This 2017 Chevy Silverado 2500 Crew Cab Short Box is stock number 12320Z. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters. This 2017 Chevy Silverado 2500 comes with the 6.0-liter V8 engine. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. This truck is 100% ready to go. Black clear coat is the color. We're going to go inside the truck, all the way around the truck, under the hoods started up. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. If you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is definitely your best way to check out the quality, condition, and options of the truck before seeing it in person. If you like the video and want to subscribe to our YouTube channel where we do videos of our new and used inventory each and every day here at Summit Auto, in the upper right hand part of the screen is a link to subscribe to our channel. This is an LTZ with a Sport Edition. This truck comes with 20-inch fuel, painted and polished aluminum rims. They're in really nice shape. It comes with a nice set of Nitto Ridge Grappler LT275 65R20 tires. These tires have probably about 60-70% of the tread left on them. Frame and underbody is in really nice shape on this truck. Front fender is in excellent condition. I didn't see any major dents or dings on there. You get the painted bumpers with the Sport package. There's the front bumper parking sensors, no major dents or dings on that front bumper, and it comes with the factory fog lights as well. Headlight lenses are nice and clear, and you do get the chrome trimmed grille. The hood is in really nice condition as well. No major dents or dings on there, and the passenger side front fender is in excellent shape too. Passenger side rim, no major scuffs or scrapes on there, and as you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by, just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the truck. You can see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises, and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video, that you enjoyed the video, and that it helped you out, and that Brett sent you. Back rims in nice shape, and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires, maybe even a little bit more. Frame and underbody all the way underneath looks really good. You do get those Rancho shocks with the Z71 off-road suspension package. Comes with all the remaining factory exhausts. This one does have power running boards on it, and the lower rockers and cab corners look really good on this truck. I didn't see a single dent or ding on any of those doors or the box back here. Coming around to the back of the vehicle, you get the rear bumper steps, the backup parking sensors, no major dents or dings on that rear bumper, full towing package, which includes a receiver hitch, four pin, and seven pin wiring, and the tailgate is in really nice shape as well. It's come with a locking tailgate, backup camera, you get the black bow tie on there. Shocked down assist tailgate, so it's never going to slam on you. This one does have the LED bed lighting, and a spraying bed liner. Bed itself is in pretty nice shape. Just a couple little dings up at the top there, in the middle, a couple on the wheel well, but that's a truck, so it happens to use trucks, they get used. And as you go down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger's side, no dents or dings on the box, looks really good. And for full disclosure, this back rim is in excellent shape as well. Down the rest of this side of the truck, doors look really good. Didn't see one tiny little ding on the door there, we're going to get that fixed tomorrow when the dent guy comes. Built in directional signals, LED side lights. These do telescope out, and they also fold in. Inside the LTZ package gives you the black leather interior, just wanted to show you that those are AMP research running boards, and they work really good. LTZ package gives you the black leather interior, there are no rips, there are no tears on those seats, they are in excellent shape. Both of these front seats are heated and cooled, it comes with a very nice set of weather tech all-weather floor mats, auto headlamps, turned off four-wheel drive factory brake controller, tilt telescopic steering wheel, power windows, power locks, power mirrors, memory driver's seat, and those mirrors do power fold in. I always like showing both sides, so you can see that both sides are working properly. We'll hop inside, turn the ignition on, check out the miles, the radio, and everything that the interior has to offer on this truck. You can see that this one has 52,438 miles, I'll dim it down here a little bit. Digital speedometer, compass display, you do get that Z71 off-road display on there, or instrument cluster I should say. Instrument cluster is very nice and clean, comes with the heated leather wrap steering wheel, Bluetooth and information center controls on the right, cruise controls on the left, forward collision warning controls, and heated steering wheel on the left as well. Six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift, this one comes with the Chevy MyLink radio, does have AM, FM, and Sirius XM radio capabilities, and it also comes with the factory navigation system on it.  Also a projection manager where you can project your cell phone to the screen via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, so if you don't like the nav system on here, project your phone with a different nav system and use that nav system such as Waze or Google Maps, pretty cool system. Or you can just play music and stuff through it.  You do get two USBs, two 12-volt power points, and then a 110-volt, 150-watt plug-in as well.  The headliner is in great condition as well. Up here you do get your map lights, this has the snowplow prep package, that button right there indicates that, and you get SOS and on-star capabilities in the rear of your mirror. Last but not least, you do get the wireless cell phone charge pad there, which is a nice feature, and of course it does have the Bose sound system.  Once again, take note of how nice those seats are. They do fold up, four extra storage, and you get those all-weather techs back here as well. Side curtain airbags on this truck too, and the bottoms of the doors all look really good on this vehicle. We'll start it up, take a quick look under the hood. Starts right up, no check engine lights or anything like that, and see those LED lights in the bed there. Those go on with the cargo lamps, as do these LED side lights on the mirrors. They are ultra bright. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today, and hopefully from this HD video, you'll have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck inside and out. Under the hood, we have the 6-liter V8 engine. Engine base very clean, runs very smooth. Once again, this truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and tapped off. Truck has been gone through mechanically 100%, and is 100% ready to go. I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint, and to see more pictures of this truck, or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, half-tons, three-quarter-tons, one-tons, you name it, we've got to go to that website right there, www.summitauto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summonauto.com, and if you'd like to check out more HD videos, you can go to www.youtube.com, slash www.summitauto.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. Click the bell notifications, you'll get updates on the videos we do each and every day here at Summit Auto. In fact, in a second, we'll see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on the upper left. Link to more Chevy Silverado 2500 truck videos like this one on the upper right. Link to this vehicle on our website on the lower left, and link to one of our latest YouTube videos on the lower right. Click those, check us out, and we're super excited to have this super clean 2017 Chevy Silverado 2500 crew cab short box LTZ Sport Edition Z71 in black clear coat. Thanks again for checking out the video. Remember to like, subscribe, and share.


Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, we are guided by this and we were not guided by the laws of Allah's guidance And may Allah be pleased with our Master, our Master, our Master, our Muhammad and our family and his companions May the Lord explain to me my patience and the secret of my one and only matter from the second to the first Respected brothers and sisters, we begin by praising Allah, as He is most worthy and deserving of all praise We ask Allah and we ask Allah alone to guide us, to prevent us from being misguided and from misguiding others We ask Allah to bless His Noble Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah We ask Allah to bless His noble companions, His family and the righteous everywhere And finally we ask Allah to forgive us of our shortcomings and our weaknesses individually and collectively And we ask Allah to forgive us of our sins, those that we commit knowingly, unknowingly, consciously and unconsciously The last time I was here, respected brothers and sisters, I was speaking about the inner dimensions of the salah, of the worship of the prayer And due to the time we were unable to finish or to continue that conversation and that discussion And so inshallah my intention today is to conclude by discussing the virtues of the prayer itself Now when we talk about the prayer, and I'm speaking specifically about the ritual prayer or the salah Something as intimate of a relationship as that prayer affords us with our Lord, with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Something that is so profound and so meaningful, something that in fact the Prophet subhanahu wa ta'ala said Reminds us will be the first action and deeds that we are called into account for as the prayer And if that is sound and secure, then the rest of our recording or our accountability will follow suit in that regard And so the prayer is paramount, it is in fact one of the sort of determining factors between imam and kufr Between belief and disbelief is the observation of the salah That one cannot imagine that something that is so central and integral to the faith such as the salah Would not have in it and through it virtues and lessons and characteristics that we can attain That would have profound implications, implications that are found not only in the actual prayer itself And by that I mean what is recited and how we observe the prayer But also in the very form of the prayer itself That the very form of the prayer is not by accident, it is not by super, it is not superfluous It's not just incidental, but rather it is essential to the prayer As the Prophet again subhanahu wa ta'ala said and reminded us to pray That pray as you have seen me pray And so that is an observation and a reflection on the actual form of the prayer itself And so the last time we were able to examine and look at the prerequisites and intervals of that Of the prerequisites and the requirements before we even engage in the prayer And we talked about the wudu and we talked about the direction of the qidda And the importance and the value that that has beyond just observing the wudu or carrying out the wudu And the implications that has to the purification of that lies, of that which lies internally That which lies in us and the same applies for qidda and having a direction and intentionality and purpose in life And so if we can move from that to the form of the prayer itself, to the actual prayer We can reflect on the fact that one of the first observing acts or integral components of the prayer Is again that niyah, in the madama yubin niyah as the oft-repeated hadith informs us That indeed actions are but by their intentions That intentionality, having purpose, having drive, having a reason for why we do things Rather than just doing things haphazardly or without observing its intention Is the lesson here, and that intention whether it's verbal or something that we recite in our hearts Is an integral component of the salah But that should inform us of the purpose and the importance of having again intentionality and purpose and drive For the reasons and purpose for why we do the things that we do Rather than just engaging in ritual or engaging in the various aspects of our life Without any drive, without any intention, without any purpose And so we must be conscious of and be mindful of the fact that that niyah that we compose during our prayer Has consequences that go beyond just the prayer itself Not that that is a light or trivial matter But that having intention and niyah in all aspects of our lives Beyond just the prayer, but having intention and purpose in all aspects of our lives And this could have utilitarian benefit as well That is to say benefit that you see on a daily basis Imagine if you woke up and whatever rituals you engage in in the morning By ritual I don't mean religious ritual But rather just whatever you do, you brush your teeth, you take a shower You get dressed and you leave, you eat breakfast, you have coffee Whatever the ritual, the mundane aspects, so-called mundane aspects of your life If we pause for a moment and are more mindful of having intention and niyah and purpose By which we eat, by which we dress, by which we comport ourselves Before we leave to work or whatever endeavors that we wish to pursue Not to mention the very endeavors and work that we pursue throughout the day If we do those things with niyah, with intention, with intentionality and purpose That is one of the characteristics of a successful person Of people who are successful in that they are mindful of why they're doing the things that they're doing Rather than just engaging in those things, you know, just engaging in the motions Just going through the motions rather than reflecting on the purposes for why they do what they do And so niyah and intention and intentionality in all that we do is something that is of consequence and importance And something that the salah and the prayer is reminding us daily And many times and several times throughout the day And then the very first act that we do that actually engages us in the prayer itself The raising of the hands, the raising of the hands This is a universal symbol across cultures, across the world This is a universal symbol of what? Of surrender, right? The child is, you know, holding your hands up, right? Hands up, you surrender, you're submitting to something That is a universal gesture of our submission and surrender And what is greater than surrendering and submitting ourselves to the Lord and Cherisher of the worlds? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And so that idea, that very, that is the overarching The overarching lesson of the prayer is that we are submitting and surrendering ourselves to a greater power To a higher power, to a greater purpose, to a higher purpose And that is Allah and the pleasure of Allah And so, but surrendering and submitting ourselves Not only when it comes to the ritual of the prayer itself As the Qur'an reminds us It begins, the verse begins Say that indeed my prayer, my sacrifice, my service, my living and my dying are for you O Allah, the Lord of the universe is for Allah, it is for Allah, it is for God And so, not only in terms of our prayer, but all of our endeavors should be mindful of And we should be mindful of surrendering and submitting to the will of God through all aspects of our daily lives In how we work, in how we live, in how we engage with our family members With our community members, with our brothers and sisters in this fraternity of our ummah And also, how we engage in society Having that concept of that we are doing this for the sake and the pleasure of Allah That is what we are submitting ourselves to And so, surrender and submission begins this very prayer And then, and this is not going to go in any particular order necessarily We know that one of the integral components of the prayer is the recital of Surat al-Fatiha And a few other verses of the Qur'an The reminder that the recitation and the reflection of the Qur'an Moistening our tongues with the remembrance of God And the remembrance of His Word, of His Book Is something that transcends beyond, again, just the prayer That we are reminded constantly to be connected And to have a relationship with the Book of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala And that that relationship should be infused in our lives The relationship with Allah in His Word should be infused in our lives That the Qur'an is not just something that we place upon the loftiest of shelves Or the highest place in our house, gathering dust But rather, the Qur'an is something, is a living, breathing document And a living, breathing text by which we live our lives By which we are constantly connected with That constant connection with the Book of Allah The constant reminder that we should be moistening our tongues With the remembrance of God And the remembrance of His Word, of His Book This is what the salah is teaching us Is to be mindful of being connected Being wired, if you will Just speaking in Silicon Valley parlance To be connected, to be wired, hot wired To the word of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala And if your connection is loose You'll find that aspects of your life are missing You're not downloading anything Because you're not connected You're not downloading any inspiration Any aspiration, anything from God Because you're not connected You're not hard wired You're not downloading what you need to be downloading Because that is what the Qur'an is doing us Is affording us a constant connection To Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala And so the recital of the Qur'an In the prayer is a reminder of us to be connected To the words of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala And so to begin concluding The perhaps the most crucial Or one of the most beautiful aspects I should say Of the prayer is the prostration Which is the symbol of the prayer The symbol of the prayer Is a place of sujud Is a place of prostration It is where we prostrate And we know that according as the messenger of Allah Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam told us That one of his miraculous things Was that the entire world was made A place of prostration A place where we can engage in the prayer But that act of prostration itself The most intimate act Of obedience and subservience To Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala In the words of the poet Iqbal from the subcontinent This is a prostration that you think is so difficult For a man to prostrate himself That this one prostration That you think is so taxing So difficult on your life Something that you struggle with Don't you know that it prevents you From a thousand sujud Because once you have submitted To the Lord and the creator of the universe To Allah How can you surrender or submit to anything else How can we submit to any other power La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah There is no power or might That is greater than Allah There is nothing greater than Allah Certainly not our base desires And passions When we submit to our nefs When we submit to those Lower animal drives and instincts Whether it's for hunger or thirst Or sexual satisfaction When we find illicit needs By which we satisfy those needs Satisfy those very real needs How are we... That doesn't comport There's some dissonance here How can you surrender to Allah The greatest of all powers The greatest of all things And then surrender to something As base and lowly As our desires As our passions As our ego But the very physical act of the prayer Of the sajda itself Brothers and sisters This one sajda Imagine that Right here Our frontal lobe, our brain Whatever you want to call it This contains our ego Our sense of worth Our sense of who we are I'm this My resume looks like this I have these initials after my name I'm somebody I'm someone unique I'm someone great And should be measured accordingly All of that ego All of what we comport ourselves to be Right here in our brains What do we do with it? A minimum of five times a day We literally put it into the dust Into the dirt where it belongs That ego Feelings of who you are What makes you different What makes you better Than someone else Because of who you think you are Or what skills or knowledge That you've accumulated That somehow makes you better Than someone else That sense of ego And having a sense of self-worth Is not something that's Necessarily problematic You should value yourself Allah has made you human beings And we are a beautiful Creation of Allah So it's not to devalue that But the ego That which makes us think Or better than someone else How much we have in our bank account Or what car we drove in This afternoon Those things That sense of ego and pride And arrogance Right here And we put it into the dirt And we submit it to Allah Because that's where Those things belong That's where we belong And indeed Even that sense of self-worth Is meaningless When it comes to How we feel And how we should Be subjugating ourselves To Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And finally by conclusion Brothers and sisters By way of conclusion Is the communal prayer The congregational prayer Something that InshaAllah We will be engaging in shortly This is a beautiful reminder Not only of the sense of community That affords us That coming together Of all of us Look around The realities And languages And creeds And social status Right here represented In our midst And we will join together And line up Row by row Shoulder to shoulder Feet to feet You know Feet adjourning each other And we line up straight Before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala No distinction Right between Who is rich And who is not And who has the knowledge And who doesn't But we line up In a single file And we submit And we surrender ourselves To the Lord And Cherisher of the universe But the congregational prayer Is not only a reminder Of the beauty of our community But it also informs us A lesson in leadership Right Fortunately or unfortunately I will be leading this prayer Very shortly And I am the Imam Of this particular prayer And the communal prayer The congregational prayer Informs and teaches us A lesson of leadership And how we should Obey leadership Unless leadership Is doing something wrong Or incorrect And even if leadership Is doing something wrong Or incorrect There is a procedure There is a process to follow By which we correct Our leadership Right If I were to make A mistake in the prayer Shortly You will correct me If I mess up in the recital You will remind me If I forget a verse of the Qur'an That I'm reciting You will remind me If I make a ruku When I'm not supposed to Or when I stand up When I'm not supposed to Insha'Allah You will remind me You will correct me But you don't correct me By following By forming your own Jama'a Or mess with it Or mentalist somewhere But there is a process And a procedure To correct our leadership To correct our leaders And beautifully enough It's by glorifying God SubhanAllah Alhamdulillah To correct Allahu Akbar To correct a mistake And if all the men Are asleep The ladies The sisters Have a way That they can correct Our leadership An equal opportunity To correct leadership To rectify the course of action That a leader has taken But again There is a process There is a procedure By which we do that It doesn't require us To be disagreeable Disagreeable with one another To form different groups And offerings But rather We work together For a common cause And if there are mistakes That are made By our leadership By our leadership And indeed There will be mistakes Made by our leadership Because our leaders Are only human And so those mistakes Will be made But the question is How do we engage In a process by which We not only hold That leader accountable But what process And mechanisms Have we created In our communities By which leadership Can be corrected And yet still maintained That leadership Can be corrected But still followed And so that Is the beauty Brothers and sisters Among many Of the virtues And aspects Of the communal prayer And insha'Allah At-ta'ala Of the prayer itself And so I hope That we can begin To realize And reflect On the profundity Of these rituals These things that We almost go In autopilot mode And engage it But rather We should be reflective Of and be mindful Of the beautiful And profound lessons That these rituals have In our lives Not only with regards to The form Or the ritual itself But rather that something That transcends And should be infused In the way in which We live our lives I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say I say wa taqublahi ladhi tasa'aluna bihi wa l-ar-Raham innallaha kana aleykum rakiba yaihi wa ladzina aaminu taqublahi wa kulu qawnaan salida yuslahlakum amalakum wa yaghfirulakum hrubakum wa main yutiyu Allahu wa Rasulahu faqad faza qawzan hazima innallaha wa malaaika tuf yusalluna aalun nabi yaihi wa ladzina aaminu sallu aleyhi wa sallim al-dusseema Allahumma salli ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala aali Sayyidina Muhammad mubarak wa sallam Rabbana laat wa khidna innasina wa wakthana Rabbana wa la tahmel aleyla israan kama amadak wa laladina min al-habilina Rabbana wa laat wa hamilna ma laat wa khatlana biwafru anna wadhu fi lana wa rahamna anta maulana faan surna aalil qawmi al-kiafilin yaa biqalib al-khulub thabit khulub al-aladinik Allahumma inna mas'aluka bihdaka wa l-jannah wa n'awudu bikka min safitika wa l-naab Rabbana aatina fi dunya hasna wa fi l-akhliya hasna wa khilaa adab al-naal Subhana rabbika rabbi hizati yama yasifoon wa salamun abdu l-mursaleen walhamdu lillahi rabbil al-alameen wa hafinu s-salam


Welcome to a discussion of radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, laissez-faire capitalism, and individual rights. The Yaron Brook Show starts now. Hi everybody, hope you're having a great weekend and welcome to Yaron Brook Show on this beautiful Saturday. So I've kind of had a rough week. Some of you watching the video might notice, you know, those of you listening might see a little bit of lower level of energy. I had surgery on Tuesday, scheduled surgeries, I wasn't a surprise, but had back surgery. So I had a massive bulging disc for those of you who know a little bit about backs between L3 and L4. L3 and L4 are the vertebrates at the lower part of the back. So I did that surgery on Wednesday. I am a little low energy. Today still kind of recovering. I've got my brace on. I'm trying to stand, which the doctor recommends standing as much as possible and walking around, which is kind of surprising because you know you kind of just had surgery. You'd expect the doctor to say, just lie down, don't move, lie flat. But that's not the deal anymore. Today doctors encourage you to move and to be engaged and to get the muscles going. Although I am wearing the brace. You know, I don't know how much you want to get into my personal history, but there are some interesting aspects of this. This is my third back surgery in the last 38 years, 40 years. And you know, the changes are pretty dramatic. The first back surgery I ever had was when I was in the Israeli army. Many of you know I served in the Israeli army between the ages of 18 to 21. First I was in the tank corps and later on in military intelligence and really the reason I shifted from the tank corps to military intelligence was really because I had back surgery kind of nine months into my service. Actually, while I was attending tank commander school, I was destined to be a tank commander. Who knows what would have happened after that. I had two massively ruptured discs while I was in the military. I went home on vacations just before tank commander school and the doctors all said you have to lie down for a month and you have to now move and possibly so doing.  There's no way I'm skipping that. And I went right back and within like two days I realized what a massive mistake I had made. I was in unbelievable pain. I don't think I've ever been in such pain in my life and I was losing feeling in my leg. And of course the military doctors had no clue and ultimately it took about a week. I got back home and landed up in the hospital and landed up on the surgeon knife. And in those days when they did back surgery, they would literally rip you open.  So I've got this long scar down the back. I had two ruptured discs. There were no MRIs. There were no CAT scans. So to a large extent the doctor had to rip you open and go and look to figure out what was going on there. And two ruptured discs, L4L5, L5S1, so the two lowest discs in the back in the lumbar area. So they had a cut to a bone and it took months to recover. It was major, major surgery. I was in the hospital. I could barely walk afterwards and they didn't encourage you in those days. They didn't encourage you to walk. They wanted you flat on your back. They wanted you lying down for a few days. And then you started walking. And remember when I first started walking, I couldn't feel my legs. Both my legs were numb. So the legs bounced because you couldn't feel that you were touching the ground. But the leg knew it was touching the ground. So it bounced up and you kind of didn't have complete control after this. So yes, two ruptured discs, no feeling down my left leg, pretty brutal, massive surgery and all of that. Not just bulging discs, sorry ruptured discs, they were ruptured. So since that was when I was 19 and because of that I lined up in military intelligence, which is probably a good thing. I think I enjoyed my time in military intelligence more than I would have in the tank hall. And who knows? If I stayed in the tank hall, who knows? I would have been in Lebanon in 1982 and who knows how that would have gone. But since then, on and off over the years had lots of back problems, lots of back trouble. Had doctors tell me I needed surgery, pain would go away, sometimes it would come back. Kind of on and off back problems, what now for 38 years. About six, seven years ago it got really bad, really nasty, tried everything and couldn't really take it. The pain was just too much. Those of you who watched some of my older videos, I know those of you who knew me could tell that when I was doing talks and debate you could see that I was in real pain. And also just MRIs, you could get MRIs and CAT scans and everything. And you could see that there was just nothing there. There was no disc there. It was bone on bone in the back. I mean, L4L5 was completely gone. I think I had eight second opinions. I think I want to see eight different neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons to see what they suggested in terms of best treatment for my back. And the conclusion everybody came to was I needed to fuse L4L5. So when they fuse it, they actually put in a whole infrastructure of titanium screws and rods and stuff. And then they take, I hope this is interesting for you guys, but I think it's pretty cool. They take some bone marrow and they stick it in between the vertebra that are separated by these rods and these screws and everything. And they encourage you to basically grow bone. So what you get is you get the disc separated by this infrastructure. And then in between the two disc, the two vertebra, you get bone growth. So basically you convert two vertebra into one bigger vertebra. It reduces your ability to move a little bit, your ability to bend and so on. It creates all kinds of instability elsewhere in the back. But it takes away the pain, which, you know, so I did that and did pretty well for six years giving that. Now what was amazing was that this entire surgery with screws and infrastructure and, you know, the fusion and getting in was basically two holes.  It was all done arthroscopically, no major cutting you open, no ripping muscles, no ripping massive quantities of tissues, but really, really, you know, amazing technology of just going in there delicately and putting in screws and putting in infrastructure, but without ripping it all open and doing all the stuff. And the technology is truly amazing. This arthroscopic way of doing surgery, the new robotics that they have that allows you to do some of this. Wow, I mean, it's pretty amazing. So I have that fused six years ago and then about two years ago started having pain again. And over the last two years have done all kinds of therapy and all kinds of stuff and nothing's worked. And basically the disc above where I got fused has now ruptured and I went there, they went in and they try to fix the rupture. They try to take out the stuff that was sticking out and pressing on the nerve and then they injected into the space left behind from the disc. They injected some stem cells with the idea that the stem cells would either grow into disc or into scar tissue or whatever, but help separate the two vertebrae. My doctors, how should I put it? This treatment was my preference, not theirs. They wanted to do another, what do you call it, fusion. They still think I think this won't work and that we'll have to have fusion surgery in a matter of months, if not years. But we did it. I think the initial response from the doctor was that he basically couldn't save any disc. It was so badly ruptured that the disc basically fell apart when he went in there and there was no disc to save. And he's hoping that the stem cells and the scar tissue and the rest will keep the separation of the... Anyway, the bottom line is it kind of sucks because I don't think I'm done with this. I think that this is like the rest of my life. This is ongoing back problems, surgery, problems, surgery, problems.  I'll be very straight. I'll be good looking because I'll be very, very straight. Won't be able to bend, twist anything like that. So long-term prognosis, not good.  We're going to enjoy whatever movement I have for as long as I have it. And when I get better, I think in two, three months, I'm going to start a routine of yoga and maybe pilates and maybe some other stuff. It's not like I'm not in good shape and don't have strong muscles. But anyway, we're going to do yoga, pilates and all this other stuff in my new undisclosed location, which I will tell you about in January. All right, that was not relevant to anything except bringing you up to speed to where I am and maybe explaining a little bit why I might be a little low on energy today and not quite up to the usual yelling and getting all emotional with you guys. Thanks for being patient with me. Thanks for listening. Thanks for following us here on The Blaze. I hope you keep doing it. I hope you keep engaged. I like the fact that we've got a lot of live listeners now on The Blaze, both on TheBlazeRadio.com. We've also got a bunch of people listening live on Facebook and on YouTube. You've got many options. If for some reason you want just sound, TheBlaze.com. If you want video, you can either go to YouTube or to Facebook to my page on either one of those and you can get the live video. I don't know, the live video is not that exciting.  Alright, so we've got conflicting advice on YouTube. Some say do yoga. Some say don't do yoga. It's really, really bad. Oh, and there was a question about artificial discs. Let me just take this and then we'll take a break. Yeah, I mean, the real hope is to get an artificial disc. But there's no artificial disc yet that is strong enough to work in the lumber region of the back and this just gives you a sense of how well designed biologically our backs are. How strong the infrastructure that holds us together is biologically that there is no known artificial disc that can be manufactured that can replace the existing discs that are in our backs and all attempts have failed to do it. Now for the neck, it works because the amount of pressure, the amount of torque, the amount that the neck bears is far, far lower than what it is in the lumber region. So you can get artificial discs for the neck. You still cannot really get well functioning, proven technology, artificial discs for the lower back. One of my hopes is to delay, delay, delay, delay the kind of diffusion until such an artificial disc exists. But whether that is possible in the near future is hard to tell. It's an evolving technology, but it just gives you a sense of how amazing the human body is in terms of its infrastructure. Alright, we're going to take a break. We'll come back. I want to talk about taxes. Everybody's talking about taxes. The Senate actually did something. Republicans actually passed something. It's a momentous event. The fact that they passed something, we'll talk about whether there's something, how worthwhile it is, a lot of different things to talk about taxes. We'll get to that after a short break. You are listening to your run book show on the Blaze Radio Network and we'll be right back. You're clear. The media contributor. This is the Iran book show. The Blaze Radio Network. The book show on the Blaze Radio Network. So, not to talk about the tax bill. A lot of different angles here. The tax bill is very illustrative of Washington, DC, of the state of politics in America today. Although, you know, the state of politics in America over the last 50 years. I don't think it's that different than the way things have been going for the last 50 years. Although the Republicans have obviously deteriorated in their approach to this and Democrats are worse. They're not a single Democrat voted for this. So things are worse, but the principles kind of are all the same. What I want to do is I want to start somewhere differently. I want to start where really nobody out there really starts and that's it. That is with a question of, in a sense, you know, this sounds like a bizarre question, but I guess you have to ask it. Why are we taxing? Why do we need taxes?  Because we need to fund the government. Okay, but what in the government should we fund? So the real question I think we need to start with is what is the proper role of government? What should the government actually be doing? What are the appropriate proper functions of government based on our funding documents and based on morality, if you will, based on, you know, common sense, based on what makes sense. What is the appropriate, logical, rights-respecting role for government? And then once we can clarify what the role for government is, then we can think about, okay, what's an ideal tax structure? And then we can say, are we, is this bill moving us in that direction or isn't it moving in that direction? Is this bill rights-respecting or rights-violating? So let's start with the role of government as I see it, as Ayn Rand saw it. And I think to a large extent as the funding fathers saw it, although I don't think the funding fathers were completely 100% consistent about this. I think the founders understood that the fundamental role of government was the protection of individual rights. They weren't as explicit about that as I would like. They didn't articulate that case as strongly as I think maybe they should have. But I think it comes across, both in the Declaration of Independence, where, you know, governments are instituting among men to do what? To protect their neoliberal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now, what does that mean? It means that governments are instituting among men to protect our freedoms. In other words, to protect us from coercion, to protect us from those who would steal from us, from those who would cheat us, from those who would murder us, from those who would invade our territory, take our homes and, you know, commit terrorist activities against us. It's to protect our freedoms, to pursue our life, to live our lives in the pursuit of the rational values necessary for attaining our own individual success. So the fundamental role of government is articulated in the Declaration and then, as elaborated on in the Bill of Rights, is to protect the individual's ability to live his life free of coercion. And then we construct a government that is as small and as powerless as possible that can still do that job. That can still do that job. I mean, gridlock is the essential characteristic of the American government. The American government is constructed in a way as so very little get done. You have two houses that in a sense can veto each other. You have a president who can veto if the both houses get together to do something. You have a president who can't do much without the consent of two houses of parliament. And then if all three of them agree on something that is rights violating, you have a Supreme Court or a federal court system that can veto that. So you have got built into the American system of government, maximum protections for the individual against government. Protect them from government getting too intrusive, too big, too rights violating, too engaged in our lives. And to try by doing that, to constrain government, to doing the one job, the one role, the one function that it has, which is to protect us. To protect our ability to speak, to act, to pursue a happiness in ways that we believe will lead to a successful life. We might be wrong, but what it's trying to protect is our ability to think and to engage in action based on our thinking. Without government intervention, without intervention of other people, without people sticking guns to our foreheads and forcing us to act in ways we do not believe is appropriate. That is the whole point of the American government. And again, the founders created a system that tried to make it weak, weak, because government is not that important in any other realm of our life except this one realm, which is forced. My name is Cynthia Haynes and I'm a senior public safety specialist for PG&E. My job is to help educate our first responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. Every day when we go to work, we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. I live right here in Auburn. I absolutely love this. Sorry about that. My mistake. That was not the blaze. That was me. Anyway, we created this very limited government and we try to protect individuals as much as we could. And the sole reason to raise revenue is to produce revenue was to fund this very limited set of activities. Military, and remember in the original founding, there was no standing army. So it was a very limited military. Police and a judiciary to arbitrate disputes. That was it. That was the purpose, right? That was the purpose. And yet, you know, we have come a long, long way from that government. Because imagine a government like that. A government like that would require minimal revenues. It would require very little money. Defense department, the FBI and the various functions that protect us from criminals at the local and state level. Police force and a judiciary system. If that's all we had to fund, it would be relatively easy to come up with a tax bill, a tax plan that made sense. But no, our government is far, far, far exceeds its initial mandate, its initial mission. It has grown beyond anything the founders could have done. Alright, so we talked a little bit. We're talking taxes, but to frame the discussion about taxes, I thought it was important to talk about the role of government. And for me, the role of government is one. The protection of individual rights, the protection of a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is what the American government was constituted for. That's what every government in the world should be constituted for. That is the only appropriate role for government. The protection of the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. It's not what we got. What we got today is a lot more than that. Because if that's all we had, then if you go back to, I don't know, the 19th century, then federal government was max, I think something like 3.5 to 4% in non-war years of GDP. And the state governments were maybe another 5%. Everything was less than 10% of GDP. All government, local, federal, state, city, the whole thing was far less than 10%. Today we're looking at 36%. 36% of, I guess, GDP is government spending. I mean, that is completely perverse and completely distorted. And so imagine if we could shrink spending back to those levels, which means at the federal level we shrink it by, I don't know, 70 to 80%. And then, you know, maybe we discussed how to raise taxes for that. Well, that would be relatively easy. Instead of raising the kind of gazillions of dollars we raised today, we would suddenly be able to raise, you know, talk about raising some relatively minor amount of taxes for function, for government function that we all, you know, that we all value police, military, judiciary. And I think the whole discussion around taxes would be relatively easy. Now, I believe that ultimately in a completely free society when government is completely shrunk to its real, to its limited, to its appropriate size, then there's a variety of different fees, fee for use that the government can charge, for example, in contracts on other things, patents and other things like that. And whatever's left would be bridged by, you know, voluntary taxes or voluntary revenue. I really don't think it's an issue to raise revenue for a government that is doing the job that it's supposed to do. I think that's easy. The problem is, how do you raise taxes to fund a government that is out of control, that is at 40% of GDP, almost 40%, 36% of GDP, and at the federal level is over 20% of GDP, that is massive. And I don't know if you in GDP is the right number to measure it by, but it's trillions of dollars. How does a government like that raise money?   The assumption is that the money you make, it belongs to society. It's society's money. It's America's money. It's everybody else's money. And then the government decides how much you get to keep. So many politicians talk like this. They get to decide how much you get to keep. Oh, you're going to get to keep more or you're going to get to keep less. No, no.   That's the fundamental decision that they're engaged in when they decide on a particular tax scheme. And it would be nice if they talked like that. And don't okay. So don't say steal. Don't say steal. But how much of my money they're going to take? That would be better. But the assumption is that the assumption is behind the entire tax debate is that the money you have is really society's money. The money you have is really belongs to your economy. The US economy, the US government, the society needs to spend X amount on welfare and Y amount on subsidies and Z amount on a million other different things. And then it's just a matter of how much of your money they allow you to keep because they are busy spending your money for society's well-being. See my approach, I mean man's approach to the role of government, to taxes, to government spending is an individualistic approach. Your money is yours. My money is mine. It's not societies. It's not the governments. It's not Americas. You don't have a claim against my money. You don't get to take it. And then it's a question of, you know, certain functions of government have to be funded. I get that? I get that? So, you know, okay, let's fund those that are truly crucial for me to live my life as an individual. That's not where we are today. We over the last 150, 60 years have grown government just in ways that the founders would have not believed. From, you know, dozens of regulatory agencies, man by hundreds and sometimes tens of thousands of people, some of them completely unaccountable to either Congress or the president like this consumer protection bureau. Others that just have massive power. I don't know. Tens of thousands of people who work for the Department of Education. When, you know, that doesn't, that's just at the federal level is what is the federal government got to do with education is in most education local and at the state level and yet they still have enough money. And they still manage to convince themselves and everybody else that tens of thousands of people should work at the federal level and at part of education and your money goes to and then to all these regulatory agencies, massive amounts of people, massive amounts of regulations. And that does two things. One, it's a waste of your money. It's your money being used not to protect you, but to control you to regulate you to constrain your freedom and to constrain the freedom of the most productive people in our society, businesses, entrepreneurs, and therefore to limit the opportunities. The rest of us have for jobs and wealth and products and lower standard of living dramatically. See, as a government, not only not protecting our rights, but violating our rights on a massive scale using our own money to violate our own rights and to constrain us as individuals. It just boggles the mind how we just let it happen. We don't care. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. And yeah, people people are celebrating because because Donald Trump is is, you know, reducing regulations a little bit at the margin. And that's true. And that's good in some agencies, not in others, but in some agencies. And that's good. Good that the people he's appointed are doing a good job reducing regulation, but that's a temporary solution. That's not a long term solution. Long term, the laws that were passed that make these regulations necessary because it's a law have to be repealed, have to be rolled back.  You've done nothing. So from from before FDR from from the 1890s, the antitrust laws to the regulatory agencies established to regulate railroads to the FCC, which FTC, which was to regulate commerce, which was established in 1914. 1914 was an awful year. Federal Reserve income tax and FTC.  Yeah. And of course, the election of maybe one of the worst presidents in American history, Woodrow Wilson, it's just the government has grown. It's just a scope that I find discussion of taxes kind of boring. Let's talk about reducing the scope of government. Let's get back to even a semi limited government. But what we have today is we've gone from the founding vision of a government limited to the protection of individual rights to full blown majoritarian democracy where the government can do whatever it wants to whomever it wants almost with an unlimited power. It can violate our rights left and right. We are not protected by the courts. We're not protected by the executive branch. We're not protected by the fact that the legislature is split. You know, everybody wants to violate our rights left right and center. And they all conspire to do it together. So, you know, we live in scary times. And we live in times where with all due respect to Republicans and taxes. Taxes are not the primary problem in the world we live in today. Another problem we're going to get to that. The primary problem is the role and the scope of government. All right, I know we got a couple of callers. We will take those when we come back from this break. You're listening to your own book show on the blaze radio network. You're clear. So we live in a world today. Unfortunately, I've got my run amok of no branch of government today having any, any, I emphasize respect for individual rights. And I count the Supreme Court and I count the so-called conservative Supreme Court among this. I do not believe that conservatives on the Supreme Court have a even a semblance of understanding of what individual rights means. To the extent that the founding fathers did or to individual rights in the context of John Locke and the founding fathers never mind to the understanding of an iron rand of what, of what individual rights means. So there is no, there is no branch of government today that protects the individual rights of American citizens. There's no branch of government today that is that is guided by the idea that its job is to protect individual rights. Is to protect the individual rights of Americans. We're all basically, the entire government today is basically focused on one aspect of our constitution. And that's the general welfare clause. The idea that it's a government's job to, you know, be responsible to general welfare and that they have taken to mean that they have to get into every aspect of our life. Decide what businesses should succeed, what businesses should fail, what businesses should be regulated, what businesses should not, what businesses should be licensed, what businesses should not. But even in your personal life, you know, who you can marry, who you can't, every aspect of our life now needs permission or intervention by a government authority.  And this is true at the local, at the state and at the federal government. Our government is out of control. And it's become a true democracy. Whatever the majority wants, the majority gets. The majority wants to take more taxes from the rich. That's okay. Let's take more taxes. So the majority wants to shut down a particular industry or to start up a particular industry. Fine. Whatever the majority wants, we have become James Madison and the founding fathers worst nightmare, which is a majoritarian. Everything goes government that is not constrained by anything except the will of the majority. And of course, the majority is will is always, always to, to exploit the minority. And what is the smallest minority and earth design man observed. But it's kind of obvious when you think about it. A lot of what I meant says is kind of on you is when you think about it. Unfortunately, very few people think about it. And that is the individual, the individual is the smallest minority in earth. So the majority is always going to try to exploit, take advantage of the minority, which is the individual. And that's exactly what we're seeing everywhere, all the time Republicans, Democrats, Obama, Trump doesn't matter. It does not matter. Local governments, state governments, federal government doesn't matter. We have lost and this is I think should be a real cause for pessimism. We have lost the vision of the founding. We have lost the vision of our funding documents and we don't have politicians who talk about it even. I mean, it's rare. It is rare that politicians talk about kind of what this country really stands for. Talk about really individual rates. Talk about limited government. Who talks about limited government?  Neither do Republicans. They all want unlimited governments in those scopes that they want to control our lives in. And even if some Republicans talk about, talk is cheap. They don't do anything about it. They don't actually go out there.  So I think the American public cares, but it cares in some vague emotional sense. Oh, don't tread on me, but keep your hands off of my Medicare. We'll do a whole show on Medicare, but Medicare is just one more welfare program. It's not your Medicare. It's your kid's money that is going to be spent on your Medicare and your grandkids or other people's grandkids money. So the understanding of individual rights and their willingness to actually defend individual rights. The American public just doesn't have that. They don't have the understanding. And I don't blame them because nobody teaches it. I went to like Chelsea and Patent when he comes to it. So all of this is to say that to talk about taxes and the vacuum of talking about spending is absurd.  All of my energy would be dedicated to cutting spending and cutting regulations. And then once I achieved something there to cutting taxes and making taxes make more sense. Now people are saying, people are saying, I know free market types and Iron Man fans and I say, oh, this is great. That's the biggest tax cut in history. What difference does that make if you don't cut spending? So yes, you're not taking money from me in one channel, which is through taxes. You're taking it from another channel, which is by borrowing it. And how do you pay back borrowed money? So if you don't cut spending and you cut taxes by trillion and half, which is what they're doing, then they have to make up the difference. And they make up the difference by borrowing. Now people say, oh, the economy will grow to make up, maybe, maybe to grow. But how much? And as long as they don't cut spending, there's still going to be a gap. So they have to borrow. And when they borrow, how do you pay back borrowing? Only two ways to pay back borrowing. You either print money or you tax future generations. And government does both. And printing money creates basically forms of inflation. It raises our cost of living. It reduces our standard of living in complex, varied ways. But it does. And raising taxes in future generations. How's that right? So even if it's true that taxes have been cut, that I right now will pay fewer taxes. It makes no difference in the big scheme of things, because one, my, I'm not free. I'm still being regulated and controlled and government is everywhere, wherever I go. The government is still sucking money out of the private economy by borrowing. So economically, it's not clear that it makes any sense. Because money is still leaving the private economy where it could be used effectively to create economic growth. And being shuffled into a public economy. A public economy is a contradiction in terms into a government bureaucracy where it is wasted, thrown away and not used for productive causes. So economic growth is hampered. I'm still being regulated, controlled and everything else. And long term, the consequences are awful because I'm still going to have to raise taxes down the road. Which happens every time after a major tax cut by a Republican. Think Reagan and then Bush raises taxes and then Clinton raises them again. Think Bush, Jr. cuts taxes. Obama raises them. Trump is not going to cut taxes. The next president, Republican or Democrat, will raise them. It's long term has very little meaning, very little value if what you care about is freedom. What really matters is the scope and scale of government. And that means what really matters is government spending and government regulation. And that the Republican House of Senate have done nothing to alleviate. They've done nothing to cut back long term. Whatever is being done at the regulatory agencies is great short term. Long term does nothing for us. So I'm not excited about the tax cut. Now, when we come back, we've got a hard break here. When we come back, we'll talk about more details about the taxes. What is good, what is bad about them specifically. But not excited. You're listening to your own book show. We're here on the Blaze radio network. And we're going to be back after the news and after this. Welcome to a discussion of radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, laissez-faire capitalism and individual rights. The Yaron Brooks show starts now. All right, we're back and we're talking a roll of government and taxes. Just to fill those of you joining us in the second hour. A little low energy today. We're covering from back surgery ahead on Tuesday. No medications, so I'm not hallucinating or anything. So don't worry about that. I've been off medications since really the day of surgery. Haven't taken any painkillers or anything like that. That's a good sign. But a little low energy, so I apologize for that. All right, so we're talking taxes here. And, you know, it really is incredibly frustrating to see this bill. It does nothing to curb the role of government, to curb the scope of government, to reduce government intervention in the economy or government intervention in our lives.  As I said, because they're not cutting spending, the taxes you might be saving this year, you'll have to make up in years in the future. One way or another, you are going to have to pay the debt. You're going to have to pay up for all the spending government has engaged in and is going to engage in over the 10 years. There is no alternative to massive government spending. If I were president, I would have a bill in front of Congress at the very least to cut spending by 5% to 10% every year for the next eight years of my presidency. I would start by cutting all subsidies and all goodies to businesses and at the same time reducing and eliminating whole swaths of regulation. But yeah, Republicans can't do that. That would be asking too much of those who claim to defend the vision of the founders. Yeah, right. I'm sorry.     How many times do I have to say it? Okay, we're going to take a call from Doug and Skyler. We're going to take your call in the last segment of the show. The moment of reason that's the segment that we take callers to talk about anything. We're at<PHONE_NUMBER> if you want in on the conversation.<PHONE_NUMBER> if you want to discuss taxes to all of government or anything else in the last segment of the show. Just dial in. We're waiting for you. All right, let's see. We've got Doug. Hey, Doug, how's it going? It's going great, except that I'm a little bummed out about your back problems. I didn't really know those. But anyhow, I love you, Doug. Well, believe me, I'm more bummed out about them than you are. Objectivism rules. However, every once in a while when you talk about courts, you seem to lump the federal court system with the Supreme Court. And I've always understood from constitutional guys that Congress created that and can change rules there. What's your take on that? I mean, I'm not an expert on this topic. And so I don't know. Congress certainly can, but all rules ultimately can be challenged through the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court's job, as I understand it. And I think this was perverted later on, but I think as originally intended, the Supreme Court's job was to assess whether a particular law, a particular rule was constitutional or not, whether it violated the Constitution or didn't violate the Constitution. So it was the job of the Supreme Court to assess the constitutionality of the laws passed by Congress and the decisions come to by the federal courts. So it was the final arbitrator of whether a law or whether a rule or whether a particular government behavior were constitutional or not. Does that make sense? I agree. It's just with all the shenanigans and all of the little, I want to say turds that have been placed in the swimming pool by Obama with the federal court, it would be really cool, although I can't imagine this with the current crop of Republicans, I can't imagine that they would actually say, hey, you're not going to rule on X, Y, you know, Z. And that certainly would cut down a lot of the nonsense that's been going on. I don't think they can do that. They certainly can't do that to Supreme Court and it has to be a mechanism to bring a case to Supreme Court. I think it would be unconstitutional for Republicans to say we're passing laws and these laws are above the judiciary. The judiciary has no, cannot make an argument with regard to them. That would be exact violation of the principles that the founders articulated. The whole point, again, I returned to a point I made earlier, the whole point of our Constitution is to make passing laws hard, to make changing laws hard, to make it difficult, to present as many barriers as possible before government growing by imposing new laws. So if you're going to pass a law, it better be good. That is, you better be able to convince the House, convince the Senate, pass judicial muster, and any challenges to the Supreme Court, and of course the President has to sign it. All these things have to go into it before law can pass. And that's why the whole idea is to have very few laws. It's not to have laws that engage in every aspect of our lives. It's to be very judicial. Is that the right word? Anyway, very careful in what laws you pass, because the laws can only be about the protection of individual rights and nothing else. And that's hard. So no, I don't believe in giving Congress more power than it has. It has way too much power now. So if the courts block Congress, good, good. You know, sometimes that will hurt my cause, because the courts will be too leftist. Sometimes it will hurt the leftist cause, because the courts will happen to be conservative, because it'll be a post-conservative, you know. But, you know, that's the price we pay. And I don't believe we can make significant progress in any of these things without a conception of limited government, and without a discussion about limited government, and without a projection of a limited government ideal to which we are moving towards. And that's my job as I see it. I'm here to articulate the case of a idealistic view of government. An idealistic view that I believe is possible, and that we need to move towards. And in that context, I am arguing today that the tax bill is not that important, that it's not that big of a deal, that the real deal is cutting spending and reducing the scope of government and reducing what government does. And I, you know, somebody mentions audit the Fed. It's not about auditing the Fed. What are you going to discover when you audit the Fed that you don't already know? That it is a crony-filled, manipulative organization that has no clue what it's doing and is at a destructive force in the U.S. economy and is engaged in immoral activities of redistributing wealth in bizarre ways? I know that already. I don't need to audit the Fed to do that. What you need is to get rid of the Fed. What we need is to neuter the Fed. That's what we need. And for that, you need a principle. You need a principle vision of the role of government. It's not the role of government to be engaged in currency manipulation. It's not the role of government to set interest rates. It's not the role of government to, you know, determine our money. Right? Yep. All right. So, thanks, Doug. Thanks for the call. I appreciate it. So, what we need is politicians who are willing, to some extent or another, to be idealists. The left has this. The left has always had that. They've always had the socialist out there who say, no, this is what we want. We want socialized medicine. What the right, the so-called right, what the Republicans don't have is this person who stands up and says, no, what I want is 100% privatized medicine, which means no Medicare, no Medicaid, no government involvement in health care at all. My name is Valerie Decker, and I'm a troubleman for PG&E. I am a first responder. My computer goes nuts every time. And it starts a commercial by itself. All right. So that's my job, since Republicans won't do it, since our politicians don't do it, since 99.999% of talk show radio hosts won't do it. I will do it. All right. And indeed, you're listening to the Iran Book Show. We're on the Blaze Radio Network. You can listen on theblaze.com slash radio every Saturday from 12 to 2 East Coast time, and we'll be back right after this break. This is the Iran Book Show. All right. We're talking taxes. And I know I've got a couple of colors. I've got Alex on the line and Skyler. And there are a few points I want to make about taxes, and I want to make sure I get to them, because I think they're just kind of observations that I think are interesting. Let's start by the coverage the tax bill has received from the mainstream media. I mean, it really is amusing, horrifying, depressing, funny. It's just so biased. It's just so nakedly biased. Now, I'm not for this tax bill. I don't think it's a good tax bill for reasons I'll get to in a little while and reasons I've already articulated. It doesn't matter, because unless you cut spending. But to call it a tax scam, and suddenly for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post to be concerned about the deficit, these people are never concerned about the deficit when you're talking about increasing spending. No, then the deficit is stimulative. Then they bring up Kugman and Keynes, although Keynes would be horrified by their views on economics. Then suddenly deficit spending is good. If it's spending, then deficit is good. Increasing the deficit through lowering taxes. That is horrible. Now, I think it's horrible for both reasons. But it's just funny. And then the other one that I thought was hysterical was, oh my God, it's a 500 page bill. Nobody's had a chance to read it and they're voting on it. Do you remember who made that accusation against whom? That was the Republicans against the Democrats about Obamacare. Nobody knows what in it. Do you remember Pelosi said, you're going to have to find out what's in the bill after we pass it? Well, that's exactly the same thing that's happening with this tax bill. And I think it happens with many bills. But now suddenly the media cares. And of course the Republicans don't care now because it's their bill. So the fact that the people voting on it have no clue what's in it, they don't care about that. They cared when it was a Democrats bill. But the media cares because suddenly they've discovered that congressmen should actually read the bills before they vote on them. Maybe that's a good thing because it's a Republican bill. But when Obamacare was passed, the media was completely silent on that part. So it just exposes the outrageous biases that the media has. Fox is celebrating CNN is depressed. The New York Times comes out with these editorials that are just like the end of the world is with us. Then the way they use statistics, they tell us, oh, most of the tax cuts are for the rich. I wish, let me just be clear, I wish most of the taxes were for the rich because one, I would get more of the tax benefit if that were the case. And two, it would be a burden for the economy. So actually economic growth would be spurred more than the pathetic tax cuts for the rich that are being passed here. But what they use is the dollar amount. So the rich, they're going to save $1,000 on their taxes. Whippy! The poor are only going to save $50 on their taxes. That's because the poor person is saving $50 on his taxes, only pay $60, and the rich pay millions of dollars in taxes and they're saving $1,000 or whatever. I'm making up numbers, right? So what? You don't use a dollar amount, you do use a percentage. So the way they use statistics, of course we all know this, is to bolster their case. And Fox is just as guilty as the others. Fox has perpetuated this stupidity. I saw a story on Fox where they're using dollar figures.  Of course, the rich are going to get more of the dollars. They pay something like 40% of all the income taxes.  By definition, just multiply any number by a big number.   Now, again, I think everybody's paying too much. Everybody's paying too much, except those who... Anyway, everybody's paying too much. So the coverage I find is quite entertaining, horrific. And reflective of just the lunacy, which is our media today. The bias, the complete and utter shamelessness. How partisan they absolutely with no exception have. Left and right. And it's so reflected here. The left is just going apoplectic today about this tax cut. Why do they care? That's the other funny thing is why does the left care? The left shouldn't care. None of their programs are being harmed. None of the spending that they so desire is going away. So what do they care? They shouldn't, right? The only reason they care is because they... Well, actually, let me correct that. I don't think they do care. I think this is all just a scam. I think this is all just them putting up pretenses.  It has nothing to do with economics. I don't think a single person on the left cares because what they really care about is the other programs. There's a spending site and they care about taxes as penalizing success. So that's the level that they care about. They don't care about the middle class. They certainly don't care about the poor. They have no concept of the poor and what it would take to improve the lives of the poor. They have no interest, zero interest in improving the lives of poor people. So that's one aspect of the taxes that I thought was worth mentioning. Just the coverage, if you read the stories, they're completely nonsensical. It's hard to find any actual data. All right, let's talk a little bit about... Well, let me talk about one other aspect that conservatives mentioned and some free market people mentioned. They don't mind that the deficit is going to go up because following, I think Milton Friedman first came up with this idea. It's the idea of starving the government from funds. The idea is the bigger the deficit, the more government is going to be forced to reduce spending. And the idea here is the bigger the deficit, the higher interest rates are going to be, the bond market is going to raise interest rates in ways that are not sustainable for the US government. It's going to hurt the economy. And any president is going to have to try to reduce those interest rates by shrinking the deficit. And this was a very, very popular argument during the 90s. And indeed, there's some case to be made that actually worked in the 90s that the bond market actually placed pressure on the Democrats and Republicans, Republican House and Senate, Republican House, Democratic Senate, and Bill Clinton as president, to actually reduce the growth of government. And if you look at Clinton, Clinton is one of the best presidents in a long, long time in terms of reducing the growth of government spending, better than Bush, better than Obama, and probably better than Trump in terms of reducing the growth of government spending. And the government actually achieved balance at the end of the Clinton administration. Another reason for that was the dot-com bubble and all the taxes they raised through capital gains taxes when all those dot-com companies were in public. But it was also partially because they really did reduce the rate of growth of government, the rate of growth of government spending to Bill Clinton's credit. One of the only things that I would give that administration and that period of time any credit for. Well, I mean, Clinton gets a lot of credit for not doing very much. I mean, that's the main credit he gets for spending too much time having to deal with sex scandals and sex itself, I guess, and very little time actually governing, and that worked out well. Okay, so, but the fact is that over the long term, this deficit argument doesn't work. It seems like the bond market is willing to tolerate very high levels of debt, particularly when you have a federal reserve that manipulates those interest rates. Buys government debt at lower and lower interest rates and thus makes it possible for the government to grow, grow, grow with no negative consequences. So I don't think that Milton Friedman argument actually works, unfortunately, which it did. So I don't think deficits actually strangle government. I just think they ignore them and that's been the history. They've just ignored the deficits and they've grown and the total debt of the United States government on the books is $20 trillion. It's still true that our unfunded liabilities are somewhere between $60 to $200 trillion. Mind-boggling numbers and nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody in politics seems to care. So, you know, that's another tidbit about taxes. A few other things. Let me just say something about corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are sales and employment tax. Shareholders pay very little of corporate taxes. If you look at every economic study, and I mentioned this in the past shows, the tax is paid by consumers through higher prices and by employees with lower wages. So the only corporate tax that makes any sense if you don't like hidden taxes is a corporate tax of zero. Corporations are legal nexus of contracts. They're not a person. They don't pay anything really. It's we as individuals pay as shareholders, as consumers and as employees. So the only tax rate that makes sense for a corporation is zero. So I am happy anytime you reduce corporate taxes and I wish they'd reduce them more. So in my view, they didn't reduce them enough. So it'll serve to reduce prices. It'll serve to increase wages. It'll serve to spur economic growth. You know, it's a no-lose proposition to lower corporate taxes. It eliminates a hidden tax and I think hidden taxes are particularly immoral because people don't understand how they work that money is being stolen from them and they don't even know it. At least one minute. Income taxes are explicit.  You get a paycheck.  You know it. It's still immoral. It's still wrong. It's still evil. But you get to see it, right? Hidden taxes are much, much worse because you don't even get to see it.  But the way they cut corporate taxes is again flawed. They should have just made it simple again. But they've left a thousand different loopholes and exclusions and subsidies and benefits to particular industries that particular senators liked or didn't like or hated or whatever. And this is the point we'll really get to next time and how this tax bill is filled with cronyism. Ten. It's filled with trying to manipulate our lives. All right. You're listening to your own book show on the Blaze Radio Network. We'll be right back. The Iran Brook Show. Hey, we're back. I wanted to make a point which I should have made earlier. When I talked about the 500-page, you know, legislation and because somebody made it on Facebook and they're absolutely right and I should have said it. I think we should have, it should be a constitutional amendment, I think, that no legislation has passed that is longer than X number of pages. I don't know, five, maybe 15, that is not written in plain English that any American can understand it and that suddenly the congressman can understand it if they're going to vote on it. So it has to be written in a language that the simplest-minded, I don't know, somebody like Roy Moore, let's say, simplest-minded politician out there can actually understand the language, what it actually means.  Nobody, nobody, nobody knows exactly what's in it. The fact that a bill like that could be passed is absolutely absurd and ridiculous and immoral and the same with Obamacan with a million other, Dodd-Frank. All these laws should be simple and if you're expected to abide by it, you should be able to understand it. Life is not that complicated so that you can understand it and a tax bill in particular should be such that, you know, everybody knows exactly what they're going to be paying, that you don't need a high-priced tax accountant in order to figure out the taxes and that's what I need. I need a high-priced tax accountant to figure out my taxes, which is absurd. I am big on postcard, everybody should pay their taxes on a postcard. Corporate taxes should be zero. So zero corporate taxes, the beauty of that is, no deductions, no exclusions, no loopholes because they're not paying any taxes. Only individuals pay taxes. Everybody should pay some tax as long as we've got this big government, we have to fund it somehow. Everybody should pay it. It should be simple, simple, simple, simple, no deductions, no exclusions, nothing. You make X, you pay X, that's it. It would be nice if it was something like 10% on all revenue that you get, you pay out no mortgage deductions, no child care deductions, no health care deductions, nothing. No deductions zero, not at the corporate level no deductions, no pay any taxes, and not at the individual level. That would be simple, easy, everybody could get it, wages would go sky high, prices would draw, productivity would increase dramatically, this economy would grow significantly, the real standard of living and quality of life of Americans would accelerate dramatically. It's simple, simple stuff. They would stop trying to manipulate my behavior, that's the other thing that drives me nuts, right? Oh no, you have to have a mortgage, why? Why do I have a mortgage? Why can't I rent? Oh no, you have to give to charity, why? Why isn't it better for me to invest for my retirement? Oh no, you need to invest your retirement. Why do I need to invest in my retirement but not invest for a car that I really need so I can build a business so that then I can invest for my retirement? Why are they trying to tell me how to use my money? Not only are they stealing my money, that's step one. But then they use the tax code to socially engineer me. I resent that. All exclusions, all deductions should be eliminated, zeroed out completely. I think that's more important than whether you have graduated taxes or not. You know, different tax rates or not. Much more important is zero deductions, zero exclusions flat and then lower everybody's taxes dramatically. Then it makes sense. Then it makes sense. Any other tax reform, you know, so I was reading this story about how they got this to pass, right? And they basically got this to pass by twisting different congressman's hands and giving a favor to this one and something else to that one and a little bit to this one and a little bit to that one which makes the bill more and more and more and more complex and they did this for months leading up to the bill and then they did even more of it in the days as they were negotiating the final passage. How can that be a good bill? How can anything good come out of the cronyism, the favor giving, the pressure group politics of these kind of last minute deals. Oh, my constituency wants this and my constituency wants that and we want a mortgage deduction and they want this deduction and somebody else wants some of the other deduction.  And again, the founding fathers would be horrified. Now, of course, the tax bill hasn't really passed. What now needs to happen is we've got a House bill and a Senate bill and now the host trading continues because now they're going to host trade around all the things that are different between the House and the Senate bill and round off all sharp edges and make sure that everybody's in line and of course, Trump has said he'll sign anything. Just send him anything, he'll sign it because he needs something to say he did something because so far he has done very little on the legislative front, arguably done very little anywhere but certainly on the legislative front and the regulatory front with regulatory agencies but nothing permanent in terms of or semi-permanent in terms of legislation so he needs something there. So it's going to be interesting to see what the final, final bill and we'll talk again about taxes when the final, final bill and by then maybe we'll understand actually what's in it and be able to dissect it and give you my opinions but right now there's many, many issues in which they have to reconcile the House and the Senate bill and how they go on some of these will determine whether the bill becomes more complex or less complex. My guess is more complex, more complex rather than less complex and again any bill that's 500 pages any bill that's complex, any bill that needs lawyers and accountants to understand is not a bill that is worth voting for. It's more disasters and again, not the issue. The issue is spending. The issue is the fact that the government is violating our rights. Now I know some people are calling in and getting a busy signal, I have no control over that you shouldn't be getting a busy signal so if you want we're heading towards to kind of ask me anything segment<PHONE_NUMBER><PHONE_NUMBER> and we've got Alex and Skylet we're going to take a quick break now and we're going to go to Alex and then to Skylet and then to anybody else who calls and manages to get through and if nobody gets through then I've got a ton to talk about so no shortage of topics today. Alright, we're going to take this break you're listening to the Iran Book Show on the Blaze Radio Network. Iran Book Hi we're back we've got the final 13 minutes before the show before us I'm going to take callers anybody who wants to ask a question about anything we call this a moment of reason where I just take questions and we're going to go to Alex and Skylet in one minute I'll also take this opportunity to encourage you if you enjoy the show if you believe in the show if you want to see the show grow to support the show you can support it in many ways you can subscribe if you're watching it right now on YouTube you can subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like me on Facebook and you can share share share share at the end of the day what makes shows and episodes and videos and audio clips grow is sharing likes don't matter that much nothing else matters to the algorithms of Google and Facebook and Twitter and everybody else nothing matters like sharing so please share the show to your friends to people just random people so just share it who knows where it goes out they're given the algorithms and if you're so inclined and if you want to see the show promoted more professionally and grow more substantially then you can help financially by going to patreon.com to your own book show and providing financial support anything from $2 a month to $5,000 a month you get different perks depending on how much money you have and we definitely appreciate that support we've raised a good amount of money so far but the sheer number of people supporting the show is still relatively small so I'd love to see I'd love to see more of you financially supporting the show even if it's just a $2 a month because that gives me a sense of the growing community the number of people who are willing to put their money where their mouth is Alex, you want to talk about the national debt Alex, you there? Can you hear me? Yeah, speak up I'm here. Yeah, go ahead I have kind of three questions about the national debt I kind of lack basic understanding on it so who owes the money who do we owe it to and I've heard people say we have the strongest army in the world why don't we just say we're not paying you back sorry about your luck alright, good questions who owes it the government owes it the US government owes it just like the government owes you social security when you're old owes you Medicare or makes promises to people now the government has no resources so the government at the end of the day can only pay it and that's from taxpayers at the end of the day if you will we the people owe it our representatives have hocked and placed us in debt and so we the people owe it and we're going to have to pay for it and the only two ways to pay for it as I've described earlier one is to print money which basically raises prices or creates bubbles and is basically a tax to us or we can tax it which means taxes have to go up in the future dramatically in order for the children and the grandchildren to pay for the debts taken on by the parents and grandparents and in the meantime even in the meantime the national debt is a cause for slower economic growth because it is a way to suck money out of the private economy into the public economy and reduces productivity and everything else so it's a bad thing that we our representatives committed that we will pay being the taxpayers who do we owe it to well I don't have the most recent numbers but who holds government debt well our banks do American banks and international banks do insurance companies pension plans I'd say if you have a 401k it's likely the certain portion of that 401k is in a bond fund which holds government bonds which is then owed to you so it's owed to a lot of Americans but it's also owed to a lot of foreigners it's owed to a big chunk of it is owed to the Japanese and the British and the Netherlands for whatever reason has a big chunk of American debt the Japanese massive amount of American debt so any country that has dollars which means any country that actually exports goods to us that has a trade deficit a trade surplus with us has dollars and uses those dollars to typically buy government bonds because they're relatively safe so China of course has been a large purchaser of government debt over the years but let's not delude ourselves a vast amount and I don't have the numbers in front of me but it's easy to look up of that debt is owed to us to pension plans insurance companies and your own savings we all probably have some of our savings whether we know it or not in government bonds now beyond that that's just the explicit debt on the books of the government there's also that on funded liabilities this is what we've made to Social Security and Medicare this is the real big number $60 billion that is owed to people who are going to be old it's owed to the baby boom generation it's owed to the people just after that that's money that's owed to them where that money will come from either by borrowing who knows who will borrow from who will lend us money at that point or again by raising taxes that's promised on our behalf to give to us and to many other people around the world is mind-boggling but it's all debt that we are supposed to pay now one alternative is not to pay it what are they going to do well that is an alternative absolutely but that will probably mean not paying anybody so what about the Social Security and that means nobody is going to lend us money in the future it's going to be very difficult to borrow money in the future and that means the government is going to have to be balanced in the future that will be quite an achievement if we can do that so suddenly we can default on the debt I mean Greece defaulted on some of its debt not on all of it but some of it other countries I mean Venezuela is defaulting on some of its debt right now countries have defaulted on their debt it's quite possible there will be all consequences to that in terms of whether people will lend you money again and it also means that your own citizens are going to be hooked by the default and it means that how are you going to fund Social Security in the future if you can't borrow so you can do it and arguably that's what should be done I don't think we should penalize China more than we should penalize Americans and it's more than that if the Chinese don't buy our debt they're less likely to export to us that means our standard of living will actually decline our standard of living is higher than it otherwise would be because we import so many goods from China I mean the whole discussion of trade is upside down Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have managed to completely completely turn the discussion of trade upside down from the truth both of them are complete and other ignoramuses when it comes to trade anyway so did I answer your questions I think I answered all three yeah you definitely answered all three okay good I really appreciate it sure thanks Alex alright we're going to go to Skyler hey Skyler how's it going hey greetings Merry Christmas not quite yet not quite yet but you know just for the greetings season's greetings sure Merry Christmas why not I love Christmas I'll do a Christmas show when the time comes absolutely Robert Fogelman had a book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in kindergarten and I know the battleground for the mind is at the university level but shouldn't we be able to focus our attention on the youngest and the children to teach them that instead of giving a piece of being selfish and to be life loving individuals you know absolutely we should do that I mean I wish there were more children's books that they discussed these kind of issues they presented these kind of issues I think there's a whole industry that could be created of good children's books that actually taught good positive values that actually were pro-reason rational egoism and liberty and these books would be one way I think establishing schools we've got at least three schools that I'm aware of that at least in their findings we're intended to educate according to these principles all three actually based in Orange County California funnily enough so they are primary schools they are home schoolers trying to do this so yeah I think we need to dominate the primary and elementary school education so that we can teach kids how to think you're not going to succeed in changing the world unless people around you can think because ours is an intellectual revolution it's a philosophical revolution it's the change the way people think about the most fundamental ideas in life and unless we can convince people to do that we will not be successful but to do that people have to be thinkers they have to be critical thinkers they have to know the methodology of thinking they have to be conscious thinkers they have to be engaged in thinking and see its value and I think that those kind of habits of thinking need to be inculcated inculcated in our young as early as possible does that make sense? yes sir I did thank you I appreciate it Robert wants to say if we default now that China will start shipping soldiers in boxes disguised as amazons no I mean what will happen is China will tell us to go to hell and China will stop exporting us because they won't want our dollars the dollar will collapse the dollar will disappear as a global currency if we stop funding the debt we will not be able to buy anything from China because China will not want our dollars and the standard of living in the United States will collapse I mean this idea that trade is good for China and bad to the US is exact opposite well not opposite it's good for China and the US trade is win-win and the idea that China investing in our bonds is bad for America is again ludicrous it's all what trade is and fundamentally trade is between individuals not between countries fundamentally it's me going to Walmart buying something made in China which benefits me because I got something cheaper and better it benefits Walmart because they made a profit it benefits the Chinese company that sold it to Walmart and it benefits the Chinese employees who made it for the Chinese company sold it to Walmart along the entire supply chain all you get is win-win relationships everybody wins and then on top of that when the Chinese person gets those dollars and puts them into the Chinese bank those dollars have to find their way back into America in a form of investment and that's exactly what happens they're invested in American assets in America because we take dollars we don't take wands so they're investing in government bonds or in real estate but that's the beauty the win-win-win-win-win-win 20 relationship which is global trade globalization when it comes to trade is the best thing that's happened to the world in the last 40 years 10 all right you're listening to your onbrook show we'll be back next week same time same place on the blaze radio network you're clear all right you made it I made it I'll talk to you next week