YouSaid · the spoken record

Dave Smith

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218
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2025-04-09
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2025-04-09
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  1. “So before the Saudis invaded. So, like, from 2009 through 2015, AQAP just kept growing. He was doing all these targeted bombing campaigns, or they call them targeted. 96% of the people are innocent who get killed, but they call them targeted drone bombings. And Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula just kept getting bigger and bigger. Because, you know, it's like, yeah, every time you go in there, it's like, okay, you took out one target and then you took out three little girls and, you know, and every one of those little girls had brothers and uncles and fathers. And, you know, and all of them just signed up to join the fight now. Because, you know, and I Ron Paul was the first one who really made this click for me. But it's in a way, and I'm not like, I'm not a leftist. I'm not an egalitarian. I'm not a cultural relativist. I'm not saying that all cultures are the same or that we all look at the world the same way. There's enormous differences between all of us.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “It was a General McCrystal who was the general running the war in Afghanistan. He wasn't like, he wasn't Ron Paul, you know what I mean? Like he was a sir, yes, sir. How do we fight and win this war general? And he's the one who coined the term insurgent math 10 minus 2 equals 20. You know, it's like the more you keep, I was just reading, I was rereading about this the other day because of the Trump's been bombing the Houthis in Yemen. You know, it's like when we first, I think it was in at least in 2009 is when Obama really stepped up the drone campaign, the then secret drone bombing campaign. And Yemen was one of the major theaters. And even back then, when it really was just a war on terrorism, like the main targets were always Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and their presence in Yemen. Even then,”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Already pretty close to being a terrorist, like my next thought is kind of like, well, okay, well, I hope you're going to like it when you watch your family die in front of you. You know, I'm not, hopefully, even if that happened to me, I wouldn't go kill that guy's family. Like maybe I just go after him or something, but I could understand. And I think most people have kids could understand going to a level of like the most evil dark place you could imagine if something ever, anyone ever threatened or actually did something to your kids.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “What about the million people who are killed? What about all the millions of people who are injured? What about the tens of thousands of our soldiers who have blown their brains out in the aftermath of the thing? Like it's like so, so many times this true with government policy in general, people talk about the end result that they want, but you're like, yeah, but what about the process by which you get there and how much hatred? You know, could you, I mean, like I, you know, it's not that hard for me to like put myself in other people's shoes and like I have too little kids and a wife. And if anybody were to ever try to argue to me that they have to be the eggs that get broken to make some bigger omelet, like it's okay. Like, you know, we're ultimately going to impose something on your society that's better than what you have right there. It sure does suck that your wife and kids got to be the one who get taken out. I mean, I'm, as I'm just saying this to myself, and this is not real. This is just a thought experiment I'm making up.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “But the way that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and every right wing host in America and Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly and like everybody, what they were saying is that they hate that we're free. Whereas it was much closer to saying like they don't like us imposing on them. Even like all the hardcore neocons. Brett Stevens, the New York Times, he wrote this piece on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so 2023, to cheerlead the war in Iraq. And he goes through the whole piece, and there's not one mention of the million people who died in the war. You know, he literally just goes, the piece is just measure life under Saddam Hussein versus life under the Shiite parliamentary system that they have now. Which one's better? And he's arguing this one's better. Therefore, it was worth it. But there's like no mention. It's like, okay, but what about the 20 plus million people who are displaced?”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “For me, I was living in New York City, I was 18, I think when 9 11 happened. And there was like the moment of my childhood. It was a huge thing to live through. I mean, we were attacked. This seemed like something that could only happen in a history book that didn't happen to America in the 90s. 2001 was basically the 90s. And it was just like, oh, finally it clicked. It was like, that makes sense. It's the first time I had ever heard like an explanation and an understanding of this whole thing that were involved in now from 9-11 to the terror wars that actually just made perfect sense.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “What is going on here? They can own guns and their women can wear miniskirts, and that just made people so angry that they were ready to, you know, like suicide bomb themselves. That makes no sense at all. And then Ron Paul was just like, no, look, here's the thing. If we think we can just go around the world killing people, propping up dictatorships, putting our military bases and the Muslims' holy land, and not engender hatred from that, then we do that at our own peril. And I thought that was it was such an interesting kind of, you know, it had always been, I'm in 80s and 90s kid. And to me, it was always kind of a given that like America's number one. We're the force for good in the world. And it was like an interesting introduction to the idea that there are people outside of that who are dominated by that, who don't care for it very much. And like that, that's what 9-11 was actually about.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Bullshit. And I think that we were lied into it. And so I kind of got that. And then there were liberals and left-wingers who I knew. I grew up in New York City, so I was very familiar with the left-wing perspective and who were critical of George W. Bush and for fighting the war and signing the Patriot Act into law and things like that. But I had never really heard anybody break it down the way Ron Paul did when he was basically was like, look, there's a reason why these terrorists hate us. And it's not what they're telling you. They don't hate us for our freedom. It's not as if, I remember the way Pat Buchanan put it, which I always loved was he goes a Dick Cheney makes it sound like Osama bin Laden stumbled on like in the deserts of Afghanistan. He stumbled on to a copy of our Bill of Rights somewhere and he was like, oh my God, they're free to look at this speedy trial. Are you kidding me?”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Those two things do make sense together, and then also that kind of like in the initial wave of the original progressives, you know, look people like Woodrow Wilson or FDR, these were people who were pushing big government at home and big government abroad. And that actually made much more sense as a cohesive worldview and to oppose that would be the Ron Paul worldview. And then the other thing for me, and this was actually my introduction to Ron Paul, and this too to me was like kind of a portal in a way. It was a way, at least in my naive, not fully functioned brain or fully developed brain at 24 years old or whatever. It was a way for me to kind of get, like, like I tapped into something that was outside the empire. And I had heard a lot, you know, I was already against George W. Bush, and I didn't like the war. I had already figured out, you know, I think this, I think this war in Iraq.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “What is it exactly that all the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and even like Milton Friedman and guys like that and Thomas Salle? And it's like you want a constitutionally limited world empire Like that's what you guys stand for because that doesn't that doesn't fit together at all. And so why is it that we were taking this as a given? And then of course the more you look into it you realize that like okay there”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “So I was young. I'm born in 83. So that made me 23, 24 when I first met him. So I was a young guy. And at least for me at the time, there were like kind of two categories in my, you know, naive mind where, okay, there were like the liberals who supported big government at home, but were skeptical about big government abroad or skeptical about wars. And then there were the conservatives who said that they supported small government, limited government at home, but were always on the side of whatever the next war is. And at least for me, and I think for a lot of people of my generation, Ron Paul was the first guy who came along and said, like, no, I'm for limited government here and abroad. And it was kind of like a portal where you could like access a different perspective on the world. And then once you saw that, you were like, wait, that's actually what makes sense. It doesn't make sense to like.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “He laid the groundwork in his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns for not saying that he leads to Donald Trump, but he laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to be able to get up at the South Carolina Republican primary debate and look at Jeb Bush and say, your brother lied us into war”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I think it comes, it all came from kind of the same central thesis, which is that the highest political value ought to be liberty and that the government, by its very nature, is an instrument of force and tyranny and that therefore the more government you have, the less liberty you have. I think he also was way ahead of his time in like really calling out the corruption in DC. And I think that's one of the things that's kind of, that it's a common through line between the Federal Reserve and government spending and, of course, this crazy war industry that our country has. There's a lot of components to that, but essentially Ron Paul was talking about draining the swamp way before it was like this dominant mass message. And I think. Ron Paul, in many ways, laid down”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Of babies. Like he's just like this kind of classic American figure. And, you know, I just think, you know, at the risk of falling into like hero worship or something like that, I do think he's a genuinely great man. And I think great men are to be revered.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Office because they were just like there's just no getting through to this guy. He was just not playing politics like that. And he was, you know, you imagine what it must have been like from the lobbyist perspective when they first tried to go there, you know, and they'd be like, all right, listen, we really need you to, you know, vote yes on this or that. And he was like, the Constitution doesn't authorize us to do that. And they're like, what? Like, who in this town even talks like that? You know? And so there was just, he's also just, I've met him many times at this point and he is just genuinely, he's like one of those guys who's just from like an older, better generation, just he's the sweetest guy, but he's like, but he's not a pushover. Like he was a tough guy in his day and he was an athlete and he was in the Air Force and is married to the same woman for, I think, over 60 years at this point, has like a big, beautiful family. He was a country doctor. He was a baby doctor who delivered thousands.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Champion of these views for decades when there was no payoff for it at all, where he was just kind of alone in the woods being, you know, they used to call him Dr. No because, well, he was a medical doctor. And then he would be the lone no vote in Congress like all the time. Like on the bills that the entire Congress bipartisan agreement, everything. And there's one vote against it, you know, and that he would be that guy. He clearly kept doing what he was doing simply because he believed it was right, not because there was any benefit for him. In fact, he dealt with a lot of headaches for the views that he had. And then he was just a genuine person of integrity. You know, he's the only congressman who I've ever heard this about and like DC insiders, people on the hill will say this. He was the only congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting. He was the only one who they just stopped going to his”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Big fan is an understatement. I think Ron Paul is like the greatest living American hero. I revere him on the level of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Number one, I mean, all of the major issues that he was correct in his understanding of them, his diagnosis of what caused these problems, and his solutions. In hindsight, there's just like a million different examples of where almost everybody today would agree, even though his ideas were very controversial at the time, be like, oh my God, if we had just listened to Ron Paul about that, we'd be so much better off. But I think there's something almost deeper than that about why Ron Paul inspires so much love from so many people is, okay, so number one, the guy, he was a”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, so there's almost like anything like with left-wing schools of thought or right-wing schools of thought. There's many different camps and different thinkers. And so within the kind of broader theme of libertarianism, there was a lot of influence from people like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Thomas Soul. Those were, I think, some of the more mainstream figures. And then there's kind of like the Ron Paul brand of libertarianism, which is kind of distinct from that other camp where they're much more of an emphasis on foreign policy. All of them kind of fall into the radical minarchist points of view. And then there's Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist. Then there's also like David Friedman, who's an anarcho-capitalist, but from a completely different perspective than Murray Rothbard, I would probably be most closely like with the Rothbard school, which is very similar to Ron Paul, but even maybe.”

    2025-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source