Black Gold w/ Lee Enfield: The J. Burden Show Ep. 434

it at all. Yeah, it's like the obviously you have the the the big fans of the war, who you know, almost immediately after basically being given like you know, uh, their version of Christmas and I don't know what that holiday is in that religion, but you got them right, you got Kamaedie. And then like four hours later, they're like, now, what we really need to do is get Turkey. You're like, guys, come on, man, jeez, yeah, come on the hutzpah if

you will. But also, uh, every one of these sort of like you know, quote unquote kind of based you know, and desionists is just a imediately reverting to the most kind of cartoonish anti colonial, anti Western stuff. You're like, I is it possible for both of you to lose? Because really, I guess the side I'm pulling for now.

on the planet, and he doesn't know these guys. So he's like, hey, you know, just like be cool, don't say anything weird, Like yeah, sure, I'll introduce you to everyone. I walk in them like, hey, yeah, this is my buddy. He's an arch Albanian nationalist, and then just leave the room, just throw them into Yeah exactly. Do I know which one of them hate Albanians? No, are any of the

Albanian Quite possibly, But I do know. I've used social media to know that someone will get mad about that, and that's funny.

it relates specifically to my unregretted user. Second, on the X application, it's the quality of things has really been going downhill as people become further and further detached from reality. And when you're when you're talking about like like a war, it's particularly difficult for people because you of course have a high degree of uncertainty like that, you know, things

are unfolding very quickly. Things. You know, many things are clandestine in nature, and the information that is made public, you know, always has an angle to it, like like nothing coming out of any non US based accounts has any there's just no reason to believe any of it.

And there's there's only a little bit of reason to believe the stuff that comes out of American based accounts, and so you know, people just get out over their skis and they start, uh, you know, you get a fair mix of like, oh, well, there's no way this could go wrong. It's just gonna be no big deal. It is what it is, like, it's going to be awesome. And then you know there's people like, oh, it's all over, Like it's just this is the end, this is it.

The midterms are over, the maga is over, the country is over, you know, all that kind of thing, and it's, uh, it's very it's very frustrating to just consume while scrolling because so little of it is actually based in any any type of discernment. And I know there's a you know, I'm not exactly when to talk because most of my stuff is just inflammatory shit posting, but it's kind of you know, that's kind of the mode of the Twitter account. I'm not pertaining to be like an O s end

account or something like that. And so it is annoying watching people who are generally posting better takes or otherwise intelligent just absolutely coming unglued one way or another over things that are by definition unfolding in real time and very open ended and uncertain.

me as a city. So you know, if we're we're assigning you know, who's who's you know, your team in this obviously like okay, yeah, my government's involved, So that's something you know, they're there are people like me who've been you know, forced into this, So that's that's one part of it. But also, I mean, you know, if if I had explosive drones, what would I be doing with them, So you know, I have to admit at least that that kind of bias going into it.

I don't like new things, especially you know when they come from places like Dubai, and it makes my already bad gas station experience even worse. And so if they have to eat a couple of strays, you know they going to charge that one to the game.

I think the chocolate bar was fine. Now it's on the counter next to like CBD gummies and you know it's got a vegetable inside of it for some reason or whatever that is, and I don't like it. I could do without it. And so if Dubai you know, goes down, yeah, a fiery storm of fucking swarming death drones yeah, it's fair enough, fair enough that you know these things. Everything, everything has a price.

H But in my very brief research, it did seem to be like that Dubai was the kind of mecca iraqically enough for that that's where you went, sort of like Miami is for like really irritating uh streamers or uh yeah sure yeah, looks maxers. I don't know what we're calling them now, people who get frame mugged and Cortisol Spike. Do you have any do you have any insights to offer early now?

you know, pittance. So I think that's basically it.

like that's kind of cool. And then you you know, you dig into all of these kind of like you know, incredibly you know, over the top building projects which seem to be just sort of some elaborate kind of money laundering scheme, and then you realize like, oh wait, like eighty percent of the population just lives on welfare. It's

like this is a very bizarre society. Yeah, obviously you have the kind of like obligatory like oh this you know, late stage, late stage capitalism type of type of you know, analysis on it. But I just do not understand it fundamentally.

that type of deal. But when I see, like, you know, some guy with like a fucking leopard in a Ferrari, just like I feel the same way about that guy as I do about seeing George Floyd driving around in a Nissan CenTra, and I feel like that's why they do it over there, because they think that it is like viewed with respect or admiration, and at least for me, it's not, you know, it's just like this is the is fucking retarded to have a for a police car like this is this is like the most hood rich,

like the thing that you could ever you could ever dream up, you know what I mean.

than just they're they're like, uh, extreme opulence. Like if we just did it to just like knock them down a peg, like, it would be really funny to watch a tens doing gun runs on like rows of police ferraris. You know that would that would have been much better. I mean, and they, as far as I know, they have no real way of fighting that off like it at least as poorly as it has performed. At least Iran had the common sense to have some type of

military posture. I don't even know that Debai has anything like that.

So yeah, you know, we have this strong precedent with the Maduro raid, you know, hitting him with with the goy beam, just reducing like forty Cuban guys to like a bowl full of spaghetti. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Yeah, but who else is on your doesn't make sense, but it would be funny. List I'm going to go out on a limb and say, Cherokee.

especially with with with young people. Like if if Massad agents went into like Iran or you know whatever and just like strategically placed like I don't know, like a rake outside of Comane's front door so that he stepped on it and just like smacked him in the face, and then like every time a bodyguard ran out to save him, there was another rake smacking you know, and it just kept happening just like a cartoon. That would

be much better for Massade. The whole conflict would be over, everyone would get along, they'd all be friends.

discussed in like a roundabout manner. So it is interesting for someone to just come out and be like, yeah, we did this because Israel like they were going to do it, because I mean, he basically made comments to the effect that Israel was going to attack I ran regardless, and if they carry that out while we were not in the current posture that we're in, Uh, our casualties would have been significant, our ability to you know, defend would have been less than what it is. Uh. I

don't really I don't know, I don't really know. Uh why. I guess like that just seems like one of those one of those comments that maybe you save for like a hot mic moment or something like that, Like that's an interesting public comment to make, I guess, uh, because it's obviously going to be extremely unpopular and for good reason.

But you know, it's it's kind of like well, this is I guess it's the first very clear rift too, and like messaging, because the messaging on this has been pretty tight where it's just like, Okay, we're doing a limited engagement, you know whatever, regime change war because this is like an imminent threat to the United States, and then like two or three days later in the Secondary States like, oh, you know Israel like the and uh, I don't know, you know, that's that's an interesting shift.

On one hand, it's like I don't think we're used to that level of just candor about the nature of our relationship in the Middle East with Israel people. Of course, it's not like an unpopular topic in our circles on Twitter, but I am I don't know. I mean, can you think of the time we're like an actual, you know, cabinet level official was just like, yeah, Israel's going to do this either way, so we kind of had to I mean, I think.

been hostile to America. They have had several notable incidents where that they've killed American service members, disrupted the entire region, supplied people who have tried to kill and succeeded killing American service members. You know, they're they're basic basic premise of of like you know, uh, statehood is death to America.

So from a purely like empire standpoint, like if if you if this were something that you read about, uh you know, from from like like Imperial Rome or something like if if you you know, crack a history book and it's like, yeah, well the goals position was death to Rome, and uh, you know, they've been launching a number of attacks and so Rome finally went in and like you know said, you know, fuck it, we ball.

You know, from that standpoint, it's it's reasonable. I don't I don't know that there's a case to be made for this being urgent, Like I think you, like I said, you could make the case, like, yeah, these guys are just open enemies of the United States. They're openly hostile, and uh, you know, so there's just objectively like, if if your fucking next door neighbors stated goal is I'm going to fucking kill you the next time I see you,

you would have to be concerned about that. Uh. And so if you have a country who is you know, overtly hostile, you have to be concerned with that as well. But I don't know that there is any real urgency to merit this type of build up, and then responds I caveat that with of course, I don't have access to the same information that Donald Trump does, so who knows. You know, maybe there's an off chance that there was

actually some type of eminent threat. It seems more likely that the imminent threat was Iran's inevitable retaliatory response after an Israeli strike, you know, So that again, from like a like a realistic standpoint, you do have to account for that, Like if you know that you're going to have US personnel in harm's way and you're in charge of the military, like, you do have to choose a course of action on that. You cannot ignore that and

so you do have to do something. Now, whether that something is like you know, a large build up followed by you know, massive air campaigns or that kind of thing, the time will tell whether that bears out as being

like a wise thing. But it is interesting and a little i don't know, almost risky for Rubio to come out and just blatantly just say like, yeah, this this was some of the circumstances involving this is that we kind of got roped into this because a regional uh you know, partner that that we have like you know, security agreements with was going to do this unilaterally and that was going to put us at risk, and so we had to basically absorb that risk by overwhelming force

to to mitigate the risk of that post. Because then you you obviously run into the question of like, well, it is the US military's activity, uh, you know, or why would that be downstream of consequences at Israel imposes rather uh than self determined by you know, by US. That's you know, like no ships. That's the obvious problem.

And so I don't see I don't see the upshot to Rubio just coming round out and saying that basically because that's obviously going to be very unpopular, and he could have just easily, you know, kept up the facade of just like, oh, well, you know, we had information there was going to be an attack or something to maintain some degree of like deniability there.

they're wrong are from it. But one of the things that I think about a lot is that for a lot of kind of normal people, this stuff is not as big of an issue in and of itself as it is to us. And so you know, you saw this with the you know, the Operation mid Night Hammer. You know that a bunch of people were saying like, oh, you know, this will be the thing that supplits MAGA, this will be the thing that you know, since the Trump administration that didn't happen, that still may happen in

the future. But I think one of the important things to look at with this is that you know, oftentimes something that is you know neutral to slightly unpopular can become a big problem due to opportunity cost. Right, this is what you chose to do instead of X, Y

or Z right. And you know, really the narrative of in my mind the last year to year and a half, like really, you know, kind of after the point at which Dot with elon left and Doge kind of petered out, is they like, hey, look like nothing's happening, and you know I and you can look into this.

our call. We were kind of forced into this because of you know, another group. But also it's like wait a minute, okay, So it's like the the thing you can get done. Is this right? Like what about what about all the stuff for us? And you know, like I said, I'm not a huge electoral politics guy, but

I think that that sentiment is growing. You see it in the you know, the data, and this is something that came up, you know, before the you know, the attacks kicked off with the you know, Huckabee's appearance on Tucker where he you know, asked him the very simple question was like, look like, you know, do do we live in a democracy? He's like, yeah, of course we do.

It's like, all right, well, I mean, you know, eighty percent of people oppose you know, strikes on O rant and you know, the response is sort of this disciance genue, Oh well, we can't, let you know, polls make policy. It's like, yeah, okay, sure, guys. But seemingly this is the one issue for which there is the political will to get something done. And I'm not entirely sure how you get out of that narrative when everything on the domestic front seems to be just like gummed up forever.

is is provisioned SAVE Act. So I want that to pass.

But the problem is if if the only way for American politicians to like begrudgingly agree to stop letting illegal aliens vote for their own infinite free money is to like do is all this huge solid of uh, you know, wiping out the regime in Iran, that only exacerbates the situation in my assessment, where it's like, yeah, the only way you can actually even like have a secure voting like, we will trade you this this is this is a quid pro quo where you're going to have to kill

you know, a small but growing number of American service members, uh, in order to do Israel like this you know, favor and in exchange, they will let the politicians in the in the Senate, in the House that they have a disproportioned amount of influence over they will let them actually give you like a crumb of your own national self interest like that is that is concerning to me to put it mildly, like Okay, why can't you know, why why can't the American Senate like we really can't get

more than fifty percent support for just making sure that only Americans vote, Like you know, this is not controversial at all, you know, to your point, like the I mean that that's an eighty twenty issue. That's more than an eighty twenty issue. But you know, not randomly attacking Iran is also very unpopular. So you have you have two things that have very clear like polling preferences that you're contraposed. And it's like, well, the only way you can you can have a treat is if you undertake

this military action. Now, Like I that to me, like from where I'm sitting, as just being a random guy who stays up on politics, that seems to be the case. I'm open to being wrong on that. I don't know that I am I hope that I am wrong. I don't want that to be the case, you know, but

that does seem to be the case. It's it's difficult to lay that out, especially because much of the uh, much of the like social media anti Semitism at this point is just like very cringe third world like conspiracy TRD, like real low budget, low IQ stuff that is just

it's just not serious. But this the situation as it is developing right now, like as what we saw with you know, Marco Rubio's comments earlier today, this does of course continue, It doesn't doesn't do anything to like uh, as the kids would say, beat the allegations, I guess, And so.

and overstate that on the timeline. I if but if it does bear out, if it is true that like this massive engagement which has caused American lives was undertaken primarily because Israel was going to do it regardless, and we needed to step in to make sure it was successful otherwise face graver risk to our own personnel that would be very bad. And it further raises the question of like what I mean, why even fucking bother having like a government, why bother having a Republican party, why

bother with any of this stuff? I mean, these are common critiques in our circles. Like obviously the GOP is you know, it needs to be defeated, Like there's no point in having a GOP when stuff like this is you know, what's going to happen. So uh, you know, if there is uh like the other side of the coin on that, of course, is it Israel is uh like a regional ally, we do have security agreements in place with Israel, uh, and it is possible for Israeli

interests in American interest to genuinely overlap. And so from like a state craft standpoint, you know, and again not having access to all of the information that you know, the people who make decisions presumably have access to, uh, you know, perhaps there there is like a non zero chance that in a long view, this serves both of our interests and so maybe it just makes sense to get it done even if it's unpopular, and so, you know, God willing, the engagement will be as short as it

can be to have any type of meaningful long term effect on things. But I don't know, it's it's unclear that you know that is the case. So it's not that there are situations where American and Israeli interests can never align and we're just like, I don't know, you know, people say, oh, you know, America is Israel's lap dog and stuff like that, and I understand, I see how people come to that conclusion. I don't know that that is is like the fully like the best way to

characterize the relationship. But there's obviously some some undoe influence in Marco Rubio's comments definitely may make that that pretty obvious, I guess, So we'll kind of see what goes on, uh from there, because if anything, that will be what you know, kind of kind of causes more of a fracture on the right, just just coming right out and plain English and saying that. And then I don't know if there's any any calculation behind his choice in doing

that too. Rubio is not like a careless speaker, He's not a flippant guy, and so part of me wonders if if that there is if he's saying that specifically for a for a reason, with with other goals in mind.

you know it's not a great situation. You know, you like to live in a country where you know, the purpose of your military and your you know, elected government was to actually do things for you. But at least then it'd be like, all right, like, okay, uh, you know how many give many children do I have to kill personally before you guys let me, I don't know, uh import a Toyota high lux or something like that.

And you know, I'm not saying I do it, but it would put things into perspective, right, You could sort of form some sort of economy around this. You know what, what kind of gifts are you know, worth a certain amount because the you hear the allegation of shill thrown around, and you know there's something to that. But there's almost something more galling about the fact that, like a lot of these guys seem to just be doing it for free,

you know, just for for love of the game. Sure, and uh, you know, if you if you're going to be in a you know what what some should I say, critics would call it a kind of like occupied government, if you will. Guys like it just you know, pull the Jim Carrey masks off already, and just to be honest about it, you know, it at least make a little more sense, you know, because the kind of current situation just turning everyone insane. Yeah, and I get it, right,

Like I've read the Epstein files. I've come to the conclusion that effectively everything is just the work of you know, the lizard people, the rothschilds that. Yeah, I don't know whoever else you want. It's like, I get it. But at the same time, I'd appreciate a little bit of honesty, I guess.

don't know, you ate like a hamburger or something. You know, Like there's there is that like in the in the longer term, we're gonna have to figure something out here with this where it's like, yeah, let's let's kind of I don't know, get a little bit serious here, uh and not not fully go off the deep end into being like fully detached from reality, because that's that's the

difficult thing. It seems like, uh, for a lot of much of like the internet space and our our part of the Internet has you know, I think the the you know, the best thinkers you know, and I certainly don't count myself in there. I'm stupid, but they're like like the people in our sphere that are have influence usually have things to say that are at least thoughtful. So I'm not really trying to throw shade, you know,

is it any one in particular? I'm more talking about, like, you know, the TikTok slop that you see on the timeline, Like there there is a whole world of like elder millennials there are women with purple hair who are making videos about uh, you know, Jim Carrey is a shape shifter and Israel controls the fl at Earth, and you know, uh, Donald Trump is has this, you know as barbecuing babies and stuff like that, where there there are a lot of people who are just kind of its kind of

checked out, where it's just like, well, I don't know, I'm just not really going to engage with reality anymore. I'm just going to engage with whatever, whatever produces clicks

and attention and you know, things like that. Uh. And so that's that's a weird thing to exist, Like, that's a weird social layer to exist in a war because if if you think about think of the think about this particular conflict thus far in a historical context, we've uh so we're recording this on a Monday evening and this started what Friday morning, all right, so something like that.

So we're like four days into it basically, and in those four days, according to what the publicly available information is at the time of this recording, the leader of Iran has been killed, most of the Iranian military leadership has been killed. The you know, Kamane's successor was killed. The previous president was killed. I think his successor's successor

was killed. Their military has engaged now, I guess, and what has been coined the Mosaic defense, which is where they're just letting mid level commanders just kind of choose their own adventure as far as what they're going to do. So there's no central command structure guiding the Iranian military that is known publicly right now. The Iranian navy, at least as far as what was present in the Straits of Oremus, has been destroyed. So that's eleven surface ships

that have been sung. You know, a very large portion of their ability to wage war has been effectively neutralized. Uh. You know this this is very one sided right now. And as the United States, like, time is our enemy in conflict, right like that's that is the relationship that we have with with success is that the longer it takes, the less successful it will be. So Time is obviously

our enemy. But four days into it, you know, this war is pretty unpopular because of this social layer of social media, much of which is operated by people who are stupid and who are not engaging with reality whatsoever, but do have the ability to shape social consensus and political outcomes at the ballot box. Uh. So you know, obviously, like you, you are not a democracy enjoyer. Neither am I I think this This is just showing that you know,

there there are some serious flaws with this system. Uh. However, you know, by all historical accounts, this is this is an overwhelming tactical military victory. Like there's no question of who who has been winning this engagement right now? The US military at this time. Uh, there are six known American personnel killed in action and three F fifteens that

were shot down over Kuwait where the crew survived. So we've lost you know, three you know, big ticket items as far as hardware and you know, six personnel, which this is a tragedy, but by the cold metric of just you know, tactical success, like Iran is on the very very very shit end of this stick, and at any other time in history like this probably would have

been been a winning thing to do. Like if if you you know, take it back two thousand years, if the king was like, oh yeah, we waged a war, we knocked all their shit out in four days, we lost six guys, we're coming home. You know, that would have been very popular domestically in you know, like Roman society or Spartan society or something like that, But in

twenty twenty six, it's very you know, not popular. And not only that, but people who are otherwise intelligent are actively panicking about how it's all over where it's it's you know, there are people who are like, oh, this is this is the end, and I I love these counts where there's people's this that that's it for America. You know, the the meme posts about fill up your tanks,

like the fucking it's the end of America. The dollars it's going to collapse tomorrow and no one's gonna be able to get fuel and there's going to be massive civil unrest and that's the end of the administration. And none of that, you know, is happening right now, Like that's not even close to happening. Like and you see this kind of stuff and it's like, dude, there are some real problems, it seems like in in the fundamental

incentives that that precipitated this military action. However, you know, we don't source uh, you know, like like much of our fucking oil from the hostile Iranian regime. You know, I don't like this is not a realistic assessment of what's going to happen. And uh, Further, Iran poses no existential threat to the United States at all. They don't have an expeditionary military, like they have no ability to project force on our country, like they cannot do anything

like this. This is, you know, a country that's largely walled in by God to stop them from fucking spreading. So you know, it's like, let's like there are some very valid criticism of this, but you know, there's no reason to be like shitting your pants, pissing your pants and crying about how it's the it's all over, because there's no indicationion of this like that that you know, at least not as as of this time. You know, this would this would really be the part that that

schedule podcast release button could fuck up. But you know, there's really not all that much that could happen in terms of like direct military outcomes. Now we've been very lucky so far, like like the the there's not been an element of like quagmire at this time. Knock on wood,

anything can happen. What's going on is a very complex operation involving several countries over hostile skies, Like it is entirely possible that some shit really goes off the rails, and you know, I hope that doesn't happen because I want my country to win. That's the other thing that not everyone seems to be able to mentally handle is that it's like, yeah, man, you can disagree with this going on and like still want it to work out. You know, there's a there's a term for that. It's

it's called loyalty. Like that that's what that means. You know, like you should be rooting for your own and side. You know, it's like if you you know, like if your wife is going to do something fucking dumb and you're like, hey, look I don't think you should do that. I think it's a bad idea, and she's like, well, look it's really important to me, you know, let me ride this out. Well, you know, sometimes you got to

back that up. And you know, being loyal to something, it can only apply under duress and when you're not entirely comfortable with the situation, you know what I mean, Like, it's not possible to show loyalty under convenient circumstances. So there's a bunch of fucking retards on Twitter, who's like, you know, what do you get Jackson Hinkle, who I long live Iran, we support Iran. And there's a bunch of recent immigrants who are just you know, posting NonStop

about well, if we lose, you know, that's fun. We've we've got to come in. I hope whatever all these soldiers or whatever retards and I hope they die. That would be better than fucking doing something to help Israel, you know, YadA, YadA. There's the whole thing. And that's

also you know, indicative of a problem. It's like, yeah, man, it's like that is also a perspective that is divorced from from reality, Like you should not want your country to fail, like just point blank like that that's fucking stupid, Like you shouldn't want people from your country to die, Like why do you think that would be good? You know what I mean? Like, so, so what you're telling me is that it would be bad, uh and good

simultaneously to die for Israel. Like you know, Uh, it's not a coherent position that a lot of these accounts have have managed to like convince themselves to adopt, and that that's an annoying aspect of this as well.

have an intelligent conversation. But as you know, due to is it has become more and more plain, you know, it has become more and more a part of you know, everyday conversation on both the left and the right. It is sort of you've become a stupider conversation and there's no way around that, right that, there's no way around you know that that kind of negative side of you know, popularization.

But it still is incredibly irritating because to your point, you know, the idea that you should you know, root against your own nation or you know, hope for people like you to die because you disagree with executive policy. It's like, well, okay, no, like I don't agree with that, and does that mean that I, you know, like our government's allegiances. Far from it. But at a certain point it seems as if many people are allowing themselves to be driven crazy by this, and I understand it, like

it's crazy making. But uh, I don't know. I think it's a step too far. But Lee, it's it's getting late, man. This has been honestly a much more educational conversation than I think I was expecting. But dude, where could people find you?