Speaker 1: If you keep this up, John.
Speaker 2: I don't get it.
Speaker 3: I'm honestly well.
Speaker 2: Whiskey, come and take pains, all right, oh whiskey. Why
Speaker 2: think alone when you can drink it all in with
Speaker 2: Ricochet's three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward,
Speaker 2: John You and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia, where
Speaker 2: they slaps it opp and David, ain't you easy on
Speaker 2: the should taps? Gotta give me that whiskey? All right,
Speaker 2: here we go, folks. It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour,
Speaker 2: our third time out on Substack. We're working on the
Speaker 2: lighting and the sound and all the other things, and
Speaker 2: you know, we're learning by doing and we'll get better.
Speaker 2: But joined as usual by Lucretia, the International Woman a Mystery.
Speaker 2: John You often an undisclosed and nondescript office somewhere in Texas.
Speaker 2: I think texts in Texas. I'm out here in California.
Speaker 2: Uh and uh so, first of all, John, Uh you
Speaker 2: know last week we talked about this ridiculous, reckless, frivolous
Speaker 2: lawsuit against McDonald's on the McRib. But our friends in
Speaker 2: the Babylon Bee and here I'm jumping Lucretia's act. At
Speaker 2: the end of every episode they have an item out
Speaker 2: that McDonald's is going to offer unhappy meals to angry liberals,
Speaker 2: which I think what took them from?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: What's the toy that you get?
Speaker 4: A little uh, a little red communist book they like,
Speaker 4: one of these disappointing cheeseburger, single cheeseburger, small fries with
Speaker 4: no one is not enough for anybody, And then you
Speaker 4: know the communist manifesto.
Speaker 2: Well probably or uh you maybe maybe you get a
Speaker 2: paroled hamburgler. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you were god awful part of
Speaker 1: the country decided that happy meals were a bad thing,
Speaker 1: and they they stopped offering them in San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: then across said the country. You couldn't get French fries anymore,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't get sodia, had to get milk and apples.
Speaker 1: That I think you have a choice now, but could
Speaker 1: be I think, Michelle.
Speaker 3: Well, now I know it's a toy you could get
Speaker 3: actually a real electric car. Since they're so expensive nobody
Speaker 3: wants them anymore. There's a big yeah, no offense Lucretia.
Speaker 1: None taken right, So now I wish I paid so much. Sorry,
Speaker 1: go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you John a cultural question before
Speaker 2: we get to our serious topics for the week. What
Speaker 2: people are still piling into the chat? In any case,
Speaker 2: have you had the misfortune of seeing even the trailer
Speaker 2: for the new Star Trek Starfleet Academy show.
Speaker 3: It looks yet now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well really it's awful. It's just awful. I mean,
Speaker 2: I only watched the form minute trailer and I thought,
Speaker 2: if that's what you put in a trailer, it was
Speaker 2: four minutes long. The whole thing must be unwatchably bad.
Speaker 2: And apparently Paramount, which is producing a huge expense a
Speaker 2: stream but the opening episode for free on YouTube and
Speaker 2: it had a net of twelve hundred viewers. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's fourteen, ste Well, we do better, I.
Speaker 2: Know, well exactly, but it's kind of amazing that, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's a Holly Hunter who are normally like her
Speaker 2: and most things she does, and the bad guys Paul Jamatti,
Speaker 2: and you know they have to cost a lot to
Speaker 2: get the two of them, and it's very produced.
Speaker 1: Most of them are all sat Yeah.
Speaker 2: Apparently, well here's here's a clue for you and listeners.
Speaker 2: John the Klingon, the lead Klingon character. His name is Jayden.
Speaker 2: How could a Klingon be named Jayden? I mean what,
Speaker 2: you know, what next We're going to have a governor
Speaker 2: named Gavin or something.
Speaker 3: No humans should be named Jayden, not to mention Klingons.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, No, I can't believe this. I can't
Speaker 2: wait to get our friend Ken green On, who's hated
Speaker 2: every single Star Trek pretty much since the very first one,
Speaker 2: the original series, right the goat. My theory is is
Speaker 2: that Kathleen Kennedy is responsible for this. She snuck in
Speaker 2: to ruin the other great sci fi franchise. Because it
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to ruin Star Wars. She has to ruin
Speaker 2: Star Trek too, Right, Well, there is that There is
Speaker 2: that great scene in the Big Bang Theory that's off
Speaker 2: and on, you know, the the TikTok and stuff of
Speaker 2: Dean Norris, who's you know, Agent Schrader and Breaking Bad,
Speaker 2: where he plays an Air Force general and he's trying
Speaker 2: to steal something from the brainy acts on the show
Speaker 2: and he says, hey, man, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 2: It's not like a big way of the plans of
Speaker 2: the death Star from Star Trek and I can imagine
Speaker 2: how that goes down? Right? All right?
Speaker 1: You did? You did?
Speaker 5: You didn't read the other babbel nbe about Star Wars
Speaker 5: star Sorry sorry, new star Fleet vessel unable to reach
Speaker 5: warp speed because Crewe is too fat.
Speaker 2: Well, you know there is.
Speaker 1: I know I'm the only lookers in person here.
Speaker 2: But hey, the gory is up early.
Speaker 1: Hey he was, yeah, okay, and it's eight in the morning.
Speaker 1: He already said, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, let's just add The last one was the South
Speaker 2: Park guys did a wonderful attack on Kathleen Kennedy, where
Speaker 2: you know, I forget what the characters are, right, but
Speaker 2: one of them says, so here's how I fixed Star
Speaker 2: Star Wars. You know, get a character, get a new character,
Speaker 2: make them gay about right? Good stuff? All right?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: Although actually our first serious topic does have an element
Speaker 2: of comedy to it. And is it is? Which was
Speaker 2: the stupidest moment or comment of the week? And I
Speaker 2: have three nominees and if you guys have more, please
Speaker 2: bring them up. The first one was the a spouse
Speaker 2: of the now deceased what's your name? In Minnesota who
Speaker 2: apparently said right after the shooting. Well whatever, that's what
Speaker 2: they call. The point is they said, well, okay, never
Speaker 2: mind that. The point is this. She said to the
Speaker 2: ice agents, why are you using real bullets? This is
Speaker 2: they quoted right. The second one is this amazing moment
Speaker 2: in a Senate hearing where a doctor was testifying on
Speaker 2: behalf of transgenderism and Senator Hawley, not Senator Kennedy. Senator
Speaker 2: Howley said can a man get pregnant? And the woman
Speaker 2: would not answer, and he just kept asking and saying.
Speaker 2: I thought, we're supposed to go by science. What does
Speaker 2: science say? Does science say a man can get And
Speaker 2: she would not answer. She kept changing the subject and
Speaker 2: then say I don't like these politically motivated questions. I
Speaker 2: mean it was pathetic. And then the third nine, oh no, no, Steve,
Speaker 2: Steve Waite.
Speaker 3: Before there was even a better quote from that hearing,
Speaker 3: I thought, where she said, I know, these yes and
Speaker 3: no questions are designed to div and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: between yes and no?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well you know yes and no, John, those
Speaker 2: are binary questions. You can't right, that's right, Well, I
Speaker 2: mean divide us. I mean, you know the polls show
Speaker 2: this is one of those eighty twenty issues, right at least,
Speaker 2: I mean, seventy of Democrats think you shouldn't have transgender
Speaker 2: women in women's sports. Right. That's actually the third item,
Speaker 2: which is I don't have a good quote because there
Speaker 2: are such long word salads. But it's sort of anything
Speaker 2: that Katanji Brown Jackson.
Speaker 1: Said, Taylor, your remarks to that, Steve Taylor.
Speaker 2: My remarks to that. Well, the common theme here is,
Speaker 2: you know, the left of leftist bubble is more impervious
Speaker 2: than we thought. We really do have two Americas. There
Speaker 2: is a footnote to that Supreme Court argument. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we want to spend a lot of time
Speaker 2: on it or not, but one of the advocates for
Speaker 2: the transgender athletes brought up to Justice Gore such apparently,
Speaker 2: or at least he responded the fact that back in
Speaker 2: the sixties, the Supreme Court ruled in a case call
Speaker 2: let me find it here Boutellier versus Immigration Naturalization Service.
Speaker 2: That's kind of funny. And what they said is that
Speaker 2: the Court held that the Immigration and Nationality Act of
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty two could exclude psychopathic personalities, which was clearly
Speaker 2: intended to include homosexuals. And I thought, and then she said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, that wasn't your fault. That's not this court,
Speaker 2: and Justice Gorsuch I think blundered a bit and says, well,
Speaker 2: thank you for that, because I think what the advocate
Speaker 2: someone for the ACOU I think was trying to do
Speaker 2: was two things. One, in a subtle way, try to
Speaker 2: appeal to the line of reasoning Gorsuch used in the
Speaker 2: boss Stock case that still has us all scratched in
Speaker 2: your heads. And second, I think there's a historicist document here,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, if you guys rule the wrong way,
Speaker 2: fifty years from now, historians are going to look back
Speaker 2: on what bigots you people are. I think it was
Speaker 2: that that sort of progress presumption notion, and my response
Speaker 2: to it, and I think Justice Corsus's response should have been, was, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we keep hearing we should follow the science.
Speaker 2: Back in nineteen sixty seven, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
Speaker 2: the DSM classified homosexuality as a mental illness. So you
Speaker 2: wants to follow science. That was the consensus of the
Speaker 2: science fifty years ago. So why are you in telling
Speaker 2: us now to follow science? What does science today's say?
Speaker 2: Maybe not a legal question, but it seems to me
Speaker 2: an embarrassment to that very unsubtle and I think weak argument.
Speaker 1: It would be an embarrassment if you didn't have doctor
Speaker 1: Burma the face missus science, miss miss science. Sorry, like Fauci,
Speaker 1: miss science. She doesn't care what science says, and neither
Speaker 1: do any of those other minguella and sort of physicians.
Speaker 1: I want to point one about one thing about the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court hearings. And this is not original to me.
Speaker 1: I heard several people say it, including including Dana Perino,
Speaker 1: whom you know I otherwise cannot stand anything about her.
Speaker 1: But she was right on this way. Oh stand voices
Speaker 1: like fingernails on a chalk bowarl anyway, but she was
Speaker 1: absolutely right about this when she said, you know what's
Speaker 1: wrong with this whole thing is why in the world
Speaker 1: is the Supreme Court taking up such nonsense. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: could have allowed those laws. They are state laws. They
Speaker 1: could have just allowed them to stand. But you know,
Speaker 1: the idea that we're talking about CIS gender or CIS
Speaker 1: women at the Supreme Court, I mean, they should have
Speaker 1: just kicked those people out and said you're too stupid
Speaker 1: and irrelevant to be here. I'm done with this whole thing.
Speaker 1: I am not a CIS woman. I'm a woman. I'm
Speaker 1: proud of it. I can identify what a woman is,
Speaker 1: which means I am more qualified for the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: than you know who, Well, well there.
Speaker 2: Are I don't know if you want to jump in here, John.
Speaker 2: I mean, there were a couple of astonishing moments in
Speaker 2: the oral argument. One is Justice Toledo with a you know,
Speaker 2: Mike drop moment saying, how are we going to tell?
Speaker 2: First of all, the asou lawyer says, what's your definition
Speaker 2: of sex? And he said, we do not have one
Speaker 2: for the court, and Liedo says sensibly, well, then how
Speaker 2: are we going to make a determination of sexual discrimination
Speaker 2: is taking place if we don't have a definition of sex.
Speaker 2: Anybody who's ever read a statute knows you begin with
Speaker 2: a whole lot of definitions to make the application of
Speaker 2: statutes precise. And this is just amazing. I can only
Speaker 2: conclude that they brought this case hoping that there would
Speaker 2: be a wedge, because right, it's about Ah, here's the
Speaker 2: other thing that's amazing to me. It's they're trying to say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, the person in question here began hormone treatments,
Speaker 2: hormone suppressors, puberty blockers, I think at the age of eight,
Speaker 2: and I think the question should be why is the
Speaker 2: parent not being arrested for child abuse for doing something
Speaker 2: like that? Right, I mean, it's just astounding to me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the legal question presented there but that and
Speaker 2: the idea was, well, if someone has puberty blockers and
Speaker 2: they don't develop you know, sort of male musculature until
Speaker 2: they're teenagers, then shouldn't that person be allowed to compete
Speaker 2: in women's sports. They're trying to create this little exception
Speaker 2: that could then be expanded, I think, is what's going on.
Speaker 2: But by the way, I mean again, the science on
Speaker 2: this shows that newborn infants, you know, a newborn male,
Speaker 2: will have like twenty five percent more rip strength. This
Speaker 2: must at birth over your average baby hurl. Right, So
Speaker 2: it's not something that just happens. Okay, I don't need
Speaker 2: to persuade you of these differences, but apparently you do.
Speaker 3: Well, no, well, there's some very well another interesting.
Speaker 2: Thing that everrose.
Speaker 3: Well, so one thing is if you just listen to
Speaker 3: the oral argument by the government and the States, you
Speaker 3: could tell that the you know that these the transgender
Speaker 3: were going to lose. None of the conservative justices basically
Speaker 3: had any questions over the government, right, Like I can't
Speaker 3: even remember having asking any and they were all over
Speaker 3: of course the ACLU and but the other interesting exchange
Speaker 3: I thought was they didn't want to say that there
Speaker 3: were differences between the sexes. So, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 3: under some of Justice Elita's questions, one of the advocates
Speaker 3: for the transgender students said, well, what really should matter
Speaker 3: is the testosterone level, right, So rather than separating athletes
Speaker 3: by sex, you should just group them I guess by testosterone, right,
Speaker 3: and that every student should. It sounds like they would
Speaker 3: want every student who plays a sport to have a
Speaker 3: testosterone test to decide which league they get to play in,
Speaker 3: because it can't be sex that distinguishes, right the leaites.
Speaker 3: If you carry that logic to its natural end, you
Speaker 3: can't have men and women's sports at all. The theory
Speaker 3: would be there's they would want to say some constitutional
Speaker 3: to actually have girls soccer or girls basketball. You can
Speaker 3: only have low testoster on soccer and high testoster right,
Speaker 3: that's what arguments yeah point whether yeah, And I wonder
Speaker 3: whether feminists from the you know, sixties through the two
Speaker 3: thousands would agree with this because it wasn't. One of
Speaker 3: their right great missions was to have you know, women's
Speaker 3: sports with integrity. That could have you that it would
Speaker 3: be women competing like women. And I thought that was
Speaker 3: supposed to be, you know, because of title nine, one
Speaker 3: of the great achievements of Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, let's before you go on, Steve, I want
Speaker 1: to break I want to mess up your your big
Speaker 1: picture analogies here or whatever you called it, and say
Speaker 1: that I have one more addition to the stupid comment
Speaker 1: of the week. It might even take the cake, but
Speaker 1: it's very just appointing to me for reasons I'll mention
Speaker 1: in a moment, and that is Candace Owens has said
Speaker 1: that what's really happening with Charlie Kirk is that he
Speaker 1: is a time traveler, much like what happens in The Matrix,
Speaker 1: and the Matrix decided something. Of course I didn't listen
Speaker 1: to it, and that accordingly, they decided to take him
Speaker 1: out because of something something. Anyways, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that makes if she's on the left of the right anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that has to be the dumbest
Speaker 1: comment of the week number one and on a podcast,
Speaker 1: and so number two Lucretia never gets to where a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory had Again I'm a piper compared to Candace Owens.
Speaker 2: Well, all right, let's take a quick ad break and
Speaker 2: we'll get on too topic number two right after these
Speaker 2: messages from sponsors. All right, our second topic today is
Speaker 2: Minnesota and the Insurrection Act. Some weird things have been happening.
Speaker 2: So first Governor Waltz and then Governor Newsom out here
Speaker 2: in California kind of walking back from the precipice of
Speaker 2: where they were seventy two hours ago. It was spitting
Speaker 2: defiance and all the rest of that. Trump may have
Speaker 2: talked to both of them on the phone. There's some
Speaker 2: accounts of this. But a question for you, John, then
Speaker 2: is somewhat more theoretical because Trump did say, by the way,
Speaker 2: Friday morning, that he does not think he's going to
Speaker 2: need the Insurrection Act. So maybe somebody's blinking, I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: But the theoretical question is do you think the conditions
Speaker 2: on the ground justify it? And then, more to the point,
Speaker 2: could Trump under the Insurrection Act direct federal marshals to
Speaker 2: arrest Governor Waltz and Mayor Frey of mini acts to
Speaker 2: their incitements and for their obstruction of federal operations.
Speaker 3: So one just based on what I've seen on TV,
Speaker 3: I think this the conditions are satisfied. That doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It doesn't tell us whether to use your guy's favorite
Speaker 3: word as a matter of prude and right where you
Speaker 3: should use that power. And you know, of course, when
Speaker 3: I say prudence, I really just may cost benefit analysis
Speaker 3: good board. The Insurrection Act, by his terms, says you
Speaker 3: know three it gives he says, you can the president.
Speaker 3: This is a power given to the president by Congress.
Speaker 3: So it's not even Trump saying he has the constitutional
Speaker 3: power on his own to do this. It allows the
Speaker 3: president to call out the troops domestically for three purposes,
Speaker 3: an insurrection, an invasion, or And this is the part
Speaker 3: that is more open ended and I think fits these conditions,
Speaker 3: is when there are conspiracies or combinations or groups that
Speaker 3: are trying to block the enforcement of federal law. So
Speaker 3: it's called the Insurrection Act. But the third condition is
Speaker 3: it can includes many more cases than just insurrection. And
Speaker 3: you look at the videos, there are people who are
Speaker 3: attacking federal LAWFA trying to kill them in some cases,
Speaker 3: you know, beating them with shovels. I saw on Fox
Speaker 3: News yesterday these groups trying to block federal agents from
Speaker 3: going in and out of the main immigration facility in Minneapolis,
Speaker 3: trying to prevent the agents from going out and enforcing
Speaker 3: federal law. That seems to so usually, and this goes
Speaker 3: to your second point, you don't need the Instruction Act
Speaker 3: because usually state and local police make sure that people
Speaker 3: aren't attacking federal agents and are clearing the area where
Speaker 3: federal operations are going to occur. But here you have
Speaker 3: a mayor and a governor in a sanctuary state that
Speaker 3: have withdrawn police protection. You see those videos, especially at
Speaker 3: night time, but even in the ones yesterday in front
Speaker 3: of the federal facility, there's no state I don't see
Speaker 3: any Minneapolis police officers. I don't see any Minnesota officers
Speaker 3: trying to prevent people from attacking agents or trying to
Speaker 3: block aid federal buildings. Seems to me that you've met
Speaker 3: the conditions for triggering the Insurrection Act. Second question about
Speaker 3: I don't know about arresting. Oh, go ahead, but.
Speaker 1: Before you go on, will you please explain the a
Speaker 1: little bit of the history of the Insurrection Act. You
Speaker 1: did once before, but maybe not everybody. I think that's
Speaker 1: very very appropriate to our discussion of it, is to
Speaker 1: understand why and where it came from.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean the.
Speaker 3: Last use of it was the Rodney King riots in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two, but before that it was used quite often.
Speaker 3: I think I saw a figure that one third of
Speaker 3: all presidents have used troops under the Insurrection Act. And
Speaker 3: George Washington used troops under the Insurrection So the earliest
Speaker 3: version goes back to the seventeen nineties, and it was
Speaker 3: about calling out the militia and during conditions of not
Speaker 3: just insurrection and invasion, but refusals to obey federal law.
Speaker 3: And that was the Whiskey rebellion.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: President Washington called out the malay to enforce a whiskey
Speaker 3: tax in western Pennsylvania. And I think it's still the
Speaker 3: only example where president as commander in chief led the
Speaker 3: troops personally into the field and Washington showed up and
Speaker 3: the rioters dispersed immediately when they heard Washington was coming.
Speaker 3: But the major expansion of the Act comes during Reconstruction
Speaker 3: because the ku Klux Klan and other white Southerners were
Speaker 3: trying to take away the federal rights of freed slaves,
Speaker 3: and so while under President Grant's administration, Congress expanded this
Speaker 3: third prom of the Insurrection Act, where you can the
Speaker 3: president can call out troops to enforce federal law. And
Speaker 3: then I think the most notable invocations were under President
Speaker 3: Eisenhower and Kennedy to enforce Brown versus Board of Education
Speaker 3: against and this goes to Steve's other question against Southern
Speaker 3: states and governors who are trying to stop integration from occurring.
Speaker 3: And so I think this is why I don't don't
Speaker 3: think it would happen, but I think, you know, I
Speaker 3: think legally you could do it, but I don't think
Speaker 3: it happened. Is even those Southern governors who used their
Speaker 3: own state national guards to try to compeede racial desegregation,
Speaker 3: they were never arrested and charged for federal crimes, even
Speaker 3: though they were obviously committing an obstruction of federal law.
Speaker 3: But what Eisenhower did is he took over those national
Speaker 3: Guard units away from the state and turned them into
Speaker 3: national units, sent them back to their houses, sent them home,
Speaker 3: and then used the US military right. He used one
Speaker 3: hundred and first airborne desegregated Southern schools under the Insurrection Act.
Speaker 3: So how one of the question is, rather should Trump
Speaker 3: go that far? Does he need to? But gosh, you
Speaker 3: look at the conditions of Minneapolis and you see people
Speaker 3: attacking federal agents and no state and local police officers
Speaker 3: to be found. That's what the Instruction Act is for.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so I mean, of course it'd be a
Speaker 2: political judgment about whether you should arrest Governor Waltz. But
Speaker 2: a hypothetical is this. I mean, I think you can
Speaker 2: find this in the newsreels. There's George Wallace. I think
Speaker 2: it was the local police. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was Alabama National Guard, but standing in.
Speaker 3: There was a national Guard. It was the national Guard.
Speaker 2: Okay. But the point is is that when the federal
Speaker 2: troops showed up with the students, he moved and allowed
Speaker 2: them to proceed. So the hypothetical is what if Governor
Speaker 2: Wallace had refused and told his officers to not move
Speaker 2: and not allow the person in. Wouldn't then President Eisenhower
Speaker 2: have been substruction ordering Yeah, okay, ordering the arrest substruction
Speaker 2: Wallace's that's my Yeah.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing about walt and this Guy Mayor
Speaker 3: Jacob Fry Fry, I think.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a federal crime for them to say,
Speaker 3: you're on your own. We're not going to help you,
Speaker 3: We're not going to protect you. If the federal government
Speaker 3: wants to enforce immigration law, you know, good luck to
Speaker 3: you have at it. That's not obstruction. If they are actually,
Speaker 3: you know, using their police force and their resources to
Speaker 3: help these right these protesters, rioters, that could be obstruction.
Speaker 3: So is it anything I haven't seen any evidence to
Speaker 3: that yet.
Speaker 1: Is there a difference then, between a standdown order which
Speaker 1: they have given to all of their local state and
Speaker 1: local police stand down do not help if these people
Speaker 1: are attacked, So what stand down we will not do
Speaker 1: anything to help ICE and actively joining the crowd against ICE.
Speaker 1: I mean that seems to be what you're saying.
Speaker 3: I think that's the difference. Okay, yeah, I think that's
Speaker 3: I think that. In fact, I think the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: has said, and not in this violent of context, but
Speaker 3: has said states have the right not to cooperate with
Speaker 3: the federal government.
Speaker 2: They have the right.
Speaker 3: So these sanctuary cities, I don't think the cities and
Speaker 3: states can block federal agents, but they don't have to
Speaker 3: help the federal agents locate where aliens are either. They
Speaker 3: can just be passive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, all right, let's yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's really stupid by the Supreme Court, by
Speaker 1: the way, because I mean, think about in general terms.
Speaker 1: Try to sorry, try to think about it in general
Speaker 1: terms and say, do we really want Supreme Court opinions
Speaker 1: that encourage a kind of It's one thing to encourage
Speaker 1: the what Madison talks about in Federal's number fifty one.
Speaker 1: You know, this government that fights against this government and
Speaker 1: that gives us, you know, protection from tyranny. It's another
Speaker 1: thing to say that law enforcement at the state and
Speaker 1: local level can fight against the military at the federal level,
Speaker 1: and that that somehow prevents some kind of denial of
Speaker 1: people's rights. I mean, that seems to me to be
Speaker 1: a recipe for civil war. But maybe I'm just being
Speaker 1: too Oh well, sure, I.
Speaker 3: Think that's probably right, but too I mean, think about
Speaker 3: it in terms of your one of your favorite topics,
Speaker 3: you know, anti ballums, slavery, and so I think one
Speaker 3: reason that court says that you know, reaches this result.
Speaker 3: They look back at the Fugitive Slave Act and under
Speaker 3: their ruling. They're basically saying, you know, a Massachusetts and
Speaker 3: New York doesn't have to help federal officers catch fugitive
Speaker 3: slaves and return them back to slavery. If a federal
Speaker 3: agent wants to do it, right, they connected to federal law.
Speaker 3: But states don't have to cooperate. They can if they will,
Speaker 3: but they don't.
Speaker 2: Well, well, wait a minute, there's this distinction, John, Is
Speaker 2: that you know, as Lincoln pointed out in his first
Speaker 2: inaugural address, the original fugitive slave clause didn't say who
Speaker 2: had the responsibility for returning Was it federal worst state responsibility?
Speaker 2: The Constitution was ambiguous on this at best. Whereas as
Speaker 2: you like to point out, and when we used to
Speaker 2: flay you alive for this is when Governor Brewer in
Speaker 2: Arizona and also Texas, right, I said, no, it's a
Speaker 2: purely federal responsibility. The court, there's pretty clear that the constitutional,
Speaker 2: the current constitutional reading of this is very much on
Speaker 2: the side of Trump and Ice and against Governor Walls.
Speaker 1: Well, let me for a second, just saying, John explained
Speaker 1: that more than one occasion for which I probably received
Speaker 1: the most negative comments about you ever. By the way, John,
Speaker 1: but you did charge to.
Speaker 3: Explain that's a race to the bottom, as we say,
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: Very much so. And this one I couldn't defend you
Speaker 1: on because I don't still understand it myself. However, what
Speaker 1: you used you used to provide an explanation for the
Speaker 1: difference between a state deciding on a sanctuary city policy
Speaker 1: and a state deciding to be at least as proactive,
Speaker 1: if not more proactive than the federal government in stopping
Speaker 1: a legal immigration And I never understood your argument, but
Speaker 1: you did make it, and it's my fault I was.
Speaker 3: I wasn't. No, no, I don't think I was making
Speaker 3: the argument. I was just trying to describe what Arizona
Speaker 3: versus United States says. And you know, Arizona versity United
Speaker 3: States is the decision that says states are not allowed
Speaker 3: to enforce immigration law, right.
Speaker 2: Government can.
Speaker 1: Well, is it not a failure to enforce immigration law?
Speaker 1: Then if you are refusing ice detainers, if you are
Speaker 1: refusing all of those things, is that if you are
Speaker 1: allowing illegal immigrants to be in your state and in
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways giving them sanctuary and the benefits
Speaker 1: of your society, are you not then actually enforcing or
Speaker 1: uninforcing immigration law. And how is that? How is that different?
Speaker 3: So, so what the court has said is that state officers,
Speaker 3: and they do this to protect the sovereignty of states.
Speaker 3: In their view, is that state officers don't have any
Speaker 3: responsibility to carry out federal law themselves. They don't have
Speaker 3: to say don't. And they also say because if they do,
Speaker 3: the presidents can't control them. You know, governor can say
Speaker 3: I think federal law means this, so I'm going to
Speaker 3: enforce congregation law this way. There's no way the president
Speaker 3: can control him or her. And so the court is
Speaker 3: also said, to preserve the president's monopoly over the take
Speaker 3: care clause, we can't allow anyone to enforce federal law
Speaker 3: who's not a federal officer. And that's what happened if
Speaker 3: Arizona started catching illegal aliens itself, and well, but here
Speaker 3: it's the border, then you have someone enforcing federal law
Speaker 3: who's not a US officer, is not under the control
Speaker 3: of the president.
Speaker 2: I was trying to propose the inverse of that, which
Speaker 2: is as states actually impeding the federal government from exercising
Speaker 2: what has been described as their sole responsibility.
Speaker 1: So that was okay, that's which I think sanctuary cities do,
Speaker 1: by the way, I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean do.
Speaker 3: Look, the good example for lucretia is that judge in
Speaker 3: Wisconsin who oh right, was hearing a case involving an
Speaker 3: a legal alien and then she she tried to you know,
Speaker 3: spirit the legal an away through a back door in
Speaker 3: her courtroom that and prevent federal agents from final That's
Speaker 3: obstruction by a state officer. And she's been properly.
Speaker 1: Okay, well shot and freud for the lucreci Here for
Speaker 1: a moment, you guys, is buddy Paul Klement, who joined
Speaker 1: that legal team on behalf of that fat woman in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: lost big time, goss, big time. Now, the funny thing
Speaker 1: is is that none of those big you know, TDS
Speaker 1: Rhinos attorneys out there did this pro bono, and they're
Speaker 1: out there begging for money from the public to continue
Speaker 1: their appeals process and to pay their past pay bills.
Speaker 2: They just want some of that sweet sorrows money. Man.
Speaker 2: That's all. But we now are going to go to
Speaker 2: a quick break for our sponsors and move on to
Speaker 2: another topic because we can go on all day on
Speaker 2: every single one of these so listeners will be right
Speaker 2: back in a moment. All right, you guys, I am
Speaker 2: going to skip to what I put on our outline
Speaker 2: today as our fourth or fifth item with this heading,
Speaker 2: because it works for the ones I'm skipping over, and
Speaker 2: that we might come back to. There's the famous saying
Speaker 2: of was the great Greek poet, that those whom the
Speaker 2: gods would destroy they first make mad, which is my
Speaker 2: field theory explanation for why Trump derangement syndrome is so great. Right,
Speaker 2: Trump's driven them mad. But I have a very specific
Speaker 2: question that gets in our sweet spot of political philosophy.
Speaker 2: What does it mean for the left if America is
Speaker 2: in fact the best regime as understood by the classics.
Speaker 2: And let me explain what I mean by that. There's
Speaker 2: this terrible book out right now. It's gotten a lot
Speaker 2: of press, a lot of reviews, a lot of attention
Speaker 2: from the Trump deranged in the media. It's Laura Field's book,
Speaker 2: Furious Minds, you know, making somebody mad. They're furious now.
Speaker 2: It's a book that, if you've heard about it is
Speaker 2: an attack on three elements of the sort of trumpy right,
Speaker 2: the national conservatives and that cons the post liberals, and
Speaker 2: we talked about post liberals was it just last week?
Speaker 2: I think? And then finally, you know our peeps, the
Speaker 2: claire Monsters, although she calls them claire Monts, and she
Speaker 2: obviously doesn't know where claire monsters please, and several things
Speaker 2: about it. One of the things is I caught her
Speaker 2: on a recent interview. I'm not going to read her book,
Speaker 2: or maybe if they give me a free copy, I might,
Speaker 2: but I caught her on one of her interviews saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, these Claremont people, like Harry Jaffa, they
Speaker 2: say America is the best regime and thus that there's
Speaker 2: like no room for change or progress. And I thought, well,
Speaker 2: that's comically wrong, first of all. Second of all, as Glenn,
Speaker 2: our friend Glenn Elmers has spotted in a very excellent
Speaker 2: review of the book, she made up a quote from
Speaker 2: Jaffa that does not exist anywhere in Jaffa's work. So
Speaker 2: she's fabricated something. And by the way, I think there
Speaker 2: are other really alarming fabrications in the book. I'm going
Speaker 2: to save that from now. We can go back to
Speaker 2: it later. And so the point is, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to open up a lucretie on this is I say,
Speaker 2: is it bad news? For the left of America is
Speaker 2: the best regime, because the best regime does not mean utopia.
Speaker 2: And for the left, they're all about utopia. And there
Speaker 2: you see again a very fundamental difference between the way
Speaker 2: serious conservatives think about politics and regimes and the way
Speaker 2: the left does so. Anyway, So, Lucretia, what you know
Speaker 2: when if you can summarize briefly for listeners and for us,
Speaker 2: and what did Jeff I mean by the best regime
Speaker 2: and why does it foreclose what the left wants when
Speaker 2: they talk about utopia.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna go sound like a little bit of
Speaker 1: a broken record, Steve, and go back to the point
Speaker 1: that first and foremost the founding fathers believed that there
Speaker 1: was a human nature, that human nature could be known
Speaker 1: with a reasonable amount of certainty, and a society and
Speaker 1: a government could be built, especially a government, around that
Speaker 1: understanding of human nature. And one of the things about
Speaker 1: that human nature it's unchanging, but there are there's the
Speaker 1: rational element to the human soul, something that we and
Speaker 1: we partake in with the gods or God, the rational element,
Speaker 1: and then there's the passion, which always get in the
Speaker 1: way of our rationality. That's kind of the way to
Speaker 1: simplified view of human nature that I think informs the
Speaker 1: Founding Fathers. But what I can't I don't have time
Speaker 1: to go into all the reasons that Jaffa says this
Speaker 1: is the best regime, and I'm not sure that it
Speaker 1: certainly was the best regime as it was founded. I'll
Speaker 1: leave it at that for the moment. The point is
Speaker 1: is that our Founding fathers put together a political system
Speaker 1: that recognized both of those elements I just mentioned in
Speaker 1: human nature in the human condition, and they accounted for them.
Speaker 1: If you think about Madison's argument in the Federalist fifty one,
Speaker 1: if men were angels, there would be no need for government.
Speaker 1: If angels were to govern men, we would need neither
Speaker 1: external nor internal controls like government. When you have a
Speaker 1: situation where too men governing men, no angels, that's why
Speaker 1: you need protections against tyranny. So the Left comes along
Speaker 1: and they don't like these checks and balances, that's what
Speaker 1: Madison is actually referring to. Their they don't like these
Speaker 1: checks and balances. They don't like the idea of individual
Speaker 1: autonomy or the maximum amount of freedom given to people
Speaker 1: until they interfere with the rights of others. They don't
Speaker 1: like this idea that there is a bit of an
Speaker 1: India's idiosyncratic definition of happiness, not entirely, but another day
Speaker 1: for that. And what they believe is that human beings
Speaker 1: are a not necessarily they have evolved to the point
Speaker 1: where they are no longer what's the opposite of angels, demons.
Speaker 1: They can in fact be educated, thank you John Dewey,
Speaker 1: Oh God, to the point where they can become you know,
Speaker 1: good socialist members of society. Education to be all about
Speaker 1: turning them into these perfect little citizens, and ultimately these
Speaker 1: perfect little citizens become what would you say, propagandized brain lage.
Speaker 1: I don't know, to do whatever it is these wonderful
Speaker 1: elites who have only the good of society and this
Speaker 1: utopian vision in mind. Our founding fathers never believed we'd
Speaker 1: find utopia because we would always be dealing with the
Speaker 1: faults of human nature. We could set up a system
Speaker 1: that tried in every way possible to I want to
Speaker 1: think about Jefferson's talk about the natural aerostory to allow
Speaker 1: the best human beings, the most virtuous human beings, and
Speaker 1: the most publican spirit, public spirited human beings to rise
Speaker 1: to the top and be the governors, the rulers over us.
Speaker 1: That we would choose, that's important, that we would choose.
Speaker 1: But they didn't believe that there was any guaranteed, Like
Speaker 1: Madison says, enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm,
Speaker 1: and so all of those checks and balances, all those
Speaker 1: restraints on government that they built into the constitutional system.
Speaker 1: The progressives came along and said, we don't want any
Speaker 1: of those. We want to do what we want because
Speaker 1: we're going to bring about utopia. Is that okay, Steve? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean sorry, really quickly back to the beginning of
Speaker 1: your question. I'll be quiet. Java thought it was the
Speaker 1: best regime because it took religion as a divisive force
Speaker 1: out of politics and as a which you might what's
Speaker 1: the right word, an authorizing force out of politics. Long story.
Speaker 1: We promised to come back to that someday. But it
Speaker 1: was the best regime because for the first time, it
Speaker 1: was built entirely on the notion of the sovereignty of
Speaker 1: the people and.
Speaker 2: Not on some.
Speaker 1: Fairy tale version of virtuous elites who philosopher kings who
Speaker 1: would govern us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, the point I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: we should add for listeners. I mean this kind of
Speaker 2: code speak for us to a certain extent, the best
Speaker 2: regime was always the best regime in speech speech, right,
Speaker 2: I mean that's the Republic's all about it. All right,
Speaker 2: you want a perfect regime with yeah, one justice, right,
Speaker 2: you would do it this way. And I mean I
Speaker 2: think Leo Strauss did right somewhere that he said he
Speaker 2: did believe that the best, the simply best regime is
Speaker 2: a real thing, but unattainable for a whole bunch of reasons.
Speaker 2: And then I think maybe where the modification here is
Speaker 2: is so Jappas said, I'll do it this way in
Speaker 2: one or two sentences, and then John you can weigh
Speaker 2: in and help us or or ask us to clarify this.
Speaker 2: I think he thinks this the best regime because it
Speaker 2: best solved the fundamental human political and social problems, and
Speaker 2: no one was ever going to improve upon it. It
Speaker 2: did not mean there couldn't be progressed eaven material, moral,
Speaker 2: and social, and in fact, that's you know, Lincoln's famous
Speaker 2: line about dred Scott was, you know the or even
Speaker 2: if you take Martin Luther King that the declaration is
Speaker 2: a promissory note, that it was the basis for progress
Speaker 2: and spreading equal opportunity, for freedom and dignity of human beings.
Speaker 1: Right, but you weren't going to get joate his career
Speaker 1: talking about what perfected it more, what got it better? Sorry? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's the point is is that it didn't
Speaker 2: mean you freeze it. I mean, Lord Fields seemed to
Speaker 2: think that Japa thought that everything was frozen in place
Speaker 2: in seventeen eighty seven or seventeen seventy six, And that's
Speaker 2: just comically idiotic, John, I.
Speaker 3: Don't get it, you know, well, you know what I
Speaker 3: don't get is how you measure what's a better regime
Speaker 3: from another. So unless you're using some kind of consequentialist
Speaker 3: factors like population size, wealth, health, you know, power. So
Speaker 3: for example, if it was about achieving moral achieving morally
Speaker 3: just outcomes, well why isn't the British government, you know,
Speaker 3: regime superior to ours. They got rid of slavery before
Speaker 3: we did. They didn't have the Civil War over slavery
Speaker 3: that we did. You know, from many periods because they
Speaker 3: didn't have segregation, they had a broader scope for individual rights.
Speaker 3: I would say for more of the modern period after
Speaker 3: our revolution than we did, right. I mean, we are history,
Speaker 3: you know had slavery. Our history had segregation. The British
Speaker 3: didn't have that after seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1: So how do you mention your how slavery?
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, how do you just say conclude that why.
Speaker 1: We'd No, no, no, I'm just want to explain that
Speaker 1: to me if you're.
Speaker 3: Not finished. So your moral view slavery is bad?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So the British abolished it before we did. The British
Speaker 3: didn't have racial segregatey. Why isn't there was even better
Speaker 3: than our regime because they they just outcome faster and
Speaker 3: more broadly than we did.
Speaker 2: John, John, John, So I don't understand. I'm remember in
Speaker 2: all these previous episodes where you ca used me Lucretia
Speaker 2: of being Anglo files, and now you're from No, I'm
Speaker 2: not very clever, guys are.
Speaker 3: The Anglo files? Because your own test would you to
Speaker 3: think that the British were better than we were, which
Speaker 3: is when you guys secretly think anyway.
Speaker 2: No, it's a very good regime, but it's not as
Speaker 2: good as ours. I'll just assert that, what why, why.
Speaker 1: Is the British regime regime inferior to get this thing
Speaker 1: called the divine right of kings.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 1: They believe that that lovely gentleman, that idiot King Carls
Speaker 1: is king because God said, but they don't really believe.
Speaker 3: But they don't really believe that anymore?
Speaker 1: Why is he still king?
Speaker 3: They just have these fake, fake ceremonial positions. The parliament
Speaker 3: is really sovereign?
Speaker 1: Why why is parliament sovereign? Why not? No?
Speaker 3: Under their constitution?
Speaker 1: Yea, I know, But so what?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: What are you judging these things bias? I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to tell me.
Speaker 3: If you say.
Speaker 1: No, I don't want you. I want you to judge
Speaker 1: them by yours.
Speaker 3: I want you to tell me differently.
Speaker 1: Okay, But let me ask you this question. If if
Speaker 1: and I'm a little I'm a little bit sad the
Speaker 1: way things stand right now, I'm hoping that it changes.
Speaker 1: But if in fact, the Persian people are finally successful
Speaker 1: with whatever help they can get from Trump et cetera,
Speaker 1: on overthrowing that god awful evil Islamic regime as I
Speaker 1: believe it. You don't believe Aslam as evil?
Speaker 2: Do you care?
Speaker 1: Is there by? What standards would you judge whether or
Speaker 1: not a re emergence of freedom and democracy in Iran
Speaker 1: would be better or worse by what standard? Would you?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 3: I would look at the traditional standards of national success,
Speaker 3: size of population, for capital, GDP, health, longevity. Right, I
Speaker 3: mean they're like the things I mean I would think,
Speaker 3: do we look at those?
Speaker 2: I mean, so would you?
Speaker 3: I guess this is I guess you would prefer a
Speaker 3: democracy which is poor and people live nasty British and
Speaker 3: short lives. Oh good lord, No, But I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: like those I would I would measure it on these
Speaker 3: as sort of objective standards of wealth and the prosperity
Speaker 3: of the people and their health and so on. Now,
Speaker 3: maybe that correlates highly with individual liberties, because people who
Speaker 3: have a lot of individual liberties, their economies are freer
Speaker 3: and they're they do better I think.
Speaker 2: Materially too, John, you are a pyromaniac in a field
Speaker 2: of straw man right now, this is just the way
Speaker 2: you say. No, I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's why I'm asking you your But I'm saying,
Speaker 3: based on your views of how you should judge societies,
Speaker 3: Britain was earlier more successful than we were seen individual liberty.
Speaker 3: No one I mean one tiny point, slavery. I thought
Speaker 3: he was the most important because it's government by consent.
Speaker 3: They abolished slavery, but they don't.
Speaker 1: Have They didn't have government by consent as the result
Speaker 1: of it. Well, the other thing is, for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, they had.
Speaker 2: Almost no slavery in the homeland. If they'd had it
Speaker 2: in the same relative scale as we did, they would
Speaker 2: have had great difficulty getting rid of it. And they're
Speaker 2: the ones who abolished the slave trade, not us. Well,
Speaker 2: the British navy, correct, I mean they used to.
Speaker 3: United Yeah, the British Navy had great costs to themselves.
Speaker 2: It's more John, slave trade. I'll just make this proposition
Speaker 2: and then show it the remedy. I'm going to sentence
Speaker 2: you to a remedy. If you want to make the
Speaker 2: historical proposition that our institutions and safeguards of liberty owe
Speaker 2: a lot to the British tradition, such as their Civil
Speaker 2: War and the Revolution of sixteen eighty eight, that's perfectly fair.
Speaker 2: Our point is that we did it better than them,
Speaker 2: that's all. And ah, okay, so John.
Speaker 3: But so how do you But well, let me ask you,
Speaker 3: how do you know that? Because if your view is
Speaker 3: the ultimate principle is government by consent. Then we had
Speaker 3: slavery right from seventeen seventy six to eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 3: and then we had segregation from ruffly eighteen seventy five
Speaker 3: to nineteen, I would say till the nineteen sixties. Those
Speaker 3: are two long periods where a huge portion of our
Speaker 3: population was basically governed without their consent.
Speaker 1: Well they did well, first of all, yes they did.
Speaker 1: But leave that aside. Why did we get rid of slavery? John?
Speaker 1: Why did we finally decide that we were no longer
Speaker 1: going to have Jim Crow laws, that we were going
Speaker 1: to pass the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: in the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty four? Why
Speaker 1: why would we do that?
Speaker 3: My argument is a comparative one.
Speaker 1: I accept, Well, I don't want to make a comparative one.
Speaker 1: I don't want to live in England. They don't matter
Speaker 1: to me. I want to know how you would judge
Speaker 1: ours and why you think we got widow slavery exactly?
Speaker 1: What's the standards exactly?
Speaker 3: So look, I'm saying, if I accept your standard, right,
Speaker 3: if your standard is the principal government by consent, is
Speaker 3: also that's derivative.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The standard is is government based upon a fundamental understanding
Speaker 1: of unchanging human nature. And one of those one of
Speaker 1: those elements, I'll be done. One of those elements is
Speaker 1: that human nature is again uh god, no, just yes,
Speaker 1: it does, Yes, it does. I put it like this,
Speaker 1: If you decide to adopt a dog, John, and and
Speaker 1: then you expect the dog to act like a horse,
Speaker 1: how well is that going to work out for you?
Speaker 3: That got to do with anythink.
Speaker 1: Because dogs have a nature and horses have a nature.
Speaker 1: Run no, and humans have a nature. And the problem
Speaker 1: with human nature is that it is, in fact flood.
Speaker 1: Rationality is influenced more or less in any given person
Speaker 1: by the passions, which means that while human beings are
Speaker 1: capable of incredible excellence and virtue, they're not likely to
Speaker 1: achieve that. All prior regimes that had that set some
Speaker 1: kind of lofty goal for themselves depended Plato, Aristotle, and
Speaker 1: even Cicero depended upon a version of human nature that
Speaker 1: believed in this kind of uh solid virtue that you
Speaker 1: could you could depend upon, and they that's why they
Speaker 1: all failed. In the United States, we want virtue, but
Speaker 1: we have all of these mechanisms to make sure that
Speaker 1: when virtue fails, we don't descended the tyranny. That's what
Speaker 1: makes it the best regime.
Speaker 2: And all of those things that makes sense well back.
Speaker 1: Anomalies or they were contradictions. They were not part of
Speaker 1: the what makes the United States the best regime, which
Speaker 1: is why those things ultimately could be gotten rid of.
Speaker 3: So you're saying that the America is the best regime
Speaker 3: because it it's based on the idea that people are fallen,
Speaker 3: and so a government that's constructed on the basis of
Speaker 3: people have fallen is a better regime than one.
Speaker 1: That is not. I didn't say that regardless.
Speaker 3: Of the actual consequences or what it produces in terms
Speaker 3: of actual policies and the effect on the population.
Speaker 2: Help me, Steve here, Well, I want to draw this
Speaker 2: segment to a conclusion to my proposition is that the
Speaker 2: United States is the best regime, both as a theoretical
Speaker 2: matter and as a practical matter. And John, if I
Speaker 2: have to, I'm not going to do it now because
Speaker 2: we're out of time. If I have to, I could
Speaker 2: use your empirical metrics to demonstrate that proposition between us
Speaker 2: and England as admirable as England.
Speaker 3: I let me say, I think on empirical standards we
Speaker 3: are far superior country to Britain, but not because of it,
Speaker 3: you guys standards.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you just contradicted yourself. But I'll I'll
Speaker 2: have to go back to the transcript. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: I have the remedy for you. I just got in
Speaker 2: the mail Harvey Mansfield's new book Aware they canna put
Speaker 2: it the Rise and Fall of Rational Control, And I
Speaker 2: thought this might be some new attack on progressives, and
Speaker 2: I think actually that it is in here. Turns out
Speaker 2: this book John was based on his course History of
Speaker 2: Modern Political Philosophies that he taught every other year from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight to twenty twenty two. Did you take
Speaker 2: this course, John? And if you did, nderstand it? Oh god,
Speaker 2: what I thought? No, I took the course.
Speaker 3: I'm deep in the weeds of the many subtleties of
Speaker 3: Harvey Manstone, and I still haven't figured them all out.
Speaker 2: Well, he's in large accord with our point of view
Speaker 2: here about America is the best regime. Didn't put the
Speaker 2: same terms as Jaffa. But okay, we will continue this
Speaker 2: some other time. But right now, I'll take a quick
Speaker 2: break and come back, and I guess we have enough
Speaker 2: time to talk very briefly about Greenland, and then we
Speaker 2: have to get out for the day, so we'll be
Speaker 2: right back. Everybody, don't go away, all right. Continuing on
Speaker 2: the general theme of those whom the gods will destroy,
Speaker 2: they first make mad, let's just do one little thing
Speaker 2: about Trump. I'm a little worried that he might be
Speaker 2: heading into a sophomore slump. We don't have time to
Speaker 2: go through all the things that could bring up about that,
Speaker 2: so I'll just leent myself to Greenland. I'll say two things.
Speaker 2: One is is that if, by the way, the polls
Speaker 2: show that like ninety five percent of Americans are opposed
Speaker 2: to invading Greenland, that includes ninety two percent of Republicans
Speaker 2: and most of the rest are undecided, there's almost no
Speaker 2: one thinks this is a good idea. I think if
Speaker 2: Trump literally did it, he could be successfully impeached and convicted.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I actually think this makes this
Speaker 2: is such totally Trumpian art of the deal. And you
Speaker 2: know what, it looks like it's working. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: certainly got the Europeans attention and everyone's upset about it.
Speaker 2: But I think and I can sort of go through
Speaker 2: the reasons why that this is because I can think
Speaker 2: of some examples of Trump's own business experience from forty
Speaker 2: years ago where this is exactly how he behaved and
Speaker 2: everyone came out the winner from it on both sides
Speaker 2: of the of the of the equation. And so I
Speaker 2: kind of liked this whole greenland thing and the old
Speaker 2: fashioned way of doing it with patient She could we
Speaker 2: buy greenland like Harry Truman wanted to do. She wouldn't
Speaker 2: be nice if we paid more attention to gree No,
Speaker 2: I think Trump's method and this is absolute right, and
Speaker 2: I love it, but that, combined with other things, you're
Speaker 2: already is getting a little too overconfident from his first
Speaker 2: year's successes. That's my opening proposition.
Speaker 3: Well, I no, no, but I think.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I wrote a piece about the National Security strategy that
Speaker 3: they issued, and this is what's going on as you're
Speaker 3: keeping with the national security strategy, and that right after
Speaker 3: defense of the homeland, the most important strategic goal of
Speaker 3: the United States should be controlled the western hemisphere to
Speaker 3: prevent our enemies from establishing beachheads of influence where they
Speaker 3: can destabilize us, like Venezuela or Cuba. And if you
Speaker 3: look at a map of the United States of the
Speaker 3: year of the globe from the north, Greenland is an
Speaker 3: extremely important right placement in the world just by the
Speaker 3: nature of geography, and so you know, the United States
Speaker 3: needs to have basically unlimited use of Greenland in the
Speaker 3: competition with the in the Russians, and whether I don't
Speaker 3: think in the end, what's as important as whether we
Speaker 3: formally possess it, possess it as it is that we
Speaker 3: have a limited right to use it as a base
Speaker 3: for a defense and for the military. And so I
Speaker 3: think that we already have a treaty that allows us
Speaker 3: to do that, but perhaps Trump wants to make it secure,
Speaker 3: and so he is this kind of way of you know,
Speaker 3: browbeating the other sides and to recognizing it. On the
Speaker 3: other hand, I don't think that we should invade, you know,
Speaker 3: attack Danty or whatever Denmark and seize Greenland because that's
Speaker 3: formally in NATO, and I think that would be well
Speaker 3: for US. And taking over Greenland and establishing it's weird.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like he wants the legal title to
Speaker 3: it even though functionally we will have the right to
Speaker 3: use it as much as we want.
Speaker 2: Well, wait a minute, I mean, let me do one
Speaker 2: thing and then I'll thro to you lucretia, which is uh.
Speaker 2: I think this is just defense. The mineral resources of
Speaker 2: Greenland are substantial and very advantage to everybody because being
Speaker 2: alternative China and even for oil and gas all the
Speaker 2: other usual places. And the case against owning it is
Speaker 2: this simple. It will be federal land if we acquire it,
Speaker 2: and federal land, as we know, gets preyed upon by
Speaker 2: the bureaucrats. The first thing the Democrats do when they
Speaker 2: come back into power is declared a national wildlife refuge
Speaker 2: for bacteria and the iris and darn thing. Right, So
Speaker 2: that's actually a real worry, which is we'd be better
Speaker 2: off if we could reach a minerals deal with Denmark
Speaker 2: and our Greenland. If Greenland becomes independent, then necessarily owning
Speaker 2: it oddly enough, so that's why I I'd love it.
Speaker 2: If we owned it, then we'd have Canada boxed in,
Speaker 2: which is much to be desired. But I could see,
Speaker 2: you know, the outcome of this looks to me like
Speaker 2: it might actually be pretty good. I mean, it's early yet.
Speaker 3: But now look the Canadians we should invade.
Speaker 2: But greenwell, of course, right, well, there's a lot there, John,
Speaker 2: there's a ton of good stuff there anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, my dad used to say this, and I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until till fairly recently that it actually came
Speaker 1: from one of my dad ancestors, Eric the Great, the Viking,
Speaker 1: who named it Greenland as it.
Speaker 3: He's an ancestor of yours.
Speaker 1: Yes, as a matter of fact, yes it does. I'm
Speaker 1: very proud of it. But that there's no greening, as
Speaker 1: my dad used to say, he was stationed during the
Speaker 1: Korean War and in both Greenland and Iceland actually, and
Speaker 1: he said, there's no there's not as much ice in
Speaker 1: Iceland and there's no green in Greenland. And that's all
Speaker 1: I care about. I'm not going there. It's too cold,
Speaker 1: I hate And what Steve cut me off and wouldn't
Speaker 1: let me say to John. If he keeps this up,
Speaker 1: he's going to find himself from this and unemployed in Greenland.
Speaker 1: I know what that's from.
Speaker 2: No, what's from probably Dodge Princess Bride.
Speaker 1: For the years, really keta once every five or six years.
Speaker 1: Just no, it's God no, it's it's actually one of
Speaker 1: the best. It's awesome.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like a princess and knights and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: Lucretius right, it is canon and I am dere Lichton
Speaker 3: keeping up with the cannon.
Speaker 2: All that it's But let's close. You've got some Babylon
Speaker 2: behind I do.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do about you. Guys NATO
Speaker 1: big US for emergency funding so they can defend Greenland
Speaker 1: from US. Yeah, Catangi Brown Jackson arrives at work an
Speaker 1: official SCOTUS short bus. Oh yeah, actually, you got to
Speaker 1: give them credit for that. I don't know what this
Speaker 1: one means, because you guys probably don't either, if none
Speaker 1: of us have little kids. But I'm sure somebody out
Speaker 1: there might know. Supreme Court justices bring in miss Rachel,
Speaker 1: Miss Rachel to explain cases to Catangy Brown Jackson, or
Speaker 1: brought in to explain difference between boys and girls to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one's good.
Speaker 1: That makes my I told you guys last week come much.
Speaker 1: I was really, uh sort of fascinated by the feminist
Speaker 1: angle of what's going on in Iran, and uh, one
Speaker 1: of the things that I steve you even liked it.
Speaker 1: I put on on X is that you know, this
Speaker 1: has been amazing to watch how braive these women are,
Speaker 1: you know the ones.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: They light their cigarettes with the burning pictures of the
Speaker 1: aetola is so cool. And uh, one of the things
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely amazed at is how beautiful the Persian women are.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just some of the times you see
Speaker 1: them and you're like, they're dropped their gorgeous. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that being said, sorry I went off on that long
Speaker 1: tangent where to go United States offers to trade its
Speaker 1: liberal women for Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one, right all right? John?
Speaker 1: You wait, wait, wait what what? Just one more? Sorry?
Speaker 1: I lost it. Now that's what you get. Democrats fear
Speaker 1: Iranian love of freedom could spread to America.
Speaker 2: That is a good one. I saw that one do Minnesota?
Speaker 2: Yeah or Minnesota?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: Okay, So always drink your whiskey meat, buy more books.
Speaker 3: And Steve, how has AI seduced you this week?
Speaker 2: Well? I asked AI to give us an outline of
Speaker 2: what Lucretia's indictment of mayor, sorry, Governor Waltz would look
Speaker 2: like under the Insurrection Act, and a long outline. I'll
Speaker 2: just give you one part of the outline and one
Speaker 2: sentence from the actual language of it. The bullet points
Speaker 2: were Lucretia's tone would be ice, not populist. It would
Speaker 2: be one dryly contemptuous, two intellectually scathing, and three heavy
Speaker 2: on irony and understatement. She would write as if the
Speaker 2: case were already obvious and the reader merely needed to
Speaker 2: stop pretending otherwise. And so the beginning of it would
Speaker 2: be let us begin by dispensing with the sentimental confusion
Speaker 2: that so often cloud's modern governance. The insurress. The Insurrection
Speaker 2: Act was not written to flatter governors, nor to provide
Speaker 2: them with emotional support animals during moments of civic stress.
Speaker 2: I think, actually, look, we sho would do better than that.
Speaker 2: But that's not bad for first try out by chat GBT.
Speaker 2: It's got a bit you can't you.
Speaker 1: Imagine what I'd say to that retard. I'd say retard.
Speaker 1: I'd say you're a retard for retardless. Ye, That's what
Speaker 1: I would say.
Speaker 3: That would be the most interesting federal indictment in the
Speaker 3: history of the bumper.
Speaker 2: That's right anyway, Bye, everybody, thanks for tuning in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Gora maybe someday in iceblell have a meet up, but
Speaker 2: I'd love to never.
Speaker 3: I've never stepped on foot.
Speaker 2: In isolated islands. Glorious John, it's not that cool.
Speaker 3: Support, it's not it's thanks.
Speaker 2: He's falling on the knife and criss cracks.
Speaker 1: One Genmen join me here.
Speaker 3: Here's my nice stride, pride, laps and full night.
Speaker 2: I'm my brown. My double wots. He's falling on the
Speaker 2: icy rises cracks.
Speaker 3: One Gemen join me here, my last pride.
Speaker 1: Last a full night.
Speaker 3: I'm not proud.
Speaker 2: My double wants to pull me down. Ricochet join the conversation.