The Bart Baggett Show: The World’s Most Interesting People Podcast Bart Baggett

“Community is everything,” says today’s guest Larry Sharpe, a business consultant, entrepreneur and Libertarian political activist. Growing up with a single mother who was an addict and a felon, Larry learned first-hand that the government is not here to help you. In fact, it might be working to keep you down once you fall. On today’s episode of The Bart Baggett Show, he explains the importance of what he calls “ownership mindset” as the only way to truly build wealth and why community is its centerpiece.
 
After graduating from the Marine Corps, he went into sales with the intent of making money, only to realize that he was the only one not profiting from his success. He explains why immigrant families who come to the U.S. are intent on owning something, and how they build community around it. He explains the root of capitalism, responsibility, and even  why devoutly religious people make the best employees.  Larry even covers  how to support nonprofits while keeping your money safe from the government’s greedy hands. 
 
Larry learned a lot by losing it all and building it back from scratch.  He dispels the difference between guilt-based social conditioning in the West and shame-based conditioning in the East.  This episode is a delicious blend of psychology, politics, and capitalism.
 
Join today’s episode of the Bart Baggett show the powerful and business savvy Larry Sharpe.  Larry ran for governor in 2022 and continues to be dedicated to libertarian free ideas through community, business, and politics.
 
Quotes 
“Well, you can if you look at one important thing, the number one thing to consider in your life in general. And this is where most of the poor communities fail. Ownership. Ownership of your life, ownership of your business, ownership of your family, ownership of your job. Ownership mindset. And the ownership mindset doesn't say, ‘What kind of job can I get? How can I pay my bills today?’ It says what kind of value can I bring that people will want?” (4:45 | Larry Sharpe)
“When I got to the Marine Corps, my mother had an even worse problem. She actually became an addict. And she was a felon. And I pulled her out of jail. And I tried to get her life set up again. And that was my first real understanding of how the system is not meant for someone who falls down. It is meant to keep you down.” (9:01 | Larry Sharpe)
“Government is very good at servicing, not at helping. They will service you all day long. They will make sure you don’t die and stay in that terrible spot forever. And they’re good at that, that’s a skill set the government has: keeping you in a bad spot. But actually helping you? Oh, they’re terrible. Community is everything and I learned that from my mother.” (9:39 | Larry Sharpe)
“This goes back to our ownership mindset, right? When you find immigrant families coming, most of them want to own something, immediately, immediately, they want to own something or they want to do business around a house, they own something because they know that where they were from, they own nothing. Right? That's why they left when it comes to own something, right? That Ownership mindset, which is also an entrepreneur mindset, but isn't always entrepreneurial, but it is ownership based, right?” (10:55 | Larry Sharpe) 
“The problem with so many nonprofits is they’re all getting government grants, which means you have government strings. So, basically, it’s a government agency that’s not unionized, that’s why the government loves it.” (12:52 | Larry Sharpe)
 
Learn more and subscribe to the Bart Baggett’s Show The World’s Most Interesting People Fan Weekly Newsletter at https://thebartshow.com 
 
Links
Connect with Larry Sharpe
https://www.larrysharpe.com
https://www.facebook.com/sharpe4gov
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https://www.youtube.com/larrysharpeforoffice
https://www.tiktok.com/larrysharpe
 
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Lou will still tell the joke that isn’t allowed in some circles.  His audience doesn’t want “woke comedy” or watered down dirty jokes.  It just has to be funny. Today’s guest standup comedian Lou Perez feels comfortable making the jokes that other comedians feel too scared to make.  
 
In Lou’s new book, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore: The Death and Rebirth of Comedy” he reflects about the days when not only were you allowed to experiment, but encouraged to fail, and audiences were down for the ride.  The World’s Most Interesting People Podcast host Bart Baggett digs into the the last 20 years of Lou’s comedy career and the state of comedy in general.  
 
Lou was surprised with the election of  Donald Trump to the American presidency, and more surprised at the short reign of woke comedy. You could start to see the punchlines from a mile away. Lou and Bart discuss the politics behind late night talk shows and how they found themselves unlikely defenders of free speech. 
 
They also discuss some surprising findings in their respective DNA lineage, having each taken a 23andMe test. They consider how life would be different if they were more invested in identitarian politics, and the lasting influence of the greatest murderer in history, Genghis Khan. 
 
If you’re looking for politically correct comedy, today’s conversation is not for you. Instead, Lou and Bart discuss the state of woke culture, why Twitter was once the best place for writing jokes, and why Joe hates to owe anyone anything. 
 
Quotes
“The book is a really great opportunity to look back at how lucky I was to start out doing comedy when I was doing it where you were expected to try stuff, experiment and make mistakes, to fail, to bomb, and to learn from that and come back and hopefully be funnier.” (3:54 | Lou Perez)
“Suddenly, you had this huge population of comedians that were just aiming their weapons at the President, and you couldn’t stray from that, for a lot of people, you couldn’t stray from that. You couldn’t let this guy get an inch. You couldn’t even make jokes about your own party if you were a Democrat.” (5:43 | Lou Perez)
"The TV writers all live in Los Angeles or New York. There's a heavy liberal element to it. Trump is a Republican president. So it's very easy for them to write those jokes. But if you're from another country, he just looks like a weird clown with orange makeup on. He's easy to make fun of.” (7:08 | Bart Baggett)
“Yeah, that is one of the gifts and one of the gifts of 23andme is I found out I'm 4.8% indigenous American. It's funny, because does that really change anything about me like my day to day, it's kind of like, ‘Oh, that's kind of a cool thing. And then just sort of like taking that like, ‘Man, what if I leaned into that?’ Now what that now that just, if I leaned–if I was the type of person who really took identitarian politics seriously, and my bloodline really seriously, where can I go with that?” (12:52 | Lou Perez)
“I’m glad they’re giving back, we raped and pillaged their land. OK, give them five percent of the oil money. Makes sense to me. Yeah, my body’s 4.8%; the rest of it’s been raped and pillaged. I would be a lot more if it weren’t for the conquistadors, or whatever, coming over and doing their thing.” (14:36 | Bart Baggett and Lou Perez)
 
Links
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Connect with Lou Perez:
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“We’re a conspiracy-loving people,” says Elizabeth Nolan Brown, senior editor at Reason, a magazine which prides itself on debunking myth and emotion-based arguments from both the Left and the Right. On today’s episode of The Bart Baggett Show, she debunks a number of popular myths, including that the media was only ever a stalwart bastion of truth and integrity. In fact, she argues, with so many citizens acting as fact-checkers, the media is held to account more than ever. 
 
Of course, transparency has its drawbacks. She and host Bart Baggett discuss the intrusion of constant surveillance and the importance of end-to-end encryption to keep our communication private from an intrusive government. The excuse that encryption will allow bad people to hide their bad deeds is another way in which the government exaggerates danger and instills fear so that we’ll forfeit our civil liberties for a false sense of safety. 
 
What’s really behind the widespread conspiracy of a major sex trafficking circuit operating throughout the U.S.?  Are aliens real? Are we really in a population decline? Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who also writes for libertarian feminist nonprofit Feminists for Liberty, answers these questions and more on today’s episode.
 
Quotes
“It’s a little bit of a myth, actually. I do think that standards are somewhat different today; there’s a lot more opinion in certain news outlets today than there used to be. But this idea that we used to have this objective press that was infallible is really wrong and it’s just that we didn’t have people to correct them.” (2:56 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown) 
“And the other thing is that like a lot like with the war on drugs...they use this as an excuse to invade everyone's civil liberties. There have been a lot of laws passed over the past decade and a half that allow more surveillance by police, allow more monitoring of social media, allow all sorts of things that we wouldn’t stand for except that people say, ‘Oh, it’s to stop human trafficking,’ ad they they use it as sort of a backdoor way to invade civil liberties of everybody. (8:03 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown) 
“Free speech. Freedom of religion. Freedom of assembly. Freedom to avoid government surveillance, either in your physical space or in your digital life. That’s a big thing now, is that we’re fighting the same battles we fought in physical space now so much when it comes to your internet activity, your emails, your text messages.” (10:58 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown)
“Criminals are going to use everything. You have to find a way to stop criminals without invading everyone’s privacy.” (12:24 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown)
“There are a couple countries that have a "Yeah, go have sex go make babies" day. Which is actually one of the more benign things though. You also have government's paying people, trying to bribe people into having babies. You have Nordic countries doing a lot of free childcare and free mandatory parental leave and all these types of social welfare state things happening. There is no evidence that any of it is really working.” (13:49 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown)
 
Links
Learn more and subscribe to the Bart Baggett Show Fan Weekly Newsletter at https://thebartshow.com 
 
Links
Connect with Elizabeth Nolan Brown:
https://www.reason.com
https://www.instagram.com/enbrown
https://www.facebook.com/elizabethnolanbrown
https://www.youtube.com/feministsforliberty
 
Connect with Bart Baggett
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“Even if Congress were the most intelligent and incorruptible people… they should not choose for you.  They are often idiots” —Spike Cohen discusses the problems with Democracy. 
 
“We have to show people that liberty works, it’s something that makes sense, it’s not just a theory,” says Spike Cohen, founder of the organization “You Are the Power'', which works to see justice for community members who’ve been wronged by their local governments.
 
In this episode of The Bart Baggett Show, Spike Cohen tells the story of one pastor who sheltered and fed the local homeless population in his church, and the local government responded by seizing the church.  Why are local community leaders not allowed to feed the homeless? The answer will surprise you.
 
Politics is a dirty game, as Spike saw firsthand as vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian party in 2020. He and Bart talk about the real story behind the two World Wars and what he sees as the problem with handing power to a handful of power-hungry people like those who govern the US.
 
 If Spike had any aspirations toward power or status, a diagnosis with Multiple Sclerosis in 2016 gave him a new perspective. He explains how, far from being an obstacle, this served as a catalyst for many great changes in his life. 
 
Join today’s discussion as Spike Cohen and host Bart Baggett discuss imposter syndrome, dress swapping, and how Spike got his name (and why he had to steal it back from a dead dog). 
 
Quotes
“I want to kill the narrative that libertarians can't win and change it to not only can libertarians win, but when we win, the people win for a change, too.” (4:47 | Spike Cohen) 
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the thing is, the more that you centralize that power into one person, or even a relatively small group of people. In DC we’re basically ruled over by 546 people, 435 in Congress, 100 in the Senate, nine in the Supreme Court and one in the White House. 546 people are making day to day life and death decisions for over 350 million Americans across a gigantic landmass and multiple islands and so forth. And even if these were the most intelligent and incorruptible people they still couldn't possibly know as well as you do what you need. And of course, they aren't the most intelligent people. They're often idiots, and they're certainly not incorruptible.” (10:42 | Spike Cohen) 
“A lot of people who are successful have status, but their self esteem is actually pretty low. So the more successful they are the more they feel validated. And then temporarily, they feel good enough, but it's a never ending drug of validation.” (18:21 | Bart Baggett) 
“In 2016, I was diagnosed with MS. It forced me to rethink every aspect of my life down from what I ate, to how I operated, to what I thought about myself and everything else. And now, I'm living on purpose. And that has completely changed my mindset on everything. I'm not chasing status anymore. I'm chasing a vision that I have for what I'm trying to do and that now when I go to bed at night, I am excited to wake up the next morning to do the next thing.” (18:55 | Spike Cohen)
 
Links
Learn more and subscribe to the Bart Show Fan Weekly Newsletter at https://thebartshow.com 
 
Links
Connect with Spike Cohen:
https://www.facebook.com/literallyspikecohen
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https://www.youtube.com/literallyspikecohen
https://www.tiktok.com/@literallyspikecohen
 
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Meet Bart Baggett and Spike Cohen at FreedomFest this year.
https://freedomfest.com/  coupon code for $50 discount “bart50’ 
 
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“Liberty is my North Star. Without it…you are just a slave.”  Lily Tang Williams understands and appreciates freedom in a way that only someone who grew up without it truly can. Lily is running for Congress and she intends to win. 
 
A U.S. citizen for many years now, she’s watched the country grow to resemble more and more the Communist China from which she originally fled. To help turn things around before it’s too late, she is running for U.S. Congress. She joins The Bart Show to discuss the warning signs of Communism and Marxism. Why is free market Capitalism under attack? There is a danger of trading security for freedom.
 
As propaganda and revisionist history continue to blur the line between fact and fiction, Lily and Bart explain the importance of broadening and diversifying where we get our news. They discuss what governments do to people who speak up and Lily’s plans for Congress. Bart even announces her in good mental health when Lily’s handwriting reveals she’s a perfect fit for politics. 
 
In a playful yet informative conversation, they discuss important questions like… Is healthcare a human right? What distinguishes fairness from justice, equity from equality? Join today’s discussion to learn from a woman who has been on either side of freedom and knows exactly where she wants to be.
 
Quotes 
“I'm an American. I want freedom. You know, 90% of people in New Hampshire are white people. I feel very welcome there. Most people have the traditional value of the New Hampshire motto ‘Live free or die’. They say that if she gets it, she will be a fierce fighter for freedom and challenge the socialists in Congress. I'm kind of new, they don't know me that well. But once they find out what I stand for, they respond very positively.” (3:37 | Lily Tang Williams) 
“This goes so deep, because I've spoken in Beijing.  I have many, many fans across Europe. I've spoken in Poland, which was Communist just 20 years ago. And when I'm interacting with these amazing people, and they really, really want the idea of being an entrepreneur is very foreign. The idea of “No, I gotta make my business, I gotta make my paycheck. I have to hire employees.” And they're like, Well, what about you know, we just want to work for the government. We just, we expect security…trading your liberty for security for things like communism is such a disastrous road.” (4:44 | Bart Baggett)
“It’s a form of limited free market Capitalism.. China took off economically. What do you know about today's China? People want to be entrepreneurs and want to become rich…When you have a bad system like Socialism or Communism, these individuals have no incentive because you don't get rewarded when you work hard. Remember, Obama said, ‘You did not build that. I took that as such an insulting attack on my free entrepreneurship.’” (10:38 | Lily Tang Williams)
“To me, political freedom and economic freedom go together. In China today, it may be like in the 80s or 90s you could start a business pretty easily. But without the rule of law as private property owners, private corporation owners, you don't have the guarantee of the protection of your private property. Look at what happened to Jack Ma, the billionaire who disappeared for a few months in China. Well because he criticized Chinese regulators.” (14:50 Lily Tang Williams) 
 
Links
Learn more and subscribe to the Bart Show Fan Weekly Newsletter at https://thebartshow.com 
 
Links
Connect with Lily Tang Williams:
https://www.lilytangwilliams.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lilytangwilliams
https://www.youtube.com/lilytangwilliams
https://www.facebook.com/lily4congress
 
Connect with Bart Baggett
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Sponsored by Freedomfest.  https://freedomfest.com  coupon code “bart50”

For anyone to write and publish a book is a remarkable achievement. Swedish comedian, writer and political satirist Aron Flam not only wrote a bestseller, but with his book he helped change Swedish law. 
 
Before the release of “Det här är en svensk tiger” (“This is a Swedish Tiger”), Sweden had one of the weakest protections of parody, satire and comedy in the Western world. As a result of Aron’s more than two years of prosecution at the hands of the Swedish government for supposed copyright infringement, those protections are now some of the strongest, behind only the U.S. and the U.K. 
 
An outspoken proponent of free speech and critic of woke-ism, or what’s known in Sweden as “consensus culture,” Aron explains the meaning of the book’s cover art, its dual commentary on Sweden’s collusion with the Nazis in World War II and its culture of silence and conformity, and the ironic manner in which the state reacted to his book. 
 
Join this fascinating conversation as Aron and host Bart Baggett talk about the importance of ego, being the most intelligent person in the room and whether Swedes actually have a sense of humor.
 
Quotes
“So, we had one of the weakest protections of parody, satire and comedy in the world, in the Western world, at least. In America, it's been tried. And it's been through the courts, and now SNL can do whatever they want. Not so much. Well, you have the strongest protection, right? You have fair use and all that, because we've already had the lawsuits and everyone's already tried and failed. And now we know we can do this. Okay, so basically a trailblazer in comedy satire now. Yes, I've set a new precedent of, ‘Hey, it's okay to mock the government.” (10:06 | Aron Flam and Bart Baggett)
“That was called “the so-called parody exception.” It was called not “the parody exception,” but the “so-called parody” exception, which means that anytime it went up and against real laws, like copyright, for instance, then you would lose, right? So, that promotes self censorship, right? Because you don't know exactly what you can do and what you can't do, until you've actually done it. So after I won the court case, now we have the iOS parody protection, together with the so-called parody exception, which gives us one of the strongest protections for comedy parody and satire in the western world apart except for you guys. And the Brits.” (10:42 | Aron Flam)
“Judicially, I’m vindicated, but, culturally, I don’t think so.” (11:28 | Aron Flam)
“I think everyone has something and it doesn't have to be intelligence. I mean, you can be a nice person, even though you're, maybe you're not the smartest person in the room, you still might be a good human being. And that's enough for me, basically. And you still might be interesting, even though you're maybe you know, have a lower IQs.” (17:06 | Aron Flam)

Links
Learn more and subscribe to the Bart Show Fan Weekly Newsletter at https://thebartshow.com 
 
Connect with Aron Flam:https://www.aronflam.com
https://www.instagram.com/aronflam
https://www.tiktok.com/aronflam
https://www.youtube.com/aronflam

Connect with Bart Baggett
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Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm