Citizenship and Immigration

1 Jul 2026 · 1 h 3 min · 20 chapters

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In short

Birthright citizenship and immigration policy after a Supreme Court decision, framed as a threat to national sovereignty, incentives for illegal entry, and long-term demographic/cultural cohesion.

Guests

No named guests. The hosts are Rob and Dave Smith (Dave Smith is referenced for tickets and as a recurring speaker). The conversation is between the two hosts.

Guest backgrounds

Dave Smith is a comedian/podcaster associated with ComicDaveSmith.com and PorchStore/PorchTour; Rob is his co-host (no further biographical details given in the transcript).

Key claims

  1. The Supreme Court may be legally correct but the underlying law should be changed by Congress.
  2. Birthright citizenship “rewards” illegal border crossing by granting full citizenship to children born after illegal entry.
  3. Citizenship is described as “positive rights” (benefits/privileges beyond basic human “negative rights”), so it shouldn’t be automatic.
  4. Immigration policy has contributed to balkanization and a shift toward a “majority-minority” future (projected by 2050).

Notable examples

  • “Chinese spy” pregnant in the U.S. giving birth; 9/11 hijacker scenario with a pregnant fiancé.
  • Tourist/visitor example to distinguish jurisdiction from full citizenship.
  • Historical analogy: property-rule “break in and win a prize” to show perceived incoherence.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Upcoming Shows and Tour Details

0:45 to 1:50

Hosts discuss their upcoming comedy shows and tour details.

“Hell yeah dude and then we got what are the stops again?”

Supreme Court Decision on Birthright Citizenship

1:50 to 5:24

Discussion on the implications of the Supreme Court's ruling on birthright citizenship.

“I guess when you got all three and you're searching for a fourth and the fourth one doesn't exist, it's going to lead to a lot of us.”

Legal Precedents and Implications

5:24 to 7:54

Exploration of legal precedents surrounding birthright citizenship and its ramifications.

“I don't know that that's the right nomenclature.”

Philosophical Viewpoints on Citizenship

7:54 to 12:19

Hosts delve into the philosophical aspects of citizenship and immigration policy.

“You know, there's only how many sovereign states there are in the world.”

The Ethics of Immigration Laws

12:19 to 14:00

Discussion on the ethics and morality surrounding immigration laws and citizenship.

“It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

The Moral vs Legal Right to Immigration

14:00 to 17:35

Explore the complex relationship between legal rights and moral principles in the context of immigration.

“And it's not, you know, it's not like you don't have a right to be enslaving that person to begin with.”

Demographics and American Identity

18:47 to 27:42

Discuss the implications of changing demographics and the notion of American citizenship.

“So in other words, meaning white people are less than 50%.”

The American Spirit and Immigration

28:59 to 30:17

Discussion on what it means to be American and the motivations for immigration.

“If you want to go live out in an area and be like, hey, these are the only people that I want to live with.”

Public Sentiment on Immigration

30:18 to 32:37

Analyzing public opinion on immigration and the disconnect with political action.

“multiculturalism and all this other stuff.”

Cultural Preservation vs. Multiculturalism

32:38 to 35:38

Debating the effects of mass migration on local cultures and communities.

“And over the last 10 years, now this is on Biden, not on Trump, perhaps.”
Show all 20 chapters

The Future of American Identity

35:39 to 42:00

Exploring the challenges to American identity and societal cohesion amid immigration.

“They don't want to make this a Jewish state.”

The Challenge of Immigration Policy

42:00 to 43:40

Discussing the difficulties and incoherences in current immigration policies.

“Or in the meantime, and I will say that this is a negative consequence of this policy.”

Race and Immigration Discussion

43:40 to 46:25

Exploring the intersection of race, immigration, and societal issues.

“They're not even necessarily saying that they agree with it morally.”

Poverty and Segregation in America

46:25 to 48:30

Addressing the severe economic and social segregation affecting marginalized communities.

“And it seems like, dude, like essentially right now, look, the original minority group in America, whatever you're going to say about Native Americans, let's just skip that for a second.”

Ineffectiveness of Government Solutions

48:30 to 50:35

Critiquing the failure of government interventions to solve systemic issues.

Cultural Dynamics and Personal Experience

50:35 to 53:04

Reflecting on personal experiences with cultural diversity and community dynamics.

“All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cowboy Colostrum.”

Parenting and Societal Inequities

53:04 to 56:03

Discussing the impact of societal issues on parenting and childhood experiences.

“All right, let's get back into the show.”

Reflections on Parenthood and Childhood

56:03 to 56:59

The speaker shares insights on parenting and the desire to provide a good childhood for their kids.

“And as you do that, you also you just become aware of what it takes to do that and what's necessary.”

Barriers to Providing a Good Life

57:06 to 1:01:03

The discussion highlights the necessity of creating barriers to entry to ensure a good upbringing for children.

“And but part of what you need to give it to them is like right away.”

The Value of Membership in Society

1:01:08 to 1:01:53

An analogy is drawn between parenting and national immigration policies regarding exclusivity and value.

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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:06What's up? What's up? Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I'm still on vacation. Rob's getting kicked out of his hotel room any minute now. Literally, we were just bullshitting and Rob's like, let's get started because I have to check out in 50 minutes or whatever. Where are you? Where are you at? Where are you off to next? I'm currently in Myrtle Beach and then I'm coming up on the craziest run of all of Porch Store going from Nashville to doing a show after our show in the local area then Chickamauga, then Atlanta then I'm flying out west to do Sandpoint, Idaho, Seattle and other places PorchStore.com A lot of dates coming up Hell yeah dude and then we got what are the stops again?

0:51Why do I keep forgetting? It's Huntsville, Alabama I think is the other one, right? Yeah, we got, well, the next gig we got is in Texas. We're going to be doing Houston, Texas. Houston, Texas. Houston, Texas is first. That's right. Houston, Texas. This will be July 9th, 10th, and 11th. Natalie corrected me. I think I said June 9th, 10th, and 11th on yesterday's show and then saw that she made that note after we were done recording. But, yeah, it will be in July. My apologies to those of you who went in the past. Yeah, we can't control. July 9th through 11th. We can control weather. We can't go back in time.

1:25We do not have control of time yet until Netanyahu's next bill passes. And then July 17th – I'm sorry. July 16th, Huntsville, Alabama, one night only. July 17th, 18th, 19th, Nashville, Tennessee. Love the Zanies in Nashville. Can't wait to be down there. Can't wait for all these shows. So ComicDaveSmith.com for those tickets. PorchTour.com for Rob's other shows. um okay let's talk about some stuff uh today rob we um i want to talk a bunch about uh the supreme court decision on birthright citizenship because that is um that's pretty devastating and it's i don't know i guess first of all i think this does happen uh on these when i'm on my summer vacations with the families the episodes i think get more philosophical for whatever reason it's just the mindset I get put into.

2:19But it did, you know, just get me thinking about a lot of stuff, particularly just that this is so that, you know, this, this ruling is really birthright citizenship is right at the heart of the broader immigration question, and the, and immigration policy, and immigration, kind of like, in a way, it just it touches on philosophy in a way, like, what do you believe citizenship means and why do you believe that this is good for a nation and um especially with you know in the broader context of donald trump's failed presidency and here you have something that really was at the very very heart of the the core of the political reason for donald trump's existence which was immigration i mean immigration was like if you had to point to one issue that was the central issue of Donald Trump's rise to the presidency, it would probably be immigration.

3:21And so you have this presidency now in his second term with a Supreme Court that's really been largely picked by him, has the most, I think the most Supreme Court, I don't know, I have to go check that, but has he picked the most Supreme Court justices of my lifetime. He's got to be up there. I don't know. He's up there with the top. I mean, he's picked four justices. Amy Barrett-Cohen, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch. No, was Roberts? Was Bush, I think. Oh. No? But anyway. I just feel like saying a name. He's appointed three. Just three. Okay, so I guess I named the three. We're searching. Well, it's tough.

4:10I guess when you got all three and you're searching for a fourth and the fourth one doesn't exist, it's going to lead to a lot of us. Yeah, okay. Anyway, so okay, he's appointed three. Three of the justices on the court are appointed by him and still to lose this decision. And then just kind of like what it means for the future of the country. I don't know. There's a lot there. I know I saw Alito was really losing it. When I say that, I don't know, it's a weird way to say about a Supreme Court justice. You know, they're very dignified people, typically. When I say really losing it, his comment was, in my judgment, the court has made a mistake that will seriously affect the country's future.

4:55This is a pretty, you know, that's a pretty aggressive thing for a Supreme Court justice to say right after a decision. So any thoughts on any of it, Rob? You can take it wherever you want to, but there's a lot of different avenues to go there. So I got I've read most of the recent Supreme Court cases. This one I have to I just saw the tweet. So I'm going to have to sit down and read the whole thing. My just gut snap reaction is that they probably got the law right, but you should probably change the law. And so what I mean by that is there was precedent from some Chinaman. I don't know if you're supposed to.

5:26I don't know that that's the right nomenclature. Yeah, he got tossed. No, because the language is in the jurisdiction. they're aware of. And so, and there was already court precedent, I think standing for like 125 years that people just born in the country are considered citizens. So from a legal standpoint, I think I understand the judgment from a running a country standpoint. I think it's really stupid that you can come across a border, shoot across a baby, like spike it like it's a football. And now that's an American citizen with full American rights. And I think after what the Biden administration did to us of trying to get as many people over the border as they possibly can, and the amount of people that those people might give birth to.

6:07I think it's not sustainable to have people just rolling into the country trying to sneak kids being birthed here. I don't think it's a fair system. So I think from a legal standpoint, the Supreme Court potentially got it right. I'll have to dig in. But from a, hey, Congress should sit down and make an amendment on this one. I don't think it's a very I don't think it's a good system. um i would probably even disagree with you a little bit there just maybe not even that strongly um but i would i would say that i don't know that it's correct legally either um and i have seen you know i and there was a big article in um what was the journal ah god i'm gonna blank on this but it was foreign policy i think something like that um but where these two these two scholars basically like we're making this argument this years ago um about like the original intent of the the amendment and that it's like no it really was a point if you if you read the language carefully it really was applying to the freed slaves and they were really they were saying people that are fully under the jurisdiction of the u.s government um have to be made citizens of that government but that would not apply to people who aren't fully under you so in other words right like um if somebody uh if somebody is a uh let's say you're a tourist you're coming to america to visit you are under the jurisdiction of the u.s government in the sense that like yeah you can't kill someone here you'll get arrested and go to jail for that or it or theoretically you could be we hope you would be um but you couldn't be tried for treason if you betrayed america because you're not an american citizen and you could so you're not like fully under u.s jurisdiction in the way that an american is whereas like black people were they were fully under u.s jurisdiction they didn't have another country to go back to um and so you know but But anyway, that almost is is kind of immaterial to like our purposes and the bigger conversation, because I think, as you as you already said, like, even if that is legally the case, we'll then change the law.

8:21Then what's that? You know, there's only how many sovereign states there are in the world. What is it? One hundred eighty something, two hundred something. There's only like a couple dozen, I think, who have birthright citizenship. Like, in other words, the overwhelming majority of the world just doesn't operate this way. and I think you know I guess um me and you well I particularly me but we've we've both of us in a way have been part of we're like libertarian free market types but we're a bit of we're a bit hawkish on immigration um and we're kind of certainly like I've kind of carried the banner of being the anti-open borders libertarian wing of whatever you know i did a big debate at soho forum about libertarianism against um alex uh norwasta from cato and i've been kind of talking about this for years but i think there's an even more compelling like libertarian argument if you would to be against easy citizenship um this this almost even goes beyond just the idea of like restricting the flow of people who want to come to america you're talking when you're talking about citizenship you're talking about well in effect rob we're talking about a basket of positive rights right like you're talking about a basket of things that you're owed now membership to the family the fraternity of our nation well why at all why should people be for that process being incredibly easy even down to a point where like some of the um contradictions in birthright citizenship are when i say contradictions i mean so for example the fact that you'd you'd find yourself in a situation rob where a chinese spy is pregnant and has a baby in america you're on the side now of arguing that that kid is a citizen like okay i'm using an extreme to paint a picture but still rob right like you you would literally be saying that if um one of the the 9-11 hijackers, you know, okay, well, they were men, but whatever.

10:48If they brought their pregnant fiancé with them, nine months pregnant, and they had the baby here, we should be making this kid a citizen, even though they were brought here with somebody in an act of war against our country. So you just, like, immediately you find yourself in these kind of obvious contradictions on, like, the national interest. Like, this clearly isn't in a nation's interest to do immigration this way. Um, but I mean, even more so, like, I guess, okay, there's, there's kind of two different thoughts there. But so on one hand, the, the, from the libertarian case, or from the idea of believing in national sovereignty at all, or what's best for the country, this just seems like kind of inherent madness.

11:34Like, this is crazy. This is why would you have a system set up to say that if people come come into your country illegally but they're pregnant or but they have kids in your country, their kids are automatically not only legally allowed in the country but enshrined with all of the rights that, again, just to be very clear on the libertarian side, positive rights here. so it's um it's particularly egregious also if the basis for it is an illegal action so like i can't think of too many other examples of that but if you're coming into the country illegal to illegally to birth a kid and now the kid is considered a full citizen it kind of um it kind of rewards you for the illegal activity that you did and if you just think of like in like a more smaller scale imagine me you a bunch of other people went out west in a time that you could just go out west and we founded a village and we work our asses off and we get the village working and for a period of time people can show up and work and they're contributing to the village you get the village up and running we got some wealth there and then we decide you know what no new people can come in and we agree on that rule i mean it's nonsensical that someone could sneak in birth a kid and then you would go well that kid's now considered a resident of this it just doesn't make sense and that the same legal body would make both rules that the same legal body would make the rule that you're not allowed to come and then also make the rule that if you break that rule and you get in here and have a kid you're good and and oh by the way then through chain migration in fact you might all be uh able to to stay it's like it's yes the idea that the same person is going to make both of those rules you know i it's like me as a property owner setting a rule that you're not no one else except my family is allowed to come in my house but if you do break into my house and you get into the bathroom, you win a prize.

13:29Yes, it's madness. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And just to, you know, on the point of what I was saying before, just to like spell that out for when I'm saying citizenship is positive rights, what I just mean by to maybe like caveat this on philosophical, like libertarian grounds or something like that. um i when you say that well you broke the law to come here look there might be a scenario in which i would go yeah but you're making an appeal to the law and that's not necessarily what's right and what's wrong i mean there you could there's laws of the land that are immoral and there have been you know slavery was the law of the land at one point and like horrible things So like, I wouldn't say like, I, it, the difference between like a slave, you know, running free, that might be in violation of the law, but it's also not in violation of the moral law.

14:27And it's not, you know, it's not like you don't have a right to be enslaving that person to begin with. But with immigration, it's like, well, you don't really have a right to enter a country. Like, you don't have a right, as I've been saying for years, you don't have a right to enter a piece of property that you do not own, that you were not invited onto. And so, like, it's – you have a law that, in my opinion, is consistent with what you're allowed to do, have some limit on how many people are coming here, and particularly a limit on citizenship. But when I say – so just to be clear here, in other words, no matter who's here, Rob, in our country, even if they don't have citizenship, even if they don't have like temporary residence status, if somebody's here visiting for a week from wherever, from Poland, they come here on vacation or something like that, me and you and almost all the same people, we still believe that all of their rights should be protected, negative rights, meaning, right?

15:28Like we don't believe that they can be stabbed or raped or beat up or imprisoned or something like that. It's like, no, they still have rights. They're a human being. Whether they're sick, we recognize very quickly, right, the difference between the negative rights and the positive rights. Just to be clear, when I say this is like libertarian terminology, I guess, or classical liberal terminology, negative rights meaning essentially nothing that is required from other people. So this is all the most basic rights that we think like natural rights, freedom of speech, freedom of whatever, you know, freedom of movement, not onto property that you don't own, that you're not invited onto, but freedom of movement to property that you are invited onto or that you do own or whatever.

16:08um basic human rights the right to life the right like all of these things we'd all recognize that the person from poland has all of those rights what don't they have well they can't vote in our elections you know i mean they get they don't get the extra stuff that you get from being a citizen so when we're talking about citizenship we're not talking about protecting like your your right to life or something like that we're talking about like your the the kind of extra, what libertarians wouldn't consider rights, what we would consider kind of like, I don't know, privileges or something like that.

16:41And so you're not, when you get into that, you're not talking about like whether we should be protecting people's rights. You're saying, should we be giving stuff out? Should we be rewarding other people? And in many cases for doing illegal things for doing things the wrong way and and that i i guess my point is that there's really no coherent case for that there's no coherent case for why we should be giving citizenship out to to the world and you know it does really rob i mean it gets right to the kind of art of like so what does it even mean to be an american citizen what does it mean what in what in what ways are we actually a nation moving forward?

17:29And I think that's a really profound question that we really don't have an obvious answer to right now. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Workwear. I've been telling you guys about Brunt Workwear for a while, the most comfortable pair of work boots you'll ever own. Let me tell you something crazy that they do. They let you actually wear their boots to work before deciding if you want to keep them. Real job site days, not just walking around your house. And if they're not right for you, you send them back for a full refund. That's a 100 % risk-free trial.

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18:37Use the promo code PROBLEM for$10 off. That's bruntworkwear.com, promo code PROBLEM for$10 off. All right, let's get back into the show. Well, I guess if you can sneak yourself in and try and steal from this free goods apparatus, then that's what it means to be American now is make sure that you're in the minority class, that you can group together, complain the loudest and get yourself some nice social benefits. Well, that's right. And there's, you know, when you add into that the um the racial and ethnic um kind of balkanization you know when you when you add like because because that's the reality of all this stuff like that's the effect of this policy is that we're now going to live in a country um where i mean i've it's been a little while since i've looked at these projections but i'm pretty sure if you look at it they're still projecting that by 2050, we're a minority country, a majority minority country.

19:44So in other words, meaning white people are less than 50%. Therefore, there is no like majority. So you're saying in 2050, the country will fail? No, I mean, if you really look at the way it works, Rob, it'll be a few years, you know, But no, well, look, I'm not saying there's this weird dynamic, right? And this has been going on my entire life. And then it really accelerated with wokeism. Let's say 2016 through 2022, insane wokeism. And then is now kind of exploded. And there's been a backlash. And, you know, the whole dynamics have kind of been thrown up in the air now. But essentially, right, Rob, it's a matter of government policy.

20:35It's an intentional decision made by policymakers to have the immigration system that we've had for the last 50 years. And that has transformed this country from a country that was and had always been for most of its history about the demographics in America in 1960 were about 90 percent white, 9 percent black, 1 percent other. that was america this is what america looked like and this was true for large periods of time you know in america or the demographics were somewhat like that where you had essentially the country was biracial there were two racial groups um the suit the overwhelming majority were white uh around 10 a little less than 10 were black blacks were not treated great that was a pretty big uh theme in america um we fought a war over it we then had uh 100 years later major national legislation over it uh there was it was there was a decision made to transform the country and now we're going to enter a country where we are we are truly a multi-racial uh society where it's not that there is we're not biracial there's not one majority group and one minority group and there's not there's not even just two groups and there's no clear majority there's just a ton of different groups and they're all existing under this system rob as you pointed out which essentially in effect is like a you know a big scheme to try to grab as many uh of your your fellow countrymen's resources for yourself and your own group um you know it's a fresh uh frederick bastiat had a line in the law i'll butcher this a little bit it was beautiful the way he wrote it He said, he said, the state is the great fiction by which every man attempts to live at the expense of his neighbor.

22:42And there's, you know, that that is the bigger government grows. And especially when you, you know, again, these things, what I was getting at before, when I was talking about wokeism, is that there was resistance, especially with Donald Trump running in 2016 to this. It was like kind of for the first time, this became like a major in the forefront political issue that conservatives in America, even if they wouldn't say it out loud, maybe they would say, I don't mind immigration, but I don't like illegal immigration or something like that. But it was very clear that there was a recognition of this change and a rejection of it.

23:24They don't like the fact that we're being flooded with immigration from primarily Latino countries. But regardless, there was major pushback against this. And this pushback was met with tremendous alarmism from the left, liberals and the leftists. You know, you're a Nazi. You're a Nazi if you want to build a wall. You're a Nazi if you believe in mass deportations. Oh, I got to say here, one of the fundamental problems that you've always had here, if I'm just calling it like I see it. And I've been saying this for a lot of years. And I remember, Rob, you probably do, too. But I remember the saying around 10 years ago to you and getting a lot of trouble for it at the time.

24:12Now you can kind of say it more comfortably. but there's just a difference um and this is one of the problems with the way liberals scream racism scream racist because it becomes this very very broad term that can encompass almost any minor infraction but the bottom line is that there's a major difference between like Look, the Nazis are known as the Nazis because of a genocide, right? There's a big difference between wanting to build a wall and wanting to genocide a group of people. There's a big difference between not wanting your country to change drastically, demographically, and wishing to oppress a minority of people, wishing to exploit a group of people, or in the worst case scenario, to exterminate.

25:07group of people that's just fundamentally different and to try to convince people that you're a nazi for looking at something like the demographic changes in america and going why are we doing this like why to whose benefit is this why let's just say everything works out great and it's fine like okay but why roll the dice this way you know human beings wherever you stand on on racism which generally i would think me and you would be against it broadly speaking um but wherever you stand on that you're living in a state of ignorance that is like the absolute height of naivete to not notice that tribalism and sectarianism is the way of the world it's the way that human beings think it's the way that human beings act it's the way that human beings see themselves as part of a broader group you know people identify with their group even when we're doing really stupid things that we all know are meaningless human beings like to get into a stadium of other people and divide into who roots for the red team and who roots it for the blue team and then celebrate when their team wins even when we know it's just getting a ball over a line and it doesn't mean anything.

26:31There's no real stakes here. That's just fun for us. It's the way human beings are wired. And so look, the thing about it is this, Rob. We've fundamentally in the two of our lifetimes, America has gone from being a nation to being something that I'm not sure you can call a nation anymore. And I don't know where that goes exactly but there's we don't we don't even watch the same shows or listen to the same music or go to the same movies you know we at least when at least in the 90s say whatever you will we had a lot of problems but at least we did have a common culture to some degree it it's hard to overstate how much we don't have that already in America.

27:23And it's really hard to see that coming back. So what does this mean? It's just, hey, American citizenship is for anyone who can come take it and we'll just all keep looting this thing until it collapses. Does seem like the default direction right now. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Body Brain Coffee. I love Body Brain Coffee. As I've been telling you, I've been drinking the stuff for months now. I feel great. I have a cup every single day. For those of you guys who don't know, Body Brain Coffee was the creation of the great Luis J. Gomez, hilarious comedian, dear friend of mine, the reason why I'm a podcaster, always encouraged me to start this show.

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28:40So make sure you go get yourself some. Bodybraincoffee.com. That is the website. Dave20 is the promo code that will get you 20 % off your entire order. So bodybraincoffee.com, promo code Dave20 for 20 % off your entire order. All right, let's get back on the show. Well, in my opinion, what makes someone quintessentially an American is if you want to move to this country because you want to live a better life and you want to work hard towards that better life and you want your kids to live a better life. And if that's what you're looking to do when you come here, to me, you know that's the american spirit but if you're here because we got some giant socialized system and you think it's a easier lifestyle because of all the government benefits then you're just uh you're part of the problem there and uh i also think that it's a there you go i also think it's uh and we don't have this in this country but i think that you should have a right of uh affiliation to affiliate with whoever you would like to uh which means if you have a company and you want to hire all men it's very hard to build a company you want to hire all your friends from your frat you should be allowed to do that.

29:48If you want to go live out in an area and be like, hey, these are the only people that I want to live with. You should also be allowed to do that. And I think it would be great if there was racist USA and I knew where I didn't want to go. I think that'd be great. And if all the racists could get together and feel really positive about them building their racist society and how great it would be, I think that they would be more community oriented and probably on a daily basis, nicer to their neighbors. And I think that from a spiritual standpoint, that would be better for those individuals. And I think on a country level, You know, I don't think I don't think it's fair that some people like, you know, like a certain version of America and a different one is being imposed on them because of other people that are more obsessed with socialism and multiculturalism and all this other stuff.

30:34And then on a local level, you don't have the right to I put it positively the right of positive affiliation to to decide I don't want to hire these people or I don't want to live with these people. And so I don't I just don't I just don't see that as a fair or working system. Yeah, well, that's a really great point. And I think, you know, kind of what you're what you're getting at there, because this really is the reason why that's such an important point is that this is one of the issues Americans actually really care about, you know, and for good reason, because this is their country. Like this is I mean, Rob, it's like almost every poll that I've seen.

31:16I mean, you can always find exceptions with polls, but this one is actually pretty tough to find. It's the money and immigration. This is like what through the 2024 election, through Trump's first and second year of this administration. This is what people like care about, like the the fact that everything is so damn unaffordable. than the fact that the mass migration of the last few years is something we, you know, this is an issue, like as we've talked about, super majorities of the American people agree on stricter immigration, even perhaps mass deportations. I'm not sure where the numbers on that are at the moment.

31:54But, you know, Donald Trump, obviously, and in some way, we can look at this now, right? 10 years of Donald Trump running for president, you know, or being president in 2016 to 2026. And this is where I guess perhaps, Rob Wright, like people get caught in the partisanship of politics. You know, you get caught in the left versus right, and this is my team and that's their team. And we try at least to zoom out more and kind of look at the bigger picture and criticize both sides. So I'm not saying Donald Trump gets all the blame for this, but I am just making more of like a broad comment on the system and what the system has delivered for the American people.

32:37If you really think about it, Rob, the American people have stood up and said they want immigration restrictions over the last 10 years. And over the last 10 years, now this is on Biden, not on Trump, perhaps. But what they've gotten is the biggest pouring, the biggest migration period in modern history. So it's like there is such a disconnect between what the people are very clearly saying they want and what is being delivered to them from the elites. And that is like it's it's again, I just I know I've said this before, but there is something. Look, there's nothing worse a government can do than launch a war.

33:17But there's no more profound betrayal than to replace your own people. you know like i mean this is more apparent it's more obvious when you look at an example like ireland um you know which by the way is like a people who never oppressed anyone like the irish the irish just took it like their entire existence was just them being oppressed by others um but if you you start importing you know people from somalia into ireland and i know people it's almost like americans because of political correctness and and even like the precursor of wokeism just because of our liberal we grew up in the post-war post-civil rights world that we live like when you talk like this people do still get um you know fidgety people get get uh um almost like like there's just a little bit of an allergy to having discussions like this it would be very easy for people if you if you flip to the racial situations if you went hey we're important a whole bunch of irish and scottish into haiti what does that mean for the future of haiti it'd be very easy for people to say hey you're kind of erasing a people and a culture here but when it's happening to Ireland, like that's the same thing, man.

34:37And if you just import, then Irish people just cease to exist. And that goes away in the future. Now, you could sit here and say, hey, who cares about that? And look, I'm a bit of a cosmopolitan myself. I'm from, I'm a Jew from New York City. I'm not like, you know, I don't have like strong feelings about interracial marriage or things like that if people choose to almost like kind of breed themselves out of one culture or or racial group and into another one i'm i'm i don't know people fall in love with who they fall in love with and have i'm you know mazel tov i don't know i wish everybody the best um but there is something different when you're talking about against the will of a group this being done to them you know what I'm saying like where there's no reason that the government policy has to be this the people are saying they don't want it to be this and you're making it this way anyway I I you're um you know it it just it kind of it reminds me I know I've brought this up before because I always found this to be in fact you were with me I don't remember where we were we're on the road somewhere in one of our major one of our many uh um travelings uh doing comedy shows and i was reading about this in in the hotel room but i remember talking to you about when i was reading the king crane commission and their recommendation about israel palestine and it was just so crazy to read because it's like i mean the king crane commission is uh oh i want to say it was like in 1919 maybe right i think it was before the paris peace or whatever it but it's at the end of world war one and they're going out there and there were these plans already uh i think this was like the year after well i guess the balfour declaration was in 1917 if i'm remembering correctly so it's like a couple years after the balfour declaration and um they're they're like okay look you got these plans to make a jewish state here in palestine like this is not gonna to work just go through and it's like look here's here's the facts on the ground this is not going to work man this is going to result in like a hundred years of bloodshed if you try to do this and it's crazy like looking back at it you're kind of like oh yeah well yes that's exactly what it resulted i mean i look like what are the fundamentals on the ground here okay there is an indigenous population here who are very attached to this land and they do not want to give it up And they're not Jewish.

37:10They don't want to make this a Jewish state. So how are you going to do that? Well, the only way you're going to do that is by an incredible use of force, right? You're going to need transfer of human beings out of this land. This is going to lead to conflict and blah, blah, blah. So in a similar way, you just go, so what, just looking at the facts on the ground here, you go, so you're just going to have a society that is what? Is a multiracial melting pot that will be unified in their belief in anti-racism or something like that? because that's what's going to that's what's going to unify us and this will exist under the biggest government in the history of the world the biggest welfare state warfare state that's ever been created those fundamentals don't look sound rob uh that's what i hate about this you know listen i i live in new york and i uh well the connecticut but you know i'm a comic from new york and i i hang out with everybody and if you ask me what where's the ideal location to live it's a multicultural gay whatever just everyone loves freedom and there's no socialism if that was the thing that bound us you give me a room full of uh every different shade of libertarian who wants to end the fed and wants to be left the fuck alone and wants to live in an area where there is no government that's uh bothering you i i don't care what the race gender none of that shit matters to me but you know i do kind of feel like i'm gonna go with a more uh localized an environment, but like I've worked in offices that are very, a very dude environment, what you might call like a frat house type place.

38:56And then you get women and they're like, listen, I just want, I just want to be able to work here. But that's not true because once you're in the office, we can't behave the same way. You don't want us behaving the same way. So you both want, you both want us to be there. And then you actually want it to be the environment that you like. It's not like you just wanted to step into the environment, the way it was, and that you're going to be okay with the way that it is. And, you know, I think the, the pro it's like the liberals, they want the environment of just all inclusiveness with the socialism.

39:24And they're pretending like they're not imposing that onto everybody else. And I also just, there's a great bit by John Panette. If you never heard it, he's out in France, France, he's sick of eating French food. And then he finds out that you can literally just drive to Italy from France. And it's about him eating Italian food. It's a, it's an amazing bit, but like, isn't it amazing to be able to just drive somewhere and be in an entirely different area with entirely different people like i kind of love if when you go to boston and you're hearing people talk boston that's fun you go down to texas and they're fucking texas that's fun like there's something to allowing an area to be the place that it is which includes if we all got up and moved to japan and start acting like filthy americans where apparently they got a nicer culture i've heard you can leave a wallet on a train and someone will return it to you i've never been there that might be uh japanese propaganda And I don't know, but I'm just saying I'm a loud mouth.

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40:13I can imagine if you took a hundred of me and you put in some small Japanese village, they'd be like, what the hell are these Yankees doing here? This is obnoxious and I don't like this. And they should be allowed to say that, you know? So I just think it's like it's a fake like, oh, we're just being nice. But it is an imposition on other people of what your preference is across the entire country. No, I mean, I think I think that's right. And I think that there's – look, there's an organic kind of natural ebb and flow to these things when you let the market work and you just let people make the decisions that they want to make.

40:49And these things do – they do resolve themselves in that – like Rob, it all comes down to property rights in the same way, right? It's like they own that and so they don't have to let you in and they don't have – and they can do their thing and then you can do your thing and different cultures can emerge. What ends up happening is that through this kind of fiat top down government policy approach, you end up crushing a lot of those differences. And then weirdly, in the name of like neoliberal diversity or something like that, it's like in the name of like diversity, we should make all of our differences.

41:23we should extinguish all of our differences and all be the same and they're like yeah i i completely agree with you i like i think what's cool is that you can go to france and visit france and go have a baguette and see the eiffel tower and see parisian culture or whatever you know and like and then you can go to italy and it's a whole different thing there and then you can write like I don't think all of us I don't know, like in some weird way there's like, isn't that true diversity and not, you know, all of us kind of fitting one mold that will all look exactly the same is uniformity in some way so, you know, look, the bottom line with all of this is that it's like the American people are being handed something that they really don't want it's incoherent it doesn't make any sense um and it's clearly not good for the country and yet there still seems to be no mechanism by which to uh to stop it so you know it does seem to me like this is going to have to be um you know this is going to have to be a big a big project if um any and i don't even know if conservatism is the right way to but any type of any type of force that's going to be challenging this trajectory is going to have to be fighting against.

42:52It's almost like in... I think I saw someone posted something on Twitter about it that it was like this was going to have to almost be like the pro-life movement for right-wingers now, where it's like this is your Roe versus Wade decision, and now you've got to go into the years of trying to return it. Or in the meantime, and I will say that this is a negative consequence of this policy. I've said, hey, listen, I'd be okay with, let's do a one-time amnesty for people who are in the country illegally, but your kids can never become citizens and you're not allowed any social benefits and you can either choose to take that agreement or you can leave.

43:27And I think that that would be a more practical solution. We're living in, let's say, I have to read through the Supreme Court case, what you said up front about made sense to me. I got to dig in, but But let's just say currently the law is that they're saying, OK, birthright citizenship is the way it works. They're not even necessarily saying that they agree with it morally. They're just saying that that's what the law is here. Well, now it does kind of force the hand of the government to be like, well, then we really have to kick everyone out who came in illegally before they have kids. And so, you know, you're kind of you're kind of putting the onus on Trump to do the thing you don't really want him to do.

44:03and is not as nice because the alternative is everyone that's knocking under Biden can basically have anchor babies stick around and have kids that are citizens forever. And so, you know, that is the, I guess, immediate corrective measure is escalating deportations before people are having kids. But it is kind of the nastier and, you know, less agreeable outcome. Yeah, no, it's a good point. It's a good point. It does kind of it certainly does put pressure to do something about it if it's, you know, but there's, you know, it's just I think there's and I think this is happening already, like kind of inevitably.

44:48and it's not always in the most productive ways, but there is something where the parameters around the conversation, I think a lot of the taboos have kind of been shattered. You know, like I was saying to you, I remember talking about some of this stuff like 10 years ago, and I remember trying to explain on Essie Cup Show to Essie Cup and Andy Levy. and I remember thinking that I was making a lot of sense and then looking up at their faces and both of them were just like horrified with me where I was just like I was basically trying to say and I was not as much of an immigration restrictionist then as I am now but I was just kind of trying to make the argument to them that like if somebody let somebody opposing America not being a majority white country doesn't make them a Nazi.

45:46Like, there's a difference between that. You know, there's a difference between just being like, hey, America was always a majority white country. I kind of like it staying that way. And being like, I want to exterminate this group of people. Like, there's a big gap there, no? What do you even mean? Like, you know, it just seemed like they, and I like both of them, you know, personally, But they both just, you know, I don't know. It wasn't it wasn't resonating with them. But I mean, again, I think that we're we're very trapped still today. It's getting better, but we're very trapped about this conversation, about even having honest conversations when it comes to race.

46:25It's such a like sensitive issue. But we have racial problems in America. And it seems like, dude, like essentially right now, look, the original minority group in America, whatever you're going to say about Native Americans, let's just skip that for a second. But Native Americans, I mean, there's a different relationship there between settlers who came over and colonized the place. But black people were shipped in here and enslaved in America. It's fairly well known. It's been discussed quite a bit, Rob. I don't know if you've seen. They made a documentary on it. We have slavery in this country.

47:01We don't have it anymore. To this day, we have in no meaningful way solved the problem. It's like really bad and it just doesn't come up that much. We just all kind of accept it. Like there are major, major race relations problems, major problems in the black community. I mean, dude, it's hard to describe this, Rob. The United States of America has basically our entire lives consisted of like what you would call pockets of third world countries, essentially. Like, dude, you go to Camden, you go to Newark, you go to parts of Baltimore, dude, you go to parts of the south side of Chicago. you are not in the United States of America anymore.

47:56And when I say that, I mean like, obviously not legally, you're still within the jurisdiction. I mean like you're not in the country that you fucking live in, that you grew up in. You're in a different country that is a major, major goddamn problem, dude. And where you, there's, we all know this, that there's portions of every single city in this country where we just cannot go. You can't go there. You'll get killed, dude. Are you crazy? and the kids who grow up there they're not growing up in the same world as my kids are growing up but in terms of like everything just everything every little inch of opportunity and and development and they're you know like so i remember i know i used the example with you before rob because i tell you but we used to me and jay uh we used to do gigs in philly all the time when we were young comics and we were like in our 20s and go out and do a gig in philly for like 50 bucks or whatever you know like make enough money to drive home and um we used to drive through camden at like three in the morning we're coming from philly going back to the to new york city and we would do it just for the like thrill of it it's like crazy it's crazy to drive through camden at three in the morning and i remember dude you see shit like you know when you really go into the hood you see this shit like like three-year-olds out at three in the morning with no shoes on just there there's no adult attending to him just a kid younger than my boy you know at the time this kid is just totally fucked just in every goddamn conceivable way just totally screwed i mean my god is that you know it's like even what you think by the eighth grade we're gonna to start comparing him to my boy and see where they're both at developmentally this kid's got nothing no one's even talking to him you know what i mean doesn't have shoes on his feet he's not and we just kind of don't talk about it that much man yeah i don't know government throws a lot of your taxpayer money at it it's not solving any of the problems yeah pretty much we we all kind of know in some way that we've created a situation that is not solving this it's it's a loop they're in it people are making money off of it and that's it and like so anyway i'm just making the point like we haven't solved that problem we still live in a segregated country i mean it's not segregated by law in the same way it's segregated by economics more rob this is you know we all essentially you know i remember talking about um when uh the late uh scott adams said uh that thing about how his advice was to move away from black people just don't interact with black people move away from them don't live in their neighborhoods don't you know and i remember the second i heard that being like damn that's fucking harsh like what a fucked up thing to say and then i'm like i mean i did it but don't that's what you do you do it you don't say it out loud now i'm not saying i consciously moved away from black people i'm just saying that i happen to move into a wealthy safe town and it's 99 white and that's you know that's that's really it my demonstrated preference or whatever rob is that just the most important priority to me is that my kids are in a safe area and that means i got to just be away from all those problems i talked about before now there are black people who live in my neighborhood and they're great, great people.

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52:57That's 25 % off when you use the promo code Dave at checkout at cowboyclostrum.com slash Dave. All right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, I guess the broader point I'm just making is that we have this like enormous race problem in America. We can't even begin to talk about it because even just me having this conversation, even though it's not what it was 10 years ago, is still almost like radioactive, you know? And so then, as is always the dynamic with these things, Rob, if people like us won't have this conversation, you leave it to the only people willing to have it, who are usually going to not handle it in the most mature, compassionate way.

53:37But, you know, again, the point is, we haven't solved the original race problem in america let alone to just throw in more cultures and more races and more mixes and then have this kind of like i said this very naive neoliberal assumption that like no that'll all work out well because diversity is our strength and stuff you know look around the world tribes never war with each other they just enjoy their you know diversity is their strength but you better not appropriate any other culture or whatever you know whatever dumb shit they're saying these days is uh on the point of which was uh kind of more your starting point than any point of uh white people that uh aren't nazis if they just don't want immigration um unlike you know just a more personal like i remember uh you know we used to work at lol every night and then there was a changing the guard and then i was the one white guy there in a room full of black dudes and i wouldn't advocate that those guys couldn't work that club but i can tell you was less fun hanging out there because i was kind of the odd man out and i find sometimes i get into an uber very rarely it's some old brooklyn guy and we have the best conversation for 10 minutes more often than not i get into an uber the guy doesn't speak english and i'm listening to him holler on his phone and it's kind of an awkward car ride and so i'm a little bit deprived of the nice conversation i even finally i grew up in stanford connecticut i go to my gym now I'm like the one white dude there.

55:04It's all Hispanic. I don't interact with a single person in the gym. Now I'm not advocating in any sense the way, like we got to kick all these people out of the country. I don't feel that way. I just, I'm just saying like, I am deprived of the experience of just like being around people that are, uh, you know, I guess I more organically have nice conversations with, but the idea of like, if you lived in an area and you kind of like being around who you like to be around and you want to preserve that because it's just a better experience for you than having a changing landscape or the odd man out.

55:34I mean, you can go with any demographic here. If you're a completely Dominican neighborhood and then a bunch of whites move in, you might be like, ah, shit, I can't afford to live here anymore. And all my friends had to move out. It's a different experience than what it was before. And so just the idea that, uh, someone's looking to preserve like, Hey, I kind of like who I'm affiliated with here. And I like who I'm hanging out with and looking to preserve that like that's racist. It's just kind of like tangible of the human experience yeah well i mean i think about it a lot as i was just you know using the example of of having kids um because it's uh just you know it's been a pretty big force in my life for the last uh seven and a half years or so that i got uh these kids they're they make a lot of noise you don't it's impossible to forget and they spread diseases they oh my god do you get every virus under the sun that's not but but you know they give you a lot of joy and meaning and stuff like that too uh but you know you it just like when you have little kids it's just it's made me very aware of like the childhood that I'm giving them compared to the childhood I had and and then particularly aware of just the childhoods that other kids have and you're trying I'm more animated and motivated by the idea of giving my kids a good life than anything else I That's my biggest thing.

56:51And as you do that, you also you just become aware of what it takes to do that and what's necessary. You also you're very aware of how unfair it is that your kids get that and other kids don't. But that's not enough to make me not want to give it to them. And but part of what you need to give it to them is like right away. You're like, OK, well, we got a they have to be in a really good school. They have to be in a really good neighborhood. They have to be in a really good this. And how do you keep that? Well, there's got to be barriers to entry. It's got to cost money. There's got to be other like minded parents who have, you know, means as well.

57:29And, you know, like and so you almost have to in order to protect something, you have to like create these barriers to entry. Like in order if you have a really beautiful house, you got to you can't just let anybody come party in it. You got to protect who can come in and who can't come in. and in a way that sucks in a way there's a nice you know like uh it's like lefty hippie shit rob like sometimes it sounds nice you know it's like when you listen to that um uh what's the john lennon song um what's the imagine right where it's like uh it's the lyrics of like a lefty hippie perspective but as soon as you if you just like break them down you realize he's describing hell like very quickly like like what is it it's uh the lyrics are like imagine there's no oh i got i almost got to pull these up right now rob because it's all right i gotta they're knocking on my door and i gotta pack up some gear so i'll let you john i'll finish uh all right later dudes cork.com run your mouth podcast peace cork store rob here's okay so here's the the uh the lyrics to imagine.

58:36Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us, only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Like, look, so far, you're even almost like, okay, so there's no heaven. There's no hell. Okay, that's kind of dark. But even if you are an atheist and you're kind of a... There's something kind of nihilistic about that but like okay whatever fine there's no heaven or no hell people aren't being punished right now there's no nations there's no okay um um imagine all the people living in living life in peace all right that part sounds nice um doesn't seem like human nature so much but it does sound nice uh you may say i'm a dreamer but i'm not the only one i hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one here's the next line imagine no possessions I wonder if you can no need for greed or hunger a brotherhood of man you know so anyway my point is just that it's like look sometimes these things kind of sound nice but like what would actually happen in the world if you tore down all of the structures all of everything and then said now let's just hope everyone gets along you're like oh okay but what you're describing here is that what do you mean no possessions well people need possessions what do you mean no hunger People get hungry.

1:00:01You know what they do? If they have no possessions and no food, they fucking try to kill people. They try to kill whoever's got it so they can take it from them. That's what it's a recipe for. And in a similar sense, you know, like I said, being a parent, having these little kids, you get like an expensive house, you put them in an expensive school, you put them in an expensive thing. on some level of course dude like we're all because this type of leftism is just infantile childishness of all of us have a little bit of it in us all but on some level i go i wish all the kids could get this childhood that i'm giving to my kids that sure would be nice um but then in a very practical sense i also go okay but i know that if you move to a town where there's not high property taxes where the school there's not expensive private schools where they're like if you take away all the barriers to entry i i have the burden of being an adult and knowing damn well that the result of that will not be that all of the children get my kids childhood the result will be that my kids now don't get it either right and that's just a fact it's just a fact like it's not like oh if i took if i took my kids right now and i said i'm gonna move to the to the hood in baltimore and put them in the local public school so that they get the exact same childhood as all those kids then they just get their shitty childhood i have no way of moving all of those kids from baltimore into you know what i'm saying and giving them all two parents who love them and the means to do i i don't have and so anyway the the connection to America is just, it's the same thing with that.

1:01:50If everybody's allowed into your club, then membership to your club is meaningless and valueless. It's a pretty big problem when you do that with a whole nation. All right. That's going to be our show for today. Make sure to go see Rob on the road, porch tour.com, and then come see us together. Of course, if you can, comicapesmith.com, Houston, Texas, Huntsville, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, all coming up in the next few weeks. All right. See some of you guys there. Peace.

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