that it's the wrong thing? It's too early. Whereas the governor of California said it's reckless. As reckless.

Well, here's the argument. And you have to look at all the variables. If you look at one variable, of course you're being dumb. Variable number one: will opening up Texas lead to more infections and death? What do you think? Do you think that Texas opening up is pretty much guaranteed to have some extra deaths? We don't know how many. Hoping it's not a new surge. But when you say reasonably, it's fair to say there will be more deaths if you loosen up a little bit.

Now even if you're arguing that Sweden did well, etc., they still had extra deaths. So I don't think anybody's arguing that there won't be extra deaths, right? Are we on the same page? That Texas is pretty much guaranteed by their actions to have some extra deaths.

Now anybody who says no, I think you're just not informed. Because there's no expert who thinks that the measures have zero effect. There are plenty of people who say I don't know if it's enough of an effect to be worth the pain it's causing. But I don't believe there's anybody who says, anybody who's an expert who says that you'd have exactly the same death rate no matter what you do. I don't believe anybody says that. At least in terms of the virus. They might say it in terms of net, but not in terms of the virus.

So is it the right decision or the wrong decision? Here's the best argument I heard. And I would recommend this as a good filter on this question. Question number one: does the government know the right answer for you? Say you are one individual. You live in Texas. You're just one person. You're not an average person because nobody is the average. Everybody's a person.

Does Texas know what would be the best thing for you specifically? I'm not talking about what's best for the state, but does Texas know what's best for you specifically? The answer is no. Because if our government was so well informed and our science was so accurate that the government could say something like, look, there's a 99% chance that what we're doing is the right thing. I know it's inconvenient. I know people are going to have lots of costs. But we're 99% sure we're doing the right thing in general.

Now if that were the situation, I would feel that the government had some moral right. In other words, if they've really got good information, they're trying to save the most lives they can, I feel as if they do have a moral right to maybe force people like me to do some things I don't want to do in the short run. Right? I don't have a big problem with that concept.

But what happens if the government doesn't know what to do? What if the government is not sure if keeping things closed is better net, if you look at the net effect of mental health and everything else, suicides, drug addictions? What if the government itself can't tell? It can't tell if it's good for you or not. Well then you default to personal freedom. That is the correct decision.

We live in a country where the correct default, the thing you do if you don't know what to do, is individual freedom. Now if we had really strong indication that that so-called individual freedom would lead to a catastrophe of untold proportions, well then I think that the state government has a role in being the adult in the room and forcing you to do what you don't want to do because it's good for everybody. Right? There can be those situations. But this isn't that.

We are close enough to the end of the pandemic, whether it's six months from now or whatever it is, that I do think that Texas has a completely valid argument that they, Texas, can't tell. They can't tell what's good for you. And if you can't tell, there is only one morally and ethically responsible thing to do: leave it to the people. Now educate them as much as you can. Right? Do as much as you can to minimize risk. But you have to default to freedom in this situation.

Now should everybody do it? Do you think all of the other states, California should just say, ah, Texas is doing it, let's do it? Nope. No. Even if you think that what Texas is doing is 100% the right thing to do, that does not mean that the other states should do it. Because I'm in California. We'll probably stay locked down longer than other people. Even in California, although I am jealous. I'm envious of the Texans who have more freedom that I have. I'm okay waiting.

And the reason I'm okay waiting is that I don't mind Texas being the control. The control case. Right? I would like to see if Texas runs into a big problem because they're handling things differently. But I want to keep California the same just long enough to know for sure. All right? I feel as if it's worth risking a state or two to leave them behind long enough to see if there's some big difference. If it happens to be my state, that's not ideal. But whether or not my state had changed things, I probably would have acted the same or very similarly.

I mean I could have gone to more places but I probably would have stayed out of, you know, even if the restaurant said you could go there and for full capacity. Put yourself in my shoes. I've got asthma. I'll be 64 in a few months. So I'm sort of on the edge of the bubble depending on your point of view of risky people. If California opened up like Texas, I wouldn't go back to normal because I might have only one more month before I'm vaccinated. Maybe a month.

I'll tell you my personal risk management assessment is if it's really one month, and I think it is, before I get vaccinated, I'm going to be extra careful for one month. Does that mean, does that not make sense that I should be extra careful? Because now that's only one month. That's not big risk to save my life. You know, if there's some deadly risk. If it were six months, maybe, maybe I'd say I gotta live. But one month, I can wait one month. You know I'm gonna. And I think a lot of Texans, especially anybody over 60, is going to say the same thing. You know, if they want to take the risk they have the option now.

So I think this is great. I just don't know that you could say with any confidence that it will work as well as they hope it will. But it's great that they've made the decision with this bias. A bias toward freedom. Every time you see a bias toward freedom you got to be happy about that, right? Even if it's the wrong, even if it works out poorly, you sort of got to be glad that Texas exists. So thanks for Texas.

You know I keep watching this developing situation of immigration. And you know the more unattended kids, and I guess the predictions are over a hundred thousand unattended kids will show up. And there does seem to be clear indication that the smugglers, you know the people who smuggle the kids across the border, that they've stepped up operations because they think Biden will be soft on immigration. And they seem to be right.

So given that every Republican in the world said, hey, if you make it desirable and easy and better to come to the United States than staying where you are, you'll get more people. And sure enough that's exactly what's happening.

Now I feel like what's different and special about this border situation is you had such a clear Democrat standard of what you could or could not do at the border. And I don't think they're going to be able to hold it. Because they're either going to create a humanitarian disaster by being too good to people, which looks like that's developing, or they're going to have to change the policy and make it like Trump.

So what happens if this, what's special about the border situation is you don't have to wait a long time to see how it turned out. How long would it take you to find out if something you did for the Green New Deal worked? It could take decades, right? You might not know for years and years whether the vast expenses or changes you're doing for the Green New Deal are going to work. But with the border stuff I think we'll know with complete certainty within one year. Right? Within one year. I don't think we'll be arguing whether letting everybody in and being friendly to the children and especially kind, we're not going to wonder what that did because we'll just look at it. We'll know.

So what happens if it's a disaster? Because it looks like it's shaping up that way. But honestly I would still like to bet on the government. I know that's the worst bet, betting on the government to do anything right. It's a terrible bet. But the thing I don't do that a lot of you in my audience do is that just because I can't figure out how something could be done, I don't assume that it can't be done.

Now in my mind I can't think of any way that making it really, really easy and desirable to get into this country illegally, I don't see any way that can work. But I'm also open to maybe somebody does. Maybe we test something. I've always wondered what would happen if you built in a special opportunity zone right along the southern border of the United States. I'm just going to toss this idea out here.

Suppose the United States says we're going to build a zone where you can move your manufacturing from China to here. And for however many years you won't pay any taxes or there'd be tax rebates. Maybe there's no minimum wage. And what you would do is build this manufacturing zone that would absorb the people coming over the border. So they would come over the border but then they would learn English and they would learn a skill. They would have a job. They'd be doing something that's good for the country. And they wouldn't even get into the interior of the country because you would have a whole zone which would be the very best place for them to go because it would be built for them. It would be built for a place that wants as many employees as they can get. Come on over. But it would be American owned and run. And you would just use it as an immigration control that has the secondary benefit of reducing our dependence on China.

Could you do that? I don't know. So I don't know if any of that would be practical or economic. But you can imagine really creative ways to approach immigration. Which as AOC says, and I'm the only person on this live stream who's willing to say this, I like the fact that she wants to do something that we don't know how to do. I like that. I want my leaders to be pushing us to do things that look kind of impossible. And this looks kind of impossible. Being kind to people on the border at the same time you're controlling your own country's fate. I don't know how to do it. Do you? I don't know anybody who knows how to do it.

AOC is pushing it without knowing how to do it. I don't hate that. We can't do it until we know how to do it. But I can't hate the fact that she pushes the impossible. I kind of like it. I think that's mentally where I like to be. Is how do we do the impossible as opposed to saying well that's impossible, walk away, can't do it. So I think she's a valuable asset even if you think all of her ideas are bad.

But what's going to happen with the kids in cages situation should have some carryover effect to other Democrat stuff. What happens if, let's say hypothetically and it looks like it's heading in that direction, let's say the immigration policies of the Biden administration become an unambiguous disaster. So much so that even Democrats say oh this is a disaster, it didn't work. What would happen to their other policies?

Because isn't the main problem with Democrat policies that they have somewhat lofty objectives which you might like? You know everybody's doing well and making money and there's fairness and equality. Those things all sound great. Who's against any of that? But if you don't know how to get there, that's the problem. So I'm thinking that even the Green New Deal will suffer if the immigration thing falls apart because it will feel the same.

Immigration has this weird quality where you say to yourself, wait a minute, human nature guarantees that your plan can't work. And I think people will just take that thinking to other Democrat policies. So I think the Democrats are really in trouble with immigration. Not just because of immigration.

Here's a question to you. And I'll base this on overhearing something the other day. I was in a position the other day to overhear some teens talking about, you know I'm going to be as generic as possible, talking about lifestyle things and some things that would be in the general social discussion let's say. And I was blown away. I mean absolutely blown away. Because things coming out of the mouths of young people, very unfamiliar to what I would have heard in my day.

Is it better or is it worse? Probably better. Probably better. Because what I heard was an insane amount of lack of bigotr