Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave is joined by co-host Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein to discuss the statements in the media about a "constitutional crisis", times in the past few decades where the country had more closely a constitutional crisis, Dave's thoughts about the Libertarian Party at the moment, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Monetary Metals - https://www.monetary-metals.com/potp/YoKratom - https://yokratom.com/LUCY - https://lucy.co/ Use Code "PROBLEM" for 20% offPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!Get your tickets to Porch Tour here:https://porchtour.comFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and what is this episode about?
All right, let's start the show. Hello, hello. What is up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you today, sir? I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Smith? Ready for that debate tonight? Yep. Getting ready. I hope I'm ready because I don't have too much time.
I can't be like, I got to crack a few books at this point. I know what I know.
Another head for the mantle. That's what you need. You need someone to make prosthetic heads that you can hang over your fireplace.
Chapter 2: What debate is Dave Smith preparing for?
Well, you know, one of the things that's interesting. So for people who don't know, I'm going. After the show today, I'm headed over to Princeton University. I'm going to be debating Josh Hammer, who is the he's a senior editor at Newsweek. And I don't know too much about him. I've I read like a couple articles that he's written and I listened to two speeches that he gave.
He seems like a smart guy, like, you know, and like a worthy debate opponent. Yeah. And so, you know, we'll see. And it's one of these things. The debate is over the U.S.-Israeli relationship and whether it's positive for America or not. One of the things, by the way, for people I know, Natalie, I'd mentioned that someone had asked in the live chat, and it will be streamed.
It's going to be live on YouTube. I could find the, I'm blanking at the moment on the name of the group who's putting this on. Sorry, I probably should remember that. I'll remember them by the time I get there. I can include it in the description. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that, perfect. By the way, Natalie just said if you didn't hear off mic, she will include the link in the episode description.
But, you know, this really is my, as you've come to know over the years. By the time this airs, it'll be.
yeah that's a good point okay anyway well you know what but it'll it won't be the live stream then but it'll be up on youtube but if you've worked with me for years you know i only learn names like once i get there it's always five minutes before we get there i figure out how to say or after we say it on the podcast a whole bunch everyone gets mad at us
Yeah, but even then, I keep saying it wrong. Yes, that is a part of my process. Sure, Rob, if you want to be on. But anyway, so it's Steamboat, I believe. Am I getting that right? Yes, Steamboat Institute are the ones. They're putting on the event, and it's at Princeton University. One of the things that's weird about these debates, particularly –
Over the topic of Israel, although I don't think it's quite as unique to Israel as some might make it out to be. You know, I've over the years. And I think this is really part of how me and you have built this show up and how I've kind of built my following is that I'm just I.
Okay, obviously I'm biased when I say this, but I'm pretty consistently right about the most important thing when it really matters. So like, you know, in the same way, I was not right. You know, I don't even exactly remember. Like, I don't know if I had a strong feeling about it, but I wasn't like... The war in Iraq, I was too young to, like, know what the hell I was talking about.
And I didn't, like, have a show or anything. But just for an example of, like, the war in Iraq, everybody's against it now. You know? But, like, what really mattered is whether you were for it or not at the time. And me and you have just kind of consistently been on the right side of all this. Like, being... All of our takes... Not all of our takes.
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Chapter 3: Why does Dave Smith criticize higher education?
This guy might—I have to be prepared for the fact that, like, this guy might come at me, you know, on some, like, you're a self-hating Jew, like, whatever. You know, I just don't know enough about him. From the little I've seen of him, I don't think he will. My guess is he's going to come in and debate the issue. But you never know with that. So it's a little bit of a weird, like—
You know, it's like I'm fine with it being like a vicious fight and I'm fine with it being a battle of ideas. It's a little weird not knowing which one you're going to go into.
If he starts calling you a self-hating Jew, you should just whip it out and go, I love that I don't have foreskin. You see this college-aged woman who came out today for this debate?
That's your advice for me. All right, I will take that into consideration. And I'm re-questioning whether you're the best advisor to have, but somehow Rob is my senior advisor in life. Look at this and tell me you think I hate being Jewish. Well, it is.
I also I'm just kind of interested to see because I don't think Princeton was ever like really the the hotbed of any of the kind of protests or anything like that. Like, I don't know.
I think those kids are smart enough not to protest. Well, just like we'll go make money and not do stupid things.
Well, I mean, Columbia is a pretty prestigious school, too.
And that's where they're dumber. I don't know why, but they are.
Yeah. Are Princeton people smarter than Columbia people?
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Chapter 4: What is the alleged constitutional crisis discussed by the media?
People who are products of institutions tend to not like when somebody is not a product of an institution and rises to have more influence or has a seat at the table because they feel like, hey, this is why everyone at Cato hates me. You know what I mean? Like Cato, people don't know, is like the biggest libertarian think tank. And all of them hate me.
And you would think inherently, you'd be like, well, here's a guy who's kind of popularizing your message, maybe not exactly the same as your message, but pretty close, a lot closer than most other people. But when you've been at Cato for 15 years And you've, you know, moved up the ranks and played the game and kissed the asses and then finally got the approval.
And now you are their senior immigration studies person. Yeah, you don't like that some shit-talking comedian just gets to, you know what I mean, like lap you in this game. And so I do think with professors in general... there's just a dynamic like that.
I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen, but like Charlie Kirk does a lot of those things where he goes to college campuses and like argues with the kids. And it's, it's amazing how many times they'll bring up the fact that he does, that he dropped out of college and like think that that's like, Oh, you didn't even go to college. You didn't even graduate.
Like, they're stuck in that mentality of like, this is what matters. And then you're like, okay, fine. I mean, he didn't graduate college, but he's fucking running circles around you in this debate right now. So that's more of a comment on you than it is on him, you know? Anyway, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It should be fun. I always enjoy doing these things. Okay.
Let's get into some stuff here and then we'll – a couple things that are going on that I wanted to talk about. And then I do – I had a bit of a message for the Libertarian Party that I thought I would do at one point in the show. And then maybe we'll check in if we have time and take some questions from the chat. So the big talking point today – that's circulating around.
I haven't seen a good compilation video of this yet, but I know it's only a matter of time until Tom Elliott has a good one. But it's constitutional crisis. We are in a constitutional crisis, Rob. So I don't know how you're holding up through this crisis. You doing all right?
Well, I'm just happy that people are talking about how presidents aren't supposed to do executive orders and not supposed to have wars and Congress is supposed to allocate the budget and no one else is supposed to do that.
Oh, no, no, no, Rob. I'm sorry. You maybe didn't check the fine print. None of that is a constitutional crisis at all. Oh. Turns out that's totally cool. The crisis is that Trump might defy a judge's order. That's literally what they're all freaking out about. It is—it's just hilarious. I don't know what to say.
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Chapter 5: How has the government overstepped constitutional boundaries?
You know, I think there's a couple things. But it was, you know, I actually have to double check this one. I think the one that they were flipping out about the most had to do with a judge striking down the birthright citizen.
ship thing which does seem like it's like yeah you can't do that through executive order but at the same time it's like you know also like a president defying a court isn't actually unprecedented and is it I think the issue really comes down to the fact that like I know people will claim they love to use the term whataboutism when you say stuff like this.
God, if there is one word that I could strike from the English language, it would be whataboutism. It even overtakes antisemitism and transphobia for me as words that I would just love to not ever hear again. But... What about is I don't even know where the word came from. I hate it linguistically. I think it's a terrible word. Like, it just sounds like a teenager.
It sounds like a teenager, like pulling gum out of their mouth and twirling their hair with the other finger. I'd be like, yeah, just did a what about is, you know, but it's also just like it's like a way to dismiss words. putting anything into context or pointing out hypocrisy. You just have a magical word you could say that.
And I'm not saying like there is a scenario where like it would make sense to be like you're distracting from the issue by being like, what about this unrelated thing? You know, if I'm like, you know, Rob, like you got blackout drunk last night and came home and beat the shit out of your girlfriend, dude, like this is a real problem. And you went, yeah, well, you smoked weed last month. You did.
OK. But we're talking about this right now.
Isn't the word for that a red herring? Yes, right.
We already had a word for that. Right, right, exactly. But this is not a whataboutism where I go, look, over the last 20 years, okay, there have been, as you just alluded to, Rob, right, we've had decades-long wars that were undeclared by the Congress. If you read the Constitution, it is very clear.
One of the nice things about the Constitution, by the way, it's not that long of a book, pretty easy to read, pretty simple to kind of understand. I mean, you could argue over finer points, but it's more or less pretty easy to understand. It's not like like it's really not actually that complicated. And they're very clear. Only Congress can declare wars.
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Chapter 6: What was the response to COVID-19 lockdowns in New Jersey?
Whereas in all of your examples, they actually did take away protected rights, such as going to a synagogue. And so I think that plays into what you're saying of you didn't really care about the Constitution there.
Dude, anybody who's read the Constitution knows that. knows damn well that 90 plus percent of what the federal government does is not authorized in the Constitution. You read the Constitution and you look at it, the government that we have, in no way, shape, or form,
even resembles the government that they're laying out there, which was supposed to be, and was at one point, the most, the experiment in the most limited of governments. That was the whole idea of the thing, was to just put constant shackles on the government. The government can't do this, the government can't do that.
We're going to take the powers of a government and we're going to divide them up into three co-equal branches, which can all check each other. Then you have the 10th Amendment, which is another check on top of that. which expressly says in the Constitution that any right that is not expressly granted to the federal government falls to the states and the people.
So it's not like, oh, if we didn't mention it here, you could interpret that we also have this authority. Must be why we have a Federal Reserve. Yeah, there is no authorization for a Federal Reserve or a Department of Education or a Department of Energy or a CIA or a NSA or any of these things. It's very clear that none of this should exist if we're following the Constitution.
So the idea that we have a constitutional crisis because Trump is defying a judge's order is just ridiculous. The Constitution was shredded over 100 years ago. We do not follow the thing anymore. And, you know, we could get into who exactly is the most responsible for shredding it. And we could have a whole long debate over whether it was Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson. But it was one of those two.
But the thing is long dead. So it's just it's a ridiculous, you know, assertion. OK, are we we got to this point?
NOW, THE BILL OF RIGHTS, AS YOU WELL KNOW, PROTECTS AMERICANS' RIGHT AND SHRINES THEIR RIGHT TO PRACTICE THEIR RELIGION AS THEY SEE FIT AND TO CONGREGATE TOGETHER TO ASSEMBLE PEACEFULLY. BY WHAT AUTHORITY DID YOU NULLIFY THE BILL OF RIGHTS IN ISSUING THIS ORDER? HOW DO YOU HAVE THE POWER TO DO THAT?
THAT'S ABOVE MY PEG, RAY TUCKER. I WASN'T THINKING OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS WHEN WE DID THIS.
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