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April 1, 2024

829: Libertarians at a Crossroads - Foreign Policy, Principles, & The Israel-Ukraine Conundrum

Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg and Brian Nichols debate the alarming rise of anti-Semitism on the political left, its complex relationship with "anti-Zionism", and the challenges of navigating foreign policy in an increasingly polarized world, ultimately emphasizing the need for historical knowledge, reason, and nuance in confronting these pressing issues.

Is anti-Semitism finding a new home on the political left amidst the ongoing Middle East conflict? Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg, professor of political science and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, joins Brian Nichols to discuss this alarming trend and how an unexpected alliance with the evangelical right could help combat it. But the conversation takes an intriguing turn as Brian challenges some of Dr. Ginsberg's assertions, leading to a thought-provoking exchange.

 

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In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Ginsberg delves into the history of anti-Semitism's migration from the right to the left, explaining how events like the 1967 Israel-Arab War and the influx of Muslim immigrants to Western Europe played a crucial role in this shift. He also addresses the concerning rise of "anti-Zionism" on college campuses and its supposed close ties to anti-Semitism. However, Brian questions whether "anti-Zionism" always equates to anti-Semitism, citing the example of libertarians who oppose foreign aid on principle rather than prejudice.

 

The discussion heats up as Brian and Dr. Ginsberg explore the challenges faced by libertarians in navigating foreign policy issues, particularly when it comes to supporting allies like Israel and Ukraine. They debate the importance of political realism and the need to balance non-interventionist principles with the realities of a global society. Brian argues that current foreign policy decisions may be a response to the unintended consequences of past actions, while Dr. Ginsberg maintains that support for allies is crucial in the face of threats.

 

The conversation also touches on the state of education in the United States, with Dr. Ginsberg highlighting the lack of historical knowledge among students and the prevalence of magical thinking in a post-truth society. Brian pushes back, suggesting that the idealism of libertarians could be a positive force in shaping a more peaceful future, but Dr. Ginsberg emphasizes the need for a more balanced approach to teaching American history, one that acknowledges both the country's flaws and its aspirations.

 

As the discussion draws to a close, Dr. Ginsberg offers his insights on the potential long-term consequences of America's current foreign policy decisions and the hope for a future where reason and rationality prevail. This episode of The Brian Nichols Show is a must-watch for anyone interested in the complex intersection of politics, history, and ideology. Be sure to grab a copy of Dr. Ginsberg's book, "The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, The Right, and The Jews," to further explore this critical issue.

 

 

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Transcript

Brian Nichols  0:20  
as anti semitism finds a new home on the political left emits the ongoings in the Middle East conflict. Can an unexpected alliance with the evangelical right help combat this alarming trend? Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, hey there, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course, another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host. Joining us from our lovely cardio miracle Studios here in eastern Indiana. The Brian Nichols Show is brought to you in and powered by amp America. Yes, very excited to be part of the amp America team. Go ahead, check out some awesome news articles, opinion pieces, and more over at amp america.com. And as for The Brian Nichols Show, in frankly, yours truly, we are powered here by our studio sponsor, cardio miracle. And folks, I am very excited to bring the message that is the cardio miracle difference. 1,000% real now if you are suffering from high blood pressure or other heart ailments, cardio miracle, may be the answer to your prayers with the secret ingredient, nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, it's going to help improve your heart health by lowering your blood pressure helping you have a better night's sleep for me a better pump at the gym, and more. So folks, I know this sounds probably too good to be true. And I frankly thought the exact same thing. So I went ahead, I ordered cardio miracle. And I realized oh my goodness, I had nothing to worry about because there's a 100% money back guarantee. So not only do you get to experience the cardio miracle difference for yourself, no risk at all. But you can also save some cash along the way use code TBNS at checkout for 15% off your order, or simply click the link here in the show notes or video description that'll bring you over to cardio miracle.com and join the 10s of 1000s of other folks out there who are experienced in the cardio miracle difference for themselves. I guarantee your heart will thank you. All right, folks, let's segue into today's episode. And unfortunately, it's a little bit more of a depressing topic. Namely because of the ongoing, you know, happenings right now in our world. Specifically, going back to the genesis of this conversation really October 6 2023. That's when we saw the herbs are October 7, my apologies confused with January 6, October 7 2023. We saw the horrific attacks in Israel back with I think it really the starting off point was that concert that took place where I think was three to 500 folks were killed or are still some missing. And it's turned into a whole conversation right now taking over not just the Middle Eastern conflict and discourse but now our American discourse. So how did we get here to discuss how we got here, and frankly, how the heck we get out of here discussing not just that situation, but also his brand new book, The New American anti semitism the left the right, and the Jews joining me today, Dr. Ben Ginsburg, welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. How you doing?

Benjamin Ginsberg  3:27  
Hey, I'm good. How are you? Brian? Doing great,

Brian Nichols  3:30  
Ben, thank you for joining the show. And I wish we were talking about something more positive and uplifting. But frankly, Ben, this is a conversation we need to have more and more folks I'm seeing in my world. I'm seeing it with the younger generations who are currently gracing the halls of high level academia that the anti semitism, or at the very least, the misunderstanding of historical realities is like just running rampant through our higher education. But now I'm seeing a lot of this on the political left. So we really need to dig into this conversation, figure out how the heck we got here, and how do we actually fix things going forward. But Ben, before we do that, do us a favor, introduce yourself here to The Brian Nichols Show audience and also why your focus on the Yes, the left the right and the Jews.

Benjamin Ginsberg  4:13  
Well, thank you, Brian. I'm a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins. Before that, I was a professor at Cornell for many years. And this topic of anti semitism is one in which I've been interested intellectually and also personally. My parents were both are Holocaust survivors. And I personally was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, came to the United States as a little kid. So this is something that that has been very important to me and to my family in our history. You know, the United States was always the Great, the great A Bastion bastion of freedom. But in recent years things have changed a bit in our country. And in particular anti semitism, which used to be found on the political right, you know, we equated with Nazism, fascism and so forth, has migrated to the political left. So now we see a variety of, of progressive forces, spouting what they call anti Zionism. But in reality, there is no difference between anti Zionism and anti semitism, generally speaking, they're one in the same, even though I guess, philosophically, they could be different. You could be opposed to Israel and like Jews, but in the real world, it's not like that. People who are strongly opposed to Israel, probably don't like Jews to begin with. And I'll tell you why. If you were to take rank order, the regimes in the world on the basis of their cruelty on the basis of their evil, Israel wouldn't be at the top in a world that contains Syria, Iran, North Korea. I mean, I personally am strongly opposed to North Korea, I want to lead a movement. But nobody seems to be too upset about the fact that the North Koreans, murder and enslave their own people, or they, for that matter, the Iranians, the Syrians, and a host of others. So why Israel, and generally speaking, people who are strongly opposed to Israel, harbor anti semitism to begin with. Secondly, if you're going to go out there, screaming about Israel, chances are that your political opponents will include large numbers of Jews, who among along with Christian Zionists, and others are the defenders of Israel. So, you know, in political conflicts, you might start out as friends, but the people who you oppose, eventually you come to dislike, just by virtue of, of the political struggle. So whether or not anti Zionism starts out as anti semitism, it becomes anti semitism very quickly. And we saw on college campuses, that anti Zionist student groups very quickly became anti Jewish student groups. Now, of course, there is one odd group, and that's the anti Zionist Jews. People who belong to groups like If not now, or others, are Jewish Voice for Peace, that claim to be anti Israel. They're odd. Some of them are just weird. You know, some of them are what used to be called self hating Jews. They want to say, oh, no, I, you know, they don't mean me. I too, am anti Zionist. Others are leftists, who, having observed that their friends on the left are all migrating to a position of anti semitism didn't want to be left behind? They had to decide, am I going to be an anti Zionist? Am I going or am I going to be a person of the left or am I going to be a Jew? And they chose to be people of the left and joined what I would consider anti semitic groups. So that's today's anti semitism. But the question is how did anti semitism which used to be a right wing idea, move over to the political left? And for that, Brian, we need to hit a little history. The key event was the 1967. Israel Arab war, which as you know, took lasted seven or eight days. And during that time, Israel routed all of the neighboring Arab Arab states, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq. And this was a very critical event not only in the Middle East, but also in the politics of anti semitism. Before 1967, Israel was a little socialist state that liberal and socialist politicians really liked. Bernie Sanders, for example, went to Israel and had himself photographed in front of a tractor in our showing that he was a man of the people. European Socialists would go to Israel for similar reasons, demonstrating that they were sympathetic to the people Israel got most of its weapons from France and from the Eastern Bloc. In 67, Israel suddenly emerged as a military power. Ah, shocked everyone. And the United States government took stock of this. Because you know, the United States, certainly in the 60s, even today, it sees the Middle East as a vitally important area area because oil. Saudi and Gulf oil are still the world's cheapest energy source. And they saw Israel as a potentially useful proxy in the Middle East. And the US began arming Israel and Israel shifted over into the American security orbit. Well, to politicians on the left, this was a great sin. This little socialist state, now was a proxy for American imperialism, right? They couldn't forgive this sin. And then something else happened. In the 70s 80s 90s, large numbers of Muslims from Middle Eastern countries began migrating to Western Europe. Now, in Western Europe, socialist parties thought, Well, wait a minute, this is pretty good. Because all of these oppressed people, they're going to be socialists, right, they're going to strengthen our voter base. But the problem was that these new, you know, socialist voters weren't interested in any of the traditional socialist ideas that were spouted by the European Left, not a single one of them had ever read Karl Marx. They weren't interested in any of these things. They were interested in Sharia and their religious ideas. So European Socialists scratch their heads, and came up with an idea. There might be one thing on which European Socialists and these new Muslim immigrants could find common ground. And that was Israel, because both had developed or brought with them, an intense dislike for Israel and for Jews. And this began the migration of anti semitism to the left, European Socialists began to espouse anti Zionist views, and then a bit of anti semitism enter their rhetoric. And that's how it all started. So,

Brian Nichols  12:40  
Ben, I want to really quick, I do want to go back to one thing that you brought up, I think this would be really good just because there has been, I think, multiple situations of both sides. I don't want you to both sides in terms of, you know, the Israel Hamas conflict, but rather, when we're having this conversation about anti semitism, anti Zionism and you went you, I think you articulated in your perspective that anti Zionism drifts into anti semitism, I guess, let me ask the devil's advocate question. And that is, well, I know, I'm a libertarian, and I know a lot of libertarians who are 1,000%, pro Jew, pro Israel, however, they don't want American tax dollars going overseas. And that's not an Israel thing. That's a foreign policy thing. They look at Ukraine, and they say the exact same thing, why are we sending $100 billion? You know, great.

Benjamin Ginsberg  13:28  
This is a very good question. And I'm also a libertarian. You know, well, you know, the test for being a liberal libertarian, do you hate the state? Now? I would say,

Brian Nichols  13:39  
that is a good test, by the way. But the

Benjamin Ginsberg  13:42  
thing is that, where I think libertarians need to think closely about their position, is that America doesn't live in the world by itself. And America's place in the world is, is a function and part of the strength of our alliances, our ability to strengthen our friends. You know, Ronald Reagan certainly understood this. Ronald Reagan was a libertarian to a point, but on the other hand, he believed that America should work to strengthen its allies. And that's how I feel I mean, when it comes to Ukraine, sure, I don't like billions of dollars being sent out of the country go, I will tell you that best of those billions of dollars are spent right here. Talk to executives at Lockheed Martin, and they'll tell you, but protecting Ukraine is in our national interest. The Ukrainians are helping to defend us against a greater threat, namely Russia. And I think libertarians have to understand that we're spending not on the Ukrainians but on ourselves. The Ukrainians are fighting our fight. And the same is true of Israel.

Brian Nichols  15:06  
You know, these really quick and just just to that, because I think there is a part that we should maybe dig a little bit more to this. And that is, well, I think the libertarian, the non interventionist libertarian argument would be, Well, are we having to have this defense of American values in Ukraine? Are we having to have millions, billions of dollars go to Israel to defend Israel as a result of rewind 1015 3050 years ago, where we were doing what we maybe were arguing, as do good policies back in the day, now we're starting to see the consequences of those policies where maybe they weren't as good as we thought they were. And now we're having to almost we're responding to our response, more or less more. Yeah,

Benjamin Ginsberg  15:50  
you're absolutely right. And blowback is, is one of the key problems in international politics. You know, we armed guerrilla forces in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets. And that helped to mobilize them. And to this day, we, they're a problem for us. You know, you can't, you can't accurately predict the future. Sometimes we make mistakes by intervening. And sometimes we make mistakes by not intervening. Look at Iran, for example. Because of the stupidity of the Carter administration, the Shah was overthrown. And an Islamist government took control of Iran, you know, that Islamist government is now our major adversary of the Middle East, and probably about to test a nuclear weapon. So, you know, when we have been better off intervening in 1978, I think we would have, but who knew? So, you know, hindsight is always perfect foresight. Not so. But I will say this, that libertarians need to look at the at the problem through the lens of what the Germans call eye on politic, did I get my arm rolling properly, I added politics. That means political realism. We don't want to be naive on either end, we don't want to naively intervene. When it's going to hurt us, we don't want to naively stand back, when that's going to hurt us, we have to think through and do the best we can with the information at hand. Ah, I would say that in the case of, of the Ukraine, we did the right thing that is we we provided huge quantities of weapons to the Ukrainians. And with those weapons, they were able to hold back the Russians and really bloody them. In the case of of Israel and Hamas, you know, our Arab allies in the Middle East are afraid of Hamas. Hamas is a proxy for the Iranians. And the Iranians use Hamas and Hezbollah to expand their influence in the Middle East. And this affects not only Israel, but our various Arab allies, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. So it is in our interest to see to and Egypt, and it's in our interest to see to it that the Israelis defeat Hamas, you know, it's not forever, but at least for the time being, make it impossible for Hamas and Hezbollah to serve Iran's needs. Otherwise, the United States will pay for it in a few years. Remember, those people running around college campuses shouting about settler colonialism? Do you know this term settler colonialism? They don't mean just Israel? They mean the United States of America? Yes. Okay. We were founded by settlers. Now, of course, the idea of settler colonialism is stupid. Because every square inch

Brian Nichols  19:10  
That was fantastic. That is stupid. Yes. I

Benjamin Ginsberg  19:14  
mean, you know, let's keep it as stupid. Or as, as Mrs. Gump used to say, stupid is as stupid does. Sure. settler colonialism doesn't explain anything because it's true everywhere. Every square inch of territory on the face of the earth used to belong to somebody else, and probably will again someday. You know, when the European colonists arrived on the shores of North America, they encountered Indian nations who had taken the land from previous Indian nations, and they had done so by force and settle the land. So you know, their claim wasn't, wasn't wholly though. That's the way it's the way of the world On. So when when these students and others go around screaming about settler colonialism, they don't mean just Israel, they have in mind the United States. Remember, they think of Israel as a little Satan, and America's the great Satan. So this was the Iranian terminology. So their view, America and Israel are both the enemies. And America should understand that too. When we give weapons to Israel, Israel in some measures fighting our fight as well, Hamas is a proxy for Iran, which is our enemy in the Middle East, that that's how it is that's IOD politic, as opposed to good, you know, good feeling and Kumbaya. We've got to avoid those kumbaya moments. They are very dangerous, right? So

Brian Nichols  20:56  
there's, there's like a, I think this is where the idealism of libertarians comes to the table. Because we want a society where there's non aggression, we want a society where it's, you know, you're you're within the confines of your own your own house, right, you're trying to focus on the things that matter to you in your world. But to your point, we are now in a situation of a global society, where it's not just within the confines of our traditional borders. And this is where we've had some some challenges on more of the libertarian side of the aisle, because we want the ideal. While I think sometimes we completely bypass the reality. And I think you actually brought up a really good point, Ben, and that is when you're talking about right now looking at the college campuses, and where this mentality has been fostered. And frankly, I think libertarians have a they have an obligation to take a step back and say, Who's agreeing with us fervently in this case? And are they doing it for the same reasons? And the answer is obviously no. Right? Like they they want the Israeli Hamas conflict to end for completely different reasons than the non interventionist, like principled position from a libertarian, let's say, the versus they're just much more in the emotional, vindictive mindset of whether it's destroy Israel, or to your point where the anti Zionism does become the anti semitism. And I think that right there speaks to, we've dropped the ball, you look back to Harvard president, the UPenn President doing the testimony before Congress, and being asked a very simple question, is calling for the genocide of Jews a violation of Jewish students rights to feel comfortable or at least not threatened on campus? And none of the college presidents could give an effective or just a rational answer, and that's talking

Benjamin Ginsberg  22:52  
about the Three Stooges, right?

Brian Nichols  22:54  
That's right. That's right. Yes. With Claudia, and

Benjamin Ginsberg  22:58  
I'm glad you raised this because campus anti semitism is something worth talking about. And of course, as a professor, I know a little more about this, even though at Johns Hopkins, it's been muted. In our campus, anti semitism began with Muslim student groups, like Students for Justice in Palestine, who organized chapters on a number of campuses, where they joined other progressive groups, not libertarians, but they joined environmentalists, you know, the whole the whole group, the panoply of workgroups. And these groups operate on a principle called intersectionality. Which is a fancy term that it means you know, I'll support your cause and your support by because we're all oppressed. So what's the difference? The exact cause. So gradually, the entire campus left became anti Zionist. And this creates, you know, sort of weird coalition partners. I was shocked when I saw in some demonstration or other a group calling themselves queers for Palestine. Now, does this make any sense?

Brian Nichols  24:20  
That does not make any sense because if Palestine Palestine, they would not look at you with the same way that you're looking at the Palestinians in America,

Benjamin Ginsberg  24:29  
probably they would kill you. Yeah. In the real world, queer Palestinians move to Israel or they're where they're safe. Or they are they don't come out of the out of the closet in Palestine. Absolutely. You're not. So the queers for Palestine are nuts. But it's intersectionality. Right. They cooperate with their fellow leftist and on college campuses, you have two other phenomena. What is that? school administrators are terrified of the campus left. Tell us more is no campus, right? Yes. Yeah, there is no. Right. And the great middle doesn't involve itself much in politics. So they're, they're conditioned. Anything that is said on the left? Oh, yes, yes, this was pretty speech. You notice that the Three Stooges could not bring themselves to say the first thing in response to well, okay, if someone advocates genocide against the Jews, do you think that's bad? They wouldn't, they wouldn't say it, because they'll never never ever criticize the left. The other problem on college campuses, is that students don't know anything. They don't know any history. And it's not their fault. Nobody ever taught it to them. I've discovered that in every class, I teach whatever the subject is, I spend most of my time teaching history. Because in our secondary schools and our K to 12, they don't teach history. There used to be I don't know, if you, Brian, you might think back to your school experience. I'm a lot older. When I was a kid, they would start with facts. And you do a lot of a lot of facts before you ever moved on to ideas, right? This was something called Bloom's pyramid, which with traditional pedagogy, the base is fact. And then you move up the steps at the very apex is critical thinking, well, a few years ago, progressive teacher said, That's not fair. We've got to invert the pyramid, we start with critical thinking. Now, I asked you this question. If you don't know any facts, what do you think critically about? Alright,

Brian Nichols  26:46  
my buddy, Chris just posted this. He says, When you don't know how things work, everything is conspiracy. That's it.

Benjamin Ginsberg  26:54  
It's magical thinking everything is magical thinking. You know, in our world today, we have a ton of Magical Thinking conspiracy theories, some guy goes to a pizza parlor in Washington to shoot it up because of something he heard. Well, you now know anything, anything is possible. I so I've discovered that college students and this is, you know, the two colleges where I've taught, these are very selective. They take the top 5% of applicants. They don't know anything. They know World War One came before world war two because they're numbered. If they weren't number, they wouldn't be able to tell me that. You know, when we talked about the politics of the Middle East? I said, Well, let's begin with World War One and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. I think there was one kid out of 15, who claimed to know what the Ottoman Empire was, and I'm not sure he knew that much. So they don't know anything. And when kids don't know anything, as as your friend said, they're capable of believing almost anything. And you know what the crazier it is, the more likely they are to believe it. You know, on the internet, a really weird idea travels three times as fast as a regular idea. Because people are intrigued by it. We live in what some people call a post truth society. And people believe things, and they believe them. So they must be true. Because they don't know anything. You know, I I'm sure you saw this news clip, where all the students chanting from the river to the sea, were asked what river what they didn't know. I had no idea people guess the, you know, the Caribbean Sea, the Amazon River, they had no idea. So you have these are the three, the three building blocks of campus craziness. One, you have Students for Justice in Palestine, sort of worming its way into the progressive echo system. Then you have administrators who often are stupid, and are only you know, will never, never ever criticize the left. And then you have students who are completely gullible, and it's not their fault. Nobody ever taught them anything. Right. You know, I've looked at some high school AP books to see what they say. I found one which is used in a lot of places that explained that the US started World War Two. Now that's a little stretch, don't you think? A little bit yeah, a little bit. And the same book also said that American capitalism was more destructive of human life than Soviet or Chinese collectivization. Now, the book admitted that Mao killed 20 million people, but the book said a lot of this was a result of bad weather. Now seriously, even Mao used to glorify, you know, used to revel in all these murders. Mao used to say that the quality of a revolutionary is to be measured by the number of people he killed. But according to this book, it was the weather. So this is what kids are taught? How are they supposed to know anything? So a lot of the problem really starts in our school system. Here

Brian Nichols  30:23  
here. Well, how about this, Ben, we're going towards the tail end of the episode here. And I do want to tee up one, I think it's a good long term question, because we need to have I think, not just an understanding of the past, but frankly, where we're heading. So let's just take where we are today. Where do you see both in terms of the Pro and the con, of the conversation heading in terms of, you know, whether it's a more rational conversation about these very polarized issues? Do you see anything with regards to the American supporting of what's taking place in Ukraine and in Israel, just for the conversation we had today? Do you see maybe that those will lead to any unintended consequences? What the deal with 30 to 40 years from now today? And then I guess, where do you see our college institutions, as they're kind of moving forward? Here after this post truth society has really started to rear its ugly head? Do you see college institutions being a credible source of knowledge and insight as they were looked at years past as we head towards the future?

Benjamin Ginsberg  31:24  
While you only ask simple questions,

Brian Nichols  31:25  
I see only simple questions come on. But I'll try

Benjamin Ginsberg  31:29  
to answer in part. You know, we're in a period of craziness in the United States. And you know, we have a period of craziness every 3040 years or so. So I'm hopeful that adults will come forward and explain to all these kids how the world really works. I'm an idealist. I would love a world in which we could sit around the campfire singing Kumbaya, I know the words to that, because I'm a product of the 60s. But that world has never existed, never in reality. And if we want a world in which we're safe, we have to prepare to see we have to be prepared to see the world as it really is. And as it really is, there are people out there who hate us. There are people out there who want what we have, and would like to take it away from us. So when we have to support our friends, that's just how it is. It's fine to be a libertarian, I'm a libertarian, but I also know that we have to support our friends in the world. And sometimes we have to give them a kick in the pants to contribute their own support, which is I think what Trump did the other day, I don't think he is to be taken literally that he would encourage the Russians to invade Europe, but he meant that figuratively, that they need to wake up to and contribute properly to their own defense. Second, we have to seriously address our school system. And unfortunately, in a lot of school systems, the United States is presented is framed, as in imperialistic, exploitive, racist country. Now, sure, the United States has done all those things we have been racist have been exploitive have been imperialist? No question. But that's not what the United States is about. The United States should be looked at through its positives through liberty, prosperity, democracy, while admitting that we do have done bad things, too, that we try to work on. So I would urge people who are interested to compare the state mandated curricula in Texas and in California, a lot of the classes are the same. However, in California, everything is through a framework of racism, imperialism, exploitation, whereas in Texas, these things are admitted. But they're to be understood in terms of America's aspirations. And that's the way we should teach our kids. Why Why teach your kids that your country is no good unless your goal of course is to destroy the country, which maybe. So, though, I've responded to two of your you asked me too many questions. I know you're on. Here's the final.

Brian Nichols  34:35  
Here's the final question I had. And that is, do you envision a situation where any of America's current policy positions as it pertains to the funding of, let's say, the wars in Ukraine, the wars currently in Israel against Gaza? Do you see those painting a picture of any potential unintended consequences that we they're not even on a purview here today, but fast forward 34 The years we have to deal with those much as we are dealing with situations that are on the ground in those areas today that were caused by actions 3040 50 years ago in the past?

Benjamin Ginsberg  35:11  
Well, you know, I think it depends how we handle them. In the case of, of Ukraine, we can only hope that the Ukrainians willingness to sacrifice and defend themselves will lead to a reaction in Russia, similar to the reaction that occurred after the defeat of Afghanistan. Remember, the Soviet Union's collapse was in part a result of all the blood and treasure they lost in Afghanistan. And the blood and treasure loss by by Russia here is much, much more significant. So we can only hope that Russia, the Russian people will react to this to Putin's craziness. And in the Middle East, I think if we stay the course, and allow the Israelis to destroy Hamas, despite the agony, despite the agony of the Palestinian people, that this will have a positive effect. Because remember, to our various friends in the Middle East, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, are the Gulf states. Hamas is an enormous threat. Because they are Iranian proxies. So our I like to hope for the best. And I think that's what we should do. That's American, right? That's the real America. It's not settler colonialism, its liberty and hoping for the best. So I think we have to behave reasonably and rationally now. And pray that sometime in the future we can sit around the campfire singing Kumbaya at night yet,

Brian Nichols  37:12  
that will be the song of today's episode Kumbaya. Ben, it's been a great conversation having you here on the show. The book is the new American anti semitism the left the right, and the Jews. You can find it over@independent.org over on Amazon, wherever you can find all your favorite books, all that fun stuff, folks, if you got some value from today's episode, I'm going to ask you to please go ahead and give it a share. When you do please tag yours truly at B. Nichols liberty on x as well as on facebook.com. Ben, where can folks go ahead and reach out to you if they want to continue the conversation?

Benjamin Ginsberg  37:46  
Sure. My email address is BG i n s the E one at Gmail.

Brian Nichols  37:54  
Beautiful. All right, folks. Well listen for the The Brian Nichols Show, I know you're watching us or you're listening to us in some way, shape, or form. But yes, there are other ways that you can listen or watch to us. So for video of the show, YouTube rumble x.com and facebook.com. You can check out the entire video versions of the show in their entirety over on those different entities. Please do me a favor hit that subscribe button, hit the little notification bell hit that like button, but also head down below into the comments. We want to hear your thoughts. I know there's a lot of libertarians who probably heard today's episode and they're screaming at their respective phones or earbuds or whatever it is they are listening to the show with today. So if you disagree, we want to hear your thoughts. But please keep it respectful. And of course, we want to have an intelligent conversation. That's what we do here. Educate, enlighten and inform. As for the audio version of the show, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube music, wherever it is, you get your podcasts just hit that download all unplayed episodes here of The Brian Nichols Show. We have over 825 episodes that I guarantee will leave you educated, enlightened and informed. And one final plug in that is to please support the folks who support us and that is our phenomenal sponsors amp America cardio miracle brand new sponsor, the wellness company, plus our good friends over at Indian Emporium. They have a really cool shirt they're doing right now Michael Scott from the office. It's Michael Scott 2024 and his 40 day plan. You want to go ahead and show folks that maybe Biden and Trump aren't necessarily are going to get your vote and you want to vote for someone else. Show me you're voting for Michael Scott. Definitely raise a few questions there as well. So folks, with that being said, that's all we have for you today. Brian Eno signing off in The Brian Nichols Show for Dr. Ben Ginsberg. We'll see you next time. Thank you

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