Speaker 1: Well whiskey, come and take my pain, honey all right?
Speaker 1: Oh don't why think alone when you can drink it
Speaker 1: all In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders,
Speaker 1: Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Where the laps napp It'll live it ain't you easy
Speaker 1: on the should taps, got a givvy and let that
Speaker 1: whiskey bloone.
Speaker 2: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour,
Speaker 2: recorded before a live studio audience. I don't know where
Speaker 2: those people will speed from because when the kresha is
Speaker 2: on the podcast, usually you're crying a baby.
Speaker 3: Laws you too, though it's not the audience. The audience
Speaker 3: is cheering gets YouTube that are crying.
Speaker 2: You may have noticed Steve Hayward got a boy, Steve
Speaker 2: whole that thing up. I love all right, Command Console
Speaker 2: the US Enterprise. It's original series.
Speaker 1: It's a Roadie two. Oh yeah, well it's got all
Speaker 1: the sliders. I can you know, be myself somewhere and yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's and it's got all these crazy things that
Speaker 1: does you know?
Speaker 2: Like, can I just say that we have unleashed a
Speaker 2: terror onto the podcast world.
Speaker 3: Can I saying I'm actually in the only room in
Speaker 3: my house that is not torn up? Uh, just the
Speaker 3: secondary this This is mister Lucretia's office. If you look,
Speaker 3: you can see his I can't do it with that.
Speaker 3: I have a stationar camera. You can see all of
Speaker 3: his military stuff surround to get helmets and uh anyway,
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. But I want to say that
Speaker 3: the disappointing thing to me I had to listen to
Speaker 3: some technology somebody talked the other day about how we
Speaker 3: have actually turned into permanent parts of our technology all
Speaker 3: of the sci fi things that we watched as kids,
Speaker 3: you know, and and I want to know why it
Speaker 3: is that out of all the things we got out
Speaker 3: of Star Trek, we never got that thing that that
Speaker 3: Scotty carried around was at Scotty doc what sorry, it's
Speaker 3: been years.
Speaker 4: Bones, that was his name, Bones, And you know that
Speaker 4: he could just do this and and and diagnosed whatever
Speaker 4: was wrong with someone. That's what we need.
Speaker 3: We don't need all that other crack. We need that
Speaker 3: that thing that diagnoses people. And that's the end of
Speaker 3: my technology discussion for today, Steve.
Speaker 2: I believe it's called the medical tricorder.
Speaker 4: But you know what, we have one of those.
Speaker 1: We're pretty close to having it, actually.
Speaker 2: Working on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah maybe, I mean, I don't I think, Lucas, you're
Speaker 1: we're drinking. I'm drinking an Obon fourteen to I the Highland,
Speaker 1: which would be more acceptable to light. And she's got
Speaker 1: some red wine.
Speaker 3: So and I know my whiskey's packed other than a
Speaker 3: bottle of jet. No, it's a wild turkey honey that
Speaker 3: I use for my uh my hot toddies when I
Speaker 3: have a cold. But mmmm, it's sweet. But I am
Speaker 3: drinking a San Filipo the Devil Brunaldo di Monticino. That's
Speaker 3: my translation from the Italian, which is from the lovely
Speaker 3: place of Siena that the three of us visited and
Speaker 3: had a wonderful time.
Speaker 2: Right, so great, very good. And I'm in La and
Speaker 2: I'm going to be participating in a debate tomorrow at
Speaker 2: the Federal Society on on Birthright Citizenship at the Federal
Speaker 2: Society Western Chapters meeting at the Reagan Library, Riot. Well,
Speaker 2: I hope a great experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry you have to lose that
Speaker 1: debate tomorrow, John, but it's just the way it is
Speaker 1: when you went at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Who cares? But I'll be debating Elon Morman, a young professor.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so you're more from the University of Minnesota
Speaker 2: who has an article out arguing defending Trump's executive order
Speaker 2: from an originalist perspective. So it'll be a good debate.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it'll be on the Federal Society webs right.
Speaker 1: And then your little litery eyed from being back doing
Speaker 1: out numbered on Fox yesterday? Was that just yesterday?
Speaker 2: Yes, I was out numbered yesterday in New York. I
Speaker 2: got off the plane just a few little bit ago.
Speaker 2: And the fun part of it was that President Trump
Speaker 2: was having cabinet meeting right before. In fact, he came
Speaker 2: you know, went partially into our time, but that meant
Speaker 2: we gave the you know, immediate color feedback. It was
Speaker 2: like being a color commentator at a baseball game. Now,
Speaker 2: where did you commenting on it? Right after? Go ahead?
Speaker 1: Well, where did you fly on this morning? Philadelphia or Newark?
Speaker 2: And you know how many people are ahead of me
Speaker 2: in those terrible tsa lines, Oh zero zero, I went
Speaker 2: at nine. I showed up around ten am for twelve
Speaker 2: noon flakes. I didn't believe there were going to be lines,
Speaker 2: and I highly recommend is. I got tsa pre checked touchless.
Speaker 2: Did you know about this? Yes? Yeah, yes, they had
Speaker 2: their own lines and nobody's using them. So I just
Speaker 2: walked right up. There was literally no one in line.
Speaker 2: I walked right up to directly from getting onto Uber.
Speaker 2: I walked unstopped till I got to the X ray machine.
Speaker 2: When I got repeatedly stopped and harassed, it was like
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton was working the machine, kneeling everybody up. Oh,
Speaker 2: it was outrageous. Well now, anyway, so that was my
Speaker 2: fun this morning.
Speaker 1: Well maybe I should take that up first, John, instead
Speaker 1: of stead of the war for this reason is yes, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean what I heard this morning. First thing is
Speaker 1: that San Diego was a nightmare today. You know, lots
Speaker 1: of people calling in sick, super long lines. And then
Speaker 1: so you head Atlanta has been a nightmare. Other places
Speaker 1: in Houston, in New Orleans, but not Newark, not the
Speaker 1: Washington airports, although a curious thing. You know, Delta announced
Speaker 1: publicly that they were pulling there. There's special access desk
Speaker 1: for members of Congress, which I thought was a nice
Speaker 1: little touch.
Speaker 2: I might have to say, I've been flying all around
Speaker 2: this week, And so I did fly from Austin, same experience,
Speaker 2: walked directly from the car straight through to Thissa, touchless
Speaker 2: line and never I never signed it, but I had
Speaker 2: no line there. Flew into Baltimore Washington Airport, nobody was there,
Speaker 2: and then out of Newark it was fine, completely fine.
Speaker 1: Well, this is what's making me suspicious is you would think,
Speaker 1: I think we would think that the number of people
Speaker 1: calling in sick or quitting would be pretty evenly distributed
Speaker 1: around the country. Instead, you're seeing you might call it hotspots.
Speaker 1: TSA is unionized. I am wondering if some of the
Speaker 1: sickouts are deliberately coordinated to put pressure on certain places
Speaker 1: but not other places. I mean, the last place they're
Speaker 1: gonna boycott is going to be Washington because it'll make
Speaker 1: the politicians inconvenienced. But the other thing is, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know this, John, There's been no lines in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Why because well you must know this, John, because you
Speaker 1: they have private they have privates. You have advertised every
Speaker 1: airport has the option to bypass the government TSA and
Speaker 1: hire a private contractor. They wear the same uniforms to
Speaker 1: do the same training and all the same procedures, but
Speaker 1: it's a private company. And I'm sitting here thinking, if
Speaker 1: they really wanted to do a work stoppage slow down
Speaker 1: throughout the whole country, then Trump might pull a Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan with the air traffic controllers and say, fine, I
Speaker 1: want all the airports to you know, forget these people
Speaker 1: don't come to work, sign up private contractors tomorrow, and
Speaker 1: that would be an ex signing up now.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, Here's there's two things that First
Speaker 3: of all, can you honestly blame people who? I mean,
Speaker 3: they don't have huge bank accounts to rely on these
Speaker 3: TSA workers just so for a moment, Let's not pretend
Speaker 3: that they're doing something wrong when they call out, I'm
Speaker 3: sorry they worked for weeks, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I'm refusing. My experience is flying quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Last week was I met up with one sort of
Speaker 3: surly TSA agent and who you know, pushed my bag
Speaker 3: in for a secondary thing. But after a poor woman
Speaker 3: with a little, tiny baby, he spent fifteen minutes feeling
Speaker 3: up the baby carrier for I don't God only knows what,
Speaker 3: but anyway, but that was it. Otherwise they were pleasant
Speaker 3: they were wonderful. I had no just like John, no
Speaker 3: problems with lines, but I wanted to say something about
Speaker 3: those private security people. Back to your comment about the union.
Speaker 3: The head of the union for TSA, I guess whatever
Speaker 3: that means, said that when they had and they started
Speaker 3: doing articles about the private security forces, the civilian those
Speaker 3: not part of the government. He said, it's just terrible
Speaker 3: that they do this because these TSA agents are spend
Speaker 3: months and months and months in training, and after all,
Speaker 3: security is only a government function and only the government.
Speaker 1: Can do it well.
Speaker 4: And he just went on and on and on, and
Speaker 4: it was so stupid.
Speaker 3: I thought, well, let this guy open his mouth, because
Speaker 3: everything he said made me think what I've always thought,
Speaker 3: which is we should get rid of TSA and you know,
Speaker 3: make them all private contractors. But anyway, and they're still
Speaker 3: getting paid because the contracts have already been paid. But
Speaker 3: what I don't understand, and what I want you guys
Speaker 3: to explain to me, is TSA, me go, ice and
Speaker 3: border patrol were funded in the big beautiful Bill. None
Speaker 3: of this performative nonsense by the Democrats has any impact
Speaker 3: whatsoever on ice funding or border patrol.
Speaker 4: And even today this is what I don't understand. Even today.
Speaker 3: They didn't fund ice and border patrol in the what
Speaker 3: the Senate put forward, but they don't need it, so
Speaker 3: I'm not I just don't get it. Somebody explain it
Speaker 3: to me. I can don't get it. Maybe there's somebody else's.
Speaker 1: I don't get it either. And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: we had an especially craven example of Republicans in the
Speaker 1: Senate caving and say, oh, let's kick the can down
Speaker 1: the road and we will limit current funding to the
Speaker 1: next sixty days, because that's apparently just a sixty d
Speaker 1: o'clock on what the Senate passed, and in other words,
Speaker 1: that there may have been I can't figure it out either.
Speaker 1: I haven't read the bill, because who knows, it's probably
Speaker 1: not available. I haven't read the bill, but it sounded
Speaker 1: like nobody has. It sounded like there was a cave
Speaker 1: into the Democrats on the part of the Republicans and
Speaker 1: then they all left town, right. I don't know.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Speaker Johnson, if you saw him, I caught a bit
Speaker 1: of him. He was really exercised about this, and he's
Speaker 1: normally very calm, cool and collected, and no, he was
Speaker 1: mad and he's really mad at the Senate and Senate Republicans,
Speaker 1: So good for him, I think.
Speaker 2: So let's let's talk a little bit more about that,
Speaker 2: because that all just happened today. Last early this morning.
Speaker 2: The Senate did pass a bill to try to restore
Speaker 2: funding to the rest of the apartment, I think, except
Speaker 2: for ice and border patrol, though, as Lucasia just point out,
Speaker 2: those are already funded. And so that made it through
Speaker 2: the Senate, and then the Freedom Caucus I believe blocked
Speaker 2: it in the House and so it didn't pass. So
Speaker 2: that's one development. But then the second one that just
Speaker 2: occurred is that President Trump has declared an emergency and
Speaker 2: has is re well I mean is I guess the
Speaker 2: official term, legal term is usually called something like reprogramming
Speaker 2: the fund, so he's moving it from one account to
Speaker 2: the TSA employee account to pay them, and that just
Speaker 2: happened today. So, actually, does it make sense for Trump
Speaker 2: to want to engage in these maneuvers to try to
Speaker 2: keep TSA agents on the job. Doesn't this actually get
Speaker 2: him involved and get some of the blame now for
Speaker 2: the longer and longer TSA lines rather than the Democrats
Speaker 2: in Congress, where it belongs.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I mean, my question is, if
Speaker 1: if he could do that all along, why didn't he
Speaker 1: do it two three weeks ago to blunt the democrats leverage.
Speaker 1: And the only one possibility, not the only one possibility,
Speaker 1: is is he actually can't do this right? You know,
Speaker 1: it's all the budget restrictions and the way the money's regulated.
Speaker 2: And I have no idea.
Speaker 1: That'd be an omb question, and so maybe he won't
Speaker 1: get away with this. But and then you know, Musk
Speaker 1: offered to pay their salaries for a period, and the
Speaker 1: Frump administration as well, Actually you can't do that. We
Speaker 1: can't for whatever reason. I mean, so I don't understand
Speaker 1: what's going on. It seems very confusing and chaotic.
Speaker 3: There's some kind of poison pill that's and I can't Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: having just my laptop, I can't open seventeen different windows
Speaker 3: to look for what I saw earlier as a kind
Speaker 3: of poison pill that just said something like ICE and
Speaker 3: DHS excuse me, Ice and Border Patrol are prevented from
Speaker 3: engaging in any activities. It wasn't quite that strong, but
Speaker 3: it was something similar to that, and I apologize, I
Speaker 3: can't find it. So that may be part of the
Speaker 3: reason why at least the Freedom Caucus said we're not
Speaker 3: going to go along with this.
Speaker 4: But I I don't know. I agree.
Speaker 3: I think that the President is arguing that it's gone
Speaker 3: on for so long and things have gotten so bad
Speaker 3: that it isn't indeed a national emergency, which gives him
Speaker 3: the authority under the National Emergency Act to use other
Speaker 3: funds to pay those people.
Speaker 4: That's my understanding of the legal argument there.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, well, it's not the Maxtional Emergencies Act that
Speaker 2: gives the power. It has to be some statute within
Speaker 2: the appropriating statutes appropriating funds for the agency. But usually
Speaker 2: these agencies have this kind of reprogramming statute in the
Speaker 2: case of emergency. You might remember in the first term
Speaker 2: President Trump, after Congress refused to build the wall, he
Speaker 2: moved money from base construction within the Department of Defense's
Speaker 2: budget to wall construction. And I wrote a piece because
Speaker 2: I looked at the reprogramming statute that applies to DoD
Speaker 2: and it did say that you can move money between
Speaker 2: military construction accounts. It was perfectly within the statute. I thought,
Speaker 2: if you declared a national emergency, okay, well, we are
Speaker 2: coming up on our first ad break, so please take
Speaker 2: a listen to our lawyer supporters. Maybe you'll even hear
Speaker 2: an ad for the Arch Deluxe when we come back.
Speaker 2: So I Stephen Linda the picture of me having the
Speaker 2: Arch de Luxe in a Union station in Washington. I
Speaker 2: thought it wasn't bad. I mean, I didn't really see
Speaker 2: the difference between that and taking two double quarter pounders
Speaker 2: of cheese. I guess taking the bread off the top
Speaker 2: of one in the bottom of the other and just
Speaker 2: laughing two together to make it a sandwich, which I
Speaker 2: have done to the Sausagejagg McMuffin many times for breakfast.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you had one too.
Speaker 2: I had one. I had one.
Speaker 4: I had them take the sauce off.
Speaker 3: Of course I would in a thousand years eat some
Speaker 3: nasty sauce like that on anything. But it was still
Speaker 3: so just slimy, and it had these fried onion things
Speaker 3: on it that were just disgusting and ugh.
Speaker 4: I ate maybe I was starving.
Speaker 3: I had not eaten it was like two o'clock in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, and not eaten since six o'clock the day before.
Speaker 3: For I was starving, I said, okay, I'll give it
Speaker 3: a try. I can discuss you with John. It was awful,
Speaker 3: Clearly it was good.
Speaker 4: I will tell you the meat was good.
Speaker 1: It was good.
Speaker 2: Lucretia, you are like your Claremont brad theren and sisters
Speaker 2: and your snobby food elitism. I can't stand it. You're
Speaker 2: just insulting the United States of America. What about you?
Speaker 1: And I still have no I haven't had. I'll have
Speaker 1: one this week because I usually again at McDonald's stop
Speaker 1: at least once on my way back and forth down
Speaker 1: to Malibu. But you know, speaking of we've never told
Speaker 1: you John about what was the the burger for claire
Speaker 1: monsters in Claremont. It was the stuffed burger at Walters.
Speaker 1: And when you think about it's perfect Straussian burger because
Speaker 1: it had the cheese and grilled mushrooms cooked inside the
Speaker 1: center of the patty, so you see it's hidden from view. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic burger. John.
Speaker 2: I'm not a snob.
Speaker 3: I'll eat I'll eat a fish sandwich with no tartar sauce.
Speaker 3: Al eat a cheeseburger, just a cheeseburger because they don't
Speaker 3: put mayonnaise or they just put those little onions on
Speaker 3: it and the pickles.
Speaker 4: And I'm fine with that.
Speaker 2: I just that.
Speaker 3: Disgusting sort of gooey greasy. No, no, it's not for me,
Speaker 3: it's not snobbish.
Speaker 2: Let me also say that a friend of the podcast, Janiyardborough,
Speaker 2: an excellent political scientist Bowden. Yes, yes, who has written
Speaker 2: some very interesting books on Polko theory. I believe what
Speaker 2: you call her as Chaussian. Two guys, Is she part
Speaker 2: of the Secret Decoder Ring Club? Yes?
Speaker 1: Well, she actually studied with Hannah Rant at the New
Speaker 1: School for Social Research.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, has been emailing. Yeah, she's been emailing
Speaker 2: with us about how she cooks a burger. So I
Speaker 2: propose that we have a Lucretia versus jean Yarborough off, okay,
Speaker 2: because she says she cooks a mean burger. And yeah,
Speaker 2: and we will. We will see which one is the
Speaker 2: most Straussian of them all. Very good. So let's turn
Speaker 2: now for our next topic, which is, of course, the
Speaker 2: Iran War. A lot of developments in the Iran War.
Speaker 1: One.
Speaker 2: President Trump has sent I believe, a fifteen point piece
Speaker 2: plan proposal to Tehran. Tehran claims that they're not negotiating
Speaker 2: with the United States on the other hand, President Trump
Speaker 2: said in a cabinet meeting on the record that the
Speaker 2: Iranians gave the United States ten ten tankers filled with
Speaker 2: oil to show their good faith in the negotiations and
Speaker 2: that they could actually keep their promises. Nonetheless, President Trump,
Speaker 2: there doesn't seem to be any sign of genuine movement
Speaker 2: in their positions, and President Trump make clear in the
Speaker 2: Habinet meeting two days ago, the United States is demanding
Speaker 2: the end of the ballistic missile program, the end of
Speaker 2: support for terrorist groups, end of the nuclear weapons program,
Speaker 2: and the attacks continue. The United States and Israel are
Speaker 2: still heavily bombing the nice is one thing I thought
Speaker 2: was significant, and then I'll ask you both about this.
Speaker 2: The Secretary Headseth said that the United States is flying
Speaker 2: the A ten ground attack aircraft and A patches at
Speaker 2: will over Iran without any threat of being shot down.
Speaker 2: That A ten is a is a I believe it
Speaker 2: is propelled by propellers, flies really low, right, yeah, flies
Speaker 2: really low, and it's just designed to destroy, you know,
Speaker 2: shoot things with you know, with bullets, all right, Like
Speaker 2: it uses a rotary gun on the front nose of it,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, has a lot of armor in
Speaker 2: the bottom, but you would it would be easily shot
Speaker 2: down if you had an effective air defense. And so
Speaker 2: he was telling you an example of just how much
Speaker 2: air superiority exists over Rod and that the Iranian air
Speaker 2: defenses and air force are no more. Nevertheless, do not
Speaker 2: know this from the coverage and the little liberal media.
Speaker 2: Steve had a post earlier this week on Substack of
Speaker 2: how the economists is saying the United States is losing
Speaker 2: the war. Yeah, and you've seen similar accounts in the
Speaker 2: New York Times, in the Washington Post and the Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal if the war does not go well. So Steve,
Speaker 2: why is this happening? Why does first do you think
Speaker 2: the war is going well? And then two, why is
Speaker 2: the liberal media seeming to suppress the genuine facts about
Speaker 2: how the war's going?
Speaker 1: So look, I figured this out a week ago. I
Speaker 1: think I said it last week that you can tell
Speaker 1: that we're winning this war because the media says we're
Speaker 1: losing it. Right, it's a quagmire, right, you know, the
Speaker 1: default of the media is it's always Vietnam all over again.
Speaker 1: And you remember the Iraq War. The first three weeks
Speaker 1: it was terrible. Things are going badly, and then Bagdad
Speaker 1: fell very quickly. It was afterwards things went wrong, and
Speaker 1: that's another story for another day. So they love that narrative,
Speaker 1: and so whatever the media is reporting, you can pretty
Speaker 1: much assume that the opposite is true. Now. I think
Speaker 1: Trump is giving off all these mixed signals, partly because
Speaker 1: that's his mo, but partly we've already seen him run
Speaker 1: this drill once. The fact that we're sending so many
Speaker 1: ground troops to the area means he's serious about seeing
Speaker 1: it through. And that might mean, you know, occupying carg Island,
Speaker 1: which I think is checkmate for the Iranians. You won't
Speaker 1: have to take out their electrical grid and bomb their
Speaker 1: oil facilities. Although you know he's got done his hip
Speaker 1: pocket if he wants to. Ah, I will end with
Speaker 1: this historical analogy just to annoy Lucretia, because I have to.
Speaker 1: It's part of my job description, right. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are.
Speaker 2: Drawing historical analogies, are annoying Lucretia, you.
Speaker 1: Know, well, you know it's my favorite way. It's a
Speaker 1: so look a lot of people. I didn't think of this.
Speaker 1: I'm just following other people saying this is kind of
Speaker 1: a reverse of course, this is a reverse reversal of
Speaker 1: the Suez Crisis of nineteen fifty six, right where remember.
Speaker 2: That I've seen that analogy ludicrous.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Well, no, here's why. Let me
Speaker 1: let me play it out for you, John. In that
Speaker 1: case you had France, Britain and Israel. There was once
Speaker 1: a time in living memory when Israel and France would
Speaker 1: lie with Israel to attack, in that case, Egypt over
Speaker 1: the Suez Canal, which they had an international right to do.
Speaker 1: So this was not a Nobody made the argument. They were,
Speaker 1: as they do about Trump now, that they were violating
Speaker 1: international law. And who stopped them? Well, our president Eisenhower.
Speaker 2: Stopped them, Yeah, Dwight Eisenhower stopped.
Speaker 1: Them right, quite forceful.
Speaker 2: That's why it's a ridiculous analogy. No greater than us
Speaker 2: that can force us to stop.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm coming to that point. But let's remember how
Speaker 1: serious an attack that was. It wasn't just Eisenhower saying stop,
Speaker 1: I don't approve. The US Treasury attacked the British Pound
Speaker 1: and the French frank as a way to make it
Speaker 1: clear that we really meant it. And look a lot
Speaker 1: of people say that Eisenower, who I admire greatly. But
Speaker 1: he was mad because he was not in on the
Speaker 1: planning of it, and it was occurring six weeks before
Speaker 1: a midterm elector, no his own reelection, sorry, but the
Speaker 1: general election, and he thought it might hurt his reelection somehow.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. If that's actually true, and there
Speaker 1: are witnesses to this, I think that's not very good.
Speaker 1: I did like what Churchill said about it. He was
Speaker 1: just out of office for a year at that point,
Speaker 1: but he commented to a friend that I would never
Speaker 1: have dared, and if I had dared, I certainly never
Speaker 1: would have dared.
Speaker 2: Stop.
Speaker 1: And I think that's Trump's disposition. That's just what I
Speaker 1: get from you ignore trying to parse out every inconsistency
Speaker 1: or contradiction or new thing. But it looks to me
Speaker 1: overall that he's going to see it through, and so
Speaker 1: I have confidence. And yeah, to your point, John, the Europeans,
Speaker 1: they can't attack the dollar quite the other is happening.
Speaker 1: The dollar is now becoming a refuge again.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The price of gold is falling because people would rather
Speaker 1: hold dollars right now than gold, which is odd for
Speaker 1: this kind of circumstance and.
Speaker 4: You're investment strategy.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. Look, it'll be uh uh, it will pay
Speaker 1: off in the long run. Because but what and the
Speaker 1: and the point is it's it is kind of the reverse.
Speaker 2: I'm with Lacrete on this. This You're you're over analogizing.
Speaker 2: You're too taken by the parallels in history. This is
Speaker 2: very different. We know this is a this is this
Speaker 2: is the reason why there is the reason why they
Speaker 2: stopped the invasion as to as it is because Eisenhower
Speaker 2: was really worried about the Russians coming into mill easiness
Speaker 2: and excuse to come in. No one's going to stop
Speaker 2: us here. There's no greater power that can stop the
Speaker 2: United States. And you said, there's no more powerful country
Speaker 2: is going to put financial pressure on us to stop
Speaker 2: you know, this is all part of this like the
Speaker 2: end of American Empire stuff there. And compare the United
Speaker 2: States to I've got though this was a piece of
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal that we can to compare the
Speaker 2: United States to Britain and France in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: It's just like it's just it's just not even close.
Speaker 2: So I think Stevie, just you like the parallel of it.
Speaker 2: But it really is really different.
Speaker 1: No, I said it was a reverse. I said it
Speaker 1: was a reversal of it. John, you weren't listening as usual, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to pour someone Oban out of that.
Speaker 3: I would say to that is what you just said, John,
Speaker 3: I mean, I leave Steve's alone. What I always say
Speaker 3: to what you just said is that it's true enough
Speaker 3: that there was no other country that you know can
Speaker 3: make us do anything?
Speaker 4: Shall we say?
Speaker 3: But what is very much a worry, and what started
Speaker 3: this discussion, in my opinion, is the overwhelming push to
Speaker 3: discredit Trump, to discredit our activities in Iran, to discredit
Speaker 3: the idea that our and the Israeli efforts are making
Speaker 3: any any difference, To bring up the idea that no
Speaker 3: matter what, Iran will emerge victorious at the end of.
Speaker 4: It because of A, B and C.
Speaker 3: And that I think could in fact be what undermines
Speaker 3: the success of it, because you will have so many,
Speaker 3: especially Rhino weak, pathetic excuses for Republicans who will start
Speaker 3: looking at the polls, and I'm not sure the polls
Speaker 3: are all that accurate, but.
Speaker 4: Be that as it may.
Speaker 3: What's reported is that Trump is losing support. That the
Speaker 3: war is losing support. How could it not with these
Speaker 3: kinds of media reports. I do think that ultimately that
Speaker 3: could have a very serious, unhappy effect on what happens
Speaker 3: what we do to completely annihilate the Islamic Republic regime
Speaker 3: and bring about freedom and some kind of self governance
Speaker 3: for the the lovely Persian people, whom I you know,
Speaker 3: are in my prayers every day that they don't have
Speaker 3: to live with this kind of horror. I confess to
Speaker 3: a student of mine, I just want to tell you
Speaker 3: yesterday that I realized that what it is is I
Speaker 3: would rather live in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany
Speaker 3: than under some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. And that's
Speaker 3: probably to some extent because you know, I'm no feminist,
Speaker 3: but I am a woman, and I don't I never.
Speaker 3: I my heart breaks for those women and lots of
Speaker 3: people that live under that tyrannical regime. In many ways,
Speaker 3: I think it's much much worse than anything people ever
Speaker 3: had to suffer through in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 4: So there there you have it.
Speaker 3: But we have no we have no public Uh, there
Speaker 3: just isn't enough public support for the war. That's overcoming
Speaker 3: what's happening with the lamestream media. Isn't that what Rush
Speaker 3: Limbaugh used to call it the lame stree or.
Speaker 4: Drive by media whatever.
Speaker 2: Steve follow up with you and then ask for lucretius law.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that ground troops are now being sent to
Speaker 2: the region. You know, you could say, on the one hand, boy,
Speaker 2: the Iranians are really in a lot of trouble when
Speaker 2: the eighty second Airborne's on its way, But are you
Speaker 2: also worried that this actually might drag the administrative United
Speaker 2: States and administration into the kind of war it can't
Speaker 2: win if it's if it starts deploying groups boots on
Speaker 2: the ground, even in limited ways, like as you said,
Speaker 2: taking KRG Island, which is the Iranian oil facility. Basically
Speaker 2: all the oil in Iran goes through that facility which
Speaker 2: is on the island, or if you listen to military experts,
Speaker 2: they saved in order to really secure the straight of
Speaker 2: Horror moves to stop people from shooting drones and cruise
Speaker 2: missiles across it, you would need to have ground troops
Speaker 2: on the post to hold the land and prevent people
Speaker 2: from infiltrating and shooting off missiles. At the oil tankers.
Speaker 2: Does this worry you that we might right send ground,
Speaker 2: actually deployed ground shoots in this war.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I'm no expert in these matters, but my
Speaker 1: general view is no, I'm not worried about it because
Speaker 1: I do think the current leadership at the Pentagon under
Speaker 1: President Trump, have learned from the mistakes of the past.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to, you know, win hearts and minds
Speaker 1: and all the silly stuff that goes back to Vietnam,
Speaker 1: or set up a whole new democratic republic like we
Speaker 1: tried in Iraq in Afghanistan. We're not bringing US aid,
Speaker 1: We're not going to bring in a state department. We're
Speaker 1: just going to take some choke points or well I
Speaker 1: don't know if I think that was always overdone, but okay,
Speaker 1: so no, I mean, you know it could go wrong.
Speaker 1: But look, I mean the Iranians have Let's just pose
Speaker 1: we roll over a carg island. I'll bet we can
Speaker 1: do that pretty well, and I think Iran has almost
Speaker 1: no capacity to take it back. So now other things
Speaker 1: areund closer to the strait of hormones that may be
Speaker 1: more difficult.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'd have to look at a map and think about it,
Speaker 1: and even then I wouldn't know enough to draw a conclusion.
Speaker 3: So I have two quick cos I want you guys
Speaker 3: to comment back. The first is I think I might
Speaker 3: have mentioned this in an earlier podcast, but it's very
Speaker 3: interesting to see the same people who are arguing against
Speaker 3: the Second Amendment, the proper understanding of the Second Amendment,
Speaker 3: which is to arm the people for uh, you know,
Speaker 3: revolting against their government when it becomes necessary, are also
Speaker 3: out there saying, oh, yeah, the Persian people can never
Speaker 3: secure their own freedom because they don't they have none
Speaker 3: of the weapons. Just out of curiosity, why are we not?
Speaker 3: And maybe we are, God I hope we are, But
Speaker 3: why are we not engaging in the same kind of
Speaker 3: support for resistance activities inside of Iran? Why are we
Speaker 3: not if we know that there are these huge numbers
Speaker 3: of people that would are willing to rise up and
Speaker 3: defy you know, almost certain death to do so, why
Speaker 3: are we Is it just impossible for us to get
Speaker 3: those kinds of materials and so forth in there?
Speaker 4: I just wonder that.
Speaker 3: That's where I would go if I was if they
Speaker 3: put me in charge for a day, that would be
Speaker 3: my number help help the people help themselves in Iran.
Speaker 2: That's what I know. I could see Lucretia flying a
Speaker 2: gigantic C seventeen over Iran throwing out.
Speaker 1: Art one of those gunships that have all those you know,
Speaker 1: fifty caliber guns too.
Speaker 2: Right, Why why would you stop at Iran? I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of countries like to fly over and
Speaker 2: throw ar.
Speaker 1: Oh no, oh, people are only listening. We'll see her right. Oh,
Speaker 1: look real quickly, John, we got it.
Speaker 2: Well, we break just real quick, John, there are go ahead.
Speaker 1: There are news reports today. Again the news mean is
Speaker 1: not going to know, but there are some news reports
Speaker 1: suggest that, and I've heard from credible people that the
Speaker 1: Israelis are working to get arms in place for people
Speaker 1: and but telling them to wait, and that there are
Speaker 1: things that are happening. We're not gonna learn about it
Speaker 1: from the medium. We're not going to know until it's
Speaker 1: already happening.
Speaker 2: So with that, okay, okay, got it. We have to
Speaker 2: we have to go to a break. So we're going
Speaker 2: to go to a break now, and then when we
Speaker 2: come back with Kritia, we'll get in her last comments
Speaker 2: because I was planting her and he probably has better
Speaker 2: ways to deliver automatic weapons to the civilians, and then
Speaker 2: we have one or two more topics to talk about
Speaker 2: when we come back after these messages.
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's too much fun. Okay, here we go, oh Hadley,
Speaker 1: it's just high Hadley.
Speaker 2: And now we're We're lovely to see you, Hadley. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: and now we're back. Lucretia. Sorry to cut you off
Speaker 2: for our McDonald's ad breaks, but you had a comment before.
Speaker 3: Just it's it's a very minor comment, uh that you know,
Speaker 3: we're told that that because the regime and in Iran
Speaker 3: has shut down communications and shut down the Internet and
Speaker 3: all those sorts of things. But my understanding of past conflicts,
Speaker 3: historical conflicts, I'm not going to be analogy girl tonight,
Speaker 3: but resistance measures and and and reporting out of places
Speaker 3: like Nazi Germany or even you know, go as far
Speaker 3: back as this, they.
Speaker 4: Didn't have the Internet. Why are why is news coming
Speaker 4: out of Iran so sparse and so unreliable?
Speaker 2: Do we not?
Speaker 4: Are we not capable of having reporters who can actually
Speaker 4: report without the Internet? Are you guys following what I'm s.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I don't think there are many Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, the European reporters you wouldn't trust. I don't
Speaker 1: think there are any American reporters there, or there might
Speaker 1: be CNN who we know have been badly compromised trying
Speaker 1: to report from Iraq twenty years ago and so forth.
Speaker 1: There is this internet channel by in Irani and who
Speaker 1: speaks perfect English. I forget the name of it now.
Speaker 1: Some of my pals and washing and this guy does
Speaker 1: these daily reports uploaded to YouTube by starlink. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's some pretty good reporting. Our news media is not
Speaker 1: going to pick up on it because this guy isn't
Speaker 1: vetted like they say, and all the rest of that.
Speaker 1: But I also think that's not that unusual. I don't
Speaker 1: think we got I mean, you know, there was William
Speaker 1: Schreier in Germany the beginning and for the first, you know,
Speaker 1: many months of the war, but even his reporting was
Speaker 1: not actually done after the fact, right, So I don't
Speaker 1: think it's that unusual to not have good news sources.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, fair enough, Yeah, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to third topic. A happy moment. Steve
Speaker 2: Lucre and I will all be in Austin, Texas this
Speaker 2: week for a conference being sponsored by the Civitas Institute,
Speaker 2: the home of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, and the
Speaker 2: Pacific Legal Foundation, on one dimension of the two hundred
Speaker 2: and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And this
Speaker 2: is actually I've always wondered about this. We're going to
Speaker 2: have a conference on what is the meaning of the
Speaker 2: phrase pursuit of happiness? And so we'll have one panel
Speaker 2: with some friends like Lucas Morrell and Phil Muno's and
Speaker 2: Steve and Lucretia, and then we'll have a second panel
Speaker 2: primarily with public interest law groups about if you could
Speaker 2: figure out what pursuit of happiness meant, how would you
Speaker 2: implement it, how would you try to carry it out
Speaker 2: in litigation? And so let me ask you both, what
Speaker 2: does the pursuit of happiness mean? Other than getting a
Speaker 2: new Star Trek soundboard and disrupting podcasts with it? Steve,
Speaker 2: what do you think the pursuit of happiness?
Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't mean what a monster? That's right, though
Speaker 1: it's bad. You guys are going to steal it, take
Speaker 1: it from me, I'm sure, or smash it with a
Speaker 1: hammer next week when I bring it up. Look, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean what is sort of the commonplace meaning today,
Speaker 1: which is whatever makes you happy, whatever floats your boat,
Speaker 1: or to use the sixties phrase of the sexual Revolution,
Speaker 1: if it feels good, do it right. In other words,
Speaker 1: happiness and the pursuit of happiness in modern times has
Speaker 1: come to be the apotheosis of unlimited individual autonomy, going
Speaker 1: ultimately to defining your own meaning of existence, as some
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice once said, or defining your own gender,
Speaker 1: right to pick any one of the one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty seven or however many you're on the label of
Speaker 1: the ketchup bottle. Now and the Founders, it's a long story,
Speaker 1: but in two sentences, the founder's view was a much
Speaker 1: more classical view, informed both by Jerusalem and Athens. I'll
Speaker 1: just put it that way. These were, you know, biblical,
Speaker 1: biblical people, but also people deeply learned in the Roman
Speaker 1: and Greek traditions which connected happiness to virtue. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's some great scholars over the years who really dilated that, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on the historian who was Leonard Levy's predecessor
Speaker 1: at Claremont before Lucretia and I were there. Uh, the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote Fame in the Founding Fathers. And I'm
Speaker 1: blanking on his name, which is Douglas. Thank you, right, Douglas.
Speaker 1: Adare okay, because.
Speaker 2: I've read these things a few more decades more recently.
Speaker 1: Than that's the problem and your brains. You haven't lost
Speaker 1: brains a couple ago. Okay. Anyway, And and there's other
Speaker 1: people have written well on this, and some of our
Speaker 1: give us examples.
Speaker 2: What are examples of the pursuit of happiness in your view?
Speaker 1: Then well, if if it's not rested on a foundation
Speaker 1: of virtue, it's not true happiness, right, And I not
Speaker 1: explain that would take a while, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to go on a while, but I just mention that
Speaker 1: you know, one of the persons on at the conference
Speaker 1: you neglected to mention who's going to talk about exactly
Speaker 1: this point is Brad Thompson from Clemson.
Speaker 2: By the way, mistake.
Speaker 1: Can I just add that you know we'd invited Carly
Speaker 1: Conklin from Missouri has written a very good book about
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness at the time of the Founding,
Speaker 1: and she's unable to come. And so we have two
Speaker 1: panels that normally the identitarians say are mannals because it's
Speaker 1: you know, six white guys.
Speaker 2: I didn't even notice.
Speaker 1: No, right, that's it was too bad that she couldn't come.
Speaker 2: But I don't think Lucas Morele counts as a white guy.
Speaker 1: But well, okay, oh this guy, I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: The same thing. I still want to know the answer.
Speaker 2: What's an example of the pursuit of happiness? Because often
Speaker 2: you hear two things said about that phrase. One is
Speaker 2: they just mean property because right Locke says life liberty
Speaker 2: product or it's just rhetoric, is really life liberty? And
Speaker 2: then just this kind of rhetorical flourish, So give it
Speaker 2: some content for us. So Steve said, it's virtue, the
Speaker 2: pursuit of virtue.
Speaker 4: So here's this is not the forum to do us
Speaker 4: this justice.
Speaker 3: But I, first of all do agree with Steve that
Speaker 3: virtue is the thing that helps define what human happiness
Speaker 3: is the found excuse me, The ancients understood that human
Speaker 3: happiness would be discovered only when you understood fully what
Speaker 3: the telos of human was and that human beings were,
Speaker 3: and that was that, of course, was happiness. And remember,
Speaker 3: in ancient I'll just kind of try to limit it somewhat.
Speaker 3: In ancient Greek societies. The best regime were there was
Speaker 3: that regime which had laws that allowed.
Speaker 4: At least some people to reach that happiness.
Speaker 3: And the laws were proscriptive, not necessarily prescriptive. They told
Speaker 3: you what you were free to do, and not what
Speaker 3: you were prescribed from doing.
Speaker 4: This is not fair.
Speaker 3: But jumping ahead to the modern day, our founders who
Speaker 3: have inherited all of this, but they're now in the
Speaker 3: modern world. They're in the Christian world, the world changed
Speaker 3: by Christianity. Anyway, what pursuit of happiness means in the
Speaker 3: modern sense is not altogether different from what the ancients.
Speaker 4: Believed that it was.
Speaker 3: But it's pursued, shall we say, in the modern context.
Speaker 3: And what that means is that you live in a
Speaker 3: society that creates the conditions whereby you can pursue virtue
Speaker 3: and the happy life. Now that includes in many many ways,
Speaker 3: and in a kind of I guess you could say
Speaker 3: crast sort of way, it includes the private property. Our
Speaker 3: founding fathers under stood that in the same way that
Speaker 3: Aristotle did, that you don't find happiness without the leisure
Speaker 3: and the property to make it happen, because you need
Speaker 3: to you need to study, you need to do these
Speaker 3: other things.
Speaker 4: I'm not doing a good job of this.
Speaker 2: But I'm confused because I don't think it's not.
Speaker 4: John, let me start with what it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not that you get to be a furry or
Speaker 3: a transsexual or have fourteen abortions.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I'm very serious. I'm trying to.
Speaker 2: Use it just to show, well, liberals are silly. What
Speaker 2: does it mean?
Speaker 4: It's very important to make that distinction.
Speaker 3: It's either there is a standard by which happiness can
Speaker 3: be judged and that you get to that place by,
Speaker 3: as Steve put it, virtue, you get there by education,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Or you can say that happiness is simply
Speaker 3: idiosyncratic and that maybe in a world with no standards,
Speaker 3: in a world with no justice and a world with
Speaker 3: no understanding of good and evil, it really is, truly.
Speaker 3: If you want to be a furry or a mass
Speaker 3: murderer or whatever, if that's your version of happiness, then
Speaker 3: go for it.
Speaker 2: If you want to be a soul, asking you what
Speaker 2: is an example of something that fits within the pursuit
Speaker 2: of happiness as you understand it, that.
Speaker 4: The opportunity to live a good and decent life.
Speaker 3: That's the pursuit of happiness, the idea, the opportunity to
Speaker 3: provide yourself with the means of subsistence, sufficient material wealth
Speaker 3: to make sure that you're.
Speaker 2: Not struggling of virtues. I mean, I could see absolutely
Speaker 2: something about living a good life involving virtue, because you'd
Speaker 2: have to define what you mean by good life, and
Speaker 2: you could define it as having being a virtuous person.
Speaker 2: But doesn't seem to me that collecting the material needs
Speaker 2: for life is itself a virtue. That doesn't strike me
Speaker 2: as particularly virtuous. That's just Steve, go ahead, Yeah, because
Speaker 2: we had both me and Lucretia.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, I'm agreeing with Lucretia. I'm
Speaker 1: shaking my head solely at you, John, because your state
Speaker 1: of confusion is well, your state of confusion is a
Speaker 1: natural state.
Speaker 2: Confusion is being caused by the things you guys say.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll say this, if you understood the point we
Speaker 1: were making, you would also understand and agree with natural laws.
Speaker 1: I mean, these problems you have are actually linked intimately.
Speaker 1: I will give you an example of you want one.
Speaker 1: My example is Winston Churchill. He was a very happy man.
Speaker 1: Why because he understood the at the root of all,
Speaker 1: this is the principle of teleology, that there is an
Speaker 1: intelligible end of human I won't say perfection. I mean
Speaker 1: that's too theoretical. But the point is there's an approximation
Speaker 1: of human excellence, and the closer you draw to that,
Speaker 1: the happier person you are going to be. And that's
Speaker 1: not simply whatever floats your boat. It is it is
Speaker 1: in accordance with human nature and the affections of human nature.
Speaker 1: And that's very much what the founders believe. And today,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't say these kinds of things because
Speaker 1: you just can't write. It gets in the way of
Speaker 1: someone's willfulness. So you know, pure wilfulness is categorically excluded
Speaker 1: from that understanding of happiness. And so that that's some
Speaker 1: of thosetinctions. And I can see you're still baffled and
Speaker 1: wishing you were.
Speaker 2: I'm not. No, I'm not the I'm not denying. Churchill
Speaker 2: wasn't the happy fellow. Yeah, what was it other than
Speaker 2: the hed every morning for breakfast that made him so
Speaker 2: happy that for breakfast? What is it involved that involves virtue?
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, you know, he read Aristotle's ethics
Speaker 1: sort of later in life, he read a lot of
Speaker 1: the classics as a young man on his own. He said, oh,
Speaker 1: I knew all that already. I mean, I actually think
Speaker 1: that's literally true. And towards the end of his life
Speaker 1: he was asked, well, he gave several answers to some
Speaker 1: very particular questions, like what year of you life would
Speaker 1: you want to live over again? He was like eighty eight.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, nineteen forty the most stressful year of
Speaker 1: his life, and that's the year he would live over again.
Speaker 1: But then he had it. But actually I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to let any of it over again. You know, I
Speaker 1: might make new or different mistakes. I might make different ones,
Speaker 1: I might not have made the ones I did. But
Speaker 1: this life has been great. But living at once is enough.
Speaker 1: That's a happy man.
Speaker 3: And his unhappiness is unhappiness to the extent that he
Speaker 3: was unhappy, which I do think he was in the
Speaker 3: wilderness times, especially right you know, when when Hitler had
Speaker 3: risen to power, and you know, all of England was
Speaker 3: in appeasement mode and all of that. He was unhappy
Speaker 3: because he he had enough understanding of human things and
Speaker 3: human nature and natural law John to know that England
Speaker 3: and perhaps the whole world was in grave, grave danger,
Speaker 3: and he was doing everything, ultimately everything he possibly could
Speaker 3: in his straightened conditions to try and make changes, and
Speaker 3: he was unable to do so for so long because
Speaker 3: he was outcast and so on.
Speaker 4: That's why he was.
Speaker 2: I will make two points as we draw this to
Speaker 2: a close, because we have to go to another commercial break.
Speaker 2: And then, yeah, but we have some of our last episodes.
Speaker 1: We have some good comments on this very point respond
Speaker 1: to So.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Steve is always giving us a hard time
Speaker 2: about staying on schedule and doing the breaks, and then
Speaker 2: this episode, Steve, you've been constantly running roughshot.
Speaker 1: So not now I have the virtue of shutting you down.
Speaker 2: I will. We'll take an ad break here and we
Speaker 2: will come back after hearing the virtues of eating the
Speaker 2: McDonald's hamburger with a big guy coke, which I think
Speaker 2: does involve the pursuit of happiness. And then when we
Speaker 2: come back, we will finish up with this topic and
Speaker 2: go to our apple on bees. And I have two
Speaker 2: more questions, so coming back, okay, So coming back now,
Speaker 2: I had one point to make in response to what
Speaker 2: you have said, and I think some of the reader comments,
Speaker 2: which again I don't care what the readers say because
Speaker 2: I do it for the art. I do it for
Speaker 2: the art. John, I've never denied that I'm a slob.
Speaker 2: I am a snob, and I am a slob, but
Speaker 2: I am a snob and at least but I'm proud
Speaker 2: of it instead of trying to hide it like you guys.
Speaker 1: Figured out No, no, that's a record scratch. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: could be confused, right, I'll have to work on that one.
Speaker 2: So my, my, my, just my point was going I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, is it actually doesn't seem to me
Speaker 2: that virtue and happiness are necessarily correlated. In fact, they
Speaker 2: could be quite at odds. I could see a virtuous
Speaker 2: person being very unhappy, and you could think of a
Speaker 2: very happy person having little virtue. So the example I
Speaker 2: have in mine is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln, I think
Speaker 2: is one of the most virtuous Americans, virtuous leaders we've
Speaker 2: ever had. I think it was really unhappy because he
Speaker 2: had to fight a war that killed six hundred thousand Americans,
Speaker 2: he lost his son, and he had I mean, he
Speaker 2: just was I don't blame him for being unhappy, but
Speaker 2: I found him quite amazingly virtuous. And I think there's
Speaker 2: probably lots of happy people in the United States. I
Speaker 2: hope they're happy who don't really think about virtue very
Speaker 2: much or try to achieve it. They're just leading ordinary,
Speaker 2: regular lives, but they're very happy in them. So Stevie
Speaker 2: wanted to I think you actually have a link between
Speaker 2: that and the reader comments and a response.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I mean, so Lucretia mentioned, you know, Churchill
Speaker 1: in the thirties when he was at lowest ebb and
Speaker 1: that's the decade when he's especially associated what he called
Speaker 1: his black dog, his depression. Now that and his drinking
Speaker 1: that you alluded to John, both of those things are
Speaker 1: much overestimated. And I don't know why Churchill played him
Speaker 1: up as much as he did, but I mean, you
Speaker 1: get readily in the details are talked to Andrew Roberts,
Speaker 1: both of those things were overstated. I think Lucretia that
Speaker 1: although he was well, first of all, it's hard to
Speaker 1: be happy in the sort of superficial sense when everybody
Speaker 1: around he was an idiot and when you know better.
Speaker 1: And I actually think in this case, right this goes
Speaker 1: back to your point about Lincoln is Yeah, but a
Speaker 1: lot of sadness is life, and a lot of burden
Speaker 1: of the awfulness of the war. But you know, this
Speaker 1: is a person who knew he was right, that he
Speaker 1: had better command of things than others. And there's an
Speaker 1: intrinsic quality to that that does connect to virtue. And
Speaker 1: by the way, that if we say the ordinary, let's say,
Speaker 1: the middle class American who maybe only has a high
Speaker 1: school education, but as a good job and a family,
Speaker 1: those people are leading virtuous lives. They didn't have to
Speaker 1: think about it, they don't have to study aristotles ethics.
Speaker 1: But how did they sort of absorb that virtue of America? Well,
Speaker 1: because we used to teach it, Reagan said in his
Speaker 1: famous farewell address. And you know nowadays that is harder
Speaker 1: and harder for people to absorb because so much of
Speaker 1: our culture is against it. So we can go on
Speaker 1: a long time about this John because.
Speaker 4: He is hopeless.
Speaker 2: But the rest of the country.
Speaker 4: What you what you refuse to understand is the.
Speaker 2: Refuse to understand may sound like I don't want to understand,
Speaker 2: when it's I take it back, I don't mean to
Speaker 2: your failure to explain, but go ahead.
Speaker 3: So okay, But but one of the things that you
Speaker 3: don't acknowledge. I'll put it like that is the tragedy
Speaker 3: of human life and the tragedy of human affairs. And
Speaker 3: the Churchill example explains that. The Lincoln example explains that
Speaker 3: even more. And if he had been the kind of
Speaker 3: person who didn't understand that greatness is often accompanied with
Speaker 3: those kind of unspeakable tragedies, whether they're you know, personal
Speaker 3: or you know, the responsibility for literally hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of people. He understood that perfectly well. And of course
Speaker 3: that's going to be a sobering and even often depressing
Speaker 3: sort of reality. But human affairs are in fact tragic,
Speaker 3: and what you have to do, and part of virtue
Speaker 3: is understanding the tragedy of human life, understanding how much
Speaker 3: good you can do in any situation, and how much
Speaker 3: evil you can avoid, and whether or not you are
Speaker 3: the person who can actually affect that good or prevent
Speaker 3: that evil. Those things are the highest sort of human aspirations.
Speaker 3: That's really the definition of the highest human virtue. Can
Speaker 3: you be that person who leads numerous persons to a
Speaker 3: better place and prevents the least amount of evil in
Speaker 3: doing so, especially in the in the tragedy rolling of
Speaker 3: human affairs.
Speaker 2: That really does not sound like the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 2: to me. I'm sorry. So let's come to one last
Speaker 2: tidbit that Steve wanted to discuss before we left for
Speaker 2: the night. And he wanted to talk about the closing
Speaker 2: of a website called The Liberal Patriot. And well, it
Speaker 2: may not go noticed by very many in the media universe.
Speaker 2: Steve thinks it has much greater significance than people appreciate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I think Lucretia is also fond
Speaker 1: of this site, and she may or may not be
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about why. I think it's deeply important. So look,
Speaker 1: it's this little, yeah, little substance, I say little. It's
Speaker 1: very popular and a big following. The Liberal Patriots, started
Speaker 1: by John Halpin used to be at the Center for
Speaker 1: American Progress and Rui Tsera also used to be at
Speaker 1: the Center for American Progress. They are I would say,
Speaker 1: old reform liberals, kind of people you trace back to,
Speaker 1: say Arthurs Lessinger or Adlie Stevenson or even Hubert Humphrey.
Speaker 1: They say they're progressives, but I think small p progressives
Speaker 1: in a common sense sort of way. But they I
Speaker 1: know Ruy left the Center for American Progress several years
Speaker 1: ago because he couldn't stand it anymore. And and there
Speaker 1: the point is the Liberal patriot was by the way,
Speaker 1: just think of the name they're for Patriotism. That marks
Speaker 1: them out right away as an outlier on the left.
Speaker 1: Second most of their postings and they post our friend
Speaker 1: Henry Olsen, who's no you know, he's a conservative. They
Speaker 1: are very critical of what progressives have done to the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. And what I'm thinking is this is a
Speaker 1: milestone of and by the way, I should just say that,
Speaker 1: you know, they said, gosh, we've been trying this and
Speaker 1: all we get is a lot of blowback from people
Speaker 1: on the left, and you know, no one's supporting us financially,
Speaker 1: which I'm kind of surprised to hear that. But the
Speaker 1: point is is that this is another marker that the
Speaker 1: old reform liberal tradition, which we would argue with the
Speaker 1: particulars all day long, is now dead. And I think
Speaker 1: about you know, Lionel Trilling's famous book in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: was saying, liberals, you know, we're really watching things. We
Speaker 1: need to think more seriously about our cliches. And you
Speaker 1: had the New Republic magazine in the eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: when Marty Parrotts owned it, which was very self critical,
Speaker 1: and you had so many people who worked there who
Speaker 1: ended up moving to the right, like Charles Crowdthammer. Partisan
Speaker 1: Review Magazine began as a Stalinist magazine in the thirties,
Speaker 1: broke with Stalin and it folded around two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: But by that time most of their you know, people
Speaker 1: who founded who were still alive, had either moved to
Speaker 1: center right or all the way to the right, like
Speaker 1: William Barrett forgotten names now, Philip rov Delmore Schwart. It
Speaker 1: was a literary magazine, but very much critical of wrote
Speaker 1: ideological leftism, and often very interesting reading. Daniel Bell published
Speaker 1: there a lot. For example, John, you know we've talked
Speaker 1: about before, and you know, the New Republic has gone.
Speaker 1: The Democratic Leadership Council, that was, you know, an effort
Speaker 1: to resist the worst excesses of progressivism. It has not,
Speaker 1: and that you know, they really elected Bill Clinton to
Speaker 1: a lot of extent right. And this little thing was
Speaker 1: just a journalistic enterprise, always worth reading. Lucreatia would tell me, gosh,
Speaker 1: I like this article, right, and I thought, well, we're
Speaker 1: making some right, and it's just you know, and this
Speaker 1: just came out of the blue here Friday morning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Liberal Patriot is signing off and we're you know,
Speaker 1: giving it up. And I thought, that's really unfortunate. I
Speaker 1: hope those two guys will steep keep writing and talking
Speaker 1: and I think they're great, and I'm sorry to see
Speaker 1: this news.
Speaker 4: And my guess.
Speaker 3: I was a little snobbish to Steve when he wrote
Speaker 3: back and say maybe they'll get here or there, and
Speaker 3: maybe that we could get them here. I said, it
Speaker 3: seems to me that it's actually the money issue that's
Speaker 3: the most important. And that was that was that was
Speaker 3: probably the wrong attitude for me to take, because these
Speaker 3: guys are probably not.
Speaker 4: Professors or you know, administrators or whatever. We are, all
Speaker 4: the three of us. I'll have jobs that pay us.
Speaker 3: And if you're making your money from uh, you know,
Speaker 3: just from this substack thing and not enough money is
Speaker 3: coming in, then and then I do apologize for, you know,
Speaker 3: we giving them mercenary motivation.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of money to be made in substack. You
Speaker 2: can buy special effects, you can, but but.
Speaker 3: I am not inclined to be a lot of people
Speaker 3: like me would who read them are maybe not always
Speaker 3: thrilled with what they write, not not so much to
Speaker 3: read to share or Henry of course, or a few others,
Speaker 3: but some of them are pretty far to the left,
Speaker 3: and I would think twice about giving my money to them,
Speaker 3: or you know, I just think twice about giving my
Speaker 3: money to anybody, because everybody's asking for it.
Speaker 4: I can't read it all anyway, so.
Speaker 3: You know, that's probably so they're in this weird place
Speaker 3: where they're not going to get conservative money, and they're
Speaker 3: definitely not going to get leftist money, because they really
Speaker 3: are the best voice out there with the Democrats, ultimate
Speaker 3: good in mind, giving them advice about what they need
Speaker 3: to do. That's what they're I mean, they were the
Speaker 3: ones who started, even before Steve did, sort of undercutting
Speaker 3: this nonsense that came out of Democrats about affordability, right,
Speaker 3: remember that, Steve, I mean that, you know, and of
Speaker 3: course bringing on Henry and his brilliant analysis of so
Speaker 3: many things. It's what But I think Steve's point is
Speaker 3: that the fact that there cannot be a center left critic,
Speaker 3: set of critics or critical opinion pieces about the left
Speaker 3: about the Democratic Party. Here's what you need to do
Speaker 3: here's where you need to be thinking. Maybe this nonsense
Speaker 3: about always you know, taking the farthest crazy pro trans
Speaker 3: position or that you know they would they would come
Speaker 3: out and say this is why you shouldn't do that.
Speaker 3: And that voice is going to be gone. And we
Speaker 3: talk about the polarization of our politics. I think the
Speaker 3: loss of the liberal patriots.
Speaker 4: Going to make it worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, I bet I can really do.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's another voice like that.
Speaker 1: I can just imagine the hate mail they got and
Speaker 1: that probably outnumbered their you know, fans.
Speaker 2: Like that, and that's going to be depressing, absolutely right,
Speaker 2: not really, but maybe very virtuous in the pursuit of.
Speaker 1: Well not really, I mean, you should know, think of
Speaker 1: a better way to end.
Speaker 2: Our bark? Would me thinking you guys were a well
Speaker 2: chosen witnesses.
Speaker 3: So you've got some Babylon b Just remember this one, John,
Speaker 3: forty Knights and Acts forty nine states in act legislation
Speaker 3: banning immigrants from California.
Speaker 1: That includes you.
Speaker 2: John, I'm already I already got out.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is another one you'll appreciate based on your
Speaker 3: comment earlier. SA agent keeps skills sharp by groping mannequin
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 4: Took you a second.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Trump rags oil never worth this much
Speaker 3: under Biden.
Speaker 1: That's not quite right, but never mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Olympics bans all balls from women's sports.
Speaker 2: Say to the audience that I did, you know, want
Speaker 2: to talk about the IOC ruling, but we just ran
Speaker 2: out of time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh that's right, I forgot. We didn't talk about it.
Speaker 3: Randomized negotiating with Trump as all its leaders are dead.
Speaker 3: You know, that's not even quite funny. But guy who
Speaker 3: if you followed this little bit of news, guy who
Speaker 3: pushed over Reacher's motorcycle announced his plan to shoot John
Speaker 3: Wicks doll.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know what that. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't I know the shows, but I don't know what
Speaker 2: to Well.
Speaker 3: You have to but yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll have to
Speaker 3: look it up. You'll have to look it up.
Speaker 4: Soldiers. I liked this one, even though I don't. You know,
Speaker 4: you'll get it. Soldiers issued crocs so Trump can say
Speaker 4: he didn't put troops on the boots.
Speaker 2: Very good.
Speaker 3: Last wait, wait, another massive fraud ring exposed at DC
Speaker 3: old folks home and it's the Capitol Building.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, always drink your whiskey meat, buy more books,
Speaker 2: and Steve, have you figured out a closing that doesn't
Speaker 2: involve strange guttural noises coming out of this new soundboard
Speaker 2: that you've bought.
Speaker 1: I don't. It took me a while to figure this
Speaker 1: thing out, how to link it up with the substack
Speaker 1: and all the rest of that, and hopefully this is
Speaker 1: going to turn out well. So I don't I meant
Speaker 1: to as part.
Speaker 2: Of my creatures by wearing a forces helmet there.
Speaker 1: Well, let me just say we didn't. Really, we did
Speaker 1: a really botch We did a botch job. About the
Speaker 1: conference this week. It's on April second in Austin. At
Speaker 1: it starts at noon. There's a lunch and keynote address,
Speaker 1: the keynotes from Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: and then the two panels and the adjourned for a
Speaker 1: cocktail reception at four thirty. The three of us will
Speaker 1: be there. Please come if you can. We'll sign books
Speaker 1: or baseball caps or whatever. And I don't. I will
Speaker 1: put the low cation and all the rest of that,
Speaker 1: so you can RSVP if you want to come. We'd
Speaker 1: love to see you if you're in the area. So
Speaker 1: Austin noon April, which is Thursday, and it's called America
Speaker 1: two fifty Liberty Law and the Pursuit of Happiness, and
Speaker 1: you know it will be fun. Oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: tape a hopefully an episode the three of us in
Speaker 1: person along with Phil Munos is going to be our
Speaker 1: special guest slash victim. So that's the news.
Speaker 3: And tell them what we're going to be doing the
Speaker 3: next week because it's actually kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Oh well, we'll do that next week, I know.
Speaker 3: But I want to give people, Well, the three Whiskey
Speaker 3: Happy Hour has has arrived, and we've actually been asked
Speaker 3: to do a command performance. And I'll concede to the
Speaker 3: gentleman here and not tell the details about it till
Speaker 3: next week.
Speaker 4: But I do want to tell Ben, Ben, I'm a
Speaker 4: great admirer of Churchill, but I don't drink anything he drank.
Speaker 2: He'll understand. Okay, I don't know, Ben, But okay, Well
Speaker 2: that brings it to a close. And thanks every much
Speaker 2: for thanks everyone for joining us, and see you next week.
Speaker 2: They can do them.
Speaker 4: Final p I can you know, I want to know
Speaker 4: where the booze are.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get him for a new week. Okay, just
Speaker 1: having too much fun.
Speaker 5: Bye everybody, any chancel circumstance to try.
Speaker 3: To muttle through it.
Speaker 1: Ricochet. Join the conversation.