances of the time require such forfeiture to avoid greater loss, with the most notable example being inflationary monetary policy to facilitate military objectives. The premise of our concept here is essentially that the classical economists are correct so long as they remain "value free". While their analysis tends to be scientific and accurately describe economic phenomena in past and present, the track record has been for them to to veer away from the scientific, and into the value laden world of politics and philosophy, once they begin talking about the future. Whatever preferences one may have as to the degree of government intervention in the economy, it is inevitable that intervention will occur. Since it is inevitable, calling for it to cease is an ideological masturbatory exercise. Consequently, this is not conducive to influencing the outcome, and since influencing the outcome is the whole entire point of Realpolitik, we must rule it out from our strategic repertoire. Simultaneously, we observe the phenomenon that since this has for so long been the pathology, the advocates of government intervention tend to be, at best, economic illiterates. All too frequently, they are brilliant students of economics who understand full well that what they are doing is catastrophically destructive. They pursue these wild schemes parading under the guise of economic policies anyway, either as a short sighted political strategy for the attainment and maintenance of their own power, or as a means of waging war against the societies they govern or aim to govern. From here we derive ideas like "health care is a human right" and absolute equality of economic outcome, regardless of behavior, as the object of all government activity. Our view could fairly be described as a third position. We aim to understand market forces and the science behind them. Then, to analyze and understand the distortion of market forces caused by government interference in the economy. Then, to intelligently guide that interference in ways that are at least less destructive than current and prior practice, and preferably, to aid in the advancement of the National interest, which it will be our task to define going forward. This, we acknowledge is itself a value laden exercise, but we do not pretend to be mere economic analysts. We are politically interested, and we begin with that built into our assumptions. You can, and should, pay me. Become a SurrealPolitiks Paying Subscriber https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Crypto Bitcoin: bc1qcg97hwdy8d463794wm0uq3np0px49acw6505gm Ethereum: 0xa29441bF858c529E374960A34e16f21abc0970E8 Litecoin: LQsN4hA761RPrUNTva58nQhJ4BYsAQgYet Bitcoin Cash: qplamajpkvhp2g53q4thnu4cakf882er4ge9pqvfdu Monero: 46Li94X1o95GaKPxMdsqds3FPJmc2tTvQi3zSuLHbttWTMLbtV9jHGU86wxqvKyVBVRUGhY78uA1HJ5aQn53zc7uRinB96q ZCash: t1cXJJsnohToMTukCNXBkcqNPDdwvwnfS3p Dash: Xu957ZZqY6ciMZKdUmu5vVUmyxu4jMWEto You can send me checks, cash, money orders, etc… at Christopher Cantwell 497 Hooksett Road Unit 312 Manchester, NH 03104 Find us elsewhere, and keep in touch! 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Artificial Intelligence has been in the news a lot lately, it is the latest weapon in an information war which has been going on for a very long time, and is only starting to heat up. I'll riff about this, then take your calls. You can, and should, pay me. Become a SurrealPolitiks Paying Subscriber https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Crypto Bitcoin: bc1qcg97hwdy8d463794wm0uq3np0px49acw6505gm Ethereum: 0xa29441bF858c529E374960A34e16f21abc0970E8 Litecoin: LQsN4hA761RPrUNTva58nQhJ4BYsAQgYet Bitcoin Cash: qplamajpkvhp2g53q4thnu4cakf882er4ge9pqvfdu Monero: 46Li94X1o95GaKPxMdsqds3FPJmc2tTvQi3zSuLHbttWTMLbtV9jHGU86wxqvKyVBVRUGhY78uA1HJ5aQn53zc7uRinB96q ZCash: t1cXJJsnohToMTukCNXBkcqNPDdwvwnfS3p Dash: Xu957ZZqY6ciMZKdUmu5vVUmyxu4jMWEto You can send me checks, cash, money orders, etc… at Christopher Cantwell 497 Hooksett Road Unit 312 Manchester, NH 03104 Find us elsewhere, and keep in touch! Entropy https://entropystream.live/SurrealPolitiks ChristopherCantwell.net Newsletter https://christophercantwell.net/subscribe/ SurrealPolitiks Newsletter https://surrealpolitiks.com/newsletter/ Chris on Twitter https://twitter.com/TalkRadioGod Chris on Telegram https://t.me/followchris SurrealPolitiks on Telegram https://t.me/surrealpolitiks All Cantwell Content on Fountain.fm Podcasts https://fountain.fm/show/1Lqmd1jltAvvw0Xvg1bC All Cantwell Content on Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3106093 All Cantwell Content on RSS https://christophercantwell.net/feed/podcast/ SurrealPolitiks on Fountain.fm Podcasts https://fountain.fm/show/iGn8lVloyYswtye00Jsa SurrealPolitiks on Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/4329471 SurrealPolitiks Podcast RSS https://surrealpolitiks.com/feed/podcast/surrealpolitikspodcast Gab https://gab.com/realChrisCantwell Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/@realChrisCantwell Gettr https://gettr.com/user/realchriscantwell Substack https://surrealpolitiks.substack.com/ Chris on Locals https://locals.com/member/ChrisCantwell SurrealPolitiks on Locals https://surrealpolitiks.locals.com Parler https://parler.com/Cantwell Odysee https://odysee.com/@ChrisCantwell:9 DLive https://dlive.tv/SurrealPolitiks JoshWhoTV https://www.joshwhotv.com/plugin/Live/?c=RadicalAgenda Rumble https://rumble.com/surrealpolitiks Brighteon https://www.brighteon.com/channels/cantwell BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/mr8b7UVzfOLH/

We know the US government is lying about Ukraine. It’s a war, and they would be lying even if they weren’t nefarious. Given that they are nefarious, we can expect them to lie all the more, and this idea that Ukrainian conscripts are defeating the Russian war machine is preposterous on its face, even with American materiel. So any leaked documents about that conflict would necessarily prove embarrassing. The New York Times cites an unnamed “senior intelligence official” in calling the leaks “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence. If true, some of the revelations could be perceived as damaging, for example that the United States is spying on its supposed allies in the UK, South Korea, and Israel. Then again, if the United States wanted to plant disinformation, it would have to publish something that appeared embarrassing, but was ultimately controllable. A good way to do that would be for these allies to be in on the gag. America may not have gotten “caught” at all. These allies could very well have consented to the scheme, as a means by which to add credibility to disinformation. You can, and should, pay me. Become a SurrealPolitiks Paying Subscriber https://SurrealPolitiks.com/join GiveSendGo https://GiveSendGo.com/spm Crypto Bitcoin: bc1qcg97hwdy8d463794wm0uq3np0px49acw6505gm Ethereum: 0xa29441bF858c529E374960A34e16f21abc0970E8 Litecoin: LQsN4hA761RPrUNTva58nQhJ4BYsAQgYet Bitcoin Cash: qplamajpkvhp2g53q4thnu4cakf882er4ge9pqvfdu Monero: 46Li94X1o95GaKPxMdsqds3FPJmc2tTvQi3zSuLHbttWTMLbtV9jHGU86wxqvKyVBVRUGhY78uA1HJ5aQn53zc7uRinB96q ZCash: t1cXJJsnohToMTukCNXBkcqNPDdwvwnfS3p Dash: Xu957ZZqY6ciMZKdUmu5vVUmyxu4jMWEto You can send me checks, cash, money orders, etc… at Christopher Cantwell 497 Hooksett Road Unit 312 Manchester, NH 03104 Find us elsewhere, and keep in touch! Entropy https://entropystream.live/SurrealPolitiks ChristopherCantwell.net Newsletter https://christophercantwell.net/subscribe/ SurrealPolitiks Newsletter https://surrealpolitiks.com/newsletter/ Chris on Twitter https://twitter.com/TalkRadioGod Chris on Telegram https://t.me/followchris SurrealPolitiks on Telegram https://t.me/surrealpolitiks All Cantwell Content on Fountain.fm Podcasts https://fountain.fm/show/1Lqmd1jltAvvw0Xvg1bC All Cantwell Content on Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3106093 All Cantwell Content on RSS https://christophercantwell.net/feed/podcast/ SurrealPolitiks on Fountain.fm Podcasts https://fountain.fm/show/iGn8lVloyYswtye00Jsa SurrealPolitiks on Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/4329471 SurrealPolitiks Podcast RSS https://surrealpolitiks.com/feed/podcast/surrealpolitikspodcast Gab https://gab.com/realChrisCantwell Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/@realChrisCantwell Gettr https://gettr.com/user/realchriscantwell Substack https://surrealpolitiks.substack.com/ Chris on Locals https://locals.com/member/ChrisCantwell SurrealPolitiks on Locals https://surrealpolitiks.locals.com Parler https://parler.com/Cantwell Odysee https://odysee.com/@ChrisCantwell:9 DLive https://dlive.tv/SurrealPolitiks JoshWhoTV https://www.joshwhotv.com/plugin/Live/?c=RadicalAgenda Rumble https://rumble.com/user/ChristopherCantwell Brighteon https://www.brighteon.com/channels/cantwell BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/mr8b7UVzfOLH/

There's some weeks when you don't know what to say, and others when you don't know where to start. Today begins the latter sort. Happy Monday...

What is political power? One way to think about it, is as the capacity to alter the behavior of others. In this sense, the formal acquisition of such power, as in the assignment to a position within the government, or political party, is merely the acknowledgement of a previously existing state of affairs. One obtains the assignment, by having influenced the behavior of the person or group responsible for such a designation, and so he has necessarily already displayed the power at issue. The title only bestows a sense of officialdom. Though, of course, this officialdom does have the impact of amplifying the power in question. See the full show description, and join other members on SurrealPolitiks.com https://surrealpolitiks.com/2023/03/24/surrealpolitiks-s01e002-choice-architect/ In more shallow analyses of government and politics, there is a tendency to think political power derives from office, rather than the other way around. This confusion of the order of operations is no less vexing in politics than it is in mathematics. If one does his math from right to left, ignores parenthetical equations, or subtracts before he multiplies, he is fortunate to fail in his education. Should he make such errors later in his career, he could cause airplanes to fall out of the sky, or create any other manner of tragedy that may ensue from miscalculation. When men believe that they "deserve" political power, and consider it an unnatural state of affairs that they do not hold office, similar frictions apply. The most vivid example of this is terrorism. Men believe it is "unfair" that they cannot access the levers of power, and they go on to demonstrate why they are unfit to the task, by harming the innocent. None of us are entirely devoid of power. Some have more than others, to be sure, but each of us influence people every day. Even if one chose to live a life of solitude, hiding in the wilderness and living off the land, his choice ultimately has no less an effect on the price of goods and services by refraining from their purchase than if he made it his life's work to acquire all that he could. In one case he subtracts from demand, in the other he adds, but the fact of his existence is going to be part of that equation, whether he likes it or not. Socials Entropy https://entropystream.live/SurrealPolitiks Telegram https://t.me/followchris Fountain.fm Podcasts https://fountain.fm/show/1Lqmd1jltAvvw0Xvg1bC Podcast Addict https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/3106093 RSS https://christophercantwell.net/feed/podcast/ Gab https://gab.com/realChrisCantwell Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/@realChrisCantwell Gettr https://gettr.com/user/realchriscantwell Substack https://surrealpolitiks.substack.com/ Locals https://locals.com/member/ChrisCantwell Parler https://parler.com/Cantwell Odysee https://odysee.com/@ChrisCantwell:9 DLive https://dlive.tv/SurrealPolitiks JoshWhoTV https://www.joshwhotv.com/plugin/Live/?c=RadicalAgenda Rumble https://rumble.com/user/ChristopherCantwell Brighteon https://www.brighteon.com/channels/cantwell BitChute https://www.bitchute.com/channel/mr8b7UVzfOLH/ I am a student of persuasion. By listening to this show, you too will become one, if you are not already. On another production I recently spoke at some length about a behavioral psychologist named Robert Cialdini, and his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. While a recap of that discussion will be beyond the scope of our task today, we can briefly say that Cialdini and others who study persuasion, make the case that our decisions are largely subconscious processes. These are influenced by identifiable factors, upon careful observation, but are generally unknown to the decider. For example, a voter typically convinces himself that he supports this or that candidate for prudent reasons pertaining to policy positions, but studies show that decidedly non-policy-oriented factors like physical appearance can be decisive in elections. People tend to favor political slogans more if they were eating something they enjoyed when they heard them, and liked them less if undetectable levels of a putrid odor were circulating in the room at the time. I titled today's show "Choice Architect" as a nod to Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, from whom I heard the term for the first time recently as I listened to the audio version of their book, Nudge: The Final Edition: Improving Decisions About Money, Health, and the Environment. Sunstein and Thaler coined another term in the first edition of the book, which drew a great deal of justifiable criticism. The phrase "Libertarian Paternalism" drove their fellow Leftists insane, because they hate freedom and cannot bare to hear the word libertarian mentioned absent some derisive comment. It should almost go without saying that the libertarians did not much care to be associated with paternalism. The book garnered controversy among those less concerned with terminology as well. Like most Leftists, Sunstein and Thaler lack faith in their fellow man. They view the average person as something of a pinball bouncing off the components of his environment, and see it as the responsibility of an elite to shape that environment in ways that will convince the poor dupe that he is making his own choices, though they doubt this is really even possible, much less desirable, and certainly not actually the case. If the reader detects in this description a tone of contempt, he is not conjuring this in his own imagination. Your humble correspondent considers these men dangerous and malicious, though more because of how they apply this view of mankind, than because of the view itself. Clearly, there is some truth to the idea that environmental factors inform a person's decision making. This is almost too obvious to need stating. Less obvious, but no less true, is the fact that these environmental factors are in no small part shaped by intentional actors, who hold the awesome power and responsibility of directing people's behaviors. It is quite prudent that a book should be written to describe this phenomenon, and one might hope that responsible people would read such a book. Let us consider a rather mundane example used in the text. The authors ask the reader to imagine a woman named Catherine who is the director of food services for a large city school system. Catherine is responsible for the cafeterias in hundreds of schools, and hundreds of thousands of children will have their dietary choices informed by Catherine's decisions. It should almost go without saying that Catherine can impact the dietary options of the students by changing the menu, but this is not the only decision she will make. Will the French fries be the first thing on the line? Or will carrots be made more salient? Will cookies and other sweets be at eye level, or will the student need to request one? While taking the French fries out of the school might be described as a shove, Thaler and Sunstein refer to intelligently choosing their placement as a nudge. They purport a desire to preserve the perception of free will, and to avoid coercion, but to guide people toward decisions the authors deem preferable, through what they refer to as choice architecture. As the authors point out, so long as Catherine maintains her position as the director of food services, she cannot help but make these decisions, and those decisions unavoidably influence the decisions of the students. Even if she abandons the post, she is choosing to put someone else in charge, and thus she chooses all the same. It is not a question of whether or not she will inform the dietary choices of the students. It is not even a question of degree. The question is what she will do with the power. She could, at least in theory, choose to place food items at random in an effort to avoid transmitting her subjective value judgements to the students, but that is itself a value judgement, and one doubts this would improve anything save perhaps Catherine's opinion of herself. She could try to maximize profits or cut costs, depending on whether most of the students in the school district paid for their meals or were receiving them at taxpayer expense. She could take bribes from food vendors and try to improve her own material situation. She could maliciously try to feed the children unhealthy food out of some kind of ethnic or other animus. Considering the full range of all Catherine's options, I hope you will agree that the most reasonable thing that Catherine can do with the power of her position, is to intelligently arrange the cafeteria in a way that will gently guide the students toward a healthy and enjoyable meal. In this, your humble correspondent agrees with the authors. So why the contempt? Sunstein and Thaler demonstrate during the text that they are not fools. Thaler is an economist. Sunstein, a legal scholar. They understand better than most the fundamental principle of their respective fields of study, which is that human beings respond to incentives. Moreover, they articulate their comprehension of the fact too many libertarians overlook, which is that those incentives are not always measurable in dollars. From this we may infer that they understand what they are advocating, and are capable of contemplating the long term effects of such advocacy. Yet the authors specifically disavow any such contemplation. They call this "bathmophobia" - a technical term for an irrational fear of falling down an incline - which they invoke to deride the concept of the "slippery slope" argument. They bring up gun control as their featured example, as I quote from the book; Slippery slope arguments are popular in the United States among those who are opposed to gun control. In this case, X is any restriction on an individual’s right to own a gun (say, a ban on the ownership of assault weapons), and Z would be the government comes and confiscates all weapons, including steak knives and water pistols. Well, that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea. The problem with most slippery slope arguments is that they do not provide any evidence of an actual slope: that is, a reason to believe that doing X makes it more likely, much less inevitable, that we will get Y and Z. This has not stopped people from making such arguments that on their face are rather dubious. For example, there was a Supreme Court argument about the Affordable Care Act in which the issue being discussed was whether the government could constitutionally require citizens to purchase health insurance. Justice Antonin Scalia famously argued that if this requirement were legal, nothing would stop some future government from requiring people to eat broccoli. Talk about scare tactics! The student of persuasion, or for that matter, anyone who has read Saul Alinsky, can clearly discern here a deceptive tactic being deployed. Most glaringly, there exists no shortage of examples in which governments gradually chip away at the liberty and property of their citizens. That this gradual process would accelerate subsequent to their being disarmed hardly needs stating, much less the predictive powers of a fortune teller. The authors mockingly point to the absence of a thing every student of history knows is anything but lacking, and and on this basis invite the reader to conclude that their critics are unthinking fools. The informed observer of the Supreme Court of the United States must doubt that Antonin Scalia was ever an unthinking fool, or that his greatest fear was an act of congress instituting compulsory broccoli consumption. His example was obviously not chosen out of lachanophobia (a clinical term describing an irrational fear of vegetables), but rather to illustrate the absurdity of a legal argument in which the Constitution of the United States grants Congress the power to do whatever it thinks might conceivably improve the health of the citizenry. Politics inevitably involves disagreement over what is and is not "good" for the country, and this is by no means lost on Sunstein and Thaler. Notably, the authors invoke, in the final edition of the book, the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision, which conjured from the penumbras a heretofore undiscovered constitutional right to same sex marriage. And at that, one notably less subject to infringement than the explicitly stated second amendment which they just finished mocking. In the first edition of the book, they had been advocates of so called "civil unions" because they had not predicted the public ever being willing to accept such a thing. This was itself a "nudge" in their view, designed to normalize homosexuality among a people who would reject it, given the choice. They were right, of course, in that the population never did accept it. This was forced upon them by the Court through the vote of five unelected Justices who had uniformly been nominated by Presidents who insisted they believed marriage was between one man and one woman, including Barack Obama. Whatever your thoughts on gay rights, it is not in dispute that certain health problems plague the gay community. If Congress has the power to do whatever it deems may improve the health of its citizens, then it hardly makes sense that they and the States under their jurisdiction would have no say in something so consequential as marriage. One also doubts Sunstein, a legal scholar, had any trouble discerning the distinct absence of any such right being mentioned in the Constitution of the United States. The authors deride another supposed slippery slope argument, pertaining to opponents of women's suffrage, from whom we sadly hear little today. Quoting from the book; The track record of slippery slope forecasts in the political domain is not exactly stellar. An opponent of women’s suffrage once predicted that giving women the right to vote would create a “race of masculine women and effeminate men and the mating of these would result in the procreation of a race of degenerates.” Another opponent, noting that women represent more than half the population, predicted that allowing women to vote would mean that all our political leaders would soon be women. For the record, in 2021, women held only 26 percent of the seats in Congress. We only wish that slope had been a bit more slippery! We might consider ourselves fortunate that most women have not seen fit to degrade themselves by becoming legislators, whatever the authors may wish. And, one might have difficulty drawing a straight line from women's suffrage to the transgender craze plaguing our public schools. But anyone with a familiarity of voter demographics would have a hard time making the case that anyone would even be capable of imagining this situation, had the electorate remained entirely male. Examples abound, but I'll let those suffice to illustrate this point. Sunstein and Thaler are Left wing fanatics whose malice is demonstrated by their hypocrisy. They dress up their fanaticism in social science jargon, and describe their scheming as being born of a libertarian impulse, but they celebrate each opportunity to transition from nudge to shove. On this subject, they make another mocking comment, which one suspects they realize is more confession than denial. Quoting again from the book; We bring up slippery slope arguments because critics have used them to criticize nudging and libertarian paternalism. “First it’s nudge, then it’s shove, then it’s shoot,” as they say. (But why? The whole point of nudging is to avoid shoving, let alone shooting.) Which is to say, they have a loose preference not to shoot you, but it's an option. So, take the hint, or else. So, why bring this up on SurrealPolitiks? I imagine some of you may recall a controversy that emerged during the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary, in which former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was then seeking our Party's nomination, told David Gregory on Meet the Press, that "I don't think Right wing social engineering is any more desirable than Left wing social engineering." The remark was in response to a budget plan proposed by Paul Ryan, and it involved some controversial changes to the Medicare program which might more accurately be described as libertarian-ish than Right wing, but the substance of the issue is almost besides the point. Here, Gingrich expressed a view that pervades among conservatives to this day, and is costing our Party and our Country dearly. Whatever one's views on the desirability of social engineering, it is a fact of life, and most certainly it is among the defining characteristics of government policy, second only to its coercive element. Like Catherine deciding where to place the French fries, government decides, whether through action or inaction, where to take money, where to give it, who to put in prison, and who to kill. One who seeks to abstain from this decision making has no place in politics. If Republicans abstain from social engineering, they do not free their citizens from its influence, they simply forfeit the influence to people like Cass Sunstein, and Richard Thaler. I might be overstating matters just a bit to say that the entire point of this show is to stop that from happening, but it closely enough approximates my point, that I ask the reader to infer all appropriate caveats and accept the gist. Thaler and Sunstein get what they want politically, and not because their fanaticism is uncompromising. The whole entire point of the concept of nudge is distinctly progressive in its effort to unravel society in stages. Though they mock the concept of a slippery slope, they explicitly aim at bringing about precisely such rapid declines, celebrate their coming to fruition, and make only the most meager effort to dress this fact in a thin layer of plausible deniability. Wikipedia provides a flattering illustration of Sunstein's life and career, and I beg the reader's pardon for my using this Antifa blog as a source, but I think for our purposes it will serve just fine. Sunstein was born in 1954. He reportedly said he was influenced in his early life by Ayn Rand, but quickly turned Leftward politically, before graduating high school. He didn't declare the system he hated corrupt and bow out. He didn't pick up a rifle and embark upon a suicide mission. He didn't try to start a new political party. He went to Harvard Law School. He was never shy about his political views, but he made efforts to dress them up in respectable terminology, exemplified to some degree by the citations above. Same sex marriage used to be something only extremists talked about, as a noteworthy example, so Sunstein proposed civil unions and compared it to the now uncontroversial position of supporting women's suffrage. This allowed him to advance rapidly in law and in education, culminating in his 2009 nomination by Barack Obama to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. His nomination was not without controversy, but after a robust debate in the Senate, he was confirmed 57-40. In 2014, studies of legal publications found Sunstein to be the most frequently cited American legal scholar by a wide margin. This despite, or perhaps because, he advocates legal theories that are a direct attack on the very concept of law and order. If you're anywhere near my age, it's probably a little late to go to law school, but that's hardly dispositive of the point I mean to make. Just like Catherine can choose to ban French fries from the cafeteria, you can choose to demand radical political changes that almost nobody supports. You can impress a small group of people with your uncompromising stance on some unpopular position, and you may derive some psychological benefit from doing so. But Catherine is a lot more likely to positively impact the dietary choices of the students if she is less overt in her guidance of their decisions, and you are far more likely to influence people's political thinking if you are not chasing away those whose ideas you seek to influence. For all the hysteria surrounding Donald Trump, it is a popular and moderate position to say that illegal immigration is illegal, and should accordingly be prevented and punished. Leftists tried to make him out to be the second coming of Adolf Hitler, because they reasonably anticipated this would not be the end of the story. Addressing this very real and serious problem is a nudge toward recognizing that, however the laws may be organized, a society that ceases to reproduce, and replaces itself with foreigners, is a dying society. That realization carries implications that cannot help but shatter the Leftist narratives which plague us today, and there is literally nothing they would not do to stop that little bitty nudge from taking hold. Conservatives warn us that "First it's nudge, then it's shove, then it's shoot" and from this conclude that one ought not nudge. They would do far better in politics if they nudged a little harder, while looking for the opportunity to shove, instead of impotently cursing the nature of politics, and waiting for the pronoun police to blow their brains out. Recall from episode one that progressivism emerged not in contrast to conservatism, but to revolution. It was a question of means, not of ends. While the Weather Underground were waging a campaign of terror, Cass Sunstein was finishing law school. Today, if you search "Weather Underground" your first results will be from the Weather Channel. You'll have to specify that you're talking about a terrorist organization to find any reference to Bill Ayers. He narrowly avoided prison for his crimes, when it was discovered that the FBI had acted in ways it sought not to brag about, and federal prosecutors dropped the charges which had kept him on the run as a fugitive for years prior. Given that many leftists are closeted or not so closeted revolutionaries, and as such hold Ayers in high regard, it would be overstating matters to say is has no power. He has more than me, and likely more than you, but only to the extent that he is an inspirational figure for fanatics with violent plans or fantasies. Sunstein, by contrast, would go on to influence pubic policy through scholarly citations, authorship of influential books, and formal employment with the Obama administration in a Senate confirmed position. Long after he is dead, those citations and books will continue to deform our society. Even if none of us ever achieve anything resembling Sunstein's success, we would still do well to learn from it. Moreover, we have a choice to make, as to whether we nudge the people around us toward that kind of influence, or toward mere infamy. Nudge is a vital text for people seeking to understand progressivism. I encourage you to it, or listen to the audiobook. The way it is structured does not permit the sort of analysis we've made elsewhere of Cialdini, and though it contains valuable insights into the subject of persuasion, the book is more about policy than psychology, which in our view, renders it less interesting as podcast fodder. The authors' tendency to put forth extremist Left wing political ideas as obvious and objective social goods, we warn will grate against the sensibilities of the sane, but keeping one's enemies closer than one's friends is a cliche for the truth it conveys, and we think good people are well served to understand their opponents. Recognizing the scarcity of time, we offer this briefest of summaries before ending this segment, and taking your calls. You can extrapolate much of the book's premise from the story of Catherine and the cafeterias. She will influence the people in her sphere whether she likes it or not, and so the best course for her is to understand that influence and wield it responsibly. The same goes for anyone involved in business, politics, media, or anything else. The idea that any of us can be neutral is nonsensical, and can only lead to miscalculation. You don't have to agree with Paul Ryan to see the problem with Newt Gingrich's disdain for Right wing social engineering. Social engineering is the norm, not the exception. It can be Right wing or it can be Left wing, but it cannot be neutral. A lot of what would now be deemed Right wing social engineering used to be considered obvious. Encouraging healthy families, and productive enterprise. Discouraging vice, and communism. Protecting the country from invasion, and instilling in the population the love of country that makes men willing to sacrifice their lives in service of that protection. This is what we have abandoned, in the misguided pursuit of free will, and what we have obtained is something that does not bear one bit of resemblance to greater freedom. It has been replaced by hookup culture, abortion, gender ideology, inflation, bank failures, and rampant drug addiction. We watch on television as millions pour in to our country illegally. We empty our weapons stockpiles into a foreign country, and our military fails to meet its recruitment goals. As the consequences of these things inflict suffering on the population, the government moves to silence and disarm and imprison its critics. This is not organic. It is not the outcome of revolution. It is the consequence of Left wing social engineering. A nudge here, a shove there, every now and then, a shot. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Right wing social engineering is, indeed, more desirable than this. The perceived restrictions it imposes, are akin to prohibiting a child from playing in traffic. Done skillfully, it will, over time, not be recognized as social engineering. It will once again be accepted as the expected and desirable behavior of responsible Statesmen, educators, and media personalities. With any luck, this unfortunate period of our history will be mocked by future generations. They will appreciate their freedom to tell the truth, and view the freedom to change one's gender or kill one's offspring, in the way most today view the freedom to own slaves. But we are very far from that point today, and if we hope to get there, we'll have to nudge a little faster.