Remember, Remember the 5th of November
Election edition. Issues, podcasts, dealbreakers
I’m back. I’ve been hiking in the mountains, coaching writers, planning the next retreat, going to Halloween parties, and doing a nervous system mastery course. I decided to take my time writing about politics. It’s the first time I’ve written about it, and hopefully the last. There’s a lot here. It could be multiple posts, but I opted to keep it as one because this is not a political publication.
All Outcomes Are Acceptable: Election Edition
Intro
This is the most ridiculous election. It’s unreal. The level of deception across the board is biblical. But there’s a common message on both sides: The other team is an existential threat.
It’s become so emotionally charged that people don’t want to talk about it. I see people on both sides who are 100% sure that they are on the moral high ground. I see friends and family living in different information worlds.
“So who’s everyone voting for?” I said at a dinner party.
People started laughing. It was funnier that I thought it would be.
I’m weighing in. I wasn’t going to until I spoke to friends and heard how much they are not thinking about this. I’m in a position where I have the time, energy, capacity, and curiosity to think about this stuff - wars, economics, politics. Not everyone is willing and able to do that.
It’s hard to know what’s true. Not everyone wants to wade through the internet swamp trying to discern what the hell is actually going on. It’s hard to not just take the easy route and vote for the same team as before, optimize for social acceptance, or a single issue.
Of the three presidential elections I’ve voted in, this one feels the most important.
The issues
Some of my friends, despite having similar values, are living in different information worlds, and coming to very different conclusions. One reason is because we care about different issues. I started to think about why I care about war, economics, and free speech, more than abortion, social issues, and climate.
I prioritize by thinking: how many people does this affect, how much does it affect them. Nuclear war, everyone, a lot. Climate change, most people, a little to medium amount.
I’m thinking about what affects the most people, the most, and probably what affects me the most, and what is most relevant to the federal government - what they are responsible for.
War is a big one. My grandfather is one of the last living WWII veterans. As the Greatest Generation disappears, I fear that we are forgetting that the entire world was at war - and it was really bad - not that long ago. There’s no reason it can’t happen again. It almost recently did.
Economics also affects everyone. We have government overspending driving inflation that could bankrupt the country. I don’t know the exact effects of national bankruptcy, but I don’t think it’s my preference.
Abortion and climate are important issues too, but for me they are secondary.
I don’t see how the Federal government could further accelerate the transition to sustainable energy, a it’s clear they will not pass a carbon tax.
The abortion issue, as I see it, comes down to deciding when a new human gains the right to not be killed, basically, when a mother can no longer terminate a pregnancy because the baby has legal rights. It’s complex, polarizing, and emotionally charged. There’s no easy answer. At some point, the baby gets legal protections. I’m not sure the Federal government is the best entity to draw that line.
My politics is more or less: socialist in my family and community, conservative-ish at the state level, and libertarian-ish at the federal level.
I want leaders who minimize war, reduce and eliminate government overspending, protect and promote free speech, take action to help improve the health of Americans, minimize taxation, and simplify the tax code and regulatory burden to help businesses continue thriving. I want leaders who will reform legal immigration and decrease illegal immigration, and maintain and improve safety in America.
Roommate
In the kitchen, I asked my roommate, Who are you voting for?
He said, “I’m at the point where I want to buy a house. So maybe voting for the Dems [Team A] will help me do that. This is my simple brain thinking.”
Candidate A’s website says $25,000 to everyone to buy a house.
“What happens when they do that?” I asked.
“The money runs dry,” he said.
“Actually no, we’ll just go deeper in debt because the government checks don’t bounce. But housing prices go up by $25k. So there’s no change.”
That seems to be the strategy. You’ll get this for free. But it doesn’t work.
All government spending is taxation.
Giving everyone $25k to buy a house actually benefits existing property owners.
“How do you approach voting?” I asked him.
“I think it doesn’t matter. I’m not close enough to politics to care…Now I’m a registered Pennsylvania voter so maybe it matters slightly more. Some part of me admits it might matter.”
“How do you decide who to vote for? Listen to podcasts? Look at their websites?”
“I ask my family who they’re voting for.”
I almost burst out laughing.
Regulatory Capture
When certain players seize control of the referee.
Washington is a bathtub of corporate special interest of money sloshing around. When evil entities get what they want, we get more censorship, forever wars, government overspending, poisoned food supply, chronic illness, and addictive drugs for everyone. In many ways, that’s what we’ve already got, and we’re trying to get rid of it.
We either let this go further, or we get people into government who delete the agencies that worked with private industry to create the messes. I mean hell, as per the failing Center for Disease control, 40% of America is obese. Fire these fools!
It’s not the food, “it’s a brain disease.” What?
Make America healthy again
I think this is something all reasonable people can get behind. America was healthier 60 years ago, and we should strive to be that healthy again - or even healthier.
Perhaps America had such poor outcomes with Covid because 75% of America is fat, according to the failing CDC.
As COVID ramped up, I thought there would be a huge campaign to make people healthy. There wasn’t.
90% of Americans have metabolic syndrome. It’s getting ridiculous.
A huge driver of poor health in America is regulatory capture - legal corruption of the referee. There are inadequate regulations of the chemicals in the food supply, poor education, and poor recommendations. The government is putting industrial profit ahead of health.
The government recommends 50 grams of added sugar as the recommended daily value. It says it on every product with added sugar. It’s clown world.
Per the (failing) Center for Disease Control, 11% of young people are reporting severe mental illness. That’s insane. It’s 10X higher than it ought to be. We ought to strive to get that number to zero. It’s possible and worthwhile, so let’s do it.
The first step is acknowledging the reality of the situation and making improving a priority. There is so much that can be done here.
To get better healthcare and get out of the sick-care system I suggest joining Crowd Health.
The Government Overspending Problem
How much money is need to run America per year. $2 trillion? $3 trillion? They currently taking in more than $4.4 trillion, and spending $6.75 trillion!
I can’t think of a good reason for the federal government to be spending $20,500 per American every year. The national debt is over $100k per person. It is business incompetence and short term thinking. Raising taxes and further complicating the tax code will not solve the government overspending problem. If anything, it could exacerbate it, and push businesses to other countries.
Both teams are to blame for the 23-year government overspending problem that has existed since the budget was last balanced in 2001. Last year the government put taxpayers an additional $1.7 Trillion in debt, an improvement from the $3.67 Trillion of overspending in 2020, and -$3.15 trillion in 2021. Ideally, the government is underspending, so there is money to start paying down the absurd amount of debt it has accumulated.
Imagine racking up $30 million of personal debts and continuing to overspend. Borrowing and overspending is an addiction.
Increasing debt increases the money supply and drives inflation. Inflation is a pernicious form of taxation, in part caused by government overspending.
All government spending is taxation.
The interest on the exorbitant national debt is now higher than the exorbitant military budget. Either the federal government gets the overspending under control very soon, or America goes bankrupt. I’d prefer the former.
It’s not just End-of-Dollar Day I’m worried about. The US federal government's checks can’t bounce, because we are the biggest kid on the block. When Uncle Sam dishes out too much free allowance money, not only does the currency eventually become worthless, but the kids get spoiled. Too much allowance money gets people doing things that aren’t actually useful.
Given the extraordinary level of spending and the reports of waste, fraud and abuse, it would be prudent to focus on reducing government overspending before raising taxes on our most useful people, which will compel them to leave and take their operations with them.
I propose that when the politicians run a deficit, they don’t get their salaries or benefits.
Maybe that’s not enough.
How about when the politicians run a deficit, they get to walk around with dirty underwear on their heads.
Immigration
Who is talking about how to reform legal immigration?
The system could be so good at getting the great people in, that the only people coming in illegally are ones who are no bueno.
From my travels, I know a dozen people in South America who I’d love to have on Team America. They all got denied visas to even visit. They could be a great addition to America, and we can get them in here. In my opinion, if someone becomes fluent in English, demonstrates they are willing and able to contribute to America, and demonstrates they understand and believe in the rights and freedoms of the Constitution, then it probably make sense to invite them to our awesome country.
I think reasonable people would agree it’s a good idea to strive for zero illegal immigration.
Podcasts
Back in August 2024, I searched for podcasts with Candidate A. I checked YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, and ChatGPT for podcasts within the past three years. I could not find one. It was hard to believe. After more digging, I found one on Audible of all places. It was “We Can Do Hard Things” from January 2023.
Two months later (10/28), I found five more:
Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharp (1 hour)
Call Her Daddy (40 minutes)
All the Smoke (47 min)
Unlocking Us with Brene Brown (55 minutes)
The Howard Stern Show (1 hour)
Podcasts with Candidate B
Joe Rogan Experience (3 hours)
Conversation with Elon live on X (2 hours)
All-In Podcast (1 hour 20 minutes)
Dr. Phil (1 hour)
"Lex Fridman Podcast" (1 hour)
"Impaulsive" with Logan Paul
"This Past Weekend" with Theo Von
“Full Send” with Nelk
"The Dan Bongino Show"
"PBD Podcast" with Patrick Bet-David
"Six Feet Under" with wrestler Mark Calaway
"Flagrant" with comedian Andrew Schulz
Barstool Sports’ "Bussin with the Boys"
"Shawn Ryan Show"
I also looked at both of the candidates' websites. How many voters do that?
On Team B’s website, there’s a 16-page text document about what they want to do. Chapter 1 features reducing government overspending, reducing war, and reducing illegal immigration. Unfortunately, in that document, there is no talk of making America healthy again, however, they mention briefly it on podcasts.
Team A Dealbreakers
Illegal immigration - The executive branch of the government runs the border. The estimates of illegal immigration over the last four years range from 10-24 million people.
The videos I’ve seen are unbelievable. The problem is undeniable.
Team A says there is a problem and that they’re going to fix it. But they’re already in power, so why haven’t they fixed it? Why did they change things to allow that to happen?
People are speculating that it’s because illegal immigrants, eventually given citizenship, tend to vote for the team that allowed them in. I am worried that any kind of voter importation strategy, real or perceived, unintentional or not, could cause significant civil tensions. Especially if the election is close, and the perceived amount of fraud is substantially larger than the margin of victory.
Destruction of Ukraine - US/NATO failed to maintain peace with Russia. Not only did they fail to achieve a peace deal, they refused to negotiate. Half of Ukraine is destroyed, countless innocent lives lost, and Russia has lowered the bar for using nuclear weapons.
This is a massive diplomatic disaster. We have never been closer to nuclear warfare.
Unrealized capital gains tax proposal - It’s hard to believe that grown adults are non-satirically proposing this.
Imagine a company offers you $100k for a job. The gains are unrealized until you accept the job and get the money. Now imagine the government tries to tax you on that $100k before you even take the job. You don’t even have the money. The more the company offers you, the more you get taxed, without even getting the money. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a reason that this doesn’t exist anywhere in the world: because it’s retarded.
The Tax Foundation is more politically correct in their analysis.
In her campaign for president, Vice President Kamala Harris has embraced all the tax increases President Biden proposed in the White House fiscal year 2025 budget—including a new idea that would require taxpayers with net wealth above $100 million to pay a minimum tax on their unrealized capital gains from assets such as stocks, bonds, or privately held companies.
The so-called billionaire minimum tax would take the tax code in the wrong direction by imposing a complicated tax on a narrow segment of high-earning taxpayers in a way that’s never been tried. This proposal would add new compliance burdens for taxpayers and administrative challenges for the IRS while weakening the US economy by raising the tax burden on saving and entrepreneurship. It would also require a new wealth reporting system, allowing the IRS to track the wealth of an unspecified number of Americans every year (some people with less than $100 million of wealth would be required to report it to the IRS).
…
Overall, the propsal moves in the opposite direction of sound tax policy.
I’d wager many Americans don’t know what unrealized gains means, and although that’s not ideal, it’s okay, but it’s not okay to have economically illiterate leaders. At the time of writing, we have a leader with dementia, so I guess it’s okay, just not my preference.
Taxing unrealized gains is so silly that it could be interpreted as a joke. But it’s not a joke. They are actually proposing doing this. Many of our most useful people would take their businesses out of the country, or not come here in the first place, and on net government revenue could decline.
The government could seize all the wealth from all the people who created billion or trillion dollar companies, and it still would not close the deficit, or reduce government overspending.
The unrealized gains tax proposal is a dealbreaker for me.
C19 shots. Team A tried (illegally according to the Supreme Court) to coerce 84 million Americans into injections they didn’t necessarily want. It’s hard to believe that actually happened just three years ago.
The Afghanistan debacle - Leaving billions of dollars of military equipment in Afghanistan for the Taliban is a notable mention. Not a dealbreaker, but definitely not how I want my taxes spent.
Lawfare - Using the legal system to attack, defile, and bankrupt political opponents. Team A sued RFK, many times, attempting to keep him off of ballots.
Not addressing my top issues - I looked through Team A’s website and listened to podcasts. I couldn’t find anything about the top issues I care about.
No talk of government overspending.
No talk of ending the war with Russia and de-escalation of nuclear war.
No talk about the health of America.
Censorship
The Twitter Files showed that Federal intelligence agencies were working with Twitter to censor, whatever the agencies wanted. This is not the America I want to live in. Instead of addressing the issue, leaders of Team A, including both candidates, are speaking about the need to eliminate the First Amendment, the right to free speech.
Candidate A running mate: “There is no guarantee of free speech for misinformation and hate speech”.
Censorship happens under the guise of doing good. There is no all-knowing truth machine. “Misinformation” and “hate speech” is whatever those in power say it is.
Candidate A said: “The bottom line is you can’t say you have one rule for Facebook and another rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply which is that there has to be a responsibility placed on social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation and that has to stop.”
I first saw the video on YouTube. Now I can’t find it there, but I found it on instagram.
“speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation and that has to stop.”
This is a dealbreaker.
Team B Dealbreakers
Unlikeable. For many, the candidate for team B, especially as portrayed by legacy media, is unlikeable, even despicable. For me, it’s a downside but not a dealbreaker.
January 6. My uncle was actually there. He rode his bike downtown to check it out. He texted me: “I just got tear gassed.” He told me that the authorities invited protestors into the capitol building. I’m not sure what to make of this.
“I walked past literally 300 cops. I said, Hey is it okay if I go up there? They said, Sure go ahead. I witnessed the whole thing. It was a fuckin setup.
There was a plastic orange fence that surrounded the capitol, fifty yards from the building. I went up to the fence. Guys came up who’d been tear gassed. I gave them water.
I didn’t go into the forbidden zone. But I walked past 300 cops who said "go up to the capitol, we’re not going to stop you.”
I got tear gas in my eye because there was a cloud passing by. They light off a tear gas bomb and it goes everywhere.”
Election denialism. The loser denying the validity of the election is not ideal. Ideally, we have safe and secure elections with vast-majority in-person voting, with paper ballots, and photo ID required. This is not the case. I think that there is a nonzero amount of fraud in every election and we ought to take action to minimize fraud, and increase trust in election results.
Age - 70s is not the ideal decade to be the President.
Notable mention: Candidate B is a convicted felon.
I know I don’t know everything. One of my reasons for writing and sharing this is that I want to hear from readers. What am I missing? How are you thinking about voting, choosing candidates, these teams, and this election?
The good guys
8 years ago I cast my vote for Team A. But now Team B is looking a lot more like what I wanted Team A to be, 8 years ago. Both teams evolved, so have I, and my perspective.
Who are the good guys?
For me the good guys are those who advocate, in both rhetoric and action, for minimizing war, maintaining freedom, safety, meritocracy, health of the people, health of Earth, safe and secure borders and cities, reducing illegal immigration, and long term economic prosperity.
For me, for now, Team B appears to be the good guys: Elon, RFK Jr, David Sacks, Chamath, Vivek, Nicole Shanahan, Naval, Tulsi Gabbard, JD Vance, and Donald Trump.
Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your day.
Things I like:
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My book, All Outcomes Are Acceptable, is on Amazon. It’s about getting rich, an AI drone apocalypse, and living with Amish people. Reviews are in and readers are loving it.
The Pathless Path Community is the best online community I’ve ever been a part of.
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Bonus Photos
It’s a nice time to be in New England.
Bonus Content
Every week I join calls with creators around America. From New York, Texas, California. On the call, I asked, Who’s are you guys voting for?
“I don’t vote. Anarchist tradition of not voting. Voting is not rational. Waste of time. Symbolic value. Net negative civic value in voting.”
“I find the whole theater [voting] to be degenerate. I don’t think there’s agency left. I don’t think the politicians have actual power and control or agency. We’re consumed by larger forces that are systemic. Greatest thing I can contribute to fellow citizens is say, I want you to remove your brain from this.
It’s captivity. People consumed by debates and elections are trapped. We’d all be better off if we learned to disengage. I think it just doesn’t matter so I don’t vote. Since it’s so polarized, I think it’s good to be aloof to it all.
I don’t want to be on a team. I want a free mind.”
”My wife and I had a discussion: do we want to even participate in the theater? We feel alienated by the two party system and the whole process.
For living a virtuous life we ask: What’s going on in our village? Radical responsibility for yourself and your life. I have policy positions and opinions but I feel they are inconsequential. I think I’m a monarchist. Or a minarchist.”
“I’m on a team. I vote third party. I’m in California, so my vote doesn’t count. The system feels fake and broken.”
“I’m leaning Trump, and I’m someone who voted democrat in the last three elections. I find him intensely distasteful. I have a Christian gay friend who voted for him in 2020. His argument was you’re not going to be unstained no matter what.”
“If I were to vote, I’d definitely vote for Trump. But not voting feels more true to me.
I loathe Kamala Harris. The attempt of the dems to gaslight us to think she’s a real person is so insulting to our intelligence. But I still have a slight preference for not voting.”
“For me, I’m going to write in a normal republican.”
”I’ll probably vote for the libertarian candidate, I just don’t know her name at the moment.”
“I’m a Trump supporter, but not a Trump voter.”
“He’s hilarious. Truly hilarious. In many ways he’s pretty cool. He’s a wild man and he’s gone to war with the media since a young man. His entire life has been a big fuck you to the east coast media elite.
I like that he represents a free American who does and says what he wants.
His character is not particularly honorable. He’s fast and loose with words. He’s slick. He has a degenerate wealthy atheist modern man degeneracy.
In a way, he’s an honest liar.”
“At this point, only god can save us.”
You're doing a lot more due diligence than most Chris. You can hang your political hat on that and move on shortly. Hopefully we all move on and move forward soon.