"Talking Brook: 'Yaron Brook Show: Harvard & Race, Trump & Impeachment'"

Two topics tangle with each other in this offering of The Yaron Brook Show. The Students for Fair Admissions claimed that Asians had a quota, and the policies behind the politics of the Trump impeachment. Dr. Brook lasers in on the idea that Harvard is accepting smaller numbers of applicants even though a greater amount of students apply to go to the Ivy League university. Dr. Brook agrees that Harvard should have the right to have whatever system it chooses to use as a private school. He says that parts of the Civil Rights Act ought to be redacted out of the law of the land.

The good doctor says that “other criteria” prevent Asian students from qualifying for the admissions process. The thought was developed amongst other schools as well over a century ago to reduce the number of Jews in the Ivy League university, Dr. Brook says. He says that “different” social characteristics caused Harvard to exclude them. Irony is all over this situation. A school which expects high levels of academic rigor preventing men and women from going to school because they excel in SAT scores and high school grades is just bizarre.

Dr. Brook calls upon his audience to understand that privilege (especially the white kind), “reverse” discrimination, and affirmative action ought to all be eliminated. The left dislikes the argument that there will be a colorblind day. By necessity, we will always have race and differences. Racism will not end in nine years, Dr. Brook says. He goes on to say that the left says “you can’t separate my skin from my character.” This fallacy is wiped out with Dr. Brook’s application of rationality to the topic.

To discriminate and be racist is where the left and the right have united, says the good doctor. An accord on the “wacky” left and right, he can see the opposing sides come together on the issue of racism. The classifications of color and geographic terms are “nutty” and “stupid” according to Dr. Brook. He says that Israelis and Arabs are in Asia and that Mongolia is different from China. Altruism is at the root of this issue. Individualism would blast away any ideas of how Asians should be treated. The idea would show that instead of looking at skin color and hair texture, eye color, and ethnicity, academics, intelligence, rationality, and character would be embraced.

Dr. Brook brings the data. He says that 43% of the students at Harvard are at the elite institution because of legacy or special reasons. He finds it to be depressing. To him, the Civil Rights Act essentially institutionalizes racism. By banning discrimination in private establishments, the level of race becomes elevated. Dr. Brook then relates a short yarn about how his first son had to be put into a racial box upon his arrival to the world. Dr. Brook compares this action as similar to Nazi Germany. The only time that he fills out forms regarding collecting information on race is when it pertains to medical issues, especially diseases that could be linked to race. Tribalism reigns. The collectivism that is present in America and the world seeped into the cracks of the building of the most moral country in history with the Original Sin of slavery.

Racism is “judging people based on” nonessentials. Racists on the left who are minorities and those on the right who are predominantly white will continue to hold these roles probably forever. But Dr. Brook is a fighter. And he wants to battle the idealism so entrenched in society.

Dr. Brook swiftly moves to the Trump talk. Impeachment is the violation of the law by an individual for wrongdoing. Trump has “violated the law in the crudest and obscene way” to Dr. Brook. He continues by saying that “in a single phone call he has attempted to bring Ukraine in on the 2020 election.” Dr. Brook’s disdain for the current president of the United States of America pops out from the screen as he lambasts Trump. The only Republican that is standing on some sense of principle is Mitt Romney, he says. Repugnant texts by Trump should be clear and undeniable in their ugliness. Dr. Brook says that Trump has no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law.

All of the lies, stealing, and cheating is swept away just for the corrupt right to beat the corrupt left. There is little room for interpretation in the various communications that indicate a connection with Ukraine. Apologists for Trump, “no matter how outrageous” give him a pass. Dr. Brook uses the term “businessman” for Trump when he has in the past called him a mercantilist at best. Is this just a slip or is Dr. Brook pointing out Trump as a crony socialist businessman?

What Dr. Brook holds as the “key is Trump is making for the Republicans the Constitution and the rule of law irrelevant.” In the 2016 election, Trump nudged the Russians to investigate the emails of Hillary Clinton. The conversation shifts. Obamacare receives the Dr. Brook treatment yet again by saying that politicians don’t read the bills. On both sides of the aisle, no one reads the bills that are set up to be passed. Dr. Brook wonders how many senators read the SarBox Act before voting for it. The blind Trump supporters get the ire of Dr. Brook and he will blame them if the president is re-elected.

Super Chats grab the good doctor’s attention. He delineates the idea of freedom for the corrupt left to have a lot of money from someone else’s pocket out of need for that “freedom.” Once we’re all like Bernie and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, we’ll be equally poor, low, and miserable. To Dr. Brook, in another question, money should be worshipped legitimately for the sense of productiveness, creation, and value making that is involved in money. He finds it to be ruinous to the spirit to just see money as something to just pile up and hold onto without thinking of it as an achievement.

Dr. Brook says that he would take Nixon’s concealment over Trump’s overt stance. A question restated by Dr. Brook about why Objectivists are not rich and successful is because of the attraction to the philosophic system. He sees that people “embrace” the ideology but “too many focus on politics and as an excuse for their own failures.” Dr. Brook asks how do you measure successful. He has found “that you can be successful “in a variety of different ways.” “Character is not a function of your genes but of choices,” says Dr. Brook. This is fact. So many people have walked this planet as great people, despicable people, or some gray area in between. But that is not because of irrelevant factors produced by the accidents of biology. Genetic testing is important for your health and your ancestry, says Dr. Brook. Mythology plays a role in the fact that Mumbai is set up as an anti-capitalist city. A commenter suggests that Dr. Brook see The Watchmen television series. He suspects that it will be worth his time as the film seemed “interesting.”

The talk swings back to Trump. Dr. Brook says that Elizabeth Warren is a destroyer with a plan. Trump is a destroyer without one. Art recommendations come through towards the end of the show. Dr. Brook advocates for a gangster show called Peaky Blinders which just wrapped up its fifth season. Though the show is violent, he holds that it is well written, acted, and features wonderful music. Here, Dr. Brook can hold a grain of salt for the ugliness of such fair, he can appreciate the ideas and the plots that encompass shows like Mindhunter. This exhibits Dr. Brook’s understanding of art and how it can be fuel for the soul.