Table of Contents
Comedian and libertarian Dave Smith discusses his controversial views on foreign policy, from Israel-Palestine to Ukraine-Russia, while defending free speech and challenging establishment narratives.
Key Takeaways
- The military-industrial complex profits from perpetual conflict, making peace negotiations increasingly difficult
- Ron Paul's anti-war libertarianism provides a consistent framework opposing big government both domestically and abroad
- Israel's 60-year occupation of Palestinian territories fundamentally undermines claims to being a democracy
- NATO expansion deliberately provoked the Ukraine conflict, though Putin remains responsible for launching the invasion
- October 7th was both a horrific terrorist attack and an indictment of Netanyahu's failed security policies
- Jeffrey Epstein's connections to intelligence agencies reveal systemic corruption that demands transparency
- The rise of independent media has broken the establishment's monopoly on war propaganda
- Antisemitism online often stems from legitimate grievances about foreign policy mixed with genuine hatred
- Trump's urgency to end the Ukraine war offers the best hope for peace in the near term
- Long-form podcasts are revolutionizing political discourse by forcing authenticity over soundbites
The Rothbardian Libertarian Vision
Dave Smith doesn't fit neatly into political boxes, and that's exactly the point. As a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist influenced heavily by Ron Paul, Smith represents a strain of libertarianism that's consistently anti-war and anti-empire. "All of them kind of fall into the um radical minarchist points of view. And then there's Rothbartian anarcho capitalist," Smith explains, positioning himself in the most radical anti-government camp.
This isn't abstract political theory. Smith sees Ron Paul as "the greatest living American hero" precisely because Paul maintained principled opposition to both domestic big government and foreign interventionism when it was politically costly. "He was the only congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting," Smith notes, highlighting Paul's incorruptible integrity.
The core insight that transformed Smith's worldview was Paul's explanation of 9/11 blowback. Rather than "they hate us for our freedom," Paul argued that American foreign policy creates the very terrorism it claims to fight. "If we think we can just go around the world killing people, propping up dictatorships, putting our military bases in the Muslims holy land and not engender hatred from that, then we do that at our own peril," Smith recalls Paul saying.
This framework - that government force corrupts whether applied domestically or internationally - provides Smith with a consistent lens for analyzing conflicts from Israel-Palestine to Ukraine-Russia.
The Military-Industrial Complex as Third Party Profiteer
Smith draws a crucial distinction between natural tribal conflicts and manufactured ones. While humans have always fought over resources and territory, today's conflicts increasingly serve the interests of arms dealers and defense contractors rather than the populations supposedly being defended.
"The military-industrial complex in America. It's so big and it's so sophisticated," Smith observes. "You have this entire apparatus to like create the conflict and then create the public sentiment for that." Unlike historical conquests for clear economic gain, modern wars often seem to benefit only the weapons manufacturers and intelligence agencies orchestrating them.
This dynamic makes peace negotiations extraordinarily difficult. When powerful interests profit from conflict, they have every incentive to escalate rather than de-escalate. Smith points to the revolving door between defense contractors, think tanks, and government positions that ensures war remains profitable regardless of outcomes for ordinary citizens.
The transformation is stark: "For so long it was just like, oh, like for so long it was the case that like the New York Times and NBC and CBS and ABC and the Washington Post... they could just move the nation." Now, independent media can challenge war propaganda in real time, fundamentally altering the political calculus around military intervention.
Israel-Palestine: Occupation vs. Democracy
Smith's most controversial positions center on Israel-Palestine, where he argues that Israel's 60-year occupation fundamentally undermines its democratic credentials. "You can't even really call it an occupation anymore. It's an annexation," he states bluntly. "There's somewhere between five and six million people who live under Israeli control who do not have voting rights."
This isn't anti-Israel animus but a logical consistency test. "If we in America right now said black people no longer get to vote and black people can only live in these few neighborhoods, we don't get to call ourselves a democracy anymore then," Smith argues. The same standard should apply regardless of which country claims democratic legitimacy.
On October 7th, Smith condemns Hamas's terrorist attack while noting it represented "an indictment of the entire occupation/siege of Gaza and the West Bank." He details Netanyahu's deliberate policy of propping up Hamas with Qatari cash to prevent Palestinian unity and avoid peace negotiations. "He said in his own words that the reason for doing this was to keep to his words were prop up Hamas, bolster Hamas, to keep them in power."
Smith acknowledges the complexity of solutions while insisting that the status quo is unsustainable. "The fact that that has been the status quo since 1967 is just indefensible," he says of Palestinians lacking basic rights. Any lasting peace requires Israel "taking their boot off of the Palestinians neck," regardless of legitimate security concerns.
Ukraine: Provocation vs. Responsibility
On Ukraine, Smith carefully distinguishes between explaining a conflict and justifying it. While he believes NATO expansion deliberately provoked Russia, he's unequivocal that "the full responsibility of the invasion of Ukraine lays at the hands of Vladimir Putin."
The provocation argument is straightforward: "If China or Russia ever like backed a street push to overthrow the democratically elected government in Mexico and then install a pro-Chinese or a pro-Russian government... DC would simply not allow that." No great power tolerates hostile military alliances on its borders.
Smith cites extensive evidence that Putin offered diplomatic solutions before invading. NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg admitted Putin "sent a draft agreement to NATO" in late 2021 promising not to invade if Ukraine's NATO membership was ruled out in writing. "You could have just promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO and saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Smith argues.
But explaining isn't excusing. "Vladimir Putin launched a war that led to that and he's responsible for that," Smith states clearly. The same people who gave America "Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen" also drove NATO expansion "with nothing but off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp and consciously decided that we're not going to take any of those."
Trump's urgency to end the war offers hope, Smith believes, because "he's very highly incentivized to get this thing done as quick as possible" having staked political capital on achieving peace.
The Epstein Question: Intelligence and Accountability
Few topics reveal institutional corruption like Jeffrey Epstein's connections to intelligence agencies. Smith finds the career trajectory impossible to explain without intelligence backing: "The idea that you're just like you you have no experience and you're a teacher at Dalton... and then all of a sudden you're at Bayer Sterns and like within two years you've like made partner and you're worth hundreds of millions of dollars."
More damning is the systematic protection Epstein received. When initially prosecuted, "the prosecutor says, 'Well, I was told by the intelligence community that he's intelligence and to go easy on him,'" Smith notes. ABC News killed a story about the pedophile ring to protect relationships with powerful figures.
The implications are staggering regardless of which agency was involved. "You're going to tell me that there was a pedophile ring in our country that involved... the most powerful people in the United States of America and in the world... and that this was known and covered up," Smith says incredulously.
The demand for transparency is simple: "Where are the tapes? This guy was clearly taping people to blackmail them." If national security prevents full disclosure of a child trafficking ring, Smith asks, "Why would that be related to national security?"
Antisemitism and Online Discourse
Smith addresses rising antisemitism online with characteristic nuance, distinguishing between legitimate policy critiques and genuine hatred. As someone who's Jewish, he faces attacks from both directions - called a "self-hating Jew" for criticizing Israel and seeing actual antisemitic comments in his replies.
He traces some antisemitism to blowback from progressive identity politics: "Young white men in America today, they've lived through the years of real insane progressive wokeism" where racial identity became central to political discourse. "You think you're going to play this and that like young straight white men aren't going to start playing this game too?"
The timing isn't coincidental: "It's not a coincidence that all of this rose up while Israel is just conducting this brutal campaign with our weapons and money." Just as Al-Qaeda used American foreign policy as a recruiting tool, current conflicts provide ammunition for antisemitic propaganda.
Smith emphasizes that "racialism of all different forms is stupid and wrong. It always just leads to sloppy thinking and bad results." But he also notes the counterproductive hysteria that labels any criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitic, which "makes the word meaningless" and removes disincentives for actual hatred.
The Podcast Revolution and Political Authenticity
Perhaps Smith's most optimistic observation concerns how long-form podcasts are revolutionizing political discourse. Unlike traditional media's seven-minute soundbites, podcasts create genuine relationships between hosts and audiences through dozens of hours of unguarded conversation.
"There's something there where like technology is playing this wild role like we could have two a two-way friendship without actually having to meet each other all facilitated by the machines that we built," Smith marvels. This intimacy breaks down the artificial barriers politicians traditionally hide behind.
The 2024 election marked a turning point where "the standard is kind of you're going to have to do a long form show where people you really have to have... real genuine thoughts." Candidates who can't reveal themselves authentically over three hours simply won't survive in the new media landscape.
Smith contrasts this with traditional politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who "never had to do that. It was just a different time." Now authenticity isn't optional - it's a political necessity that benefits voters by revealing character rather than just talking points.
Radical Optimism for Systemic Change
Despite cataloging extensive institutional failures, Smith maintains what he calls "radical optimism" based on historical precedent. Using economist Gene Epstein's framework, he notes that transformative changes often seem impossible until they suddenly happen.
"Imagine you were sitting around in 1845 and like you're at the height of slavery and you were like, 'Hey, in 20 years slavery is going to be abolished across the West,'" Smith explains. "Slavery has existed for all of human history... You'd have to be out of your mind." Yet it happened.
Similarly, "at the beginning of the Reagan administration... if someone had just been to you like hey listen calm down in 10 years there won't be a Soviet Union," it would have seemed delusional. But entrenched systems can collapse faster than anyone expects.
Smith sees similar potential today: "The regime has lost their monopoly on propaganda and this opens up enormous possibilities." Independent media has broken the stranglehold that enabled wars like Iraq, where "every right-winger in this country was completely convinced that we have to go invade Iraq."
That level of propaganda control "could not do that today. They could not get away with that today because... how do you control Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson?" The technological shift creates space for genuine debate that didn't exist even a decade ago.
The Future of Anti-War Politics
Smith's vision extends beyond criticism to offering a coherent alternative framework. Rather than the incoherent positions of supporting limited government domestically while backing unlimited military spending abroad, or opposing wars while supporting massive domestic bureaucracies, Smith advocates consistent anti-statism.
This means opposing the Federal Reserve's money printing that funds endless wars, challenging the intelligence agencies that manufacture conflicts, and rejecting the bipartisan consensus that America must police the world. It's a position that transcends traditional left-right categories by focusing on power rather than partisan affiliation.
The path forward requires what Smith calls "making everybody human beings" rather than monsters. "You can't do diplomacy with monsters. You can't make a deal. You can't negotiate with monsters, but you can with humans." Whether dealing with Putin, Hamas, or domestic political opponents, treating adversaries as rational actors with legitimate concerns opens possibilities for peaceful resolution.
Smith's anti-war libertarianism offers an alternative to both progressive warmongering and conservative militarism. By consistently opposing government force whether applied domestically or internationally, it provides a framework for genuine peace rather than just the absence of current conflicts.
The ultimate test will be whether this message can scale beyond comedy clubs and podcasts to meaningful political influence. But as Smith notes, the breakdown of establishment media control creates unprecedented opportunities for outsider voices to shape national conversation. In a world where comedians increasingly serve as political truth-tellers, perhaps the path to peace runs through punchlines and long-form conversations rather than traditional political channels.
