Navigating Libertarianism and Political Challenges

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm dive into the complexities of conservative ideologies, focusing on the differences between libertarians and traditional conservatives. They explore why many conservatives identify as libertarians when they're young but shift to the Republican party as they age, and discuss the pragmatic reasons behind this change. The conversation also delves into the disconnect between the Republican elite and their voter base, the influence of theocratic factions within the party, and the diverse range of conservative thought across various conferences in the UK and US. Join them as they unpack the nuances of cat girl conservatism, conspiracy theories, and the right to non-conformity.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] most conservatives I know go through a change where when they're younger, they identify as libertarians. And as they get older, they identify as Republicans. Why does this happen,

would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: I am excited for this episode. So I just got back from New Hampshire where I was speaking at a libertarian convention. And I had an absolute blast doing it.

Really great community. And one of the things we're going to Back to you later in this conversation is the different types of conservatives and the different ways that they interact. We got to meet with a conservative group in the UK where we were at a convention. Then we spoke with a convention in New Hampshire.

Then we spoke with a general conservative, like uncanceled sort of event in Vegas the weekend before. And then recently, you know, we spoke at the oh yeah, you've been talking to a lot of like conservative voters and stuff like that in the district. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Just like door knocking on Republicans

Malcolm Collins: houses.

So we've gotten this really broad and unique exposure and then we've got the pronatalist convention and then we've got like the broadly EA conservatives and stuff like [00:01:00] that. Which is just, they're nothing like each other. They see the world, nothing like each other and being at this libertarian event, a few things happened that made me really reflect on this one.

Somebody said, and this is a regular watcher of our show, you know, like an interacted fan. Oh, I had no idea that. You guys would consider your policies libertarian or you think that they would pass as like libertarian within libertarian groups. And this would be like, huh, I hadn't realized that we came off as so anti libertarian on this.

But then I also started to think about everyone I knew who was conservative when they were younger. And there's this insistent phenomenon within conservative circles, where as we've discussed in the episode of like, do your politics actually change? No, for most people, their politics are stable throughout their life, whether it's conservative or progressive, at least.

But most conservatives I know go through a change where when they're younger, they identify as libertarians. And as they get [00:02:00] older, they identify as Republicans. If they have sense. So one answer is, is why does this happen, right? And then the other answer is. I actually think that a lot of, like, broadly, I think most you know, like, intelligent, engaged conservatives, if you were going to ask them, like, what policy positions they actually want, the policy positions they're often going to describe are going to sound very libertarian in nature.

And that leads us to the episode's title question, which is why are libertarians the worst and yet write about so many things, if not almost everything, from a political standpoint? And I think that, and I'll just sort of start this, I think that part of the answer comes from the guy who said, Wait, you guys are Consider yourselves as having libertarian leanings.

And I was like, yes. In what way do you think we aren't libertarians? And he's [00:03:00] like, well, I thought, you know, you would just, you know, promote the policies that promote a, you know, pronatalist diverse breeding population agenda, right? And it's like, yeah, that is. One of our main goals, you know, economic prosperity from a political perspective is also one of our main goals.

And we are libertarian because we think that generally libertarian solutions, when we look at the data support, like, like end up solving these issues, whether it is fertility,

Simone Collins: basically libertarianism is the most pronatalist The political school of thought out

Malcolm Collins: there. Yes. When you look at the data, like, like, Which means just like,

Simone Collins: leave people alone.

Stop telling them how to live their lives. Don't tell them all to be progressive. Don't tell them all to be conservative. Yeah. Yeah. Just let them live their lives,

Malcolm Collins: please. And one of the things that I showed recently in an Aporia piece is graphs of if you look at, things like abortion restrictions, right?

And how strict a European country is on abortion has [00:04:00] almost a direct correlation with how low their fertility rate is. So trying to, in the same way, you cannot pay people to have kids. You cannot force them to have kids through a government restrictions yet. We haven't found somebody who's found the solution yet, but there may be more draconian measures that some countries I'm thinking China here may figure out.

Like forced insemination and stuff like that, but, but generally and, and so, yes, libertarianism works in this area, but also like our economic beliefs are mostly libertarian ish, ish, because we call ourselves bull moves with the Republicans. We think all large bureaucracies lead to inefficiency, whether that is a a government or a company.

We believe in trust busting, like Teddy Roosevelt did a lot, you know, he's a Republican who did a lot of trust busting, which is what we liked about him. So we, we have a, you know, unique, but mostly libertarian. It means that most of our policy positions are going to be libertarian. And what I realized is to the people who still identify as libertarians, [00:05:00] when they are adults, being a libertarian or supporting libertarian positions, Just because they are the most effective position doesn't make you a libertarian.

It isn't good enough. You need to support libertarian positions even when it functionally doesn't work. Heck, I'd be a communist if it worked. Like, if AI somehow makes, like, broadly, like, cash handouts work. Like, if in an AI world, like, UBI starts working and we enter some communist like system that creates the most prosperity and freedom was in a society, I'd be like, yeah, sure.

That's great. I was wrong about everything that I thought politically, but for us, politics isn't about ideology. It's about the end states that it creates. Whereas to the people who identify as libertarian as adults, many of them, that's not it. Their politics is literally about the ideology. So I want to hear your thoughts on this question.

[00:06:00] Why do conservatives stop being libertarians as they grow older? And why does the libertarian political sphere have this like intense ideological stance?

Simone Collins: Right. So I think it's because. pragmatic political actors, be they voters or politicians, realize really quickly that if they actually want to make an impact and do so within the government system, you cannot be a libertarian.

Like it's just, it's a really hard to get elected. It's, it's really hard to get on the ballot and to get attention and to get votes and to actually get into office. And I know this too, because at one point. I was trying to create a sizable list of elected libertarian politicians to do outreach to them, to invite them to a private event.

And there were like 10, 15, like, it's just such a small community because it doesn't work. It doesn't work to change the political system as a, as a libertarian, if you are trying to do so through government. And [00:07:00] then of course, as a voter, if you want to be able to affect change, not being able to support people in primaries is a really big problem.

Which in many states, you have to be part, a member of the party to vote in a primary for a candidate. So you can't as a Republican vote in the democratic primary. And vice versa.

So in other words, the reason why the libertarian party ends up sucking so much, even though it has most of its ideas, right. Is that.

Individuals with libertarian values who are pragmatic in how those values are going to be implemented end up becoming Republicans. Which leaves the individuals who stay

Libertarian party member throughout their entire lives. To be exclusively the people with libertarian beliefs, but who held those beliefs for non pragmatic reasons, which makes a party increasingly stupid over time.

Malcolm Collins: I'm going to word what you're saying in a little different way. You think. Their political beliefs don't change as they age.

Their political [00:08:00] opinions don't change as they age. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They just become pragmatic.

Malcolm Collins: They just understand. As Republican. And then my question for you is, so do you think a big chunk of the Republican base is actually libertarian in their political leanings?

Simone Collins: Yes, no, definitely. Door knocking, a lot of people, first, a lot of Republicans said, I'm like de registering as a Republican.

I'm becoming a libertarian. Or they would say, Oh, actually I'm already, I'm a libertarian. Just because at this point, they're so angry at the Republican party that they don't even care about changing it. They're just like, I just want to hurt it. And they, they definitely held very libertarian views. The things that I said that resonated the most with them were libertarian ideologies.

And I, as a candidate, am very, very like on the liberty front. Like there, there was one political quiz I took that put me on a graph of like, you know, globalist or hands on or have you send me this picture? Yeah, I need to find it. So you can include it. So like, [00:09:00] it, yeah, right now, especially now, those who are interested in, in Republican causes are trying to defend their cultural sovereignty.

And they're all forms of sovereignty. Just basically don't tell me how to start my business, run my business, live my life, report this, report that, just get off me. And I, that more than anything else is really taking over. I think the Republican party is shooting itself in the foot, frankly, by moving away from libertarian policies, especially when it comes to.

Quote unquote book bands, which aren't really book bands, but are being used as a political tool. And framed as book bands and with their, their whole religious bent on abortions as a big issue thing, which is, is very not libertarian, right? Because that's, that's more about losing

Malcolm Collins: in the school system.

Like really interesting things. So they'll take these approaches. Like we're going to ban all these sexuality books and stuff like that, that are entering our public schools. And it makes [00:10:00] them look like the bad guy when what they really need to be fighting for is educational freedom to take their kids out of the public schools.

If you get those books out of the public school library, do you think your purple hair teachers aren't going to be showing it on slideshows? Like. Think about it. Think about it. You have achieved nothing except making yourself look like the villain. Now the left out there, banning Dr. Seuss, holding book burnings of

Anne Frank's diary, like, they look like the bad guys if it wasn't just, they could then say, well, the right bans books too sometimes now. There is no reason for the right to ever ban books. Right. No matter how sexualized the stuff in public school libraries is, your kids shouldn't be in those schools, and if it's in the library, that means it's in the classrooms.

Mm hmm. And you have achieved nothing but a symbolic victory by getting it out of the library while making yourself look like the bad guy. And this is what we mean when we say the libertarian [00:11:00] position is always the most effective, whatever goal you are fighting. Or, it's always the most effective if you're actually right.

What I would say, if you believe a bunch of things about reality that just are not true, then yes, you, you need to shield people and your children from information to win these ideological battles. If what you believe is true and most effective, you know, in terms of Corporate structures, for example, you know, if it turns out that D.

E. I. Actually does hinder a company's operation. Eventually, the non D. E. I. Companies will compete them or shareholders will see this, and it may take a while. It may be a big cultural fight, but eventually that's how you get these systems out. If you take an approach like attempting to ban certain ideas and stuff like that, you just make them appealing to dissenters.

Which is the key way that I think progressivism really got off, or initially, within college campuses and stuff like that, is it was seen as a [00:12:00] dissident cultural group, and conservatism being the dissident cultural group now, Gives it this little push, but if the long term goal of that dissident cultural group is to do things like, you know, ban pornography and stuff like that, it's not gonna attract the young dissidents anymore.

Or not at the same level. So, so I think that's interesting. And I think that you're onto something with this intuition that people aren't really changing their political beliefs that much. That they actually do still say libertarian. At heart, a lot of the conservative base. Now, this leads me to another interesting thing is we know a lot of conservative politicians.

And I'd say that many are actually most, almost all the ones we know in their personal beliefs are actually very libertarian, but in the way they vote in office, don't vote libertarian. They vote like classic Republicans

Simone Collins: I think the bigger point too is as a politician, you kind of have your hands tied quite often,

Malcolm Collins: you know, like, well, no, I don't, I don't think that's it.

I think that there's a perception among the conservative elite, like the GOP Inc that owns the GOP party [00:13:00] or the old party. That the theocratic faction of the GOP is actually much more powerful than they really are in terms of imposing cultural values using government systems and it has led to some massive miscalculations on their part like the huge backlash that they had after the Roe versus Wade overturn and stuff like that.

Gosh, yeah. There is just not as much support for their beliefs as they think. And that, that might be true. Like that there just isn't that there's a perception in the same way that we talk about in that one video of there's a perception of a meaningful racist Republican base when, if you look at 538 polling, Nate Silver, mainstream demographer and poller this guy.

Showed that until Obama was elected, more white Democrats and white Republicans wouldn't vote for a black president. And even up until today where Republicans do show slightly more racist views on some things, it's small. It's a difference of like two to 3 percent when contrasted with Democrats. There just is not a significant Republican [00:14:00] racist base despite the media portraying it as such.

And I think that this is also true. Potentially with the theocratic base. And, and this creates this boogeyman that leads Republicans to act much less libertarian in their voting pattern than they otherwise would be if they were responding to their base. Just to

Simone Collins: make sure I have this right. You're saying it's, they have a misunderstanding of what the Republican party actually is comprised

Malcolm Collins: of.

This could be it, or it could be that our district is just much more libertarian in terms of going out there and talking to people. Although we've been to a number of conservative conferences, and the only one that was distinctly non libertarian was the one in the UK.

Simone Collins: Yes yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so I will say one thing about the religious people that I've spoken with in our district when door knocking.

Who do really care about abortion as an issue. No one shut their door in my face about abortion. When, you know, they would ask me like, well, what's your stance on [00:15:00] abortion? And I, I say that it's, it's up to each group. So if you're Catholic, that's great, but you can't impose Catholic views on abortion on other people.

You have to care for your own essentially. But they would slam the doors in my face if I said that. I didn't think Trump was a complete douche and that I thought, you know, I should destroy him. So, there's that. I

Malcolm Collins: think this is a level of kindness. I think that you know, you get more kindness from cultural conservatives and non cultural conservatives.

Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. I'll

Malcolm Collins: throw through the graph here where there was a great thing and we'll, we'll go over this in another video. Where they ask countries, you know, is food a human right? And like the only country that said no was the United States. And then they superimpose a graph of how much money various countries give to foreign aid.

And the United States gives overwhelmingly more on a per GDP basis. And we'll go into this deeper on another video. The United States gives about double the next highest non profit donation country, [00:16:00] which is New Zealand. This is on a per GDP basis. Just to give you an idea of like when you're talking about more communist countries like China just like communist capitalist, but whatever, like different mindset.

For every dollar that Americans, and this is only per GDP, so you can't say those are poorer, For every dollar, cost adjusted, that Americans give to charity people in China give two cents. So yeah, no, Americans are overwhelmingly, and I think this is this conservative mindset, overwhelmingly more generous than other groups and conservatives are generally, they give to charities at much higher rates.

Simone Collins: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen those stats

for

Malcolm Collins: sure. And I think that this might be what you're saying is when they disagree with you for a conservative reason versus for a progressive reason, even if they are a conservative. So they're just ruder and they, they're

Simone Collins: more like. I had not thought about that.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I take another stance here, which is it could be that the theocratic groups that are interested in imposing their cultural values through governing systems and those cultural values aren't progressive, but theological in [00:17:00] nature that these groups are much more likely to vote.

That might be it as well. Like they're easier to capture as a voting block. Yeah,

Simone Collins: but here's, here's where I think also the, there's a misunderstanding. Ending. Is I'm under the impression that the Republican party did start to turn against abortion when they didn't really care before to court these religious voters and those religious voters are active.

I don't think it was the goal of the religious voters necessarily to impose their. Theocratic views on everyone else. Maybe I'm wrong.

Malcolm Collins: The abortion issue is a very weird one. So for people who don't know, in the 1970s, the Republican party was more pro life than the Democratic party, because of course a small government, you know, get the government out of my life.

It's consistent with Republican values. They wanted to capture the Catholic vote. Which was mostly, you know, recent immigrants, the Irish, which, which at that time were not seen. I mean, they'd been here for a few generations, similar to like Hispanic immigrants today or something. And they're like, let's see if we can capture them.

[00:18:00] The same way Simone and I always talk about capturing the Hispanic vote for the Republican party, which is underway, right? I think there's some big changes you can make, but anyway, so they took this anti abortion stance to capture the Catholic vote. It worked, but An anti abortion stance was never an evangelical Christian position up until this point.

This was not, this is not an evangelical theology. This is not like, a mainstream evangelical position at all. And we pointed out in another video, it's not a historic Catholic position either. You look at someone like Thomas Aquinas or Augustine of Hippo, you know, they thought that life began 30 days after the fetus started developing.

Well, 30 to 40, depending on gender. Long story here. The point being is it is weird now that some evangelicals, despite having no cultural reason to do so, have taken abortion as like a, like, this is my line in the stand issue. When they're really doing it from almost a fronting position, because it's not a historic, like, this isn't even like, [00:19:00] Two generations ago, this wouldn't have been a position their, their ancestors would have had.

Like, it's weird. It's like something that has changed within the last 30 years. It's weird. But it shows that for a lot of this, it's not about theological concerns. It's, People who want to be seen as culturally aligning with a community, and they want the community they believe they culturally align with to control social values, and they want to use the government as a tool to achieve that.

But, I mean, unfortunately or unfortunately, however you want to see it, that mindset's going to die out. pretty soon because these groups are so on the back foot in terms of voting capabilities. And, and the Republican party has come much more of a diverse Alliance. But the final thing I wanted to really talk about here was the different conservative conferences we've been at recently in different ways that people have reflected conservative values at these conferences, which has been very, very interesting to me.

Simone Collins: Yeah. When I think it's really helped us solidify. The different types of conservative in [00:20:00] like Europe, but, and sort of globally. And then in the U S and I feel like the U S is so it's, it's like, the U S politically to me feels like the Japanese street fashion of politics and that you've got these very cutting edge, high fashion avant garde political movements.

And there are a bunch in Europe as well, but they're just not as flamboyant. They are not. You know, they're not dressing like gothic Lolitas, you know what

Malcolm Collins: I mean? Which was this like private, you know, Jordan Peterson, Louise Perry event in the UK.

Simone Collins: Which was filled with conservatives, not just from the UK, but throughout Europe and also Australia.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: and they were very they had very bleak views of the future. It was more just barely hold out for their cultural value

Simone Collins: system. It was, it was more just curmudgeonly, like, well, it's all eroding. Like Western culture is just gonna disappear and that's really sad. And can't you believe that, you know, our society is so debauched now.

It was [00:21:00] just whiny and it was resigned.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, very resigned and like mainstream talking points with them, with stuff like banning pornography, banning IVF, you know, a lot of honestly very nanny state stuff, like ideas like banning kids access to the internet, you know,

Simone Collins: but also fighting existing nanny state stuff, for example, in the UK, like there are really stringent, Babysitting qualification laws.

So you can't just like hire your neighbor to watch your kid.

Malcolm Collins: But conservatives put those in place. I

Simone Collins: know, but like, it just, it just seems like

Malcolm Collins: everything was in places. Some kid killed another kid in like a babysitting situation. And so then they put these ridiculous policies in place that basically make it totally cost prohibitive to have childcare in the UK.

Simone Collins: It is ridiculous. It's, and so everything just, Feels oppressive. It feels ossified and everyone's, they don't dream big either. It's just like, well, I hope we can make this tiny incremental change, which is practical. [00:22:00] I mean, I have to admire the pragmatism there. But then when we can trust that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, hold on.

First, I want to say before we can trust it, they, they were really afraid of taking explicitly religious positions as well. They would not say, I believe X because of my religion. Cause they were afraid of being called like the crazy Christian, which apparently is this thing that BBC has built up as a trope that everyone's afraid of identifying with.

Like I do not know how the BBC still exists as a government funded entity that should not Like it's as insane as NPR existing in the U. S But it's like a bigger cultural player because they demand a tv tax from every household with a with a screen It's insane anyway so, so let's go to the U S one.

So in contrast,

Simone Collins: in contrast in the U S it's well, there are these different schools of thought, right? So you have these like libertarians who are extremely ideological. You, You, you told me about someone paying you with a laminated piece of gold for something that

Malcolm Collins: was the Libertarians. So let's [00:23:00] be clear.

The Libertarians were very different from the classic conservatives. Oh no, no, no. And classic conservatives, two groups of conservatives. One I'd call the dumb conservatives. And the other I'd call the, the, the classic conservatives, the dumb conservatives are the ones that we're interacting with in terms of like the local political, like events and stuff like that.

Where it's like the other people who are running for office and stuff like that. And they're just like, you were like, Oh, you're, you're talking to the other sentient person who happened to be a local politician. That's why you decided to follow up with him because we had to follow up with one of them today.

And it was like, why did, why did I choose this person? I don't remember. And you're like, well, he seemed like one of the few sentient people at the event. So as much as we joke about like the left being in PCs. You've got to understand, local, like, HOA conservatives, I guess I'd call them, you know, local politics conservatives, they're just as NPC, like, they don't have strong opinions on anything.

Simone Collins: When it comes to our world view and means of discussing things, which is very High [00:24:00] level. I, you know, you can say that these people are highly respectable from the perspective of them being people who care about their local communities and local issues and everything else. Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: then there's the conservative base who's very different in the U S.

So this is the group that we're meeting at conventions and stuff like that. Yes. They are totally different from the UK group. They, like every time you talk to one They are looping you into like their private conspiracy theory and their world beliefs. Like that's often how they start conversations is with some conspiracy theory.

And it's, it's, it's, do you either know about this conspiracy theory? And when I should say conspiracy theory, most conspiracy theories recently have turned out to be fact, like conspiracy bat theories are betting like nine out of 10 recently. So when I say conspiracy theory, what I mean is it's some.

angle of viewing society which is non mainstream accepted. And I'm just using the term conspiracy theory, because that's what the left would call it. But they, they come up to you very conspiratorially. Like, hey, like, are you in on, like, X? [00:25:00] You either know about it and they're like, Oh my God, we're immediately best friends.

Cause you're like part of my tribe or it's like, Oh my God, I need to like, tell you about this and like, look at the stats and like, here are five papers and they're really excited about this. Right.

Simone Collins: Well, and it feels extremely inclusive where like in contrast going to the conservative conference in the U S sorry, in the UK with many people from around Europe and in Australia, It felt very much like exclusionary, that people were being very guarded.

They weren't trying to bring you in. They didn't want you

Malcolm Collins: they were all about trying to determine your position in the local status hierarchy. Yeah, but there was

Simone Collins: no like, come in, come in, join my thing. Like talk with me about my ideas. And then at the, at the other, conservative conference we just got back from in Vegas.

It was like, oh man, you need to know about this. I've got to tell you like you should, and you can do this and you can do that and I'll show you everything. Don't worry. And you felt like someone was trying to induct you into their own little secret [00:26:00] society where they understood the truth about something.

And they

Malcolm Collins: wanted you to know. So there's like the classic joke about the hippies. They did this in a South Park episode. Like, I got some stuff you should read.

I've got some stuff you should read.

Malcolm Collins: Where the hippies used to do this. And it was to assert dominance over you. So this is something that ultra progressives often do. Is they will say Like, I have access to information that you don't have access to, and that access to information makes me higher status, and then I recommend you go out and read that.

Like, I can't afford to teach you. What is the classic, like, progressive line? Like, I don't have time to teach you, or something

Simone Collins: like, it's not my responsibility to educate you. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it's not my responsibility to educate you. No, no, no, no. Conservatives in the US, like the base, they do not feel that way. They are excited and privileged to educate you and they cannot wait for you to dive into it.

Which is really exciting and interesting to see this level of vitality in the base of the conservative party. Vitality is a great word for it. Yeah, it has like a huge level of [00:27:00] vitality, but it also can be a little off the rail, you know, sometimes when people talk to me about this stuff, I'm like, wow, that's actually a really interesting take on reality.

The problem is, is not everyone is smart. And so, some of their takes on reality are just, like, really dumb actual conspiracy theories. And, you know, I have to humor them and, like, they're obviously nice people who want to include us, but, it's, it, it shows that, like, it's not all good to have everybody, In charge of coming up with their own view of reality and distrusting all of authority.

Like, there's a reason why we trusted authority to some extent to begin with, because not everyone is smart enough to parse all the information themselves,

 Who are the corporations? The corporations run the entire world, and now they've fooled you into working for them!

Are you serious? We never heard that! The government is using it's corporate ties to make you sell magazines so they can get rich. Those dirty liars! [00:28:00] This is a really nice town you have here, that's why the corporations are trying to use you to take it down.

Just hang with us for a bit. We'll fill you in on everything you haven't been told.

Malcolm Collins: but there's at least a level of enthusiasm. And I certainly wouldn't want to ban them or, you know, shun them for undertaking these opportunities themselves and these challenges themselves.

And the pronatalist conservatives were different from all of the others at the pronatalist event. They were like incredibly competent and entrepreneurial and like everything was really focused on results. Like how do we, like when people hear our channel, one of the things they often be like, is they're like, yeah, you know, I watch a lot of conservative channels on YouTube, but they're mostly focused on the problems in society.

They're not focused on like practical solutions at the pronatalist conference. Like everyone was practical solutions. It was very entrepreneur heavy and like practical entrepreneur heavy, like a bunch of biotech companies, stuff like that. So that was really interesting to see at the Libertarian Conference.

It was a completely [00:29:00] different than the conspiratorial, which was actually really interesting. The conspiratorial, like mainstream Republican base is very inclusive. Like they want anyone so long as you buy whatever their pet conspiracy theories are. The libertarians were like, no, we all agree on libertarian philosophy and you are in, and it's like a big family and they've got like community and everything like that, which is really cool if you agree with their larger libertarian overlay.

But there isn't a lot of room for ideological diversity within that overlay or your, your level of ideological diversity would determine your status was in that community. And so far as you thought any libertarian idea was dumb or something like that, which is really interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

What, what I think I enjoy the most, of course, and this is not any surprise is the pronatalist. [00:30:00] Political groups that aren't really, they're not, they're not cohesive. I wouldn't call them like any sizable group within the United States. I would say conspiracy theorists falling broadly under the QAnon.

Umbrella, like they're a real force to be reckoned with, but sadly pronatalists are more of a niche thing, but maybe they represent this growing like cat girl conservatism faction that you had alluded to earlier, where it's just people who are willing to take unpopular cultural stances. Cause I think a big problem plaguing conservatism more broadly is this, this high concern with conformity.

When really what conservatism is becoming is the right to not conform.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And that's what I think we really stand for. Politically speaking is the right to not conform. It is exemplified

Simone Collins: by cat girl conservatism. Yeah. It's saying like, Oh, [00:31:00] I'm, I like this weird thing that you're going to judge me for.

But I'm not afraid to express that view and I'm still going to be more conservative than your average bear.

Malcolm Collins: I actually really like that term for a cat girl conservatism instead of bull moose conservatism, because it's just interested in what's efficacious. And it's interested in what the individual likes and the way they want to express themselves.

Simone Collins: So along with an element of unapologetic. willingness to hold one's stances and express them. Yeah. Which is crucial.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, Simone. This has been a spectacular time chatting with you. And I am, it's always remarkable how much our political views overlap. Like I didn't

Simone Collins: run together. We've grown together.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of couples don't. So scary. All right. I'm heading out. I'm gonna hit recording. Okay. Bye.

Simone Collins: Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao.

Well, hold on. I have to show you. My new house slippers came because the ones I've been wearing for the past, you know, [00:32:00] two years. Now, now you've no audio at all.

Malcolm Collins: All right.

Simone Collins: How about now? Now you do. Yeah. So like the new, like, you know, the, the, the shoes I wear on the house is my indoor house slippers.

Just like now they have holes in them. They're totally falling apart from the inside. So I got these new ones and I'm really excited

Malcolm Collins: and

Simone Collins: they're going to be perfect. They're little,

Malcolm Collins: Isn't that great? I love that. That is great. How, wait, how are these house slippers? You need to explain this to the audience.

We have

Simone Collins: toddlers. I mean, like, anyone who thinks that they can walk around the house barefoot, if they have toddlers, like, cannot. So, like, these are my indoor conventions. You

Malcolm Collins: mean something that can crush an infant's skull if you accidentally step on it? Is that the goal here?

Simone Collins: The infants are stepping on me, Malcolm.

I have to defend myself.

Malcolm Collins: I love your mix of like fascist looking supervillain outfit and like medieval wife outfit. This is, this has got to be somebody thing.

Simone Collins: Well, it's [00:33:00] either fascist or feudal, right? That's my fashion. It has to be. My

Malcolm Collins: favorite a tweet that we drafted today because we have this problem where everyone's like, Oh, they're just like breeding fetishists or something like that.

Yeah, what on earth? And in the tweet to sort of counter this is. Non reproductive sex is a fetish. And it is actually when you think about it, I mean, you are using something that's not really supposed to turn you on. It's a form of masturbation that just uses another person. But outside of that, I mean, the reason you get aroused by sex is because it caused your ancestors who did that to have kids.

Any way you hijack the system, whether it's with your hand or with a condom, it's hijacking the system.

Simone Collins: I am so stoked for this.

Ooh, rubbery bottoms.

Life is good. New Doc Martin house slippers. Beautiful husband home. Life is amazing.

Malcolm Collins: So can you explain for the audience why you wear inside and [00:34:00] outside?

Simone Collins: Yes so for context, I wear different shoes inside and outside because we Like Malcolm says to technically live in an old farmhouse and going outside always involves getting covered in dirt. Or like I'm, when I go outside, I'm typically walking to our chicken coop and mucking it out a little and getting water and dust and chicken poop all over me.

And so I need to be wearing wellies for that. So outdoor shoes are for getting muddy and dirty and covered in dust. And then indoor shoes are for surviving the trampling of our toddlers. And Which is why you wear Doc Martens inside, and you wear wellies outside, and that is the appropriate tradition. And this is why everyone has the little rain boots when they go outside.

You

Malcolm Collins: know, the thing is, I actually think you're living a lesbian fantasy. Oh, I guess the cottagecore cottagecore, and the chickens. Come on. Okay, so we got to get started here. Simone.