Joe Rogan | Why is Russia So Crazy? w/Bryan Callen

Jimmy, bring up Dresden before and after the war. Ooh. Take a look at that. They say the middle of Dresden was as hot as the sun. Jesus Christ. Speaking of 200 degrees. Because of the, when the Allies bombed it. But just take a look at the, what it looked like before and after. Ooh. We're so lucky we don't have to tolerate that kind of shit right now. I remember who was the guy who wrote, um... Oh God, where the, where the, where the monsters are, where the, uh... I wrote a children's book. Was it called Where the Monsters Are? I don't know. And he was, he was in the war and he said, do you believe in God? And he said, and he just casually said, no, no, the war took care of that for me. I never forgot it. I was like, fuck. He just died five years ago. I had Eddie Isron on yesterday and we were talking about wars of aggression. And that most likely we've seen the end of wars of aggression. There's people trying to conquer new territory like that World War II was probably the last one of those. Look at that man. That's insane. So that was Dresden. Dresden looked like the surface of the moon. Jesus Christ. When they were really done with it. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. That lady got barbecued. Yeah, it was... That's horrific. Those are all bodies, man. Yeah, that was... There's Dresden. There you go. That beautiful... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop scrolling. Look at that. What the fuck, man? Yeah, that's what war did. That's what World War II was. The true destruction of old Europe. Imagine what it would look like too to watch those bombs hit and just level everything like that. Well, it was carpet bombing. So civilians that... The objective was actually to kill the German worker to really bring that country to its knees. It was back when total devastation of the enemy was essentially a tactic. It was a horrible, horrible thing. Wow. Yeah. These images are so stunning. Oh, okay, this is afterwards. Yeah, human beings rebuild. Yet they prevail. Yeah. And a few decades later. Yet they endure. It's okay. What we were talking about yesterday was that we most likely have seen the end of these wars of conquest where people are trying to take over new territories. Right. This territory is no longer a commodity. Now it's services, it's ideas, it's technologies, it's land in that sense where you need... Yeah, but I mean the concept was that we're moving in a better direction and that things are becoming less and less, at least overtly aggressive. More people are able to see what's really going on too. And more people can communicate. I mean, this is really the only generation ever, like these last two or three generations where you're able to easily translate anything that anyone's saying in any other country. How often do you go, like I'll read Khabib Nurmagomedov's Instagram page and it's in Russian, you know, and I'll translate it. And so I could read what he's saying. And I do that with a lot of his other fighters too. I just hit the translate button. Yeah. Like how dope is that? Brings you closer to them. Well, dude, you get to know them, you know? Yes. And you see that they're pretty fucking similar, even though they're different. They're into family, worship and their food and their community. They laugh. They laugh, yeah. I mean, it's... Humorous insults with each other. If you live there, you'd be in that style of living too. And it's a hard place to live, so you gotta be a tough motherfucker. That's right. That's right. But there's something predictable too about how to live. There's certain norms and practices and, you know, there's a lane. Do you think that with Russia being run by Putin, that seems to me to be the last big country that might invade somebody. Like Russia being run by Putin, you could almost see him pulling a Crimea somewhere else in the world. You could almost see him... I think Russia, and I think the history of Russia, I have not been there. I was there when I was very young, but I've not been there since. And I have people who have gone there, and they actually really enjoy it. And it's, you know, just great people, like great people. The Russian people who suffered maybe more than anybody in the 20th century, but great people and industrious and everything else. But I do think that... They're run by a gangster. Well, but it's not just that they're run by a gangster, yes, but I think that sometimes... The way a populist thinks about certain things can inform their destiny, right? So think about this. If you were always invaded and you had a flat topography, and tanks could roll in, German tanks, whatever it is, and you paid such a price for that. Again, I told you when I went there in 1985, you didn't see any old men. Yeah. They were all killed. But aggression, male aggression, was what kept those Nazis at bay when they surrounded Leningrad, now St. Petersburg and stuff like that. There are a lot of stories in it. And I think that when you've been traumatized to the extent that Russia has been traumatized, certain strengths, you know, the ability to stand up against aggression and to be brave and powerful, that becomes the commodity. That's the guy that gets all the money, all the women, all the, you know, whatever. And I think that's a product of their history. So Putin is an admired man. Putin, I bet you if Putin had very fair elections, he would get elected into power. He's respected. Are you trying to say he doesn't have fair elections? Yeah, well. Is that what you're saying? My larger point is this. Are you on record? I'm not saying that, sir. I don't know anything about Russian elections, but I will say this. I don't know why you're putting words in my mouth. Why are those guys in the door? What the hell's going on? He would get elected anyway. I think so. Just so people love him. What if he allowed open criticism of him? Well, there is open criticism, believe it or not. Sure, the guys would get shot. If they were openly criticizing him, they'd get shot. There is a press that actually is critical. Right, right, right. But you know they've killed journalists. Yes, it's not a threat to his power. Well, how many journalists have been murdered? I don't know, but enough. Poison and all kinds of weird shit. Google, journalist critical of Putin murdered. Also, his supporters will beat the shit out of you. For sure. So what I'm saying is that I think Russia's... What are you saying? I think Russia needs to embrace the softer strengths. Are you a foreign policy advisor now? Yes, I am. No, this is a philosophy I have. This is my philosophy, ready? So my philosophy is this. This country's a great country, and our culture's an interesting culture. Why? Why? Because not only are we representative of hard strengths, the military, the NFL, the fucking UFC, all that shit. The what? Eagles. And eagles. Fucking bald eagle, bro. You're right, you're right. That's a classic. Canada's fucking national anthem is the beaver. Well, Russia's a bear. Okay. But so Americans, again, are very aggressive, but you know what America's secret is? We've also provided safe quarter to our gentler spirits. What is this? Violent deaths of journalists started in the Yeltsin era. Okay, so they've just been doing that forever. Yes. So there's just like presidents just do that in Russia. Always have. The Murder, Crossfire, Terrorist Act. In 2008, there was six of those. Dude. Murder only. There was another six. Listen. Two of them were brought to trial. Look at me right now. Putin is Gandhi. Putin is Gandhi compared to Khrushchev. Gandhi compared to Stalin. Gandhi compared to Lenin. Gandhi compared to anybody who was in power before him. Those guys used to kill wholesale. I mean, and that's a fact. Up to their elbows and blood. Who was that guy that got murdered recently that was running? It was a political opponent. They shot that dude down. So when his death was not related to the journalist's work, the conviction rate exceeds 90%. What? They put him in jail too. If they don't just kill him. When the death, what is that quote though? When the death was not related to the journalist's work, the convict, so you're talking about rates of conviction. Oh, okay. That was a weird quote. Oh, rates of conviction are very high. Yeah, of course. So the guy with the biggest gun in that society. They do that in this country too though. Espionage, those kinds of trials. Yeah, you're going straight to the poky sun. Do not pass. Go. Good luck with your trial. That's true. The judge was like, yeah, listen to you. 20 years. Fuck off. But aggressive, aggressive, aggressive part of the world, United States, like Russia. However, we're smarter. No, we're better. No, we protect our, we protect our funnier. Why are we funnier? Because we're better. That's not too general, sir. To the problem, James, that the commie story. To general, sir, you're being too general. This is a quiz. Why? We're better. Because we have protections for our, the people on the fringes, our creatives, our weirdos, our fashionistas, all the people that make our culture interesting. Steven Jobs, he wasn't good at CrossFit. No, he was yelling at employees. Yeah, either was Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But we provide, at least there was due recourse. At least we know that there are softer strengths that have to be protected. It makes you more interesting and it makes you more creative and stronger. You gotta be innovative. Your innovators are weirdos. Like Leonardo da Vinci apparently was gay. What? I said it. How outrageous. Yeah. Wait a minute. Guess what? What? They're a lot of very smart, like in Russia if you're gay, it's not that safe for you. Right, you get lost off a building. Yeah, so what you do is when you do that with people who are creative and you marginalize a group of people because they're different in the name of purity or whatever, didn't they make some really weird public statement about homosexuality, like the law in Russia? Like is homosexuality illegal in Russia? Well, a lot of times they're equated with pedophiles, the LGB community has real trouble there and it's hard to get apartments. It's more of subtle. It's hard to just live and make a living. So what happens is all those creative people who could be contributing and coming up with beautiful ideas, they're marginalized as perverts, TV-ins. And that's the dumbest. The meek don't get to inherit the earth. The meek a lot of times are the people that provide you your fucking goodies. Russian gay propaganda law. For the purpose of protecting children from information advocating for a denial of traditional family values. Whoa. The gay propaganda law and the anti-gay law, the bill that was unanimously approved by the State Duma on 11th of June, 2013. Holy shit, man. So you wanna protect children from exposure to home activity. Yeah, and it was signed into law by President Vladimir Putin on the 30th of June, 2013. How long is he gonna be president? So let me ask you a better question. So with those kind of laws, those kind of laws that marginalize anybody that's not normal, quote unquote, that's not traditional prototypical male, female. Awesome. When was the last time you bought, and I'll wait, when was the last time you bought one Russian product? Please, besides the fact that there are essentially the one crop economy which is oil, and I guess some other commodities. What happens is you kill all your creativity. What happens is you are not a strong country. Your weaponry isn't even good. That's the irony of all this shit. When you have that mindset, and you have one idea of what strength is, you're gonna be fucking weak, and you're not gonna be creative. Is a Kalishnikov a good rifle? It's a very good rifle. May. Can you make some good shit? Designed in 1957, I believe. What does it say? 2012, previously holding the position from 2000 to 2008. So he's been, right now, he's on seven years in office. He's his R, sir. He's been longer than that. Yeah, but I mean seven now, currently. And then he did it eight years before. Yeah, but he didn't even take four years off. When he took four years off, he was running shit from behind. He's gotta look like I'll kill you. He's like, I will kill you. It's a black belt in judo, right? Definitely kill you. Yeah, legit black belt in judo. Like he can actually throw people around. Probably smart as fuck. And in his mind, you know, Putin is running a country that requires a strong man. Yeah. It's who they respect. Right. So he's caught in that too. Even if he agreed with Russia. If you're the king of the world, let's say you're the king of the world, how do you fix Russia? You come at them with, you present an idea, the idea I just presented, which is the idea that you might wanna protect the people that you consider to be queers, deviants, and weirdos, nerds, or whatever they are, because those people a lot of times are your creatives. I don't know why, but they are. So do you think they lived in too much of a war time culture for too long, and that they developed this hardness to them that that's why they're lacking in the creativity and the innovation and makes sense? I don't think they can afford that. And I think that a lot of times when you've been traumatized that you're dealing still with the residue and the trauma of World War I and World War II. And that's very real. And also by the way, communism and having nothing, and they have strong communities. My friend went to Russia and said, everybody was nice to him. Fucking, they're good people, and they're innovative people, and they're creative. Look at how good they are at boxing. Anything the Russians put their mind to that they hold value for, like strengths, like MMA, like boxing, look at how good they are. So they're incredibly industrious, disciplined, smart people. Is it hard to get weird over there? I'm sorry? How do you get weed over there? I don't know. I bet you don't. I bet if you have money, you get everything you want. Right. If you got money. Yeah, if you're connected to the oligarchy, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.