Speaker 1: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask
Speaker 1: what you can do for your country, mister Gorbachev, tear
Speaker 1: down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James Lillnxon.
Speaker 1: Of course we get Charles C. W. Cook in as
Speaker 1: far as our guest, Oh, he's not a guest. He's
Speaker 1: one of us, the founder, Rob Long, So let's have
Speaker 1: ourselves a podcast. Although I will say this, the last
Speaker 1: few days you woke up thinking there might be news,
Speaker 1: just saying, just saying there will be news sometimes just
Speaker 1: so you know there will be news. And then I
Speaker 1: didn't do any for two days and they said there
Speaker 1: must be something wrong with him. Biden wouldn't do him
Speaker 1: for months, You wouldn't see him, and nobody ever said
Speaker 1: there was ever anything wrong with him, and we know
Speaker 1: he was in the greatest of shape. No I heard that,
Speaker 1: I get reports. Welcome everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast,
Speaker 1: number seven and fifty six. How do we get that far? Well,
Speaker 1: in the beginning was Rob Long, but we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: You can join us at ricochet dot comy be part
Speaker 1: of the most stimulating conversations and community on the web.
Speaker 1: We have as usual, luckily, General C. W. Cook Stephen
Speaker 1: Hayward is out this week. Lord knows where he is, Iceland,
Speaker 1: New Guinea. But Rob's back. Rob the founders of Ricochet
Speaker 1: is back with us. Seminary classes, I believe start today.
Speaker 1: So he's a little white yesterday stressed yesterday. He can
Speaker 1: be stressed about seminary studies. I mean, it's a calm
Speaker 1: feeling of peace, no doubt this sends you as you
Speaker 1: look over the landscape of theological disputation and find nothing
Speaker 1: but harmony. But you are in New York and so
Speaker 1: you're on the ground where democratic socialism is taking root joyously. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean technically I'm in Princeton, That's where I
Speaker 2: live now. You know, I'm a full time graduate student,
Speaker 2: really really thinking more about weighty matters, James, not quite
Speaker 2: the worldly things you think about. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 2: does seem like people are I don't know what the
Speaker 2: word is. What is the word when you you know
Speaker 2: something's coming and it's going to be bad and you
Speaker 2: just wanted to start now and get get on with it.
Speaker 2: People have that weird people's.
Speaker 1: Probably there's probably a civil war term for guys who
Speaker 1: are going into the operating tent. Yeah, yeah, I pick
Speaker 1: up the pick up the saw, get the saw.
Speaker 2: That's get it to start. And there's also that kind
Speaker 2: of this this wishcrafting, wish casting that we are aside
Speaker 2: does every now and then, where we have created a
Speaker 2: weirdly a kind of a Marxian kind of way of
Speaker 2: looking at the world, which is like, it's good, it's good.
Speaker 2: We need my I was a dinner party with a
Speaker 2: bunch of conservatives two weeks ago, and like we need mom,
Speaker 2: Donnie Bie mayor just to remind people how terrible it is,
Speaker 2: and then we can set ourselves up for a New
Speaker 2: Giuliani kind of Bloomberg kind of uh event, as if
Speaker 2: these things are sort of natural laws that must happen,
Speaker 2: like gravity or laws of physics. They forget that things
Speaker 2: can get really bad and stay really bad for a
Speaker 2: long time, which has happened in New York City for
Speaker 2: you know, nearly thirty forty years. So that is the
Speaker 2: mood I would say in New York is delusional, but
Speaker 2: that's kind of always the mood there in that city.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting. We have two examples. New York. We're
Speaker 1: going to tax you. We're going to take as much
Speaker 1: money as we can from you. But we're going to
Speaker 1: open grocery stores that we'll have a one percent profit margin.
Speaker 1: If that Florida, hmm, how about we abolish property taxes, Charles,
Speaker 1: you would be the beneficiary of this. So you have
Speaker 1: any thoughts on dessentiss musings.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, they're contradictory. One is that I would, of
Speaker 3: course love to pay no property taxes. And I do
Speaker 3: think that there's something psychologically problematic about property taxes in
Speaker 3: that we all grow out watching Westerns, and the families
Speaker 3: that moved into the middle of nowhere and built the
Speaker 3: house had it free and clear, and that seemed such
Speaker 3: a symbol of liberty and self sufficiency. No one came
Speaker 3: up to them every year and said, and now the
Speaker 3: money for living here. But we live in a world
Speaker 3: in which governments spend money and you have to get
Speaker 3: it somehow, And I think Florida's arrangements pretty good. What
Speaker 3: you have in Florida is no income taxes or taxes
Speaker 3: on anything that approximates income of any sort. Good, relatively
Speaker 3: low sales taxes where I live at six and a
Speaker 3: half percent, and then property taxes that aren't the lowest
Speaker 3: in the nation, but aren't as high as stay taxes,
Speaker 3: and I'm Gonnesota, and a lot of our taxes in
Speaker 3: Florida are paid by people who don't live here and
Speaker 3: therefore can't get upset about them. People who come in
Speaker 3: as tourists and either pay the sales and hotel and
Speaker 3: amusement park taxes or drive up and down the roads
Speaker 3: where the tolls have been cleverly placed near the airports
Speaker 3: and pay those. So it's not that I'm against the
Speaker 3: idea of getting rid of property taxes per se, or
Speaker 3: that I like property taxes, but I do think that
Speaker 3: combining medium level property taxes with medium level sales taxes
Speaker 3: in a state where a lot of taxes are paid
Speaker 3: by other people and there's no income tax is working
Speaker 3: really well for Florida. And so that the burkey and conservative
Speaker 3: in me just says, don't screw with this, because I
Speaker 3: don't know what would come next. And then there's another
Speaker 3: part of me that thinks that it might be a
Speaker 3: little bit unfair. And this is something I very very
Speaker 3: rarely say in connection with taxes, but I think it
Speaker 3: might be a little bit fair to get rid of
Speaker 3: property taxes and say, hike sales taxes on people who
Speaker 3: are poor. I just you know, that seems to me
Speaker 3: to be a pretty unfair trait.
Speaker 1: I agree that would be regressive. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: business come from the fact that Florida has a state
Speaker 1: budget surplut. Well, it wouldn't have any other kind budget
Speaker 1: surplus now because of judicious trimming. And the idea is
Speaker 1: is that we will continue to trim and be lean
Speaker 1: and efficient, and therefore we don't have to take the
Speaker 1: property taxes, because the property tax is psychologically in the
Speaker 1: back of your head when you say the old idea
Speaker 1: of your house free and clear of the old idea,
Speaker 1: and then then somebody comes around once a year with
Speaker 1: the bag opens, such as that it's the idea that
Speaker 1: you can literally pay off your mortgage and to live
Speaker 1: someplace for thirty five years, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the year, at the end of the day, it's taken
Speaker 1: away from you if you do not pay the state
Speaker 1: and their portion.
Speaker 3: And that's of course the counter argument, which is a
Speaker 3: strong one, which is that property taxes can push people
Speaker 3: out of their homes, and that's also very unfair.
Speaker 1: So Florida would boom then from people who were moving
Speaker 1: into escape New York's orous property taxes for example, and
Speaker 1: that would lead to more sales tax revenue and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. We'll see. It's interesting. I just love
Speaker 1: watching people freak out about this. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: demolishing a category of taxes, it strikes some people is
Speaker 1: completely irresponsible because its very nature is going to start
Speaker 1: up the state, and we can't have that.
Speaker 2: Oh I want to do that, yeah, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to start the state. I mean, I guess what
Speaker 2: I'd say about these taxes is that there's no law
Speaker 2: that says if you repeal one form of tax, you
Speaker 2: can't make up the revenue somewhere else. The problem with
Speaker 2: property tax at least in California, I don't really know
Speaker 2: how they were. I didn't have to pay them in
Speaker 2: New York and I had to pay them in California,
Speaker 2: is that there's this kind of strange, murky subsidy. That's
Speaker 2: what governments always want to do. They want to tax
Speaker 2: you in a way that you don't really even notice it,
Speaker 2: so that if you buy a house in a thirty
Speaker 2: year mortgage, that your property tax is often part of
Speaker 2: the loan of your mortgage.
Speaker 1: To be well, write that check out twice a month.
Speaker 2: But California often is. And so the idea is you're
Speaker 2: hiding this giant fee and you're putting it somewhere where
Speaker 2: people kind of don't see it, and they just don't
Speaker 2: feel the pain. And I think when you feel the
Speaker 2: pain of taxes, that's what no liberals want. You'd actually
Speaker 2: sit there and write a check because that's like a
Speaker 2: that's essentially a direct mail piece from the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: It's your tax bill and and that's why your your
Speaker 2: pay stub is so bizarrely configured and confusing so you
Speaker 2: don't really notice it. I mean that one of the
Speaker 2: Corps brothers early on, when when the security at Tax
Speaker 2: Fight Attacks was imposed payroll tax. He he you could
Speaker 2: go to his the brewery in Colorado and get your
Speaker 2: paycheck on a Thursday, and you went to the window.
Speaker 2: You had to get the full you have the full
Speaker 2: paycheck in one window, get your gross pay and then
Speaker 2: you had to go to the second window and you
Speaker 2: had to pay your FIKA. Because he wanted everyone to
Speaker 2: know exactly what was coming out of their paycheck. They
Speaker 2: had those two or three minutes when they're standing in
Speaker 2: line when they felt rich and then that incredible sinking
Speaker 2: feeling later when they gave all the money the government
Speaker 2: and he was then that was considered that. I think
Speaker 2: they they made that illegal. You couldn't do it that way.
Speaker 2: You had to take it out of the paycheck before
Speaker 2: the worker gets it. And in general, I think anytime
Speaker 2: taxes are more transparent and paid on the barrel head
Speaker 2: and people see what they're paying for, they can decide
Speaker 2: if they want to pay more or less, or if
Speaker 2: they want more or fewer services. And that's the road
Speaker 2: to not just democracy, but prosperity.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Just to upset I've on even further, who will think
Speaker 3: I'm a squish here. The other thing that does worry
Speaker 3: me slightly is it would be good to starve the
Speaker 3: beast Florida has doesn't spend that much in the first place.
Speaker 3: But I am slightly alarmed by the record of the
Speaker 3: federal government here. I know states can't borrow in the
Speaker 3: way the federal government can, but that theory has been
Speaker 3: tried for a long, long long time. And we don't
Speaker 3: cut spending, we just borrow thirty eight trillion dollars, and
Speaker 3: so I do. There's at the back of my mind
Speaker 3: there's a small don't break it, as I say, Burkie
Speaker 3: in view that Florida is really great, it's working really well.
Speaker 3: I don't feel like the government it's profligate. I don't
Speaker 3: feel like taxes are too high in general, and I
Speaker 3: worry that if we do this then what.
Speaker 1: True. But on the other hand, you don't lose your
Speaker 1: house because you don't pay So the other thing that
Speaker 1: caught my eye this week was the shakeup at CBS
Speaker 1: News where Barry Weiss strikes out on her own, starts
Speaker 1: up a substack, and then gets a bazillion patrons, makes
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and now appears to be headed
Speaker 1: for running CBS News, which I would actually watch again
Speaker 1: under her tutelage because I would expect, not that I
Speaker 1: would expect that it would conform to everything that I
Speaker 1: said or thought, but it would be probably heterodox as
Speaker 1: she is. Do you guys agree or do you think
Speaker 1: this is just more moving the chairs around on the Lusitania?
Speaker 1: And I use that instead of Titanic because Lusitania went
Speaker 1: down real fast.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I you know, look, I think it's great.
Speaker 2: I think it's any any time is to shake up
Speaker 2: in that business. I mean, I still believe that there's
Speaker 2: should there should be these robust businesses telling you the
Speaker 2: news and that are that are not that are thoughtful
Speaker 2: and are not you know, nuts nuts her, you know
Speaker 2: the subst the free press, which I've you know, written
Speaker 2: for which I'm I know, Barry, I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 2: Is it real success? It's not a success to two
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars. But if you were just bought this
Speaker 2: giant behemoth of a company, Paramount Paramount Global, I guess
Speaker 2: they called it at some point, and I that Listen,
Speaker 2: I've been attached to Paramount Studios at Paramount for low
Speaker 2: these thirty five years, so I've seen it through multiple handovers.
Speaker 2: You know, you have this CBS thing that doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense. I think the broadcast side does, but the
Speaker 2: news side doesn't really make any sense. It's filled with
Speaker 2: all sorts of trouble and ossified things. And you know,
Speaker 2: Barry's got a kind of very fresh way of looking
Speaker 2: at the news, and she's managed to assemble a lot
Speaker 2: of interesting writers around her. Whether she can run a
Speaker 2: giant news division which is basically a TV network, who ohs.
Speaker 2: But I admire the I admire the risk. I mean,
Speaker 2: good for them, good for the Ellison's for riskiness, you know,
Speaker 2: I wuish them.
Speaker 1: Well, Charles's last gasp of dying industry or a new
Speaker 1: sign that it might be able to reinvent and revitalize itself.
Speaker 1: I think the latter.
Speaker 3: So what I love about this is that someone has
Speaker 3: realized that it's not working. It's not good.
Speaker 1: Finally, it's the most annoying.
Speaker 3: Thing about people in the media is that they are
Speaker 3: the worst people in the world and they don't know it.
Speaker 3: They can't accept any failures. They still conceive of themselves
Speaker 3: as the greatest heroes in American history and their product
Speaker 3: generally speaking, and there are some exceptions, of course.
Speaker 1: Isn't good. It's not.
Speaker 3: The evil conservatives who did this. It's not the internet.
Speaker 3: There are lots of secular reasons that it's become more
Speaker 3: difficult to run a news station. I understand that, but
Speaker 3: the people I think are the key to it. And
Speaker 3: I have the same view I had when we were
Speaker 3: talking about the late night shows. Maybe make one that
Speaker 3: isn't annoying and then see if it works, and then
Speaker 3: if it doesn't, you throw up your hands and you say,
Speaker 3: all right, well, there's just lots of different external factors
Speaker 3: that made it impossible. In a way it wasn't in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight, but no one's actually tried this. We
Speaker 3: CNN pretended that they were going to stop being ridiculous
Speaker 3: and then they didn't do it. MSNBC occasionally acknowledges that
Speaker 3: it is a drug trip and then doesn't do anything
Speaker 3: about it. And Fox is its own thing because it's
Speaker 3: really the only one on the right. But the mainstream
Speaker 3: press just they don't seem to actually ever follow through.
Speaker 3: They have these focus group meetings and expensive hotels and
Speaker 3: say everyone hates this as we're rubbish, and then they
Speaker 3: say what's the problem, and then they say it's because
Speaker 3: we're heroes.
Speaker 1: So I just think this is good. I want to
Speaker 1: see if this works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I think also, look, it's a
Speaker 2: it's a it's a I don't know the internals of
Speaker 2: the deal, but mostly at two hundred million dollars, which
Speaker 2: is actually not that much when you have eighty million
Speaker 2: billion dollars that Ellson's have, and when you've just invested
Speaker 2: a couple of billion a bunch of billion into the
Speaker 2: giant company, so like, yeah, you're got to hive off
Speaker 2: a little bit, and you're going to say roughly, this
Speaker 2: is what we want our news organ our news operation
Speaker 2: to cost. I think it's it could be really really interesting,
Speaker 2: it could be really something great. And the thing about
Speaker 2: Barry is that Barry will be infuriating and surprising to
Speaker 2: people on the left and the right. She's going to
Speaker 2: be exactly, in many ways exactly who the people on
Speaker 2: the left in the media think they are, right, this
Speaker 2: kind of we're you know, we I think freely. I
Speaker 2: make these I call balls and strikes all that stuff.
Speaker 2: She actually is that thing, yes, and that's why the
Speaker 2: organism of the New York Times had to had to
Speaker 2: reject it. But the truth is she is a she
Speaker 2: is She is the app the real life, accurate projection
Speaker 2: of what every you know, media grandee thinks he or
Speaker 2: she is. And they're gonna they're gonna find out that
Speaker 2: it can you know. Look, the worst thing that can
Speaker 2: happen to them is that she succeeds.
Speaker 1: When Charles spoke before about evening the late night talk
Speaker 1: shows and saying, you know, try one that isn't annoying
Speaker 1: and see if that works, the Evening News sort of
Speaker 1: brackets that as a tradition, and it's from another time,
Speaker 1: another culture. When dad was home, you had your dinner,
Speaker 1: and then maybe while you're waiting for mom to put
Speaker 1: it on the table, you sat down and you watched
Speaker 1: the Evening News.
Speaker 2: It's very gendered language, James, it is.
Speaker 1: It very much is. And you had a preference based
Speaker 1: on who you liked, who you trusted, maybe even what
Speaker 1: the theme music was. I have no idea, or perhaps
Speaker 1: just you didn't care, and you flipped around and you
Speaker 1: sat down and listened to Walter or Chat or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then the evening, your evening was bracketed by sitting
Speaker 1: down and watching Journey, Oh Joy Bishop. And these are
Speaker 1: gone because, of course now the competition is myriad, multifaceted.
Speaker 1: No one is waiting for Carson to come on because
Speaker 1: they're streaming a whole bunch of things on their second screen,
Speaker 1: and nobody sits down necessarily to watch the evening News
Speaker 1: as sort of putting a pin in the part of
Speaker 1: the day, the work that is done. So the question
Speaker 1: is whether or not she wants to revive that at
Speaker 1: all or just dump it. And I'm thinking I haven't
Speaker 1: watched the Evening News for so long, and I did
Speaker 1: last week when we had the tragedy the massacre, the
Speaker 1: shooting in my neighborhood, and they were asking everybody. They'd
Speaker 1: interviewed my niece for himn's sakes, And so I turned
Speaker 1: it on and it reminded me that I used to
Speaker 1: every night watch the Evening News, and I think I've
Speaker 1: listened to NBC because they had the best theme, because
Speaker 1: John Williams had written this suite of music called and
Speaker 1: Get This the message that that was quite inspirational, and
Speaker 1: I fell away from that at some point. Willingly didn't
Speaker 1: miss it at all, and so launching the whole progress
Speaker 1: of the tropes and the cliches of what the Evening
Speaker 1: News was that, you know, the concern, the pained faces
Speaker 1: that people standing outside the White House and the rest
Speaker 1: of it just seemed like what I've been teleported back
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. So I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: much to be had in trying to revive it, or
Speaker 1: if she should just be more nimble and attempt to
Speaker 1: rewrite the whole news idea on television right before her eyes.
Speaker 1: It's got to be done, because Charles absolutely correct, they
Speaker 1: don't know how bad they are. The other day, when
Speaker 1: I was putting my groceries away, I saw headline on
Speaker 1: the local paper, not the one that I know want
Speaker 1: to work for, and it said shooters mystery may never
Speaker 1: shooter's motive may never be known, and yeah, okay, and
Speaker 1: that is why circulation continues to plummet at the rate
Speaker 1: that it does. So. While we're on the subject of
Speaker 1: the shooter, though, there are two interesting developments when it
Speaker 1: comes to gender studies in America and theory. And the
Speaker 1: first is something that I predicted the minute that people
Speaker 1: started talking about red flag loss, the minute that they
Speaker 1: were saying, well, we made to make we need to
Speaker 1: make sure mentally ill people don't get guns. And I
Speaker 1: think we all agree that that's a good idea. There's
Speaker 1: a usual worry about red flag laws being used against
Speaker 1: political opponents, against people who aren't really crazy, etc. Et cetera.
Speaker 1: But I thought, this is what they're going to do.
Speaker 1: Is they're going to say, if you believe you are
Speaker 1: a boy when you're actually a girl, or vice versa,
Speaker 1: that is prima facia evidence that you have a mental disability.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, according to the Daily Caller, that is
Speaker 1: exactly what they are proposing to do. Charles, you being
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment absolutist. Uh, give us your take on this.
Speaker 3: Well, spectacularly unconstitutional and won't last one minute in the courts.
Speaker 1: Okay, but tell us why. I mean the predicate the predicate.
Speaker 1: The predicate is in what they're trying to do here
Speaker 1: is to say that transgenderism is, like I said, prima facia,
Speaker 1: a mental disorder. Ergo can maybe guns, And it's making
Speaker 1: the people on the left scream for gun rights, which
Speaker 1: I think is quite funny. So what makes it unconcer stitutional?
Speaker 1: Just for those ofment taking.
Speaker 3: Notes, Well, the Second amendments an individual right, as confirmed
Speaker 3: by the Hella decision of two thousand and eight. The
Speaker 3: Bruined decision of twenty twenty two updated that to hold
Speaker 3: that any gun law that is to be presumed constitutional
Speaker 3: must have a historical analog until that is whittled away
Speaker 3: or reversed. That is how the lower courts, and indeed
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court is obliged to look at it. So
Speaker 3: the question then is, throughout American history, either in the
Speaker 3: post colonial period or post reconstruction, are there any laws
Speaker 3: that permit the government to determine that a class of
Speaker 3: people is exempt from the Second Amendment. We're currently having
Speaker 3: this debate over the laws that render it illegal to
Speaker 3: buy or possess a gun if addicted to drugs, because
Speaker 3: historically the laws didn't do that.
Speaker 1: There were.
Speaker 3: Prohibitions on carrying firearms while drunk, for example, but you
Speaker 3: got your gun back the next day when you save
Speaker 3: it up, right. So there is a case against the
Speaker 3: law that got Hunter Biden into trouble on the grounds
Speaker 3: adam rated in Bruin. Now there have historically been exceptions
Speaker 3: for people who were violent felons, not non violent felons.
Speaker 3: Those laws may go by the wayside. That's going to
Speaker 3: be the next big case, and people who were mentally ill.
Speaker 3: But both violent felons and mental illness had to be
Speaker 3: adjudicated in some sense. It didn't necessarily have to be
Speaker 3: adjudicated with a sentence from a court, as we found
Speaker 3: out in the Rahemi case recently. Merely being the subject
Speaker 3: of a restraining order is sufficient, at least under current president.
Speaker 3: But there had to be some due process involved. You
Speaker 3: could not just say everyone who supports the Minnesota vikings
Speaker 3: is mentally ill, therefore they are not allowed to take
Speaker 3: advantage of the Bill of Rights. And that's what Although
Speaker 3: it's embryonic has been suggested by the Trump administration, as
Speaker 3: far as I can see, is declaring that anyone who
Speaker 3: is transgender is ipso facto mentally ill and thereby unable
Speaker 3: to exercise their second memoris. That will not fly. Now,
Speaker 3: the more interesting question would be, and I still think
Speaker 3: this would be fraud.
Speaker 1: Could you pass a law.
Speaker 3: And you'd have to do that. That said, if somebody
Speaker 3: who is transgender has been determined to be mentally ill
Speaker 3: by a court, they are no longer able to exercise
Speaker 3: their Second Amendment rights?
Speaker 1: Could you do that?
Speaker 3: That would be so complicated as a piece of litigation.
Speaker 3: It's hard to know where to begin because you would
Speaker 3: be singling out a particular group. Is it protected or
Speaker 3: not not? Under current president? What would happen in the States.
Speaker 3: But you can't do it absent due process, So I
Speaker 3: think this is a non starter. It's it's in fact,
Speaker 3: it's entirely what the Bill of Rights is there to prevent,
Speaker 3: which is the designation of a group that has not
Speaker 3: been adjudicated as being presumptively ex excluded from the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Boy, there's a lot in there, and I don't know
Speaker 1: where to start, So I'm just going to say, so
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say Rob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I mean I I I defer to Charlie
Speaker 2: at all, at all, all issues, all gun issues, mostly
Speaker 2: because he's the one who's got the guns. But also,
Speaker 2: I uh, I am. I'm nervous when governments of any
Speaker 2: stripe start deciding who's crazy and who's not crazy, and
Speaker 2: who's mentally ill who's not mentally ill. That seems complicated
Speaker 2: to me, mostly because you know, there's how many millions
Speaker 2: of people were in the Soviet Union were in sanatoriums
Speaker 2: because they believed in private property. It's just it's this
Speaker 2: is just a bad idea. And also it's just it's
Speaker 2: it's disingenuous because they don't really mean it. They just
Speaker 2: they're just mad that that guy was transgendered or whatever
Speaker 2: he was, and it's just a it's a it's a
Speaker 2: bad idea, especially when we're talking about constitutionally in numerated rights.
Speaker 2: To start, we is a wording them for immediate political gain.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Once you start doing that, then you start banning things
Speaker 2: when the left is in charge, which is going to
Speaker 2: happen sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: Probably what they're trying to do is established transgenderism. As
Speaker 1: a mental disorder. It's very much a part of the
Speaker 1: administration when it comes to the eos on bathrooms and
Speaker 1: sports and the rest of it. But the problem is
Speaker 1: is that, you know, Charlie said, there's no official body
Speaker 1: that says that this is a mental disorder. There's and
Speaker 1: even if there was, I can't imagine that it would
Speaker 1: play in the courts. I mean, if you had an
Speaker 1: accredited group of psychiatrists who said, we represent x percent
Speaker 1: of the American psychiatrists and we have deduced this actually
Speaker 1: is a mental disorder that you know, so what your
Speaker 1: word against the guys who don't believe it so well.
Speaker 3: But just to add one thing to this, because Rob
Speaker 3: mentioned what would happen if a Democrat tried this, A
Speaker 3: good analogy I think would be with white supremacists. I
Speaker 3: think that an awful lot of people who are transgender
Speaker 3: are mentally ill. I think it's a delusion. We can
Speaker 3: debate that if you like, but that's my view. I
Speaker 3: think that it is probably not a coincidence that an
Speaker 3: astonishingly disproportionate relative to their portion of the population number
Speaker 3: of recent mass shooting events have featured transgender people. But
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that you can as a group exclude
Speaker 3: them from the Constitution on the grounds that they are
Speaker 3: more likely than others if you accept that, to commit crimes.
Speaker 3: The same is true of white supremacists. If you looked
Speaker 3: at some of the people who lived in the hills
Speaker 3: of Kurdalene in the nineteen nineties, they were more likely
Speaker 3: statistically than other people to be involved in gangs, in terrorism,
Speaker 3: in crime. But it would be flagrantly illegal. And this
Speaker 3: around the margins has been litigated to say therefore they're
Speaker 3: not allowed to have guns. You can't do that. You
Speaker 3: have to take them one by one. You have to say,
Speaker 3: all right, you're a member of the area in nation.
Speaker 3: Have you done anything wrong, have you been convicted of anything?
Speaker 3: Is there any incredible reason why you should be regarded
Speaker 3: as a violent person to whom the Second Amendment does
Speaker 3: not apply? And the same thing would have to happen here.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't really matter whether we like or dislike
Speaker 3: the trans thing. It doesn't matter whether we like or
Speaker 3: dislike white supremacists. There's just no mechanism in American law
Speaker 3: to declare an entire group so dangerous. And the one
Speaker 3: time that it has happened was prior to reconstruction at
Speaker 3: the state level, where the states said black people are
Speaker 3: just too dangerous, they're not allowed to own guns, and
Speaker 3: the fourteenth Amendment was passed in part along with the
Speaker 3: two Friedman's Bureaus Act in the eighteen sixty six Civil
Speaker 3: Rights Act to stop that. So you're just not getting
Speaker 3: this past the constitution.
Speaker 1: We switch from there and go across the pond, too
Speaker 1: perfidious Albion with the same issue as manifested itself in
Speaker 1: a different form. Irish comedian Graham Lenihan, whom I love
Speaker 1: The It Crowd is one of my absolute favorite television shows,
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people love Father Ted,
Speaker 1: but his career has been in lou for five years
Speaker 1: because he started saying things about gender ideology more or
Speaker 1: less indicated he did not agree with it. So JK. Rowling,
Speaker 1: but without the megaphone of the power of the money
Speaker 1: and his last three tweets I think, which were made
Speaker 1: while he was in America. He hopped over here to
Speaker 1: do the Rogan Show. I think I got him arrested
Speaker 1: at Heathrow by five bobbies and he's on trial now.
Speaker 1: For those people who are saying, wait, McGray, he was
Speaker 1: arrested on Tuesday and he's in trial today. And no,
Speaker 1: that's for another case of that has been brought by
Speaker 1: activists against him for a thought word. Indeed, I asked
Speaker 1: a friend of mine in England about this and she
Speaker 1: hadn't heard about it. I got it before she did
Speaker 1: the next day she figured it out. It's like I'd
Speaker 1: also asked her about the Scottish lass with a knife
Speaker 1: and the axe, and she hadn't heard about it because
Speaker 1: it wasn't in their news. Well now it is in
Speaker 1: every single one of the papers in Britain has got
Speaker 1: it in the front page and sternly worded editorials. And
Speaker 1: some people are saying that this is one of those
Speaker 1: points where actual outrage bursts through and the whole country
Speaker 1: is galvanized by this particular incident. So we have that
Speaker 1: which covers free speech, and then we have the epping
Speaker 1: protests and the rest of it which covers migration. These
Speaker 1: are two issues, and people say it's England who cares.
Speaker 1: I First of all, I care about England because I
Speaker 1: love it deeply. But secondly, this is the this is
Speaker 1: the continent, this is Europe, this is the cradle of
Speaker 1: our civilization, and we want it to be free and
Speaker 1: we want it to be European. So what come of this?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Because I keep hearing people saying, oh,
Speaker 1: all the flags, it makes me feel great. Something's going
Speaker 1: to happen and I hate to be that meme nothing
Speaker 1: ever happens. But I don't know what happens from all this.
Speaker 1: I really don't unless Labor gets voted out as a
Speaker 1: p and reform gets in and it's more weak tea
Speaker 1: and more milk governance that really does nothing to address
Speaker 1: the issues that they face. And I'll throw that to
Speaker 1: Rob because I know he's a he's an anglophile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, rather than throw it to the actual the actual Anglo.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: My confusion is this and it's not just in Britain,
Speaker 2: although Britain seems like it has the It's the boldest
Speaker 2: relief is how is what the what the goal of
Speaker 2: the regulators is is that it's just they going to
Speaker 2: wear you down until you no longer notice that you're
Speaker 2: being arrested. He throw for tweets or that you were
Speaker 2: flying the union jack? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: The is that the end the strategy here because we're
Speaker 2: just that we're we are going to seek really import
Speaker 2: as many people as we can from, you know, places
Speaker 2: that are falling apart, and hope that the things that
Speaker 2: we're reading in rather etc. That nobody really cares about.
Speaker 2: I mean, the idea that this is not a powder
Speaker 2: keke that's going to explode and explode in the faces
Speaker 2: of the people who are sort of advancing their crack
Speaker 2: bot policy agenda seems just highly unlikely to me. Maybe
Speaker 2: that's because I'm an optimist, but I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: an optimist. I don't think this is good news. That
Speaker 2: there's going to be trouble, but it just doesn't seem
Speaker 2: possible to me. It is easier to imagine all those
Speaker 2: things happening in the United States, where there's room where
Speaker 2: if you want to go and live in some kind
Speaker 2: of you know, progressive utopia, there are plenty of places
Speaker 2: where you can go do that. There's just kind of
Speaker 2: like you can our Our society just has a little
Speaker 2: bit more elbow room. But there. To see the pictures
Speaker 2: that I'm seeing, it just feels like they are willingly
Speaker 2: turning themselves into that movie Children of Men Men, And
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I just don't.
Speaker 2: I just don't Unerstan's strategy. But part of my problem
Speaker 2: is always I want to know what the other side
Speaker 2: is trying to do. What do you really want? What's
Speaker 2: your goal? And this just seems the goal seems to
Speaker 2: be nihilistic destruction of a culture.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to ask Charlie about that, but I
Speaker 1: have to stop. I do, because I'm not going to
Speaker 1: let it go un said. He noted the possibility of
Speaker 1: declaring all Minnesota Viking fans insane. I'm a Minnesota Vikings fan.
Speaker 1: I'm a football fan.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I was watching the Philly
Speaker 1: game last night and I'm proud to say that they
Speaker 1: lived up to my expectorations. But when it comes to football,
Speaker 1: I like it. I'm not sure I know enough about it,
Speaker 1: but if I was really into it, I won't put
Speaker 1: it this way. You know, you like players, like coaches,
Speaker 1: like me. We make decisions every day, but on prize picks,
Speaker 1: prize picks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss
Speaker 1: any of the excitement this season on prize picks, where
Speaker 1: it's good to be right. And Charles, I believe that
Speaker 1: you have some words about this I can pertaining to
Speaker 1: the season and to Ricochet's leagues.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a huge football fan, also unfortunately a Jacksonville
Speaker 3: Jaguars fan. I was just for the record, James saying
Speaker 3: that we shouldn't remove the constitutional rights of vikings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fact that you went there right away, that's
Speaker 1: just what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Why I said that because you were sitting in front
Speaker 3: of me at least over video.
Speaker 1: But I do love it.
Speaker 3: I have a bunch of fantasy football teams. I have
Speaker 3: Pick Them leagues, and I'm just always up for a
Speaker 3: new app in which I have to make predictions, in
Speaker 3: which I have to follow closely. It's how I learned
Speaker 3: the game as a foreigner is trying to compete with Americans.
Speaker 3: I am now an American. I'm still trying to compete
Speaker 3: with them. And I like this Prize picks app, which
Speaker 3: is extremely granular, doesn't just deal with football. Of course,
Speaker 3: there are lots of sports on it. In fact, i'm
Speaker 3: looking at it right now and there are Tennis is
Speaker 3: one of the sports as well. I'm very much into tennis,
Speaker 3: so I'm looking forward to digging into this. I do
Speaker 3: like sports apps, especially where there's money involved.
Speaker 1: And well take that from Charlie there and when you
Speaker 1: say app, wait, a minute. What's going on here? I'm
Speaker 1: sending me to a website. No prize picks. Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: cricochet to get fifty dollars in lineups after you play
Speaker 1: your first five dollars lineup prize picks. It's good to
Speaker 1: be right, I think price picks responsoring this the Ricachet
Speaker 1: podcast and we grind the gears and go back to
Speaker 1: the subject we were talking about before, Charles, when we
Speaker 1: were talking about England. You know English culture of course
Speaker 1: better than any of us. I know parts of London
Speaker 1: and Suffolk culture. So the nation as a whole, do
Speaker 1: you think that there is something coming, something brewing or
Speaker 1: will it simply be met with stoic passivity and whatever
Speaker 1: comes next? And also pertinent to Rob's point about why
Speaker 1: why are they doing this?
Speaker 3: Well, you know I have a I suppose different beyond this,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure Rob will agree. I think we should
Speaker 3: arrest more people who write comedic TV shows. No, I've
Speaker 3: utterly appalled by this one. I wondered if this one
Speaker 3: was going to be different in its consequences. You know
Speaker 3: what bothered me about this, James, was that this could
Speaker 3: not be put down to one cop who misinterpreted the
Speaker 3: law or was rash or in the heat of the moment,
Speaker 3: made a poor decision. They tracked Graham Lennarhan across the Atlantic.
Speaker 3: They coordinated with IATA and the airlines they went to
Speaker 3: Heathrow Airport, five of them to arrest him. That's premeditated.
Speaker 3: That's a decision that you make and execute, and that
Speaker 3: was qualitatively different, I think than what has come before,
Speaker 3: which is the police have seen something. God my goodness. Okay,
Speaker 3: now I think it's absurd what has happened before. But
Speaker 3: you just cannot see this as anything other than the
Speaker 3: flowering of government policy. And I don't know if the
Speaker 3: British are as upset about it as they should be,
Speaker 3: and as upset about it as they would need to
Speaker 3: be to get it changed. They don't have the same
Speaker 3: free speech culture we have now. The people who have
Speaker 3: come in from other countries probably don't have great views
Speaker 3: on free speech. There are a lot of problems in
Speaker 3: England with immigration, and we all see the videos. But
Speaker 3: it is more the case, in my view, that those
Speaker 3: people who have come from elsewhere are used by existing
Speaker 3: British people as justification for sense laws than that the
Speaker 3: people who have come in are the driving force behind them,
Speaker 3: because there.
Speaker 1: Aren't that many of them.
Speaker 3: The British, at least until now, are okay with censorship.
Speaker 3: They put these laws in. Most of the bad free
Speaker 3: speech laws in England were put into place in the sixties,
Speaker 3: seventies and eighties. One of them was signed by Margaret Thatcher,
Speaker 3: who I think is generally great, but was reflective of
Speaker 3: her nation and class in being hostile toward edge case
Speaker 3: speech in a way that Americans simply are not. So
Speaker 3: you know, the way this is sometimes cast in America
Speaker 3: is the plucky British against and then you can insert
Speaker 3: the people we dislike on the other side. But actually,
Speaker 3: the plucky British have for fifty sixty years been really
Speaker 3: tolerant of the government telling them what they can and
Speaker 3: can't say. Why I think this might be different, and
Speaker 3: why I am a little bit optimistic is what the
Speaker 3: British have started to notice is that the law is
Speaker 3: enforced completely differently against some groups than others.
Speaker 1: Two to your justices a free right.
Speaker 3: And actually that is something that defends British people far
Speaker 3: more than censorship. The British have a very strong sense
Speaker 3: of fair play. The law has been used for years
Speaker 3: against all types. My joke is their equal opportunity census.
Speaker 3: So the Muslims get arrested for criticizing the Christians, and
Speaker 3: the Christians get arrested for criticizing the Muslims, and the
Speaker 3: atheists get accused of criticizing both of them and they
Speaker 3: all go to jail together. But that's not happening now.
Speaker 3: We saw this with Lucy Connolly, we saw this with
Speaker 3: Graham Lenihan.
Speaker 1: They are now.
Speaker 3: Arresting certain people and letting others go, and that I
Speaker 3: wonder if that will be the key to.
Speaker 1: Change all right, Well, perhaps the speaks laws and their
Speaker 1: acquiescence too. There might be a consequence of being steeped
Speaker 1: in the welfare state and having a paternalistic government over them.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the decision by the government
Speaker 1: to forcibly change the demographics of the Septate dial it
Speaker 1: was Rob was saying. He was like, and I think
Speaker 1: it goes back to a whole bunch of simple things
Speaker 1: we've talked about here in the podcast before. Tony Blair
Speaker 1: wants cool Britannia, Right, the whole progressive movement doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be steeped in nationalism. They hate the flags, they
Speaker 1: hate all that waving. They think it's that it's the
Speaker 1: last refuge of the scoundrel, that it's intellectually undefensible in
Speaker 1: the modern world, that nationalism leads to tribalism, which leads
Speaker 1: to war, and they just don't like it. And for
Speaker 1: people who are not very smart and who are stupid. Actually,
Speaker 1: this just tends to drip down until you are a
Speaker 1: considered to be a good person. The more you drip
Speaker 1: disdain for Western culture, western society, western history, and the
Speaker 1: rest of it. Because it's bad. It did all the
Speaker 1: bad things in the world. It had the wars. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's bad. And somehow if we even that out by
Speaker 1: changing the demographic mix, we will be better because diversities
Speaker 1: are strength and multiculturalism makes us a society better, so
Speaker 1: they say, And I think they're doing it because they
Speaker 1: just have these basic boilerplate progressive ideas of transnational bliss
Speaker 1: and everybody getting together in kumba yaing at the rest
Speaker 1: of it, as well as exoticizing the outsider in the
Speaker 1: other and the others as well as enjoying. Actually, when
Speaker 1: people that they don't like are having a hard time
Speaker 1: of it because their neighborhoods have changed. Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: there's an element of just almost juvenile resentment and revenge
Speaker 1: and and utter utter indifference to the culture that that
Speaker 1: that is made In the end that's what I think.
Speaker 1: They're not very smart and they think they're doing well.
Speaker 2: Mhmm yeah, I guess my, my, we don't have to
Speaker 2: keep a laboring this because it's so depressing. But the
Speaker 2: thing that strikes me is that all the all of
Speaker 2: my encounters with that culture, that far and weird culture
Speaker 2: that Charlie fled, is that there is that they're funny
Speaker 2: British irony, Like they invented this kind of like incredibly
Speaker 2: elaborate smart humor that you know, what's that great you
Speaker 2: know phrase.
Speaker 1: It just it.
Speaker 2: If you ever go out with English people, two thirds
Speaker 2: of the conversation is just you know, insulting each other
Speaker 2: in more interesting ways. And to give that up, to decide, no,
Speaker 2: we're gonna give this thing up. This like it's like
Speaker 2: the French saying they're not gonna have Holliday sauce anymore.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, this is what makes you you.
Speaker 1: And to.
Speaker 2: Resting at Comedian for his funny tweets is about the
Speaker 2: least British thing I can imagine. That is a place
Speaker 2: that I've always thought of as a very very funny
Speaker 2: place where the guy driving the cab is he's funny.
Speaker 2: People are funny and the minute they get touchy and
Speaker 2: they lose that and they decide that this great contribution
Speaker 2: we made to world culture, which is irony and double
Speaker 2: speak and satire and a raised eyebrow and Benny Hill, Right, boy,
Speaker 2: I don't know what else you got, Benny so.
Speaker 1: Last Wu Leonard and Heathrow. You expected yackety sacks to
Speaker 1: be playing over the sound system, some super goggling after
Speaker 1: goggling after half clad women.
Speaker 2: I'm a hashtag king, Benny.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing of it is is it's not going
Speaker 1: to stop there. I mean they're hauling up canaries from
Speaker 1: the coal mine, pining for the Fjords every single day.
Speaker 1: In addition to the Online Safety Act, in an addition to
Speaker 1: the len in case, there's the banter the banter bands
Speaker 1: that are coming to the pubs where if anybody says
Speaker 1: something that the bar made me take I'm sorry, the
Speaker 1: bar person takes offense to that, the you have to
Speaker 1: take the pub owner can be taken to course, so
Speaker 1: you know we're not I have a vision of England
Speaker 1: in the future where everybody is sitting underneath black cones
Speaker 1: of silence from gets smart and it's the only safe
Speaker 1: place that they can exist, but even those will be
Speaker 1: bugged because you'll have AI reading your lips elsewhere in Chicago,
Speaker 1: the mayor of Chicago has said that he's going to
Speaker 1: defend the city against the fascists to take over, that
Speaker 1: it's coming. Fifty eight people shot up with the weekend.
Speaker 1: He said, they're going to defend the democracy of the
Speaker 1: city of Chicago's at Mayor Brandon Johnson quote, We're going
Speaker 1: to protect the humanity of every single person in the
Speaker 1: city of Chicago. And by doing that, I mean he's
Speaker 1: going to keep anyone from coming in apparently to instill order.
Speaker 1: And Pritzkrow waved it off and said, look, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a big city. What are you going to do.
Speaker 1: I always loved when I was hearing something the other
Speaker 1: day about somebody talking about it was a network newsperson.
Speaker 1: They talked about, Yeah, there were fifty eight shootings in
Speaker 1: Chicago and seven people died, but crime is down twenty percent.
Speaker 1: And I thought, the reason that I hate the news
Speaker 1: is because the proper way, the smart way, is to
Speaker 1: invert that in your delivery. You start by saying, statistics
Speaker 1: show that the crime is down twenty percent in Chicago, Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: fifty eight people were killed, because that sort of aligns
Speaker 1: with how people feel about this. Stats don't do anything.
Speaker 1: Point give to showing somebody a red line going down
Speaker 1: with an arrow doesn't mean anything if the vibe their
Speaker 1: city is dangerous. So why do you think Chicago is
Speaker 1: going to play out if the National Guard goes in.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Charlie. You're a law and order you
Speaker 2: had a law of order.
Speaker 3: I I think this is really difficult because, on the
Speaker 3: one hand, I do not understand how Chicago doesn't fix itself,
Speaker 3: and I think what Prisca said, oh as a city
Speaker 3: is crazy, and the politics of this are clearly and
Speaker 3: Trump's favor. On the other hand, I defended to the
Speaker 3: Hill the deployment of federal offices in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Because Washington d C.
Speaker 3: Is a federal district and really has no more capacity
Speaker 3: to push back against federal control than you know, the
Speaker 3: north West Territory did. That is not true of Chicago,
Speaker 3: It's not true of Illinois. It is a state. And
Speaker 3: the recent decision out of California, which held that the
Speaker 3: federal government cannot perform police functions under the posscomat Artist
Speaker 3: Act probably applies here too. So my tragic conclusion is
Speaker 3: that Chicago has for decades been run by people who
Speaker 3: don't want to fix the crime problem, that that is outrageous,
Speaker 3: but that the tools the federal government has to do
Speaker 3: anything about it are limited, and Trump hasn't changed that.
Speaker 3: So I don't think a great deal is actually going
Speaker 3: to happen, other than that this will cause a national
Speaker 3: desbate in which the Democrats will say crazy things for
Speaker 3: two months. And that's what Trump wants because he understands
Speaker 3: that they're going to come out in favor of crime,
Speaker 3: which I don't think that's hyperbole. That is what they've
Speaker 3: done in DC. They haven't come out against federal troops.
Speaker 1: Some have.
Speaker 3: They've largely said it's fine, it's not fine.
Speaker 1: Well, Robbie, as Charlie noted, they've made them come out
Speaker 1: in favor of the crime and also this week in
Speaker 1: favor of Venezuela and drug smugglers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, it's very strange. I mean, I just
Speaker 2: there's a there's a moment. I think somebody told me
Speaker 2: there's a moment in the nineteen eighty eight when George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush was on TV doing something some you know, not campaign,
Speaker 2: he was not a great campaigner, and Governor Ducaccus Michael
Speaker 2: Dacacus of Massachusetts watching it with some friends. They're watching
Speaker 2: in the news and he turns to his friends and
Speaker 2: he says, I can't believe I'm losing to this guy.
Speaker 2: And it got out and it was actually part of
Speaker 2: a Sarien Life sketch I think the following week where
Speaker 2: I think it was John Levitt says, I can't believe
Speaker 2: I'm losing to this guy, and everybody laughed, and I
Speaker 2: feel like that's that's The Democrats are still in that loop,
Speaker 2: and they've had since twenty sixteen to kind of get
Speaker 2: out of it, but they're still stuck on square one,
Speaker 2: which is I can't believe I'm losing this guy. And
Speaker 2: he answers, yes, you are losing to this guy, So
Speaker 2: now what what you do about that? They still they're
Speaker 2: still astonished, and he's I mean, you know, we are
Speaker 2: not talking about the most disciplined opponent Trump, right, but
Speaker 2: that he manages just by his own sheer, chaotic personality
Speaker 2: to get them to say incredibly dumb things, to get
Speaker 2: them to choose to be weird rather than to be normal.
Speaker 2: And that is a very mean, you know, I I
Speaker 2: just don't understand the level of sort of mental and
Speaker 2: emotional imbalance that must be just prevalent in the sort
Speaker 2: of the democratic think machine.
Speaker 1: But he's making them say what they believe he's making
Speaker 1: by being on the eighty side of an eighty twenty issue.
Speaker 1: They feel empowered, they feel righteous, They feel it is
Speaker 1: necessary for them to defend the twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: twenty percent of it because it's what it's what Either
Speaker 1: it's either what they believe or what they know that
Speaker 1: they have to say in order to be part of
Speaker 1: the party, because the lanes of narrowed the party definitions shift.
Speaker 1: What it means to be a liberal, what it means
Speaker 1: to be a conservative. It's not you know, it's not
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three and eighty four anymore. They have to
Speaker 1: be full throated in their condemnation of this, and they
Speaker 1: have to be full throated in their endorsement of these
Speaker 1: other things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's they maneuver themselves of that position. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are other they have other options. I just I
Speaker 2: just my I have a lot of friends who are
Speaker 2: would describe themselves have described themselves as sort of moderate
Speaker 2: to conservative Democrats, and they are just baffled like that.
Speaker 2: What is keeping people from saying crime is bad? It's
Speaker 2: just a hard What is keeping people from saying that?
Speaker 1: And the voice in the back of their head that
Speaker 1: says that crime comes from socio economic favor of factors
Speaker 1: and racism, and that the carceral state that imprisoning people
Speaker 1: and the rest of it is unjust because it has
Speaker 1: disparate impact and all of these things that they've been
Speaker 1: rolled off their tongue for the last twenty years. If
Speaker 1: that's if you can't say you can't say crime, I
Speaker 1: mean they will. I mean on Reddit. I go there
Speaker 1: and you will find people condemning it. They hate it.
Speaker 1: But again, the solutions are always midnight basketball. The solutions
Speaker 1: are always that is mantling of white supremacy. I mean,
Speaker 1: the solutions are never the sort of thing that made
Speaker 1: Fox Butterfield so confused. Solutions are never take the guy
Speaker 1: who just did the bad thing with a gun and
Speaker 1: put him in this box for ten years. It's never
Speaker 1: that you can't have that. It doesn't rehabilitate them, it's
Speaker 1: not restorative, it's not any of those things. Speaking of Reddit, uh,
Speaker 1: big question. I read it last week whether Trump was
Speaker 1: dead on a speculation about his his his puffy ankles.
Speaker 1: I guess his his puffy hand cosmetics in the hand
Speaker 1: is to cover up some sort of infusion. Even Tim
Speaker 1: Waltz got into the act, showing that he's just that
Speaker 1: that that midwestern, good old, fine spirited dad that he is,
Speaker 1: was joking about maybe waking up and getting news that
Speaker 1: the president's dead. What I can't figure out about this
Speaker 1: is one why it thinks that, why the left thinks
Speaker 1: this makes them look good. I mean, it's been it's
Speaker 1: been the norm ever since Kathy Griffith held out the
Speaker 1: bloody severed head. We get it, you want them dead,
Speaker 1: we get it. But do they realize that if Trump dies,
Speaker 1: we get vance and Vance might be exactly what they
Speaker 1: hate in Trump, except without the things that make people
Speaker 1: go nuts. So what'd you guys think of the Trump
Speaker 1: death watch this weekend?
Speaker 2: I thought it was weird. I mean, what's the what
Speaker 2: was the You know, he's an elderly, extremely overweight man
Speaker 2: who does not exercise, and we're wondering why his ankles
Speaker 2: are swollen. It's like we had to call him Sherlock,
Speaker 2: doctor Sherlock Holmes for this. He's an old fat man
Speaker 2: who eats Big Max all the time. So yeah, he's
Speaker 2: gonna be a little puffy and especially around the ankles.
Speaker 2: And he probably gets you know, IV drips every now
Speaker 2: and then because that's the fad, and they go in
Speaker 2: the in the hand, and he wants to cover that
Speaker 2: up with makeup because he's got plenty of makeup. You know,
Speaker 2: he spends an hour and a half every day in
Speaker 2: his hair and makeup, doing his own hair and makeup.
Speaker 2: So it's not like he like this is a non mystery.
Speaker 2: They keep they keep I keep feeling like these people
Speaker 2: are are are every week they are being reintroduced to
Speaker 2: the character of Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: They did know who he was. It's bard to me,
Speaker 1: Charles were going to end with that, so I'll let
Speaker 1: you have the last word on that.
Speaker 3: In the story, I was at a wedding in Philadelphia
Speaker 3: for most of the weekend and then came back to
Speaker 3: work on Tuesday to the news that Donald Trump wasn't
Speaker 3: dead and wondered why everyone had assumed that he was.
Speaker 3: This was probably an online I can assure you that
Speaker 3: over three days in Philadelphia, having met hundreds of people
Speaker 3: at this wedding and elsewhere, not one person said to me,
Speaker 3: is the President dead? So I was shocked by this, James,
Speaker 3: and confused it.
Speaker 1: Could be something that existed online in a proportion out
Speaker 1: of whack with actual real world events and thoughts. Gosh,
Speaker 1: who could have seen that coming? Then again, you know,
Speaker 1: the other day on an interview, Joey Reid said, right,
Speaker 1: I almost actually cared about what Joey Reid said. I don't,
Speaker 1: but we hope that you've cared about what we've said,
Speaker 1: because it's been fun to say it, and it's been
Speaker 1: great to have brother Rob back with us again. You're
Speaker 1: welcome anytime, you know, I love it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know when I when I can take
Speaker 2: a take time out for my religious studies, you know.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you know, take off the itchy hairshirt and
Speaker 1: the ton sewer. Yeah, put on civilian clothes and income
Speaker 1: here smelling faintly of wax and benedictine and and hazel
Speaker 1: nuts and all the rest of it. I've been great
Speaker 1: to have you here, and Charles good as ever. Give
Speaker 1: my regards to Florida, give my regards to Princeton, and
Speaker 1: everybody else. Should do two things or maybe three Prize
Speaker 1: picks will want broadcast was brought to them. Pick up
Speaker 1: the app, give it a look, support us by becoming
Speaker 1: part of the best place for civil center right conversations
Speaker 1: would be be picking up Ricochet, of course, which has
Speaker 1: had some under the hood improvements and tweaks. It's going
Speaker 1: to be even better in the future. And of course
Speaker 1: when we say go to Ricochet, what we mean is
Speaker 1: sign up and you know, for a little bit of
Speaker 1: the chit ching, you get access to the member feed,
Speaker 1: which is where a true community has arisen over the years.
Speaker 1: And if you could give us a five minute five start,
Speaker 1: no five minute review on Apple podcasts, I want you
Speaker 1: to go and speak and transcribe for five minutes everything
Speaker 1: you love about it and paste it into podcast review.
Speaker 1: Helps new listeners discover us, which keeps the show going,
Speaker 1: which means that we're going to be here forever and
Speaker 1: ever and ever. I shouldn't say that to Robie anyway,
Speaker 1: it's been great, Thank you guys, and we'll see every
Speaker 1: one of the comments in Ricochet four point what is
Speaker 1: it now?
Speaker 3: Charles four point fourteen point eleven point four.
Speaker 1: That's what it was going to say. Great, bye bye,