Speaker 1: One of the phrases I hate as a pro lifer
Speaker 1: is the word or the expression culture wars. That conservatives
Speaker 1: are getting too tied up in culture war debates and
Speaker 1: they're not focused on what's you know, really important, like
Speaker 1: you know per capita GDP, or you know, whether the
Speaker 1: reconciliation bill is going to pass, or or cutting the deficit,
Speaker 1: which will never actually do. It seems like this word
Speaker 1: culture war, this phrase culture war got created specifically as
Speaker 1: a way to minimize the importance of social conservative issues.
Speaker 1: Social conservative issues, particularly like LGBT related issues, marriage debate,
Speaker 1: and most especially abortion. And it's a particularly American thing,
Speaker 1: much to the grown own eye rolling dismay of European
Speaker 1: liberals and American liberals who wish they were European liberals
Speaker 1: that in America and I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's the specifically American character, the character of American Catholics
Speaker 1: and American Evangelicals most especially, that has allowed us to
Speaker 1: keep fighting these fights when Catholics and Protestants in the
Speaker 1: Old World stopped, when Catholics in much of Europe gave up,
Speaker 1: not all of Europe. Poland is still very vigorously Catholic
Speaker 1: Ireland was pretty vigorously Catholic until a little bit ago,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, Europe just kind of gave
Speaker 1: up on fighting against abortion. The Europeans legalized gay marriage
Speaker 1: without a tussle, without a fight, and without much debate.
Speaker 1: And there's a certain when you go over to Europe
Speaker 1: and you look at political parties over there, and you'll
Speaker 1: see someone characterized as far right, far right, a far
Speaker 1: right political party, which it's so ridiculous the way the
Speaker 1: media characterizes European political parties. So there's usually usually the
Speaker 1: division of labor is if they say that it's a
Speaker 1: left wing party, what it means it's borderline communist. When
Speaker 1: they say it's a center right party, it means pretty
Speaker 1: much has the same beliefs as the Democrat Party in
Speaker 1: the United States does. And then when they say hard
Speaker 1: right or far right or extreme right, what they mean
Speaker 1: is something that's almost as conservative as the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: That's what usually that's usually what they mean when you
Speaker 1: read any American media account of European politics. That's how
Speaker 1: you have to translate it. When they say the center
Speaker 1: left party, what they mean is almost socialist or pretty
Speaker 1: much totally socialists. When they say center right, they mean
Speaker 1: about as liberal as the modern day Democrat Party. And
Speaker 1: then when they say far right, hard right, they mean
Speaker 1: almost as conservative as the Republican Party. Because even like
Speaker 1: they're far right parties, they're hard right parties. Abortions not
Speaker 1: on their radars. It's not even a debated issue. Family stuff,
Speaker 1: transgender stuff, it's not really the subject of debate. And
Speaker 1: Europeans will talk about how, oh, you know, well we
Speaker 1: don't have the kind of culture war fights like you
Speaker 1: guys have in the United States. Well maybe you should.
Speaker 1: Maybe you actually should, because in over the course of
Speaker 1: this week, the United Kingdom has legalized both abortion through
Speaker 1: birth and assisted suicide. Just today legalized physician assisted suicide.
Speaker 1: Parliament has just passed this, and I want to talk
Speaker 1: about these things. So the sort of settlement that most
Speaker 1: of Europe had landed on when it comes to abortion
Speaker 1: was basically abortion restricted to the first half of pregnancy,
Speaker 1: more or less, and that's actually the case in most
Speaker 1: of Europe. In fact, that was one of the weird things.
Speaker 1: When America was still living under rov Wade prior to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, the United States actually had far more
Speaker 1: liberal abortion laws than any country in Europe did pretty
Speaker 1: much all of Europe banned abortion after about the twenty
Speaker 1: week point of pregnancy, which is the halfway point. Many
Speaker 1: countries in Europe restricted abortion only to the first trimester.
Speaker 1: Some countries in Europe had other kinds of restrictions that
Speaker 1: American pro abortion advocates would scream and shout and flail about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, certain certain hour like forty eight twenty four
Speaker 1: to forty eight hour waiting periods, mandatory counseling before you
Speaker 1: got an abortion, stuff like that. There are all kinds
Speaker 1: of these European restrictions. You know, we would think of
Speaker 1: Europe as so culturally left wing. Actually they were more
Speaker 1: conservative than American liberals are when it comes to the
Speaker 1: question of abortion. But it's just not a live political
Speaker 1: issue over there. Especially in the United Kingdom, members of
Speaker 1: the so called Conservative Party are just as likely to
Speaker 1: be pro abortion as members of the Labor Party, the Tories,
Speaker 1: the Conservatives don't seem to give a hoot about abortion,
Speaker 1: and it seems almost as if attitudes on abortion and
Speaker 1: assisted suicide just seemed to vary from MP to MP.
Speaker 1: You have some prominent members of Parliament like Jacob Breeze, Mogg,
Speaker 1: who was very prominent under Boris Johnson, who was a
Speaker 1: very devout Catholic and he disliked abortion and things like that.
Speaker 1: But Boris Johnson was I believe, was more okay with
Speaker 1: it David Cameron okay, I mean such that it wasn't
Speaker 1: even really that big of an issue. So they introduced
Speaker 1: this bill to expand Great Britain's legalization of abortion too,
Speaker 1: all the way through pregnancy forty weeks, and they pass
Speaker 1: it with an enormous majority. Let's remember right now that
Speaker 1: the Labor Party is in control in Parliament under Keir Starmer,
Speaker 1: who's the Prime Minister of Great Britain. They pass legal
Speaker 1: abortion by a massive majority and without even like any debate.
Speaker 1: That's the craziest thing about this. They passed Like you
Speaker 1: guys may remember this, how like New York back in
Speaker 1: like twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: states were passing these very aggressive pro abortion laws to
Speaker 1: you know, get rid of penalties for babies who may
Speaker 1: have survived childbirth, survived and attempted abortion and then just
Speaker 1: not providing them with care. New York was decriminalizing certain
Speaker 1: kinds of criminal abortion, like getting there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: these insane super pro abortion laws that were being passed
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, and they were huge national news stories.
Speaker 1: In the United Kingdom, they just passed this law to
Speaker 1: expand legal abortion all the way through full term pregnancy,
Speaker 1: as in, in the United Kingdom, it's going to be
Speaker 1: legal to kill a thirty nine week old baby in
Speaker 1: a forty week long pregnancy, which by the way, can
Speaker 1: be done, I mean it is done in some states
Speaker 1: in the United States. Pro abortion folks try to argue
Speaker 1: that it's only done because of medical emergencies. It's not
Speaker 1: only done because of medical emergencies. Very often it's done
Speaker 1: just for pure birth control reasons. And they just pass
Speaker 1: it with, as they call it, just a minimal amount
Speaker 1: of so called backbencher debate, meaning it's the backbenchers, the
Speaker 1: people who sit at the back benches of the Parliament,
Speaker 1: who are, you know, the less important members of Parliament,
Speaker 1: the people nobody's heard of doing debates that no one's
Speaker 1: really following very closely. So earlier this week they just
Speaker 1: passed that how hum whistling past the graveyard, and then
Speaker 1: today they pass physician assisted at suicide. Now this was narrower.
Speaker 1: There was much more national debate about this. The bill
Speaker 1: would allow patients to be killed. So let's understand the
Speaker 1: structure of most physician assisted suicide legislation. So and let
Speaker 1: me define some terms. There's euthanasia and there's assisted suicide,
Speaker 1: slightly different things. Physician assisted suicide basically means a doctor
Speaker 1: prescribes poison to you that you ingest in the form
Speaker 1: of a pill or something. So it's not the doctor
Speaker 1: directly killing you, it's the doctor assisting you so that
Speaker 1: you can kill yourself. Euthanasia is the doctor's the one
Speaker 1: plunging the syringe. The doctor's the one adding the poison
Speaker 1: to your IV. That's euthanasia. Okay, so there's a slight difference.
Speaker 1: They're both bad. And the way most assistant suicide laws
Speaker 1: are structured. This is how California's law is structure. This
Speaker 1: is how the potential New York law is going to
Speaker 1: be structured. This is how the UK's laws structured. Is basically,
Speaker 1: you get someone with some kind of a serious diagnosis that,
Speaker 1: in the view of the lawmaker, renders one's quote quality
Speaker 1: of life to be lessened. Whatever that qualifying state is
Speaker 1: that qualifies you to receive a prescription to request a
Speaker 1: prescription from a doctor for physician assist at suicide. Now
Speaker 1: here's the problem is that what is that definition of
Speaker 1: what is that qualifying condition? So in California it's a
Speaker 1: one year termminal diagnosis. You receive a terminal diagnosis that
Speaker 1: you're not going to outlive a year. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: those kinds of things are good faith estimates on the
Speaker 1: part of doctors. They are not set in stone, lock
Speaker 1: it down one hundred percent certainty guarantees. Right, It's not
Speaker 1: like if a doctor tells you you have eight months
Speaker 1: to live, like on you know, seven months and twenty
Speaker 1: nine days, you're perfectly fine, and then at you know,
Speaker 1: seven months and thirty one days, you keel over dead
Speaker 1: immediately at the stroke of midnight. That's not how that's
Speaker 1: not how it works. It's an estimate. Maybe you'll make it,
Speaker 1: maybe you won't. Maybe you'll live way beyond it, maybe
Speaker 1: you'll have a really amazing recovery and you'll respond perfectly
Speaker 1: to treatment in ways that people can't always foresee because
Speaker 1: there's a gazillion different variables, And maybe you'll outlive your
Speaker 1: diagnosis by twenty years. Now, the problem is that the
Speaker 1: category of who qualifies once you've crossed that fundamental boundary
Speaker 1: of actively killing is okay. As opposed to the universal
Speaker 1: accepted Western medical ethical practice of there is a significant
Speaker 1: distinct difference between actively killing someone and deciding to withdraw
Speaker 1: extraordinary means of care allowing nature to take its course. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a massive difference there, and it makes sense given
Speaker 1: the anthropology behind this, Like you really have to go
Speaker 1: down to the fundamental question, why is killing people wrong?
Speaker 1: Why is killing people bad? All right, let's actually break
Speaker 1: it down, let's actually try to think about it and
Speaker 1: talk about it. Why is it bad to kill people? Well,
Speaker 1: it's bad to kill people because we can see that
Speaker 1: life living is a good. Okay, it is the good
Speaker 1: towards which our bodies are oriented, towards which our human
Speaker 1: nature is oriented. Death comes about through our bodies breaking down, malfunctioning,
Speaker 1: not operating according to their proper ends. This is the
Speaker 1: sense in which in Christian theology we would say death
Speaker 1: is on or really maybe more Christian philosophy we would
Speaker 1: say that, and not exclusively Christian philosophy, either Greek philosophy
Speaker 1: Aristotelian philosophy. We would say that death is not natural. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is a thing that happens to everybody, but it
Speaker 1: involves the body breaking down, not functioning according to its
Speaker 1: proper flourishing. So here is death as this ill, as
Speaker 1: bad as this natural evil, which, while it's contrary to
Speaker 1: the good of our flourishing, is where we're all ending up.
Speaker 1: That's where we're all going to deliberately actively bring that about. Then,
Speaker 1: is clearly something different from letting it happen. It is
Speaker 1: eventually going to happen to all of us. To actively
Speaker 1: do it, though, to take a life involves this massive
Speaker 1: disruption to the social order, taking someone out of the
Speaker 1: political community that the community of all of us living together.
Speaker 1: This is why murder is bad. Life is good. Human
Speaker 1: beings are good. Human beings have connections to other human
Speaker 1: beings because they are political animals in a community with others.
Speaker 1: We love them, We care for them as goods in
Speaker 1: and of them, as things that are good in and
Speaker 1: of themselves. When you kill someone actively, you are acting
Speaker 1: in a way that's contrary to nature, letting death happen,
Speaker 1: allowing this natural evil to happen. Once you realize that
Speaker 1: you cannot forestall it is one thing actively killing someone
Speaker 1: is different. Once you cross the line of saying yes,
Speaker 1: I can actively kill someone for some kind of quality
Speaker 1: of life reason, where do you stop? Where do you
Speaker 1: draw the line? How do you define what is or
Speaker 1: isn't a good quality of life? The slippery slope has
Speaker 1: to happen. Slippery slope argument is not a logical fallacy
Speaker 1: when it comes to something like physician assistant suicide. Once
Speaker 1: you have accepted the premise that you can actively kill someone,
Speaker 1: including yourself, there is no stopping point anything that makes
Speaker 1: someone say I don't if you say that someone should
Speaker 1: die on the basis of some quality of life judgment,
Speaker 1: there is no stopping point anymore. And that's why we
Speaker 1: see with this bill in the UK, someone with anorexia
Speaker 1: may be able to qualify for physician assistant suicide. We're
Speaker 1: seeing this in the in Canada where people with depression
Speaker 1: are qualifying for physician assistan at suicide. They're just offing
Speaker 1: anyone who is becoming And this is what's happening as
Speaker 1: people become inconvenient, and people are very inconvenient at the
Speaker 1: end of their life, and we'll talk about the cost
Speaker 1: things next. This is why disabilities groups so often opposed
Speaker 1: physics assisted suicide because they are difficult, they are burdens
Speaker 1: on society, and someone could push them to make value
Speaker 1: judgments that their life is not worth Continuing now, when
Speaker 1: we return, I want to talk about the financial side
Speaker 1: of assisted suicide and the deep injustice there. That's next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show. The United Kingdom just legalized
Speaker 1: physician assisted suicide today. It's already legal in California, it's
Speaker 1: legal in Canada, and I'm afraid it could spread to
Speaker 1: more and more states throughout the United States. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why I'm so terrified of it.
Speaker 1: I retweeted this post to my Twitter account at Fresno Johnny.
Speaker 1: This is a Twitter post from this woman, Caroline Pharaoh,
Speaker 1: who is some kind of British TV news talking head.
Speaker 1: She posts this sign that the anti assisted suicide advocates,
Speaker 1: one of the anti assistant physicians' suicide advocates, was holding,
Speaker 1: saying it won't be our choice for long, and then
Speaker 1: has two little graphs, one for one cycle of chemotherapy
Speaker 1: which costs three eighth and eighty five pounds, assisted suicide,
Speaker 1: which costs one hundred eighty three pounds and that's it
Speaker 1: right there. It is much cheaper. And this is a
Speaker 1: huge appeal of physician assisted suicide that people are not
Speaker 1: wanting to talk about on the pro assisted suicide side.
Speaker 1: The pro assisted suicide side is trying to talk about autonomy,
Speaker 1: allowing people to make their own decisions, and they're covering
Speaker 1: up the enormous temptation that assisted suicide is going to propose.
Speaker 1: For countries like the United Kingdom that have socialized medicine,
Speaker 1: they got to balance their budgets, as well as countries
Speaker 1: like America that have insurance companies that don't like paying
Speaker 1: out for things. Assisted suicide is much cheaper than end
Speaker 1: of life care, and that is its enormous risk. Most
Speaker 1: of the healthcare resources that you are going to take
Speaker 1: up over the course of your life, listener, you are
Speaker 1: going to take up those resources in the last year
Speaker 1: of your life. When I think of like my dad,
Speaker 1: for example, Okay, my dad who passed away from cancer
Speaker 1: back of March in March of twenty twenty four. My
Speaker 1: dad was a very healthy man. I don't know what
Speaker 1: medical resources he took up over the course of the
Speaker 1: first I don't know, sixty four years of his life.
Speaker 1: Regular checkups. I don't know if my dad had ever
Speaker 1: had a surgery. I don't know if he ever broke
Speaker 1: a bone. I guess maybe probably broke a bone or
Speaker 1: something when he was a kid. I think he had
Speaker 1: like some little skin cancer things that got whacked off,
Speaker 1: but nothing serious. The enormous majority of the healthcare resources
Speaker 1: my dad took up over the course of his life,
Speaker 1: he took up in his last like two or three
Speaker 1: years of life. During his during the time that he
Speaker 1: learned that he had cancer and treating the cancer and
Speaker 1: surgeries to treat cancer, et cetera overwhelming percentage of it.
Speaker 1: And we knew that my dad was likely was likely
Speaker 1: going to die of his cancer pretty much for the
Speaker 1: last year of his life. He died in March of
Speaker 1: twenty four. We had learned in March of twenty three
Speaker 1: that the cancer had spread extremely broadly and that, you know,
Speaker 1: his long term odds were not good, And so we
Speaker 1: knew that my dad certainly would have qualified for physician
Speaker 1: assistant suicide at that point, and certainly it would have
Speaker 1: saved everyone a lot of money if he had taken
Speaker 1: up on that. And I'll just say this, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: trade that one last year I had with my dad
Speaker 1: for anything, And I know it was horribly difficult on
Speaker 1: my mom. It was difficult on everybody. I mean, he
Speaker 1: had all kinds of complications, especially towards those last months.
Speaker 1: But you know, he got to see my kids grow
Speaker 1: one year older. He got to be with my kids
Speaker 1: a little more. He got to see his grandson play
Speaker 1: a flag football game. He you know, he got to
Speaker 1: sit together and just but yeah, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start crying if I talk too much more. But the
Speaker 1: point I'm trying to make is from a public policy angle,
Speaker 1: social liberals who are okay with killing people because that's
Speaker 1: apparently there they're mantra they are going to in. They
Speaker 1: are hugely incentivized from a cost saving perspective to push
Speaker 1: people into physician assisted suicide rather than getting end of
Speaker 1: life care because end of life care is way more expensive.
Speaker 1: And I think that's especially. I think that's going to
Speaker 1: be true both in countries with socialized medicine like Canada
Speaker 1: and the United Kingdom, and I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be true even in certain cases in America with insurance
Speaker 1: companies who don't want to pay out for things. It
Speaker 1: won't be your choice for long, and especially in the
Speaker 1: socialized medicine system where you know, not everyone can get
Speaker 1: cataly care, they might start saying to people, the government's
Speaker 1: not going to pay for your chemotherapy, but we will
Speaker 1: pay for a physician assistant suicide. So it's going to start,
Speaker 1: as you know, voluntary physician assistant suicide, and it's going
Speaker 1: to slide into direct and involuntary euthanasia. I'm it's hard
Speaker 1: to think how the financial pressures don't immediately push in
Speaker 1: that direction. And that's why people with disabilities so often
Speaker 1: opposed physician assistant suicide because their healthcare is really expensive too.
Speaker 1: When we return, all the worst people in American politics
Speaker 1: have all gotten mad at Donald Trump in the course
Speaker 1: of the last seventy two hours. That's next on the
Speaker 1: John Girardi Show. All right, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: Ron for a little bit and the way that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump has managed to make all of the stupidest people
Speaker 1: on both sides of the should we shouldn't we get
Speaker 1: involved debate. So there are two kinds of extremely stupid
Speaker 1: people in the debate, and then I think two kinds
Speaker 1: of more reasonable people. So the two kinds of extremely
Speaker 1: stupid people and I'll have the two sides. It's not
Speaker 1: really left or right, it's restrainers and interveners. And by
Speaker 1: the way, this seems to be a conversation that's only
Speaker 1: happening on the right. The left, I feel, is like
Speaker 1: totally disengaged from the Iranian conflict, and I feel like
Speaker 1: all they're really doing is trying to position themselves to
Speaker 1: say that whatever Donald Trump does is bad. So if
Speaker 1: Trump does intervene, he's a horrible, escalating warmonger monster who
Speaker 1: didn't go to Congress for congressional pproval or whatever. If
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't intervene, then oh, he loves Iranian terrorists, and
Speaker 1: different Democrats will sort of position themselves to criticize him
Speaker 1: for that. If he does attack, then the AOC types
Speaker 1: will say that he's a monster if he excuse me.
Speaker 1: If he does attack, the AOC types will say he's
Speaker 1: a monster. If he does not participate, does not engage,
Speaker 1: does not attack, then maybe the sort of more moderate
Speaker 1: leaning types like I don't know, maybe John Fetterman will
Speaker 1: criticize him, or Chuck Schumer will. I don't want to
Speaker 1: use Chuck Schumer or Josh Shapiro as the examples because
Speaker 1: they're both Jewish, but I could I could see more
Speaker 1: moderate liberals criticizing Trump for that. Anyway, the left seems
Speaker 1: totally disengaged. So I'm gonna this is an intra right
Speaker 1: wing argument, intra and write argument. So you've got the
Speaker 1: restrainers and you've got the interventionists, all right. The stupidest
Speaker 1: restrainers are the Candace Owens types, and to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson. Candace Owens I think is dumber than a
Speaker 1: bag of rocks. And I think she's always been kind
Speaker 1: of dumb, and it's only now that people are starting
Speaker 1: to kind of see it that she's pretty anti Semitic
Speaker 1: at this point. And the anti interventionists who are just like,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna die for another Israeli war is all right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's calm down. Israel was not the reason we intervened
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan or Iraq. That wasn't the reason why. And
Speaker 1: we haven't actually fought any of Israel's wars. Israel has
Speaker 1: fought all of them. Now, do I think maybe we
Speaker 1: are too over involved with Israel? We give them lots
Speaker 1: of military aid, which redounds to our ill in the
Speaker 1: long run. In many cases. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: chief reasons why countries in the Middle East hate are
Speaker 1: Guts so much is because of our support for Israel.
Speaker 1: Am I generally against the idea of proxy wars and
Speaker 1: the fact that we fund Israel militarily so much that
Speaker 1: it puts us on the hook for stuff that they
Speaker 1: do in various kinds of ways. Yes, I'm critical of
Speaker 1: all those things, but I never veer into the kinds
Speaker 1: of anti Semitic sort of nonsense that Owens does. And
Speaker 1: I think Carlson and Owens have been sort of stooges
Speaker 1: for some of the stupider foreign policy ideas, the idea
Speaker 1: of Vladimir Putin's actually maybe a really good guy, and
Speaker 1: why are we being so harsh on him? Like, well, no,
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin's a bad guy. No one needs to dispute
Speaker 1: that it's bad to invade other countries. Whether he was
Speaker 1: he felt some sort of pressure to do it, you
Speaker 1: still shouldn't do it. It's bad. Okay. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: be crying alligator tears for Vladimir Putin because countries in
Speaker 1: Europe wanted to join NATO. Forget No, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna feel bad for Vladimir Putin for starting a
Speaker 1: horrific war in which what is it now, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people have died. No, Vladimir Putin's a bad guy.
Speaker 1: He started that war. It's his fault anyway. So the
Speaker 1: candae Owens and Tucker Carlson types were totally dismayed a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, and it looked like the United
Speaker 1: States was about to join up with Israel in air
Speaker 1: strikes on a run. Super ticked off about it, and
Speaker 1: all the neocons were gloating. Now this leads me to
Speaker 1: the other group of people I despise, the mega neocon
Speaker 1: types who were gloating against the Tucker Carlsons of the world.
Speaker 1: That ha, the President is ready to go. He's gonna
Speaker 1: tax see you you all, you restrainer types. You thought
Speaker 1: you had Donald Trump. You thought his foreign policy was
Speaker 1: your foreign policy. Turns out he's not as doctrinaire about
Speaker 1: any of this, and you guys are gonna lose. And
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna bomb a run ha ha. And the super
Speaker 1: interventionist types who have wanted regime change in Irun for forever,
Speaker 1: and frankly, who doesn't want regime change in Iran. It's
Speaker 1: a horrible regime. The problem is how do you do it?
Speaker 1: And the restrainer types would say there's no way to
Speaker 1: do it easily. However, the interventionist types swiftly shifted from
Speaker 1: you know, support for whatever the Israelis are doing, to oh,
Speaker 1: maybe we give them some bunker buster bombs to regime change.
Speaker 1: Let's regime change. And it gets to the point where
Speaker 1: the worst people on the interventionist side. Probably the worst
Speaker 1: person on the interventionist side is Bill Crystal. Bill Crystal
Speaker 1: formerly of The Weekly Standard, which was once famously called
Speaker 1: by a talk radio host on a competing station, I
Speaker 1: believe the Weekly Standard w e a k l y Standard,
Speaker 1: which a phrase that I love. Bill Crystal, who hated
Speaker 1: Trump so much that after twenty sixteen he basically completely
Speaker 1: abandoned all of his prior conservative positions. He ran conservative publications,
Speaker 1: He was a talking head for Fox News who predicted
Speaker 1: confidently that McCain would win eight and Romney would win
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. He was on the board of directors
Speaker 1: of pro life organizations, like he was mister Conservative. And
Speaker 1: then Trump comes along and he not only does he
Speaker 1: just say I'm still a conservative, I just don't like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. No, he abandons ship on all of his
Speaker 1: prior positions and adopts pretty much the entire Democrat Party
Speaker 1: platform except the one thing he stayed consistent on is
Speaker 1: his constant neocon desire to invade hot sandy countries in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and he has wanted to intervene in
Speaker 1: Iran for decades. Crystal once it looked like so at first,
Speaker 1: earlier in the week, it looked like, yeah, Trump was
Speaker 1: about to launch airstrikes against I Run. Then a day
Speaker 1: or two later, it looks like Trump wants to reopen
Speaker 1: negotiations with the Iranians again. And now all of the
Speaker 1: worst intervener neocon types now they're all mad at Trump.
Speaker 1: And Crystal's basically saying, well, it's a constant move by
Speaker 1: totalitarians that they want to shore up support at home
Speaker 1: first before they do something, that their focus is always
Speaker 1: on dominating things domestically. So apparently, according to Bill Crystal,
Speaker 1: it's totalitarian to not want to topple a foreign regime.
Speaker 1: That's what's really totalitarian. Now, the actual debate, I think
Speaker 1: is between limited interventionists versus limited restrainers. There are limited
Speaker 1: restrainers who say, all right, if there is a way,
Speaker 1: have we determined there is a way to stop the
Speaker 1: Iranian nuclear program through a limited American air strike perhaps
Speaker 1: at the four Dow that all of the focuses on
Speaker 1: this four Dow nuclear plant, that the Iranians have buried
Speaker 1: two football fields down in the side of a mountain
Speaker 1: underground that apparently the Israeli military ordinance their bombs can't reach.
Speaker 1: But America has these so called bunkerbuster bombs that apparently
Speaker 1: can reach it. So the thought is, either the United
Speaker 1: States gives Israel some of these bombs, or the United
Speaker 1: States itself launches such an attack, and if by doing
Speaker 1: so ends the Iranian nuclear threat, the threat of Iran
Speaker 1: getting a nuclear weapon, Okay, that could work, And I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of restrainer types who are
Speaker 1: open to that idea. A lot of the restrainer types
Speaker 1: are saying, look, yes, we agree, Iran having a nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon is against the interests of the United States. Now
Speaker 1: there are the limited restrainer type, the limited interventionist types
Speaker 1: who are saying, look, we don't want full scale, like
Speaker 1: twenty year long occupation of Iran, but the Iranian regime
Speaker 1: is now all of a sudden extremely a ton of
Speaker 1: their senior leadership has gone. It might be that we
Speaker 1: know where the Ayatola Comania is. What if we took
Speaker 1: necessary military action right now through airstrikes in such a
Speaker 1: way that maybe we could kill Kamani and bring about
Speaker 1: regime change, And that's tantalizing. Iran is the world's biggest
Speaker 1: state sponsor of terrorism, has been for decades, has hated
Speaker 1: the United States, has killed hundreds and hundreds of American
Speaker 1: servicemen serving in Iraq. They fund all of the worst
Speaker 1: actors in the Middle East, Hamas, the Houthies, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, the horrible Assad regime in Syria, although
Speaker 1: God knows if the new regime that toppled the Assad
Speaker 1: regime in Syria is going to be any better. It's tantalizing.
Speaker 1: It would be a good thing to not have the
Speaker 1: Islamic Republic ruling in Iran. But this is where I
Speaker 1: think I ultimately side with the restrainers. Yes, I would
Speaker 1: love a magic ferry dust scenario of we topple the
Speaker 1: current regime and then a new regime, fully formed organized
Speaker 1: with the full support of the Iranian people, allegedly comes
Speaker 1: to the forefront. Stably and the United States doesn't have
Speaker 1: to do anything to prop it up. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen. No, I would predict this. If the
Speaker 1: Iyatola is toppled and a new government comes in, Iran
Speaker 1: is going to descend into civil war, and it'll be
Speaker 1: in our national interest to support one side over the other.
Speaker 1: And Russia might get involved for wanting to support one
Speaker 1: side over another. And all of these interventionist neo con
Speaker 1: types are all of a sudden gonna say we gotta
Speaker 1: get involved. No, I don't want to get involved. I
Speaker 1: am fine with doing the first Trump administration policy towards Iran,
Speaker 1: completely cutting them off financially with sanctions so that they
Speaker 1: can't export terror, they can't keep funding Hamas in the Hoothies,
Speaker 1: cripple their nuclear weapons ambitions. That's fine. I feel like
Speaker 1: if you topple the regime, if we actually seek regime change,
Speaker 1: it could lead to a much worse and more involved
Speaker 1: situation that we're gonna have to get involved in because
Speaker 1: the Europeans can't do it, and the only other country
Speaker 1: that could credibly do it is Russia, and we don't
Speaker 1: want them to have more influence in the Middle East
Speaker 1: when we return. How oddly enough, the person I trust
Speaker 1: the most in all of this is Donald Trump. Next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show. You know, in the whole
Speaker 1: Iran debate that's happening on the right, where you have
Speaker 1: interventionists who are like, oh, yes, we should push for
Speaker 1: he should accomplish regime change, and then I think being
Speaker 1: ridiculous about not thinking through, Well, you do realize there's
Speaker 1: an enormous chance we get drawn into that. If there's
Speaker 1: regime change, there's gonna be internal conflict in Iran. We
Speaker 1: will obviously have an interest in supporting one side over
Speaker 1: another side, and then we're gonna get drawn it, and
Speaker 1: I don't want us to get drawn in. Now in
Speaker 1: that whole discussion, oddly enough, the one person I actually
Speaker 1: trust the most in all of this is Donald Trump. Trump,
Speaker 1: who absolutely does not want a twenty year Middle East
Speaker 1: rebuilding project. He just does not, as much as he
Speaker 1: wants to be strong and do something that's effective, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to run to have a nuke, he
Speaker 1: also doesn't want that. So I'm actually out of anyone
Speaker 1: in this whole debate, the crazy neocons on the one side,
Speaker 1: the Candae Owen types on the other side. I trust
Speaker 1: Trump more than anyone else that'll do it. John Girardi Show,
Speaker 1: See you next time on Power Talk