Nina Turner is calling out and condemning the New Hampshire Libertarian Party
after someone on their Twitter account.
Decided to respond to, I think, a common sense tweet,
a non-offensive tweet in an incredibly racist way.
Now, it all started when Senator Turner tweeted about insulin and
the cost of medicine, something that she's clearly passionate about,
something she talks about on her and on social media regularly.
Here's the tweet.
Insulin should be free.
Medicine should be free.
Now, apparently,
the New Hampshire Libertarian Party took great offense to that and
responded simply with, Nina Turner picking crops should be free.
>> Speaker 2: Wow.
That is unreal.
And so, look, guys, I mean, you tell me, because if you're a right-winger,
it's perfectly normal to say, I'm not a Libertarian, or
I don't agree with that guy, or like, hey, yeah, you know what?
The drug companies, I love them, and they should make so much more money on insulin,
and I agree with that guy.
But if you mention crops, you're obviously referencing slavery.
>> To a black woman.
>> Speaker 2: To a black woman, and it's disgusting.
Can I get that out of the right-wing?
Can someone the right go that, yeah.
I get it, not everything's racist, but that's clearly racist.
Reference to crops to a black woman?
That's not subtle at all.
And he doubled down, triple down, et cetera.
So we're gonna give you Nina's statements, too.
But there's actually, I wanna talk about the insulin part
of it because Nina's bringing up an excellent point.
And this analogy is not just disgusting and racist, but
I also wanna show you how deeply wrong headed that philosophy is overall.
>> Speaker 1: Right.
So, yeah, I just wanna reiterate,
it's one thing to disagree with what her point is in that tweet.
But to respond to that tweet, the way that this individual controlling
this Twitter account responded was inappropriate, to say the least.
Incredibly racist, considering the fact that he or
she, whoever it is, is responding to a black woman and
they tried to, I don't know, maybe clarify the point in a subsequent tweet.
I'm gonna read that to you.
Insulin should be free is equally offensive as calling for
someone to be compelled to pick crops.
Disagree.
>> Speaker 1: No.
>> Speaker 1: They are the same moral statement, and
we should react to them with identical moral affordance.
>> Speaker 2: No. >> Speaker 1: And so
these are the taxation is theft, type of people, right?
They think all taxation is theft.
I would be curious to see what kind of life they would live in
a society that does not collect any taxes, but nonetheless,
curious what you think about that comparison, Cenk.
>> Speaker 2: So, look, we defend Nina Turner for a number of reasons.
One is because this is the biggest layup in history and
the guy's over the top racist.
It's super obvious.
Number two, of course Nina Turner works with us.
You check out our videos on Rebel headquarters now, and
she's a terrific person.
And one of the best progressives in the country.
But one of the reasons she's one of the best progressives is because she makes
points like this.
So they go back and forth with this guy going, what racism?
Picking crops for free.
Gee, I wonder where I got that from.
Okay, but let's go to graphic seven, because this point is important
ideologically outside of the racism of this tweet, okay?
So Nina wrote back,
taxpayers subsidizing life saving medicine is not equal to chattel slavery.
If you don't agree with that policy stance, that's one thing, but
equating it to chattel slavery is extremely insulting.
Hope that helps.
And by the way, look at how generous that tweet is.
>> Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
>> Speaker 2: She's saying, like,
I don't even mind if you had a legitimate criticism, right?
But obviously you're doing it in a way to be purposely know, congrats.
I don't know.
So look, one of the issues is what I mentioned earlier,
which is that do you guys ever criticize any of your own?
Or it's just a cult and
everyone's it's not just that Trump is right about everything, but
everyone who says something racist is right about everything, right?
So that's a good question to ask yourselves as we ask our side questions
as well.
And now in the substance of that tweet, though, that Nina had,
guys, tons of countries, but not only tons of countries, but like,
all of the developed countries, have nationalized health care.
So what that means is they provide a lot of the medicine, or almost all of it,
for free.
Now, it comes out of your taxes, but on average, they pay half of what we pay.
So that means high taxes.
No, we're paying twice as much right now in America, and
we're getting way worse results.
And we do not have the free medicine that they have in Europe, Canada, and so
many other places in the world.
Japan, Taiwan, you name it, okay?
So this is a very normal thing that most countries do and
all developed countries do outside of the United States.
Is that a little bit different than keeping human beings as slaves and
whipping them and killing them and maiming them and selling off their babies?
Is that a little different?
Come on, anyone who isn't brain dead knows that that's massively different.
So again, I ask right-wingers, does this guy speak for you?
You're gonna defend every form of racism and
every absurd, maximalist argument on the right?
Or can anyone on the right go, that's abhorrent,
man, you shouldn't do things like that?
>> Speaker 1: Yeah, so look, I think it's interesting because even
without the gross racism and racist response to Nina Turner.
What's interesting is the lack of exploring what you're saying and
trying to figure out whether there's actual merit to it.
Because as libertarians and based on the kind of back and forth I'm seeing here,
they see themselves as individuals who do not think taxes make sense.
They think taxation is theft.
They think everything should be left to market forces.
Just yesterday, Cenk, I covered a story about how the country is
grappling with a very severe prescription drug shortage,
especially prescription drugs necessary to treat cancer.
There are as many as 14 drugs that are in short supply.
Doctors and pharmacists are literally telling cancer patients in America,
we're sorry, we don't have the drug you need to treat your cancer.
So why is that happening?
Well, it's because these are drugs that require kind of
a complicated processing, right?
They're sterile injectable drugs in some cases, so it's a little more complicated
and a little more expensive to produce these drugs.
And so if it's the generic version of the drug that's actually affordable for
people relative to the name brand, their profit margins are super slim.
So a lot of these companies are like, nah, what's the point?
Not enough profit in producing this medication that people need to stay alive.
I give you that example because there are some elements of our economy or
some elements of what we're dealing with in society today.
That cannot be left to market forces, because if you do,
you're gonna deal with drug shortages.
And by the way, this is not the first time we're dealing with this.
We dealt with similar drug shortages just a decade ago.
It keeps happening again and again and again.
>> Speaker 2: Look, I'm gonna be insulting here, but libertarianism is basically for
two types of people.
One is high school kids because they don't understand that in the real world you need
balance.
And you can't just go to one extreme and go, no rules.
Chaos is awesome.
It seems appealing for like a second.
You're like, totally free, and I'm a 15 year old boy.
I wanna be free to do whatever I want, right?
But if you do that, you're gonna realize there's a reason why you need
balance in your life and you can't just go to an extreme.
The second type of people that are libertarians these days are people who
are Republicans but are embarrassed to say they're Republicans.
>> Speaker 1: That's 100% true.
>> Speaker 2: And so that's why they call themselves libertarians.
But this is not a serious philosophy.
And look, now I'll offend more people.
I also think the extreme left-wing policies
that frankly communism is the same thing.
Eventually we'll have utopia and chaos is awesome and we don't need any rules.
If you say so, brothers and sisters.
But that's not usually how it works out.
So these extremes, I think, are absurd.
And now you guys can all get mad at me all at the same time.
>> They wil.
That's okay, though.
Let's actually go to an example because we have a clip.
We've covered this before, back when it actually happened,
during the presidential debates.
The Libertarian Party held its own presidential debate, and
there was a moment that really stood out to me because Gary Johnson said something
that made a lot of sense.
But the reaction from the audience and
other candidates will tell you a little bit about, well, what they stand for.
Let's watch.
>> Speaker 2: Should someone have to have a government issued license to
drive a car?
>> Speaker 2: Hell, no.
>> Speaker 2: What's next?
Requiring a license to make toast in your own damn toaster?
>> [APPLAUSE] The license to drive.
I'd like to see some competency exhibited by people before they drive.
>> Speaker 1: [LAUGH] One of my favorite presidential debate moments of all time.
So good.
>> Speaker 2: No, I don't know what was better.
The guy the toaster guy.
You make some damn toast or
the booze that Gary Johnson got when he's like I mean to drive.
I mean, kind of, right?
Like boo.
>> Speaker 1: No rules.
No rules, chaos is awesome.
>> Speaker 1: I mean, I'd like to see some competency before they get behind
a massive automobile that can kill people if they don't know how to drive, okay.
>> So look, if you're at the very top, maybe you want no rules, but even then,
I don't think you want no rules.
You're gonna need rules to protect you, right?
>> Speaker 1: Right.
>> Speaker 2: But for most human beings, we need some sort of structure so
that other people don't hurt you.
And whether that is another individual assaulting you or
it's a company that's putting poison in the local lake or polluting the water.
Or putting feces in the sausage that they're giving you, et cetera,
that's why you need rules.
Or, by the way, on Wall Street, so that they don't do insider trading, okay?
But for Libertarians, Littlefinger was the hero in Game of Thrones.
Chaos is a ladder.