Vaush vs. Veganism (vs. Ask Yourself vs. Me vs. Whatever)

this shirt looks terrible on camera if
you're wondering why I always wear the same couple of shirts when I film these videos yeah partly it's because I'm as poor as a Churchmouse but partly it's because the other shirts I own they they do not show up on camera you see what hell it is to be a broadcaster anyway um as many as 3 or 4 people asked me to comment on the debate about veganism between ask yourself and vote the vegan aspect isn't that interesting maybe the psychology of the left-wing and the psychology of communist in the 21st century there's a little bit more interesting to coming on here in just three minutes you get a condensed version of what I think are the most salient elements of that conversation just to be clear are you actually saying that you think people would be morally justified to fund a Holocaust no I would say that I do not know we have to agree there are degrees of separation here for instance obviously to kill a person unjustified bad to fund a person killing someone unjustified bad to buy a to buy a widget from a corporation that uses its funds to perpetuate like murder and such and such it's bad yes but we've obviously removed you wouldn't call that person a murderer so the question really is whether or not there were enough degrees of separation between say the right now the meat factory industry the meat farming or say slaves mining up lithium in the mines of Africa if there's enough of a difference between me and them that I can't be held morally culpable right but the thing the thing that I'm tripping out at right this is what's weirding me out a bit so when we talk about that human Holocaust you seem to say that look the best thing we can do is some kind of top-down action so in the meantime let's all support the Holocaust I mean I just don't understand how why would it supporting the Holocaust I'm just one of billions of human beings that have no choice but to participate in an unethical trade if they want to do it without things that they want if they want to wait something they want and what I want often is me Darry it's really the same as capitalism in this respect this is the problem here and this is the difference between I suppose I don't know are you a leftist politically like I kind of call myself a centrist to be honest well this is the problem here this is this this exact argument could be made for capitalist industry but the end result of making this argument is a society of people who blame themselves for not doing enough to oppose the the the selling power of institutional unethical institutional forces it doesn't work there and I don't think it works for veganism don't you think that a broader more efficacious solution would be approaching this top-down and just getting rid of corn subsidies and putting forward a meat tax so punitive that people can at first barely afford to eat meat eat meat more than like twice a month right so if you talk about some top-down approach where for example we just make it something that's about as effective as it gets surely but I don't know if my point came across right so I went to the extreme situation just to show that there is a case where you'll say that the the action of the people makes a difference right and once you grant that which I know you do then you're also in a position where every step in that direction has the same kind of positive impact just not to the same degree and then it's your choice if you want to be a person who's making a step in that positive direction or who's just funding the Holocaust and the exact same argument could be made about purchasing commodities from a capitalist institution the identical arguments what so I'm not I'm not even sure what I'm to take from that really like what it was so what are you trying to like drive at there the point that I'm making here is that as a leftist I recognize that there are institutional benefits not only to taking top-down approaches towards these problems but also to rejecting proposed bottom-up solutions because they can refocus blame and cause people to think that individual action can be a solution to institutional harm my mistake here is that I'm trying to talk about a complex sprawling topic with focus and brevity so this is gonna be compartmentalized into a few statements on seemingly unrelated topics but I swear there's one guiding thesis here I spoke to a guy named Faraday earlier today Faraday has a YouTube channel called Faraday speaks and at one point you know he just said honestly he felt hopeless about Western liberal democracy he felt like Western liberal democracy is this unstable tinderbox and it's either going to collapse into some kind of right-wing dictatorship or it's gonna collapse into some kind of left with me Peter Schiff and of course it's partly because he talks to people like this all the time he talks to people like a vouch communists and then talks to people on the right wing who are just as extreme and who seem to regard the society as tremendously fragile and about to be replaced by some kind of dictatorship at any given moment a dictatorship that's gonna carry out their their fantasies now yeah I did say to him I think reassuringly this is just not so and I directed him to look at real-world examples like Japan real-world examples like Denmark real-world examples like Switzerland said him look Switzerland is not perfect Switzerland is not paradise but the point of politics the point of a political order is not to create paradise on this earth it would be a tremendous accomplishment if the people of Florida had a system of government that works as well as the government of Switzerland it would be a tremendous accomplishment if the people of West Virginia had the quality of education and health care that people have in Switzerland it would be an amazing accomplishment if the people of West Virginia had their had preserved their indigenous languages the way Switzerland preserved their indigenous language they'd have universities for all the different languages than Switzerland that's a real priority for them unlike the genocide --kw essay photographers took video you know people today do not seem to regard Switzerland or Japan or mark as inspirational and they clutch at these these fantasies of another world of another life you know in the Christian Bible it says our faith is not in things seen but in things unseen and the faith of the Communists in this same way it's not a faith in the things of this world it's a faith in in this bizarre inversion of reality and they cling to that faith so passionately that they don't want to let in any new ideas or any new information that will challenge that faith that'll upset their faith in this perfect order that can be brought about if only they have their terrible revolution if only they replace democracy with a dictatorship that will carry out their fantasies so this guy vouch is a bizarre illustration of that where he says passionately that if he had his way if his dictatorship of the proletariat took over government if democracy is replaced with his dictatorship after a revolution then he would carry out the vegan agenda he would make meat illegal or he would end the factory farming in the sphere or something like this and he's so committed to this fantasy that the fantasy is worth more to him than the reality the reality of the positive change you can make in the real world here and now and that positive change it will never be as inspirational as the the bizarre surreal fantasy of what might be in some some parallel universe or some some revolutionary future take a step back here and you know draw your attention to a really strange absence in modern Western political discourse okay why is there nobody in Parliament who is elected by the poor who speaks for the poor it's not a new idea now okay some of you're gonna say Bernie Sanders no Bernie Sanders speaks for one district in Vermont that's the horse Bernie Sanders job is not to speak for the poor and that's why in the American system house of Congress or the British system house the Parliament there are no seats signed for someone to represent the poor in England they have special seats assigned to represent Catholics there are historical reasons for that there was fear about the Catholics before students own it's the most obvious thing and guess what that's what they had in ancient Rome in ancient Rome they had Tribune's who were elected to represent five classes of the plebs so the plebs are remembered as the oppressed or disadvantaged class in Rome in contrast to the patricians but then the plebs themselves were split into five socio-economic strata there's the richest of the rich the poorest of the poor and three other strata in the middle there and each of these levels of poverty had Tribune's assigned them as are called two Tribune's reach levels that's ten tributes who were then elected so the the tribunes for the poorest of the poor were elected by the poor and then they represented the interests of the poor they advocated for the poor they complained about whatever the poor to complain about in Rome's Senate in Rome's whole political system it was much more complex than just the Senate not worth getting to you kiddo no why do we not have this in any Western democracy today the American system of government is naked Lee an imitation of ancient Rome that's why they call it a constitutional republic and not a democracy there's a whole history there why did we not have this in any Western democracy day I'll tell you why it's because left wingers were too busy fantasizing about this revolution promised to them by Karl Marx they were so deeply committed to this economic dream of a better world that's going to be brought about by these ridiculous methods I don't even want to summarize here and there was no interest in the simple humble pragmatic reality of committing to making the positive difference that you can okay and this is the difference you can make all right so this guy's out obviously you know on some level he wants to make the world a better place well okay vouch um you want to help people in Syria in the Syrian civil war but you can't the reason why veganism matter so much is that this is what you can do this is the difference you can make and you can make it with no tremendous personal sacrifice you don't have to fly to Syria you don't have to expose yourself to the danger of bullets and torture and arrest or something you don't have to much for anything all you have to do is when you go to the grocery store instead of buying cow milk you buy soy milk instead of buying a chocolate bar that has milk powder you buy the chocolate bar it's dark chocolate that's vegan I mean you know everybody who's has lactose intolerance is already doing this you make these small changes in your life and this gives you an ethical position to advocate for the type of top-down legislative change you're talking about without being a complete and utter hypocrite doesn't that sound good but tell me this I mean riddle me this um if you think the problem with Western capitalist democracy is that the poor don't have a voice in government is the poor don't have a voice in Parliament is that the poor are not heard by the elite who are in power wouldn't the practical humble real-world solution to that be give the poor a voice in government couldn't you reserve ten the seats in the American house of Congress and say these are the seats for the tribunes these are the seats for the representatives of the poor would that be so hard to do I've raised this in a different context why is it in the whole eastern United States of America you never had seats in Congress to represent the the indigenous people Native Americans American Indians what everyone say why couldn't you have some elected representation for the most oppressed people in this your country so they at least have a voice they at least have the ability to complain now there are many other special classes of society you probably do need representation in government this analysis may not end there but if your ethical position is that the poor need a voice in government why do you leave to this fantasy of destroying the government destroying the economy destroying all the fundamental assumptions of capitalism to replace the government with the dictatorship of the proletariat why do you lead to that as opposed to solving the problem that was there in the first place giving the poor a voice in Parliament which could be done with a very simple reform with the stroke of a pen England Canada the United States Australia all of these parliamentary democracies they could have seats in parliament for people elected by the poor to represent the interests of the poor and then those seats would be contested elected election by election I I really doubt that communists like vouch would win those elections I doubt it would be far left people like you who'd get elected by the poor as you know sometimes the poor can convert in a very conservative fashion in many of these countries but regardless they would elect the people they wanted to represent their complaints and their concerns in problem okay who is it today who would stand up and give a voice to the animals in Parliament who is it today when you're talking about ecology who will stand up and give a voice for the trees my country Canada was completely based on deforestation the way government handles forestry forest management as they say oh here's a pie let's talk about how we're gonna divide up the pie and make as much money out of it as possible that's been the attitude of our country since it was a British colony so we were built on right it's a very deep-seated attitude in government and in our elite ruling class many of the wealthiest families in Canada made their money out of cutting down trees many of them still do Athens are still Dom Tarr is still a huge corporation in the stock market so on and so forth all right in Parliament who is a voice for the water who is a voice for the air who is a voice for the trees many of these fundamental concerns are fundamentally not represented they are in effect voiceless in a system of parliament that developed truth be told in England just as a way of getting different tax paying aristocrats together so that they could settle their differences and hand over all their money and horses to support the king before the king went to war that's how parliamentary democracy evolved the United Kingdom it really wasn't set up to represent or even deal with broader social concerns definitely not ecological concerns so on and so forth so there's a real reason here to call for reform in our political systems but the mentality of the far left the mentality of Communists and people on the left wing is to ignore every possibility for positive pragmatic down-to-earth reform and to insist that no the whole system is immoral the whole system is a disaster and the only way out is to have an even bigger disaster to tear it all down and replace it with a grubby military dictatorship their so-called dictatorship of the proletariat guys vouch illustrates how this commitment to revolutionary and authoritarian solutions to every problem that's what he keeps saying talk down upon his commitment is exactly what makes the whole of the left-wing so hard to convert to veganism what makes it so difficult for vegans to find common cause with and collaborate with left wingers and communists [Music]