Patrick Johnson

Giving > Taking

Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Libya. And treating it as either is a category error. Those countries collapsed because the state was the regime. Remove the ruler, and the country dissolved with him. Iran is the opposite. Iran is a nation first. Its national identity does not depend on the Islamic Republic. If anything, the Islamic Republic depends on suppressing that identity. That is the core difference. Iran has a deep, shared sense of who it is. A common language, as old as time itself. A continuous history spanning over thousands of years. An ancient civilizational self-awareness that long predates any ideologies. People of Iran don’t ask what future Iran should be. They know what it is. This matters when regimes fall. Syria fractured along sectarian lines because sect was the organizing principle. Libya fragmented along tribal lines because the state never outgrew tribal rule. Iran, by contrast, is unified against sectarianism imposed from above. The Islamic Republic rules despite the nation, not through it. That’s why protests in Iran recur with such consistency. Same slogans. Same demands. Same national symbols. Same rejection of clerical rule. There is nothing chaotic about this. In fact, this is coherence and unity. Iranian civil society never disappeared. It went underground. Into families. Into culture. Into humor. Into art. Into memory. Even now, the regime cannot govern normally. It can only police. It cannot persuade. It can only punish. That’s not strength. That’s decay. The fear isn’t that Iran will collapse if the regime falls. The fear—especially among apologists—is that Iran will recover. Recover its national dignity. Recover its middle class. Recover its place in the world. Recover a political order rooted in the people, not theology. Regimes like Assad’s survive because they are the only thing holding fragments together. The Islamic Republic survives because it is violently suppressing something whole. That is not sustainable. Iran doesn’t need to be rebuilt. It needs to be unblocked. The regime is a lid. Pressure is building beneath it. And when it finally breaks, Iran won’t become another failed state case study. It will become what it always was before the interruption. A nation reclaiming itself. Iran was free. Iran remembers that. And nations with memory do not stay captive forever. Iran will be free again.

@chamath Watching and it is funny!!!!

Pod with Elon!

@Jason @micsolana Amen to that.

@micsolana I feel traumatized watching these videos 😂

raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by katie porter

This is my quant.

The new Models 3 and Y Standard will compete directly with these cars: - Honda Accord (EX trim) $36,500 - Toyota Camry (LE Hybrid) $37,200 - Mazda CX-5 (Select trim) $36,800 - Honda CR-V (EX-L) $37,000 - Ford Maverick (XLT Hybrid AWD) $36,900 - Ford Mustang (EcoBoost) $37,500 - Hyundai Ioniq 6 base $42,009 When I say compete, I mean dominate. None of these cars come close to what Tesla offers for the same price.

@tunguz I'm hooked.

I created it, now you have to watch it.

@Jason @chamath @DavidSacks @charliekirk11 This is spot on.

At the end of every All In, after a half-dozen, full-contact debates, @chamath says “love you besties” and @DavidSacks musters a hilarious “back ‘atcha!” That’s the spirit of discourse we have in America — we can’t lose it. … and based on the two dozen @charliekirk11 videos I’ve watched since his murder, he tried to teach the same form of respectful, challenging and first-principled debates. I haven't seen all his videos, but the ones I’ve sampled seemed to be extremely respectful — even if I might disagree with many of his positions.

@Jason youtube.com/watch?v=TYA_vd… This popped up on my YouTube feed today. Sack's hair was rocking.

BANGER CLASSIC GET IN THERE FAM

@TheFP @realmarkswidan This is a remarkable and heart wrenching article.

“You sleep on concrete for that long, and you hate it while you’re there, but then, when you get back, you’re not used to it—the bed. I feel like I’m sinking into it.” @realmarkswidan was imprisoned in China for 12 years on false charges. He tells his story for the first time to @PeterSavodnik. thefp.pub/44Wspi5

David Friedberg Breaks Down Zohran Mamdani's Win in NYC: The College Debt Crisis Has Led Young People to Socialism "It's really a revolution against the system that brought them to this moment." "Because the promise that we gave in America, the American Dream, was if you go to college, you will graduate, you will have income, you will have stability, you'll be able to buy a home." "And what we did is we increased the government's role in making that dream possible, and in doing so, we created effectively a system where we gave unrestricted access to capital, which inflated the cost of education." " People could go to school like Zohran and major in African studies and graduate with $200-300K of debt and then never get a job. The guy has not had a real job. And this is the truth for 32 million young Americans." " They all have what is called negative capital. They have debt and they will never be able to get out of that cycle." "So where do you turn in that moment? You don't go turn to corporations to solve your problems. You don't go turn to your friends and your siblings and your family, they're not gonna bail you out." "You turn to the voting booth, and you hear a guy like Zohran show up and say, 'There can be a better path forward.'  The better path forward is the government can and should do more to help." "And in doing more to help, we will increase government, we will tax the rich, we will tax the corporations. We will take all of that capital and we will redistribute it in the form of services and checks and support for all of the people that find themselves unable to take care of themselves."  "And this becomes a tipping point when the majority of the voter base ends up in that situation where they're that deeply in need, where they have negative capital." "And that is the situation America finds itself in today."

Can I just say that the $10 per month I spend on a subscription to @TheFP might be the best spend of the month?

Why is the US federal government the largest purchaser of fax machines on earth? Richard Miniter

Unlike the early church in Acts, which saw Jesus as a model for navigating suffering, the modern Western church often views Jesus’ suffering as a shield from our own. We often fall into the illusion that following the “right” path guarantees a life free of hardship. But Kingdom faith embraces suffering as part of the journey.

@george__mack Listened to your podcast on High Agency with CW and have read the post 3 times now. So much to digest.

Kevin Smith tells the story of his father's death: "He died screaming"

@hasantoxr Grok

Grok 3 is the new Trend🔥 I have curated "Ultimate Guide to Master Grok" for you. You will get : • 10+ Chapters • 100+ Prompts • Save 700+ hours on research Just: • Reply "Grok" I'll DM you the guide

@chuckbentley @RyanHoliday What I enjoy about it is I don't have to jump into every social media conversation to give my opinion on very complex issues. Everything is not black/white.

@patrickwjohnson @RyanHoliday enjoying the power of indecisiveness!

Not a lot of people understand this... but you actually don’t have to have an opinion about everything. You don’t have to decide if something is good or bad. Marcus Aurelius says limiting the amount of opinions we have is one of the most powerful things we can do in life.

@chuckbentley @RyanHoliday What's at the core of the struggle?

@RyanHoliday @patrickwjohnson I can’t decide if I like this quote.

"All the benefits in life come from compound interest - relationship, money, habits - anything of importance." @naval