Well Whiskey Coming Fame by Pain Duney's Librains Don't Let Me Go from Powerline blog
dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the Three Whiskey Happy
Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and Powerlines International Woman of Mystery
Lucresia's Gotta Give Me and let Them Whiskey Blow, Where You've been in Love,
Down and Loan. Welcome everybody to another episode of your favorite podcast on
the Ricochet Network, The Three Whiskey Happy Hour with my co host Steve Hayward
and the International Woman of Misty Lucretia. Say Hi everybody. Kresia, it's
good to see you. It's good to see you too. And luckily because
Steve and I are in the same hotel room, but because we're uncomfortable men,
we won't do our show in the same hotel room. While we're in
the same hotel, we're still a separate rooms. Steve and I are on
different channels, and his WiFi is so bad he can't turn his camera on.
So we have this picture of a happy, smiling step which is not
at all how he looks like. And no and no goofy glasses either I'm
just trying to band with you guys. Come on, you know I'm I'm
being a conservationist, but you're gonna take a little fun out of it,
because when I wound you deeply with Mike barbed Steve, I won't be able
to tell you know that's people don't know this. We should sell sell a
separate track with just the video so you should see the face of Steve makes
while Lucretia goes at him. It's it's it's pitiful. It's like watching those
the National Draft geographics where the uh the Aleutians club baby seals on the ice.
But the reason why I say the favorite your favorite podcast on the Ricochet
network is we had an overwhelming response to our episode last week, and so
I thought we would begin. We have a packed show. By the way
we begin is something of a continuation from the last episode because a number of
comment people who wrote in commented online wrote into Ricoche wanted to hear what Lucretia's
comment was in response to my outrageous statement. Apparently that if people think the
government is over prosecuting people for January six but under prosecuting people for Black Lives
Matter protests, the answers not to demand that more Black Lives Matter protesters be
prosecuted. That the Founder's answer was because they created the safeguard of a jury
which could refuse to convict anyone. The founders didn't want anyone to be prosecuted
and wanted to give the jury the ability to nullify political prosecution. So we
thought we'd finish up that point before we get to a packed episode filled with
protested federal judges and conservatives being fired from law schools, and reparations for slavery
and the collapse of the rich people's banks. So before we get to that,
Lucretia, what's your response that these lists I have. I have a
specific response, and I have a theoretical response. John, I get what
you're saying that in a general sort of way, the the purpose of our
criminal justice system is much more to you know this. The cliche is often
it's better than ninety nine criminals go free than an innocent one is convicted and
you know, put in jail and so on. And I think most people
probably agree with that. What I actually, by the way, I don't
agree. I don't agree with go ahead neither, because the sentiment get the
sentiment. The power of government that we have handed voluntarily, as part of
our consent, handed to the government, the power over life and death and
all lesser powers is an awesome, terrible power. And so you are correct
in so far as that the founders anticipated that the best way to control that
power was to make it more difficult in general, to convict somebody, put
them in jail, take away their life, their liberty, or their property.
And even if you go drill down a little bit further into the political
realm, I think that's probably true. We saw at the very beginning in
the seventeen eighties when Jefferson, or actually the late seventeen nineties, I should
say, with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you saw that there was
a clear attempt by the federalists, I'm going to oversimplify too more or less
to punish some of their political enemies. That's probably oversimplifying it, but you
get the point anyway. You're right in the sense that the answer to it
wasn't to devise some constitutional right or system or something that would ensure that if
somebody on this side of the political equation was convicted by the awful power of
government, somebody on the other side would be as well that I agree with
that one hundred percent. However, what I would say is that's a little
bit too generic. I want to start then with Madison's famous famous quote from
I Believe It's Federalist fifty one, where he says, justice is the end
of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been,
and ever will be pursued until it be obtained or until liberty be lost
in the pursuit. And I don't think it's fair to say that the founders
devised a system that ignores that really important point. That's what they were looking
for. Now, whenever you set up methods and systems procedures designed to bring
about justice, you're right, you're always going to have failures. You're always
going to have prosecutors that are biased, prosecutors that are two blacks, prosecutors
that are too tough, whatever it might be. All of those things are
a problem. But the system does, I think, have, even at
a more technical level, protections built into that. What we see now I
think is a little bit different. Maybe the last time that it was even
close to this was the prosecution of blacks in the pre civil rights era,
where that was just egregious and horrible, and a black person didn't stand the
chance of getting a fair trial. Think about Power versus Alabama or something like
that. We don't want that to be our standard. We don't believe that's
our standard. And I think that, ultimately is the problem I had with
what you said. I don't think that was the founder standard. I think
the founders believe that justice was the end of government, that whenever you set
up procedures, they will never be perfect, but perfection is the goal we're
going towards. Does that make sense? Oh? Yeah, this just brings
to mind that And I'm glad you mentioned this because it shows the fundamental difference
between you and Steve on the one hand, influenced as you are by your
natural law heresies, and me on the other hand. The poor positivists.
The poor positivists, you guys, are followers of Madison and Jefferson who think,
yes, the whole point of government is justice. I am a Hobbesian
living in my little Hamiltonian world where life is nasty, brutish and short,
and the primary duty of government is security. After you have security, then
I think you can have justice. A whole nother podcast. It must you
have best something to say, because it but a whole nother podcast on whether
Hamilton was a Hobbsian not tonight Not Tonight's mean, well, I mean I
have t n I've tried to point out to John with great with no success,
that Hamilton what was the case in the seventeen eighties before the constitution where
it was that New York City case where Hamiltons versus Waddington. That's a great
case, very hard to find the transcript of that case, you know,
but he recurred, he relied on natural law arguments. John, So you're
wrong, I mean, you know, it's just well, this is the
proble. By the way, this is substitution. This is before the positives
took over. Is that what you're saying looks just before. This is before
Hamilton had to be a responsible government official and not some some before. Further,
we're not going to discuss his whole Hobbsy false Hobbsy in theory. But
I do have a quote from Hamilton, and this is I think belies everything
John just said. Hamilton, when a government betrays the people by amassing too
much power and becoming tyrannical the people have no choice but to exercise their original
right of self defense to fight the government. That is straight out of Jefferson's
the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots kind of thing.
Both Hamilton and the Federalists and Jefferson and the Republicans of Jeffersonians understood the
most important thing was that you had to fight against tyrannical government. And I
think that's not a positivist view, John. Sorry, so John, let
me weigh in here with one brief notice for listeners. I'm slowing down because
I'll explain one a minute, and then a serious point. The first point
is one reason we're not talking about our whiskey selections for the evening is John
and I are just coming off a very boozy dinner ahead of our clandestine meeting
to do mischief to the left here all day tomorrow on the East coast in
Florida. I'll let you know your own conclusions about any of that, But
John, here's the point. Was what was what it was? What was
Ron's nickname for you, Steve shiny wait Ron ron n No, I missed
that. I missed that of that was said that room was too damn noisy.
I couldn't hear anybody talking. It was anyway. Uh No. The
serious point is what did you say here a minute ago, John about Uh
sure. Here's the objection that formed in my head when you said whatever it
was you said that was wrong. Is that we now have a system that,
in practice is protecting I'll put it this way, is protecting the administrative
state. I mean, we said this last week. Look, can you
get a fair jury in Washington, d C. For what we saw?
This was Scooter Libby fifteen years ago. I think you saw it now with
some of the January sixth defendants. Okay, it's a whole, it's a
whole, god awful mass I understand all that. But the point one of
the let me do this and then I'll shut out one of the I'm under
sending a very interesting question, and he pointed to the language of the Constitution.
I forget where it is. But since Congress does have jurisdiction over the
district, as we learned lately from Joe Biden, say yes, I will
go along with Congress overturning the DC City Council wanting to let criminals out of
jail for free. What if Congress passed a law saying any trials for offenses
in the District of Columbia must be moved out of the District of Columbia.
Wouldn't that be a legitimate act of Congress to do you see the point I'm
making, John, I think you guys. Will you guys believe that there's
a their limits on the government that are not in the written constitutions are so
unjust or unfair that you could just say they're illegal, even though nothing in
the constitutional text bars it. Right, that's so so, John, What
about innocent until proven guilty? Yeah, where is that in the Constitution?
Well, it's not in there, but it says you've got to prove it
beyond a reasonable doubt. But that's not innocent until proven guilty, because there's
a lot of things that follow from that general notion, like bail, Like
yeah, all of those actions that come from it assume that very basic kind
of common law premise that isn't in our constitution. That's just a basic derivative
of the idea that government before it can exercise its awesome, terrible power,
has to be able to prove through due process and all those other things that
it has a right to do. So we didn't just give over to the
government power to secure our safety. We gave over to the government limited and
specific powers. Those powers are defined by the Constitution. That doesn't mean that
we don't still retain a whole lot of other things that we didn't give over
to the government and that aren't necessarily outlined in the Constitution. So I agree
with that, But I guess the difference I have, But how can you
from a positive so because I think it might be the case that the people
it's not might be it is the case that the people did not give all
the power to the federal government and they retain their rights. So they say
they say that in the ninth and tenth Amendments, which is just stating what's
obvious from the structure of the Constitution. I guess my difference from you guys
is legally enforce what's what's legally enforceable. So I think that you know you
you are basing your arguments on what you take to be the philosophy, the
political philosophy that must undermine, not undermine, must stand unbeneath the be the
foundation for these constitutional principles John, that's so comfortable saying that you have to
carry that forward to today, you know, because those are not in the
constitutional text. So what if the plical theory of the people today is different
than the one that was held in seventeen eighty nine, seventeen the constitentumously our
natural No, no, it's there, but they're natural lawyers today. I
would say, if the people in the United States had any kind of political
theory, I don't agree with it, but it would probably be some you
know, soft version of Rawseyanism. And if that's the you know, the
welfare state. And if that's true, then what you still have with the
constitutional provisions in the text. And those are still good, But why does
the philosophy, why are they still come with it? Because they're in the
text. That's why I'm a positivist, because they're in the constitutional text.
Oh, Steve has turned on his camera, which means he's get off.
No, no, John, you uh, you clearly enjoyed the fine.
Why it didn't rettle too much because you just contradicted yourself. Did I actually
hear you a moan to go? Say? What's in the structure of the
constitution? Game, set and match But if that's not enough, you wanted
to say, yeah, those founders they were natural lawyers. The implication is
today we suffer from unnatural lawyers. And my point is precisely, and that's
exactly the problem. As I say, game, set and match and the
tiebreaker. So you lose no, no, no, no by a different
point, which is yes, I agree with you. The founders were natural
law people. There's no there was no other alternate system, right, there
was no What alternate systems do we have today? You don't think that the
positivism occurred to them and they didn't. No, No, I'm saying today
I would say the political I would I don't. I find this unfortunate,
but I would think the majority of Americans today would probably fall under some kind
of Rawlsey in definition. They're all big supporters of the modern welfare state.
They don't want to come the question which is right, get rid of entitlements?
The question is which is truth? John, not what do most people
happen to abide by today because they've been improperly educated or whatever. The question
is which one's true? No? I see, this is why I guess
I am a positivist. I tend to think it's what the people today want
want to incluhy do we? Why do we? Then we're never going to
get to our criticize Ald on this one point. Why do we then criticize
Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or even even Putin? Why do we If Putin
thinks it's right to invade and take back Ukraine, who are we to say
it's not right for him to do? That's his business, it's not ours.
We're not in Europe, We're not in Eastern Europe. Why what right
do we have to criticize cannibalism or what's happened in Rwanda or all these other
things. We ever have a right to criticize those things unless we have a
standard beyond enough people buy into it to make it real. Why would we
ever do that? That's a terrible argument. And you're the sober person on
this broadcast, believe it. I just got a case of Italian wine.
How do you think I'm sober? So I have to say, John,
I'm so glad that you have to target not a terrible argument. Well,
well, criticize the Nazis they follow No, no, no, because just
because it's not natural law doesn't mean you can't have a universal theory of you
know, human rights and political theory that applies to everybody. It's just not
natural law. What's the basis for it? What's its foundation? Well,
I mean, I look, I actually tend to be more of a natural
person in my own personal approach. The political theory is personally but but but
the political theory of it is right. If you're Walls, right, I
guess it's you know, you're all the state of nature behind a veil of
ignorance, and then you guys make a deal to maximize the minimum state of
life that all of us will be in should after we enter society. Oh
boy, I don't find it terribly convincing, but I find a lot of
them. Okay, enough, I've already depressed our game by bringing up the
podcast actually agree with. So let's get to something we all agree with two,
which is how terrible the treatment of Judge Kyle Duncan was at the Stanford
Law School, and how it's another example of the rapid decline of our universities.
For those of you who didn't see the tape, Judge Kyle Duncan,
a Court of Appeals judge in the Federal Circuit based in New Orleans, Louisiana,
went to Stanford Law School last week to give a speech, whereupon he
was beset by what looks like a hundred protesters in a school I think which
has only got four hundred and fifty students, who heckled him, interrupted him,
shouted at him, basically prevented him from speaking. Then, to make
matters worse, Judge Duncan asked for a school administrator to come to make sure
that his First Amendment or rights were respected, whereupon Lucretia's favorite kind of administrator,
the diversity, equity and Inclusion administrator, appeared and proceeded then turn around
and break Judge Duncan for another few minutes, accused him of harming the students
with his speech and questioning whether Stanford should even respect free speech principles, and
he accused him of denying their humanity. Yes, that's right, denying their
humanity. And then Judge Duncan went to Q and A, which quickly devolved
into the state of nature, and Judge Duncan had to end the whole thing
amongst jeers and insults from students, and I believe was even escorted out of
the building by the old marshals. What do you got where punching? Then,
just to continue the search is a little bit. The Dean of Stanford
Law School, Jenny Martinez, and the President of Stanford issue pretty quickly a
joint apology to Judge Duncan, whereupon Stanford Law School has been wrecked all week
by protests of the dean for apologizing to the racist I suppose or to the
I guess he's a I'm not sure what transphobe I believe they're calling him,
or homophobe, transpob and I trans trump judge. And that's where Matt jars
soup guys one, well, please discuss what you think of this, Steve,
and then be what should be done about it? Well, first of
all, see's let's fill a little bit more news about all this. So,
first of all, you mentioned the joint apology from the president. What's
he's got a hyphenate the name test Cia something or other who was under fired
himself or possible ethiculations in his own scientific work test a levine. There you
go out And anyway, there's been speculation that the apology that was jointly signed
was stronger than the initial policy just apology just from the dean, because it's
said that some of the responses from staff were inappropriate. That was a,
you know, an implicit rebuke of the theidan who showed up. So Second
of all, apparently the Federal Society had paid one hundred and fifty dollars to
the Stanford Tech people whatever to do a videotape recording of the entire session,
and Stanford is now refusing to release that recording to the Federal Society who paid
for it, or do anyone else. I think, by the way,
that some enterprising congressional committee ought to subpoena that tape. Because point number three.
In California, we have the Leonard Law after a Been Leonard, which
for whom my wife worked when he sponsored the law thirty years ago, which
said that all universities that received any state funding, which would include Stanford,
must protect free speech, must not engage age in any viewpoint discrimination. The
in violation of that law, which probably has no criminal sanctions, and there's
all that usual problem. So here we are. What to be said about
this is oh fourth point, sorry, a news item. Is the dean,
who I assume is what Martinez whate her name is is you know,
a good conventional law school liberal teaches constitutional law in ways that I'm sure it
would drive Lucretia out of her mind. Well, she goes to class here
a day or two ago, and students dressed in black line the hallways and
stand in her class and papered over her chalkboard or white. It's about this
was our speech, heckling the judge. This is brown shirt activity out of
Batzi, Germany to a leftist right the way. You know, I was
reflecting on her day. You had so many peperal credentials go to in the
nineteen thirties and it's you know, it's orwell, it's Arthur. It's one
more kindle I was talking about on a recent podcast. We have more to
fear from communists than we have to fear from Franco. It is. I
think liberals in American faculties are slow to learn that they have much more to
fear from the radical left than they do from uh, you know, Concervtainly.
And that's the lesson of Stanford. And I think they're going to do
nothing, and we're just going to have to see how this goes. I
think it's very, very bad. So I want to go back to something
John said for a moment um that we all agree on this. But when
he when he said that, you know, if there's a certain kind of
um consensus about things, I want to argue that the consensus at universities at
least and in the mainstream media so on isn't is exactly what that stupid twit
d e I d ie whatever she is, dean at Stanford Law School believe
in. This has been the thing I've sort of been harping on for the
last couple of weeks, which is that there is no questioning in anywhere other
than you know, a few places like Florida, I guess, Arizona,
Iowa, you taught, Idaho, a few places. It is such a
matter of faith amongst university personnel across the board that the idea that she could
have, that that stupid twit dean could have done anything wrong, it's really
beyond And so, just for the heck of it, I googled while we
were while John was giving the setting up the case hal Duncan. These are
the one, two, three, four, five, six first entries that
come up Trump Judge Kyle Duncan's tantrum at Stanford Law was part of blah blah
blah blah blah. A new Supreme Court case may be a nightmare for trans
people. The Stanford Law students who protested a judge are in the right.
And it goes on and on exactly like that. Protesting the nation, protesting
an anti Trump judge isn't disrespectful. It's American. And my point is is
that you have to go about fifteen articles down define anything that's even positive about
Judge Duncan's response to all of this. This has become a matter of faith,
a matter of heterodoxy, sorry orthodoxy, and anybody who argues against it
is accused of heterodoxy. It's no longer a matter of debate. If a
d EI dean says that Judge Duncan's words are denying the humanity of I don't
know. I'm assumed she's talking about trans persons because he's not fully embracing and
celebrating a mutilating children who think that their princesses or dinosaurs that somehow that's denying
their humanity. We're all supposed to go along with it and clap. And
that's the problem I see with this. You see this being fought out now
and again I'm going to give Steve credit for this. He said, this
is howhere it has to happen. It can't be a matter of free speech.
It has to be fighting fire with fire in this case, because we're
There's been a dozen articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education lately arguing arguing the
point from both sides, but arguing the point as if it's arguable that diversity,
equity, and inclusion is at least as important an objective and a goal
and a purpose for universities as is academic freedom and the pursuit of truth.
That's how far you're apt. Yeah, I mean I've been putting it lately
that you know, the DEI has become, especially these statements that you know,
factty have to sign like you Ju John, and I've had to do
a couple of times in strange ways. It's become what I call the nice
seeing creative academia. Academic freedom now now means you are free to believe the
same thing thing the rest of us believe. It doesn't mean you are free
to descend from it. I think, by the way, there's a two
lucretia you mentioned. You know what comes up on Google or a new search.
A couple more facts about this, and this is why the point I
mentioned about Stanford will not release the full videotape of the entire session. Some
early stories, especially from left wing sources like Slate and others, said,
oh, well, you know, judge duncan behave very badly. It was
very rude. So two things to be said. Apparently, and ed Wayland
says this a national review because there is an audio recording available. David Latt
has apparently posted this. Apparently that this account that he was rude to the
students or was combative as wrong when you listen to the whole thing. Second,
what was his topic? His top was about, essentially, I'll translate
it as I understand it, John, it was how circuit splits and things
that bubble up from the circuit courts present problems to the Supreme Court. His
topic was not about identity politics. It was not about the transgender business,
the you know, the the uber woke people of Stanford wanted to make a
fuss because he had supposedly misgendered someone in an oral argument in a case.
Because guess what, he's not up on today's pronoun list because that's how crazy
these people are. So I mean, I think as more facts come out,
it's even worse than it looks. So Steve Well, no, I
yes, I agree. I agree with that. I think Stanford is we're
watching Stanford. I suspect they will do nothing. They're going to try and
sweep it under the rug. The broader point to pull back on and think
about is one that you Lucation I have been arguing about on email all day
or all week, not really arguing, but my point is is there is
what I like to call the version of supply side economics, accept the supply
side academia. As you increase the supply of d EI administrators and the related
programs and student mental health support, you're going to get what. You're going
to get more people aggrieved about diversity themes because there's the ideology of it in
the courses, and then there's this administrative apparatus to reinforce it constantly, and
so no wonder we are seeing scoring rates of students who are suffering from mental
health. This is John Hight's great article saying, you know, starting ten
years ago, we started seeing especially liberal students, especially if I'll be sexist
about it. Liberal women's students showing increasing rates of mental health difficulties. And
you know this is where Lucretian I have talked past each other. I've noticed
john campus climate surveys at Berkeley and elsewhere where minority students say, gosh,
I feel less comfortable on campus than I did years ago or whatever or whatever
the previous surveys were. How can this be. We've added fifty diversity bureaucrats,
We've added all these counselors, we've all added all these students support services.
And it occurs to no one that's causing the problem, that is aggravating
and reinform Yes, Steve, speaking of I'm sorry, I thought you were
done. We are having a little bit of trouble with audio folks, and
I apologize for that. That's because my my friends are in their undisclosed location
and a bunker deep down beneath them the Panhandle of Florida or something. I
don't know anyway, Um, but the Chronicle of Higher Education had an article
and it went like this, d EI is under attack everywhere, and then
okay, period. Then the next sentence was, the efforts by d EI
professionals is not producing the results expected. That's my point, I think exactly,
but I mean even the chronicle recognizes that all that, and then of
course the next one was, well, what do we do about this this
disconnect? You know, though, what do we do about the fact that
we want to spend more money, we want to put more resources into d
i E. But it's not showing the kind of progress we want to see.
And now people are recognizing that, and they're wanting to shut us down,
and so we've really got to rethink how we do this so that we
can't we can prevent the kinds of activities we're seeing in Florida and elsewhere to
I mean, some states are talking about completely taking out any funding whatsoever for
d IE initiatives broadly defined in state universities. That would be amazing. I
don't know if they'd be successible, but so here's a guys, here's a
easy test, I think, to see whether Stanford or other universities would be
serious about this. Before we move on to our next topic, let me
ask you, do you think that Stanford will fire the d EI official here
who, instead of defending free speech, attacked the speaker. No, there's
zero chance that will happen. As my prediction, they will take the Weasley
middle road, try to please both sides and hope everybody forgets they're too cowardly
to fire. I mean, yeah, then then it means that no good
will come of this the end Ye people pay attention, John, the universe
is aren't going to do the very minimum that they should that would occur to
any reasonable person about how to take a first step to fix this up.
Okay, so I'm just arguing, John, I know you want to move
on, but I'm arguing that in the university's view, in the d Ie
regime's view, it's not a reasonable person that would be upset by it.
Yeah, yes, that's the problem. Yes, I agree with you on
that one. Yeah, so let's move on to yet another. We don't
want everyone in the country to think that everything here revolves around universities. But
our second topic is also a university based story. And this was carried by
The New York Times over the weekend. I as a service to the readers
to the listeners. Unlike Steven Lucretia, I read the New York Times regularly
just to know what the other side is thinking. And the New York Times
reports in the case of Amy Wax. Amy Wax is a professor at the
University of Pennsylvania. She's made a number of controversial statements, some in class,
out of class, some in their writings in allegedly one on one meetings
with students. The thing that she's probably most criticized for is a statement she
made in the Philadelphia Inquirer, my hometown newspaper, where she said something along
the lines of the United States would be more successful socially if it went back
to nineteen fifties policies of stable families, not having children out of wedlocke,
getting a job, going to work, paying taxes, high levels of religion,
and so on. But then she's made more controversial statements, such as
apparently saying on a radio show that she's only had ever one or two black
students in her teaching career, whoever graduated in the top part of her classes.
She allegedly has said that they're too much immigration, too much, too
much immigration coming from Mexico and Asia, especially because they vote for Democrats,
and saying that some students might not be at Penn or in the IVY leagues
if it were not for affirmative action. So apparently the breaking news was over
the weekend that the dean of Penn has now recommended to the university that Amy
Wax be fired and she's not protected by academic freedom, but instead has made
statements that make students, faculty, and staff feel unsafe and have denigrated them.
Again, So, guys, do you think that what's happened is protected
by academic freedom or is this a big mistake? Would be a big mistake
by Penn? And again, also what is to be done about this as
well? So Lucretia, let's start with you this time. This whole idea
that words can harm people makes me want to throw up and throw things.
Okay, I'm so sick of the idea that I say something to someone and
they're so weak and pathetic and useless that my words cause them harm. So
that's let's just stipulate that from the get go. Of course, academic freedoms
one of those things. It's in the eye of the beholder these days.
And you know, I don't think academic freedom is going to save her.
I think she ought to stand on the defensive libel and say what everything she
says is true? And how can they in any way shape or form criticizer
for saying things that we all know are true. That's, of course,
her real sin is pointing out the very, very obvious that everybody understands implicitly,
but nobody can say that, because then we'd have to face the awful
fact that what we've done to scores and generations of young minority students is just
ruin their lives, right, that's what we've done. We've ruined them from
the time they start at a very young age by making sure they grow up
in families without intact households. We've ruined them by putting them through the worst
god awful urban city school districts governed by teachers unions who are the most vile
unions on the planet, and not saying something. We've ruined them by promoting
them when they shouldn't be, by not insisting that they learned to read,
instead providing them with lots of crap instead. I mean, there's it goes
on and on in the ways that we have ruined minority students, especially those
who grow up in urban areas or inner city areas or poorer areas. And
to point that out, of course, is just to acknowledge on the left
that they have, whether purposeful or not. That was the question I asked
you at the end last week. Guys, if you'll recall, was this
whole thing purposeful or was it just a monumental failure of brought about by idiots.
I'm inclined toward the former, and that's why I think the pushback on
this sort of thing is so hard. Yes. So yeah, first of
all, let's add a couple more details in John, you mentioned that op
ed article she wrote in the summer in the Philadelphia Inquired or what five or
six years ago now? She co wrote that with Larry Alexander from University University
of San Diego school. Yeah, and what was interesting was you summarize the
claims very well. It was basically, you know, get married, finished
high school, The statistics show you won't be poor if you do that,
and so forth. That is widely accepted social science. And they published that
op ed article and there was this huge eruption, including from Dean ted Ruger
at Penn because the students were upset or somebody was. Also the University of
San Diego Law School, the dean issued a statement condemning Larry Alexander on that
article. What utterly shameful performance by those deans responding to a student mob who
are upset by what, as I say, why they accepted one of the
first persons who put that together, those themes together. It wasn't so much
Charles Murray. It was Bill Galston when he was working for Bill Clinton in
the late nineties, a work for Walter Mondale, a liberal Democrat. You
know, he's the token Democrat at the Wall Street Journal editorial page. This
is not outrageous, wild, crazy right wing stuff. And yet there was
this eruption over it, and Dean Ruger talk about bad fate. I mean,
if you object to that op ed, there is something wrong with that
guy in his head. So now we fast forward to things. And by
the way, you know, John, you and I both know Amy a
bit. You may know her better than I do. Let's add for listeners,
what an extraordinarily impressive person she is. She's not only free where she
went to law school and all the other credentials she has in law and having
won many teaching awards at Penn. She's also a medical doctor. She went
to Harvard Medical School, worked in what neuralscience or something. I mean,
you know, you hardly find someone of more impeccable credentials of expertise than her.
Now I don't I don't quite agree with her about, for example,
you know, Asian immigration. I think you see Asian voters are starting to
move more to the right because guess what they've woken up to. What also
trying to do to them? A little behind the curve on that. But
that's a little thing. I mean, who you know, all right?
What the heck? A lot of the other things in that article, either
out of context and so forth. And again this gets back to and I
said it a moment ago, academic freedom seems to me now you have the
freedom to agree with the left and nothing else. And so this is pretty
shameful on Dean Ruker's part and everybody else. And you know Porty Amy and
I've talked to her some. I mean, this is this is Warren on
her? Is it? What on anybody? And she's a pretty tough person.
So what do you think will happen? Who knows what's happening right now?
Whether there are enough adults to say, you know, I don't care
how offensive you find her views, Firing her would be a very black mark
for pen, which I think it obviously would be. I'll just add,
by the way, I mean, I don't you know I've told Lucretia of
the story. I'm not sure i've told you, John, you know,
I did have. I had had a handful of black students who are absolutely
stellar. This one lady I had who was so good in class, top
grade in my class at Colorado, and I was encouraging her to apply to
Ivy League law schools because I knew she could do the work. And she
says to me in her quiet voice, I'm afraid I would only get in
as an affirmative action in Mitty And I'm you know. And the subtext was
I'm not sure I could do the work. And I reassured her, Oh,
no, you can stand up against anybody because you're that good. She
did, By the way, he go to an Ivy Lea law school and
did very well. I had another student I don't never told you about this,
John. I had this one student in my undergraduate class, said there
at Berkeley in con law, and he did a lot of extra reading.
He'd come up after class and asked me about Richard Epstein, and clearly he
was reading you know, very widely. He'd asked me about liberal authors and
you know, obviously a curious, motivated student. I said him, one
day, you're gonna love this, John, what do you want to be
when you grow up? And he said, I swear to God, he
said, I want to be Paul Clement. Right for listeners, Paul Clement
is one of the premier Supreme Court advocates. So why do you want to
be Paul Clement. Well, I've watched him or listened to these oral arguments
on YouTube and he's really good. So, by the way, John said,
you want to meet him because you know I know him slightly and actually
fixed up for him to go spend fifteen minutes with Paul Clement and his law
office. Is like, you know anyway, so you know there are some
out there and they are the ones who lose the worst from the political correctness
about affirmative action and all the rest of that. Um, I'm just sorry.
I just love telling stories about students like that. Here's the problems.
Here's the problem. I don't know anything about those students you just mentioned.
My guess is that they probably had a decent amount of good parenting whatever might
be. Maybe not there are some that there are students a white, black,
Asian otherwise who managed to pull through no matter what, because they're very,
very bright. But the point of the matter is, if you just
go by a colorblind society, you will not achieve the kind of minority representation
that everybody thinks we should have. That is not, however, in my
opinion, because minorities are fundamentally dumber or less capable. It's because they are,
in many cases subject to the worst that our society can possibly offer them
all along the way. You don't start being a Harvard Law school star if
you didn't have a mom who taught you to read by the time you were
four years old. You just need that encouragement, You need that home life,
you need books, you need good teachers. There's a whole lot of
things that get you there. And rather than face the fact that the left,
with their war and poverty, the left their support for educational unions,
teachers unions, and all those other things have destroyed the lives of countless young
people. Rather than face that, then they have no choice but to fall
for diversity. Well, first of all, for affirmative action. And when
firmative action, affirmative action isn't enough to guarantee success in college or graduate school,
law school, what have you. Then, of course you've got to
do things I get rid of MCATs, get rid of l SAPs, get
rid of grades entirely, and so that you still don't have to face the
fact that you haven't properly prepared these young people to be successful, and you've
pushed them forward where they don't belong. Those are all problems the left refuses
to face. And that's why the Amy Waxes of the world have to be
shut up and can't be allowed to speak. Yeah, that's all I'm going
to say. I find out by the way, I really do you know,
remember they even remember there was that woman in Chicago who taught in like
the worst of the worst inner Marva Collins. It was Marva Collins. I
met her once, yes, yeah, and remember she was teaching Shakespeare.
And of course you can't honor people like that because they they undermine the message,
they undermine everything, because it would it would mean that we would have
to look at the real problems that plague our society and not just try to
fix them with a sort of unjust band aid. By the time that students
get into medical school. You know, that's the problem, and it drives
me crazy. It makes me marry their person like that. Who I also
got to meet was him Escalante. They made a movie about in the nineties.
I got to meet him once when he when he went to Sacramento after
having huge success teaching hundreds of Hispanic kids at a very poor school in south
central LA or East LA how to do calculus. And at first people thought,
oh, they must be cheating if they're passing these tests. They weren't
cheating. He was that gifted the teacher. I saw why, that's right.
I saw why when I got to spend half a day with the guy
and they ran him out of that school because of never mind, you know
how that the rest of that story goes. Yeah, so there you go.
Yeah, that's I did leave that out. I mean, I've had
a number of black students who are really gray and they all came from intact
families. I think that may be the common denominator. Yeah, so,
okay, okay, guys, let's move on to our next issue, which
is tangentially related, not even tangentially to the issues that has raised, and
that Lucretia was just talking about which was that the San Francisco City Council I
just can't resist, sess me and Steve live here. We may be paying
extra in our tax bills in the future because the San Francisco City Council is
currently considering, has been taking testimony as issue to report, and is considering
whether to give reparations for slavery. This is California, which entered the Union,
if I remember correctly, in eighteen fifty as a free state, and
was law known in the United States. I believe for its progressive of racial
attitudes, long before Brown versus Board of Education. I think California is today
a great example of many races living together. But nonetheless, the San Francisco
City Council thinks that it's time for the taxpayers of the city, despite all
the crime, despite the failing schools, despite the hollowing out of the inner
cities, it's time to pay reparations for slavery. Steve, as a fellow
per taxpayer of California who made at some point I have to pay higher taxes,
look at this. What do you think? Well, so, first
of all, it's the initial reparations down payment. This is important downpayment.
Five million dollars. You don't even have to necessarily be the descendant of an
ex slave. The I read through the report, by the way this commission
produced, it's I don't know, eighty pages long, and it's every radical
left racial grievance you can imagine. And so what you have is housing discrimination
and segregation and jobb and so all these things add up to a big debt.
It's not just reparations for slavery, it's reparations for skin color. And
so it turns out that a recent immigrant to the United States from say Haiti
would be eligible to five million dollars a person. I did rough back of
the envelope math of, you know, the number of blacks in San Francisco,
which has been dwindling because they're getting priced out by the uppies until recently
when even the uppies have left, and it's I forget the figure, but
it's some multi billion dollar figure. It would amount to something like, well,
I don't remember, but several hundred thousand dollars per household of non black
residents of San Francisco. Who's going to stay to pay that? But then
it went on to say there should also be for the next what twenty years
or something. A minimum annual income provided to all black people in San Francisco,
something like ninety five thousand dollars a year, so five million plus a
guaranteed annual income for a couple of decades. Now this is looney tunes,
of course, Steve. But look, yeah, you know that's a good
quick question. If I moved to San Francisco and identify as a impoverished black
woman, can I get reparations? Probably it's not clear. I mean,
you know, I think you have to actually prove anything, or can you
just identify as well? You know, this is a good question. You
know, we're back to the sort of one drop rule, which used to
be you know, one of the odious things about racism in the Old South,
and now we're back to approving of that for qualifications for you know,
firmative action and so forth. I have to do that by genetic testing or
can you just claim it? That's a good question too. Look, no,
nobody's thought this through. It's completely preposterous and trying to make Yeah,
well but well but the okay, one of the broader points is the city
council voter for this because they don't dare vote against it, and Gavin Newsom
signed the bill to set up a separate state wide commission, which has said
there must be some kind of recompense made. They didn't name a figure,
but the figure that a lot of people advocated in testimony to this committee or
commission that was put together and approved by Gavin Newsom was something like at least
three hundred thousand dollars per person, a lot lower than San Francisco. And
you know, how is Gavin Newsom going to run for president? I'll just
end with this. I did see a tweet from her worship Nicole Hannah Jones,
and she actually said this, and I couldn't believe she wasn't pulling her
leg except I think she has no sense of humor. She said, Oh,
I don't understand why white people are upset about this reparations payment. They
won't pay it. The federal government will pay it. She actually said that
in a tweet. And they, Oh, we're just talking to Looney tunes
land now, right, what you know, print money like Silicon Valley Bank.
I don't know. That's all I could want forever. But that's enough.
Lucresia, Lucresia, your thoughts about the San Francis. I can't even
it's too stupid to contemplate. I'm sorry, it's just the whole idea since
it was first mentioned, what twenty five years ago, I don't even know,
Steve, you'll know it's it's ludicrous. Slavery was a terrible, terrible
sin against humanity committed by this country. There is no doubt about that.
There There is nobody who can show direct, direct suffering in this life as
a result of any connection whatsoever to slavery. And it goes totally against the
concept of the rule of law that no one can be made a part of
the remedy who was not part of the injury. I never owned a slave.
I would guess that even you two never owned a slave. And so
why are you on the hook for paying somebody who never was a slave,
who doesn't even know a relative who was a slave, any kind of reparations
reparations for what I mean, it's just again, I can't I don't even
know how to prepare a sustained argument against it, because it's so stupid.
I can't believe that we're even discussing it. But I know not that we
hear, but that anybody is, but I know we are, so I
suppose I probably ought to formulate and articulate a reasonable response to I just can't.
It's so well dumb. Well, well, let me mention one possible
parallel that I'm surprised hasn't burnout. More so, you know, as we
know of the good Progressive rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in the tension
camps during World War two, so we thought there were a security risk.
And after the war was over and a lot of them lost their businesses and
homes because you know, they didn't have income, couldn't pay mortgages, forth.
All right, in late four days, there was a compensation fund set
up. Very few claims were made, and I've always wanted I mean,
I don't have time, but I've always been curious as to why there weren't
more claims made from people who had legitimate claims. And I think maybe John,
and I mean your Korean, not Japanese. I think maybe it was
sort of Asian pride or Japanese pride. I'm not sure that may be extrapolating.
But now fast never mind that big push for and I think it was
called reparations. But in nineteen eighty eight, Congress passed a bill ranting twenty
thousand dollars uniform payment to all the people who had been in the detention camps
of World War Two. Those people were still alive, right, you said,
people who know who were still around, who had been in the camps,
who were still alive, Unlike you know, the last ex slave died
eighty years ago, I think, or something like that. Right, So,
first of all, I don't think the comparisons are exact. But you
think al Sharpton is going to settle for twenty thousand dollars even adjusted for inflation
today, of course not. That's why they're throwing around these figures like five
million dollars plus ongoing annuities. So you know, the only precedent that you
have is pretty modest and pretty direct to approximate harm that you can trace out
to living people. I don't consider that a precedent. I mean, it's
in our cost. It's the only one we don't at all. We don't
the sins of our fathers. That makes no sense. We have an entire
legal injustice system built on the responsibility of the individual, not on your father,
not on your grandfather, not on your great grandfather's great grandfather or whatever
it might be. In either direction, I am not responsible for the sins
of it. I don't get the benefits of unless there's some sort of legal
thing that handed down to me, some sort of inheritance. Other than that
what happened, of course, you know, being an orphan like I am,
I don't even know. Maybe I maybe I am part ex slave.
You know, my part of my family grew up in Alabama and Georgia,
so maybe they are. I don't know, but it's certainly I mean,
it's so stupid. It goes against every basic tenet of our rule of law
that we even consider something so ludicrous, like you say, if you want
to talk about reparations for actual persons who were actually in a concentration camp,
my best friend's father in high school was one of those. He was in
Red Mountain, and he was very active in a group in a Japanese group
of former I guess concentration camp whatever it was called detention camp people. But
but it wasn't a we hate you, it wasn't we hate the United States.
It was just kind of a support group. I don't recall him ever
looking for reparations or anything like that. He was a good American. He
it's it's I can't even it's so dumberant, I mean, unable of articulating
anything. Sorry about my dogs, anything even coherent. Sorry, it's the
rare day, John, when you get a subject so outrageous that it defies
Lucretia's ranting out some of them like I can sort of ground in an important
something. This one's just stupid, beyond all believes. Oh sorry, sorry,
John, Here's no. No, here's something that may prove more outrageous,
maybe not more, but on a different plane, different kind of outrageousness,
but also taking place in California. Sorry for that. And this is
the bailout of Silicon Valley Bank, So you may recall that at the end
of last week, it turns out that Silicon Valley Bank, which is a
bank that really caters to its namesake, to the Silicon Valley community, could
not cover its deposits. That depositors were asking for their money back, which
Silicon Valley Bank had unwisely loaned out in the form of long term government securities
at a time when interest rates are rising, and so the FDIC usually guarantees
accounts up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, But in this case,
the government, the Biden administration, decided to ensure everybody's accounts in any amount,
which has the effect, it seems to me, of transferring money from
the average taxpayer to the wealthy, to those who can have an account with
more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash just sitting around. So,
John, Lucretia, Lucretia, what do you think of this? You
think I'm going to jump to my usual end and I'm going to read you
two Babylon Bee headlines. The first one, Bay Bank leads hard lesson that
if they invest their money irresponsibly, the government will bail them out. And
you can just think that one through. And then the other one is because
you kind of made two main points there, and these support both of them.
Man struggling to feed family, just glad he could help out bank.
There was another one, by the way, Lucretia from the Bee saying Biden
promised us to tax billionaires on relief he just gave to billionaires. I think
that's ow I mean, I think the first one, in some ways,
the first one is much much more of a problem than the second one,
the first one being that the Bay you know, banks learned the hard lesson
that if they invest their money irresponsibly, the government will bail them out.
That's really the point. And you know, gosh, if I'm the person
who's got a couple thousand dollars in my savings account and my checking account runs
three to four hundred dollars, if I'm lucky surplus after I've paid my bills,
okay, I don't bank shop. I don't move my money around.
I don't make sure it's in a secure because it doesn't really matter. You
know, the last Babylon bie man survives bank failure crisis by not having any
money in the first place. If you if you are investing millions, and
you know that the FDIC insurance limit is two hundred and fifty, it is
your responsibility to make sure that your money is safe. You do not need
to put it all in Silicon Valley Bank or anywhere else. I'm sorry,
I it's and the idea that we should be bailing out any bank is crazy
to me. I thought it was wrong in two thousand and eight. People,
Oh well, we did it in two thousand and eight, the circumstances
were different, but I don't think we should ever do that. We have
an FDIC. We we will secure your deposits up to two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, just like we say. And if you happen to have invested
more, sorry, wait and see what happens. Maybe you'll get some of
your money back. Maybe you'll learn next time, and maybe you'll fire the
woke, stupid idiots who were in charge of that bank in the first place,
and you won't put your money back there. That's what I think.
Yeah, so, oh, boy, Steve, before he starts, not
about Steve hold on, let me just alf so throw in the criticisms or
complaints that maybe this was also due to the fact that this occurred in Silicon
Valley in California, where there's been a lot of political support for the Biden
administration and the Democratic Party. And would this have happened had it been the
Bank of right, the Bank of mar Ilago, Florida, or the Bank
of Iowa. Yeah, that's right. If it had been this had been
uh, you know, the Boulder Valley Bank in Colorado still be just as
woke and all the rest of that. But but Silicon Valley Bank was the
bank of the tech bros. And everybody across the political spectrum hate Silicon Valley
these days, mostly for good reasons. Uh so for those taking big contributions
from them. But anyway, well, right now, so, I mean,
so this is an amazing thing. So realize it's three or four point
quick points. Realize that they say, oh, this is a one time
only thing. Well, who believes that? We should be precise by the
way, lucretion, We're not bailing out the bank. We're bailing out the
depositors. Yeah, that's what they meant. Well, okay, but that's
different than bailing out the bank itself. Well, but but if you're going,
here's the point, you bail out the depositors up to two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars each, right, that's bailing out the depositors. If you
bail out more than that, I don't even know how that's legal. How
is that legal? Steve Wells, there's an exception for I'm told this by
and including by people I think are pretty serious about it. Although the Wall
Street Journal casts down on this that there's a there's an exception for something that
poses a systemic risk to the banking system, and that's what they're hanging their
hat on. Could this be a legal challenge that raises the major questions doctrine?
I don't know. But by the way, I'm just saying passing fd
I see that great comedian JP Sears calls the fdic F dick, which I'm
gonna go with thee. Let me ask you guys. You guys are rich
guys. Ever listen, listen to the woman who buys crates of Italian right,
have you ever moved money because you had too much in a single deposit?
Uh? No, but I wish I could have? Ye, John,
You're lying. I wish I had to worry about that. Seriously,
I mean, isn't that what responsible people do? Well? Look, I
mean one of the things to be said is, so, you know one
of the companies that had well, Roku, you know, the Roku gaming
or whatever that platform is. They had something like five hundred million dollars streaming
TV stream Yeah, streaming TV. But okay, they had five people that
are accountants who are trained to understand the stupid banking system. Why would they
do something so stupid? Well, it wasn't there. I mean they didn't
have all their money there. They had like twenty five percent of their working
capital, So that means that two billion. They had five hundred million dollars
with the Silicon Valley Bank. Here's the point let me finish this, which
is, if you say to them, okay, we're not guaranteeing your deposit
under over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Silicon Valley Bank is insalved.
They can't meet the demand for cash, but they still have about two hundred
billion dollars in assets. Maybe the mark to market value is now only one
hundred and fifty billion. The point is, if you had worked this out
like we'd always worked out every other bank that failed and had depositors over the
limit, they probably would have gotten back three hundred million dollars. They weren't
going to be wiped out because there were still assets at the bank. And
by the way, the fact that those assets fell here's the problem. They
cut to the bottom line here, which is what's really bothering me about how
this is unfolding. Is they say, oh, regulatory failure, the San
Francisco fad Trump loosen regulatory oversight and all kinds of red herrings. The point
is is we're going to get out of this is calls from in Congress to
have even more strict regulation of banks. I'll bet we're going to get that,
because realize what we've now done is we've now nationalized something like seventeen trillion
dollars in bank deposits, which is ridiculous. And so to avoid the catastrophe
that might have attached to taxpayers, this bit about FDAC as an insurance fund
is a fiction, of course, is going to mean that even more so,
we're gonna get Dodd Frank on steroids. We're going to get even more
regulation of banks, and what will come with that is walk guidelines on how
they should make loans. And you know it's going to get worse. The
next banks are going to be ten times worse than Silicon Valley Bank in their
walkyrie and the way they politicize their loans. And that's going to be how
this all ends up, I'm afraid. So it's a total disaster all the
way around. One point to make about what Steve says, and this was
a point I did not see what Richard Epstein brought it to my attention was
that if you look at the board if Silicon Valley Bank, only one of
them was a banker. The rest of them seemed determined to pursue diversity,
equity and inclusion initiatives and spend quite a bit of time trumpeting the support of
the bank for a diversity, global warming efforts and so on, but not
investing the bank's assets widely. So now I just wanted to say before I
close us out, I just as a personal disclosure, I bank at an
owned stock in the main competitor, Silicon Valley Bank, which is called First
Republic Bank, a bank I really like, although their stock price has been
diving too, But I just thought I had disclose that. So I don't
think it has any effect on criticizing Silicon Valley Bank and the ineptitude of its
management, but I thought we should make that disclosure. Lucuisia, do you
want to add anything about Silicon Valley Bank before we biden assure as Americans their
bank deposits are safe in Ukraine. I have nothing more to say. You
know me, I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that this
is a really simple thing and we shouldn't be bailing it. We should be
whatever was Steve said, that probably all makes sense. I just one of
our friends, Steve yo Recall said, it makes perfect sense to me.
These are the people that's reported Biden, and so he has to bail them
out. He has no choice. Sorry, I don't see it that way.
Whatever happened to people have to do the right thing because it's the right
thing to do. That's going to be my new mantra. And we can
debate about what the right thing to do, but nobody on earth can say
it's the right thing to do for Biden to take millions and millions, hundreds
of millions of dollars and give it back to rich people who are too stupid
to manage their money wisely. I'm sorry, that's just my thought on the
matter. Okay, Well, this is this follow up on the Creatius point,
bringing it to a close. This is another example of the progressives who
allegedly care about the poor bailing out the rich again, just like the student
loan program that they're trying to put an effect, which is actually transferring wealth
like this does from the poor and average American to the upper middle class and
rich Americans. That doesn't make sense. Okay, let me bring this episode
to close. We're about at the hour mark, and as always, always
drink your whiskey. Neat, let's go. Brandon and I have to say
I don't have a commonism unfortunately, and this is this quote is going to
drive Lucretia bonkers. I have a unfunny but funny quote from our vice president.
So our vice president saw fit to go on to a late night take
talk show to criticize Rod de Santis's recent comments about supporting Ukraine during the war
with Russia as not being a vital national security interest. The vice President said,
if you really understand the issues, you probably would not make statements like
that. And the reason why, according to the vice President, is when
you have that experience, you understand the need to stand And here's the quote,
firm and clear about the significance of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the significance
of standing firm against any nation that would try to take by force another nation.
I thought she was talking about the southern border, but I was wrong.
She was talking about I have one for you back. Stephen. Colbert
finally gets someone to laugh at his show, and of course it was Kamala
cackling God. The creation steam has always It's been a pleasure and I can't
wait to talk with you guys next Friday. How fun in Florida. Go
get a tan damn to Flolorida. Welcome you to the Sunshine State. They're
kicking back and soaking up every day Florida. I'm in Florida. The sun
is setting over Temple Day. It's like a Caribbean Holliday in everything Florida.
We got checked down on South Beach, the Dolphins, to springtime for the
Yankees, and the Dodger blue golf courses, beaches. It's easy to spite
them. You like legated Ricochet. Join the conversation.