Speaker 1: You know, I gotta say school. It turns out school
is hard. It turns out that it's not just the
alpha and the omega. There's twenty two other letters in between,
and they all make different words and different declensions. And I,
for some reason forgot that I was an Episcopalian and
didn't have to know any of this stuff. And I
taking this Greek class and it's killing me.
Speaker 2: Not what your country can do for you, ask what
you can do for your.
Speaker 1: Country, mister.
Speaker 3: Tears down this wall.
Speaker 4: Read my lips.
Speaker 3: It's the Wigreshet vodcast with James Wilas, myself, Stephen Hayward
himself and joining us again to other Rob Long, So
let's set as a podcast.
Speaker 1: Hi, Robin, Hi, and what's your name?
Speaker 3: Matt had to ask who you are?
Speaker 1: Because you have to be careful.
Speaker 4: Never read too careful.
Speaker 1: I agree, you'll never get bored with when we never
get bored.
Speaker 3: We're welcome everybody. It's the Ricochete Podcast number seven hundred
and fourteen. I'm James Lovick's coming to you today on
a microphone. I think somebody stole it. I mean, I
know things are better in than the newspaper industry, but
I don't think we're at the point yet where people
start pawning things they find in people's desks. But we'll know,
we'll figure out exactly what happens coming to you live
from MacBook Air and coming to you from well, from
someplace in an undisclosed place where I believe there was
ceremonies and rituals. Perhaps maybe that he will explain to
it his brother Rob and Stephen Hayward as well too. Steven, Rob,
Welcome to both of you. Good to be here.
Speaker 1: It's good to be here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, good to see you. James. Yeah, you do look
like you're in some dark dungeon or something. Yes, I
mean we.
Speaker 1: Should let everybody know that this that the low quality
audio for James Lilacs is like a specifically designed torture
for him, like nobody else would care. But I know
it's killing him because I can see like the veins.
The video is good enough. I can see the veins
on your forehead, just kind of getting like, oh, I'm
getting whatever. I don't even know what the words would be,
but I'm sure that's actually to the Stostrowe supplement.
Speaker 3: I'm so Rod, You're back. Where are you?
Speaker 1: Beat?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: As you know, James, I am. I'm a student now.
I went back to school. I'm at the Princeton Theological Seminary.
I am a graduate student surrounded by incredibly smart young
people who have these incredibly moist brains that they can
remember Greek stuff. I idiotically have elected to take Greek.
I don't have to take Greek to be an ordained
episcopal minister, which is sort of my think, my eventual
end here. But I did it anyway because I, like,
you know, Greek's important, and you know, if you don't
know a little bit of Greek, then you're always at
the mercy the people who do, and it's not a
very good thing.
Speaker 3: Oh, I find my son all the time at the
mercy of people bluell Greek.
Speaker 1: Well you do, and like you know, you're selling the
New Testament. You find yourself thinking yourself, wa, wait, what
was that word? And how did they use it? Like
two verses back and two verses for.
Speaker 3: What is that perfect example of that would be the
And there is dispute about this, correct me if I'm wrong.
There should be dispute about the parable of the homily,
about the being easier for a rich man to for
a camel to go through the needle that a rich
man going.
Speaker 1: Many interpretations of that the beautiful parable, but they seem
to center around mis translation and misunderstanding perhaps what.
Speaker 3: They mean by the eye of a cattle, that rope, yeah,
and the rest of it.
Speaker 1: So the richer you are, the more insistent you are
that there are some textual translation issues there that you
could tell pretty much someone's net worth by their interpretation
of that. First, the most famous one, I think is
in the world is the actually in the most famous prayer,
maybe the most one of the most famous prayers ever,
the Lord's Prayer, where if you are a you know,
you're kind of on our side kind of you know,
larger debate, a Western Christian augustin Latin kind of Christian, right,
it's deliver us from evil. And if you're kind of
on the eastern side, you know, the Greek church fathers
like Cyprian origin, those people, you read that not as
the neuter noun evil but as the masculine. So it's
so deliver us from the evil one. And I may
seem little, but it's like you know you but then
you look back, Okay, well, how was this used? You
know in the verses before, how do is that you
using the rest of mark and all that's a Matthew, sorry,
and like you get in all that stuff and like you,
I mean this stuff I could do. By the way,
this is not my problem. My problem is the second
decline of Greek adjectives and the special cases of the
word otos. And so I'm doing all right. And the
other thing I've discovered in this we can talk about
concurrent events. Apparently there's at lection going on, is that
I've discovered that being a writer professionally for forty years
is more than yeah, forty forty thirty five years, thirty
something plus years. It helps you to realize you could
sit down and write. You know, I can turn out
you want twelve hundred words in an hour. I can
do that. It's my job. I can do that. But
they don't want it interesting. They want it like they
want you to support your thesis with facts and citations.
And I find that rude.
Speaker 2: Although I have to say Rob that I've always preferred
the Brooklyn version of the Lord's Prayer that culminates with
lead us not into Penn Station.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, right.
Speaker 4: Even the New Right you want to talk about evil
and you know the pit of hell that captured it
for me.
Speaker 2: But well, I can ask you this, this maybe a
segue into the election topic.
Speaker 4: I forget which conservative.
Speaker 2: Illuminary twenty years ago described our colleges and universities as
seminaries of intolerance.
Speaker 4: And you're at an actual.
Speaker 2: Seminary, right and now, of course it's not a place
of intolerance.
Speaker 4: But and you said before we started going live, you
said that it will be finding it hard.
Speaker 2: And I think that seriously, because you know, you are
there and your co students there are asking about the
most serious questions about the transcendent versus the which is
the election, right.
Speaker 4: But I am curious.
Speaker 2: I mean, most seminaries that I'm familiar with are pretty
the student body and the faculty are pretty liberal.
Speaker 4: You know, they want to write a gender neutral Bible
and things like that.
Speaker 2: And I'm not less concerned about that. But are people
that are worked up about the election? Do they have
grief counselors on speed dial and the event Trump wins
or what's the atmosphere are you?
Speaker 1: You know? All that's interesting because the prince of Theological
Seminary and Princeton University have the same DNA, right, they
were born. They it was all a seminary when it
started back in eighteen whatever. And then as things sort
of changed that then the university kind of got more
secular and the seminary state of seminary, and the seminary
was sort of endowed and started by the Presbyterian Church.
So Presbytery Church is still it's still it is still
a seminary for the Presbyterian Church. Is not really a
seminary for the Anglican or Episcopal Church that I belong to.
So I have to do a little extra stuff just
to kind of like keep my thing on. But and
I think this is true of other places too. I
don't think it's just Princeton or Princeton Seminary. Other discools
maybe maybe not. But the purposefulness of it, yeah, it's
definitely liberal and that and and some of it's some
of it's liberal in a lovely way exactly isn't supposed
to be. But the purposefulness of it it kind of helps.
As I said to somebody, they didn't get it. The
other thing is that they're not a lot of laughs here.
Like my d material is getting great, great response, but
it doesn't abody like the purposefulness of it keeps the
riff wrath out. You're here for you know, people here.
The young people are here because they really really do
want to serve their church. And it's also academics and
PhDs and people who have like are much more sort
of you know, academic and brilliant. But the foundational thing
here is that Okay, we're doing something. There's something bigger
that we're a part of and we're supposed to be
doing and it's guiding us. And that is different, I
think fundamentally from the secular institution across the street which
sprints the university, which I think is extremely quiet these days.
It's a beautiful campus. Prince is one of the beautiful
places in the world. And I I mean, I hope
that the whatever, the whatever happens in a couple of
weeks is going to be digested by these people in
a way that doesn't cause them too much distress or
too much you know, I mean either way, right, I mean,
or too much whatever. But it is, I mean, it
is a different way to look at there's not a
lot of activism and the seminary campus and I walked
through the university campus every day and there's not I
don't I mean, I see posters and stuff, but it's
not nobody's yelling and screaming on the squad anymore. And
they might start, but they're right now, they're they're kind
of not And I think the seminary doesn't have that.
I mean, somebody has has a vocal group of students
who wear a kafia and are concerned about what's happening
in Gosam, right, They're not shutting anything down. And they
made a they had a demonstration counter demonstration to somebody
who spoke at the convocation that lasted ten minutes and
it was respectful and written down and wasn't you know
there was no rotating hunger strikes put it that way.
So I don't know. Maybe it's the purposefulness of it
that helps. It's like, you know, you don't hear you
don't hear a lot of these things going on in
STEM campuses, right because people like, well I got a
plot problems that I got to do it U. So
maybe there's that going on, or maybe it's just a
sense that like if you really get, if you're really
thinking about bigger things, everything else seems like a smaller thing.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd be curious to see exactly how politically sophisticated
they are, or whether they're even interested in becoming politically sophisticated,
because you can say that it's a basic biblical principle,
basic human principle to take care of the poor, for example,
to be aware of those less fortunate than yourselves, good
thing to think about. It's how you do that that matters,
and how you do that as a whole different series
of expectations and assumptions about government, people and the rest
of it. And I just wonder you, Rob can be
that guy who says, yes, indeed, but what if an
abundance society, what if prosperity, rising tide and all the
rest of that. What if that is the most efficacious
means to securing liberty, justice, and abundance for all? And
what if we do that by removing the state's intercession
so that individuals, I mean, they're good. Look at you
like this, this thing coiled around a tree that's saying
there's an apple. There's a really tasty apple. Why don't
you take a bite out of that? I mean, well,
can really be the you know, the dark prints of
this whole thing? Would they regard you as such? If
you started talking about these things. That's a very interesting
question in your squishy manification.
Speaker 1: Here's the good news. The good news for that I've
this is just what I've encountered, but that there was
a lot of talk at the beginning, spent the beginning
semester and for the new students with me of the
diversity of opinion that they're going to encounter. And one
professor actually said, look, you're going to be in this class.
You need to know that there are people in this
class who vote differently from you, who think differently from you,
who worship differently from you, and that is what makes
us a seminary and a place of learning and not
something else. And I remember thinking like, wow, that's really amazing.
I think they're like they must be. I couldn't I
hadn't started yet. I couldn't tell. Is this something to
tell the conservatives, hey listen, you keep your whatever? Or
is this something to tell the liberals, Hey listen, you
keep your mits off the conservative I don't know. I
couldn't tell. What I discovered later was that part of
it is just what happens is that this is a
very popular place to come, unlike sort of these other
to the big divinity schools in the country, one at
Harvard and the one at Yale. This is a place
to come if you actually believe in something and you
actually have some kind of faith. Really, I mean, I
don't even mean that as a joke. And so people
come and Princeton has just traditionally the Princeton University has
had a lot of connections to the South, so people
come from this. There are a lot of people here
from the South, and I think the warning has always
been to them, Listen, We're going to be in a
class with people, and your professors are academics, believing academics,
but academics, and you're going to learn stuff that you
may not have encountered in your time in your you know, church,
for instance, the very distinct, different separate creation stories that
begin the book that we call the Bible. Right by
chapter three, you're already confused. And that is part of
the you know, as they say in software development, that
is as a feature, not a bug. And you're just
gonna have to put up with that because I think,
I think there have been stories of very very bright,
enthusiastic students coming here from very very very committed faith backgrounds,
and they come and they spend you know, semester reading
the Old Testament, which a lot of people haven't done,
and or reading the Hebrew or reading the Greek and
then the New Testament and then having a freak out
and say, oh my god, nothing I was told is true.
Speaker 3: It's all a lie.
Speaker 1: It's all been a lie. And they, you know, they
call home and usually they're often there's a parent there
or a grandparent or male relatives as a pastor, and
they're like, they turned me, they said, sometimes these things
they turn these absolutely one hundred percent faithful Christians into
total atheists. And we didn't want to do that either,
but they do want you to read the book because
it's the book, and the book's complicated, and so so
I think part of that was like, hey, don't freak
out when you When you don't, you can't answer the
question who parts the Red Sea with a clear cut answer,
and that again, that's like, I don't know, that's we're
still we're still talking about the primeval history here, I mean,
not primary host. We're telling out you know, the early
I don't know what do we page fifty and already
we're confused, Like all right, so I love that part because,
as you know, I'm I'm mister squishy in the middle.
Speaker 3: Well, that's great, because I would hate to think that
the diversity of the opinion means people who believe in
taxing unrealized capital gains above five hundred thousand versus people
who believe in taxing it about six hundred thousands. We've
got all all walks of life periity theologically, would you say,
and I'll leave it at this, because we could just
sit here talk. We do have an election. Parure is,
do you are most of the people who are coming
to the school, uh episcopalian? Would you say that they're
more inclined to Biblical literalism or more inclined to sort
of the idea that it's a set of tales divinely
inspired mind you, but nevertheless not a not a direct
transcription of what happened. We're not talking seven days. We're
talking seven days describing a vast period of time that
only God can comprehend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I don't. I
don't really know. I don't know. I suspect that the
the thing about Biblical literalists are the univocalists. Maybe is
that it's a hard time. You have a hard time
if you're reading the actual Bible, because it's it's got
it's the guy, all these doublets and all these little
things in it that just seem like, okay, well this
is I see here where the key author of the
Old Testament came in and you know, the put it
this in front of the thing. And I could say
the exit is a perfect example because you have, like
this the story of the of leaving Egypt, which is
this great adventure tale, and then that's the first half,
and then you have this song in the middle of it,
which is ancient and older than anything. And then the
second part, the third part of it, on the other
side of it is this list of laws, the rules,
and they didn't all come at the same time. And
so that's kind of looks lovely about it. And I mean, look,
the Bible can that was a pretty good book. It
couldn't stand up.
Speaker 3: As a screen runner. That must be you know, frustrating
for you first acts, great steps and up we wondered,
yeah right now literally wanders a little in the second part.
The third act got a really clinching so she even
do you have anything else on the subject because I like,
I like, I say, I look forward to a Rob
long podcast that is extent, that is, that is exclusively
devoted to his experience. Was at the school.
Speaker 2: I laid down a marker with Rob that I want
to talk to him at least after the first year's
under your belt.
Speaker 4: I mean, not just yet.
Speaker 2: And you know, we get into things like you know,
Carl Bart versus Thomas Aquinas.
Speaker 4: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go out right right. Well.
Speaker 2: I guess one brief comment though about James's question, which
is either literal reading or you know, figurative reading, And
it seems to me depends on what you mean by literal.
I believe you can take the Bible literal if you
accept its premise that it's divinely inspired and your revelation
from God. If you start there, then it seems to
me you don't have to have the position that it
literally meant a seven to twenty four hour days creation,
since the sun wasn't created to what the third day, right,
which which defies our sort of categories there.
Speaker 4: But once you accept that it's serious.
Speaker 2: Then it seems to me that that dichotomy of the
what we sometimes say the fundamentalists who take every word literally.
That starts to dissolve a bit, and you think of
it much more deeply and seriously, I think. And I'll
just stop there because I will say I did read
Leon Cass's book on Genesis.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know that book.
Speaker 1: No, I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's ah, it's worth reading.
Speaker 4: But of course it's five hundred pages and very dense.
And he's he's doing a.
Speaker 2: Sequel on Exodus that will also be fine.
Speaker 4: It may be done by now, I'm not sure, but you.
Speaker 1: Could be there forever. I mean, you could spend the
lifetime studying the first two chapters of this Bible.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 3: The great thing is at the end of it, rob
I suppose, and your your last classes on revelations, which
is just a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the end of it, you know everything. That's the
great dandy.
Speaker 3: Way to wrap out the show right there with the
six heads and all the rest, and requires the trumpets. Well,
great pin in that move on next topic, elections, anybody
has been captured following what Kabalahara said in her recent appearances,
where there seems to be a great uneasiness settling in
on some parts of the left that she may not
be able to close the deal.
Speaker 1: That may be the.
Speaker 3: Joy of Brad Summer has evaporated and people are seeing
somebody who just really isn't up to the task. What
do your sense from the nation's reaction and eventual injudication
of the merits of Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think they I have to say
that her team was right. What right when they kept
her out of interviews, they kept her from talking. That
was a turns out that was a pretty good strategy.
Now we've heard her talk, and we've seen her handle
really easy questions from incredibly sympathetic interviewers, and she just
doesn't seem to have some kind of she seems doesn't strange.
I find it generationally very strange that she doesn't. And
I'm actually from Kamala Harris, who I you know, like
she didn't arrive here. I mean, as hard as his
believer in live, you're an unaccomplished person. She was a
prosecutor and she ran a statewide. It wasn't a great
state wide, but she ran a statewide. And so she's
she knows how to think on her feature clearly does
because she was on to what to trials. She was
in court. So this, this terror and almost choosing to
say nothing to me is the most terrible I can
put it is that it's just the terror of running
a going from basically small time elections to running big
time elections where you're in charge instead of taking orders.
That that could be. It can also be that she's
just a deeply unserious person, which I think is also
true she does. But I think that's a third thing happening,
which is like, I don't think I don't think that
she thinks that she needs to do any of this
or have any of this. Is what I find most
disturbing is that I don't think she thinks of these
things as deficiencies. She thinks she's just gonna, like, I'm
just have to do this to get become president. But
when I'm president, I sit there and preside and gab
and chit chat and run a meeting which I can run.
And I feel like she is a classic. And I
say this as a member of my generation, because she's
in my generation. She's a consultant, and she's running it
like she's a McKinsey consultant, and so her answers are
worth salid nonsense. You think well, I don't. I didn't.
I'm not hiring a consultant. I'm hiring a president. And
I think that to me is like that she's not
even very good one. I mean, she wouldn't be at
McKinsey or BCG or something. She'd be like one of
the gray d ones because her word salads aren't that good.
But I've been around enough consultants to know that they
can talk for thirty minutes and it sounds good, but
it means nothing. And she could talk for thirty minutes
and it doesn't sound good. But she's She's right. She
is the generation of Americans that believe that the highest
form of enterprise is a consultancy. And unfortunately that is
not the job that she is auditioning for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I keep expecting her to offer concave solutions to
convex problems.
Speaker 4: I feel consultantly right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, the way I've been putting it is that
we can talk about the polls if you want, but
the body language of the body politic is clearly Satanly.
Discomfort on all sides with her and her brat summer
has become as I'm calling it, a splat fall. And
look I mean, I've talked about this before, I think,
but look, her reputation in California is that she was
a terrible boss. I've known people who work for in
the agency's office, Democrats, career Democrats who hate her and
said she was just the most horrible person to work for.
She had what ninety two percent turnout I'm sorry turnover
and the vice presidential staff.
Speaker 4: And that's an amazing thing because people killed have those.
Speaker 2: Jobs in the White House and they're willing to put
up with a lot of misery to be the center
of the action there.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: And then finally there was a story that came out
a few months ago that now I think you mentioned
that she took a couple of days off to prepare
for the CNN town hall where she did miserably.
Speaker 4: The story out three or four months ago that.
Speaker 2: Sometime in the last couple of years, she was invited
to one of Davis Bradley's famous salage. Now David Bradley,
for listeners don't know, he was a big He used
to own The Atlantic before Marene Palell jobs bought it.
And you know major publisher, U, major man around Georgetown
has a big house up on Embassy Row I think
in Massachusetts Avenue and he has these salons, were invited
to dinner.
Speaker 4: It's all high powered people.
Speaker 2: She was so nervous about going that she had her
staff do a rehearsal dinner for and they thought about, well,
maybe we should actually serve wine at these rehearsals, so
you know, what kind of what are people going to
be asking me? What do I need to talk about?
How do I what? So she was that nervous about
going to what ought to be a layup for anybody
in Washington, because everybody in Washington, I mean I lived
there fifteen years, James has been there, you know, the
Georgetown cocktail party to aspire to and it's easy. There
was no pressure on her whatsoever. But she was nervous
about it, which shows that she's not ready for prime time.
And we can go on all day about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just say I'm saying, can I just buy?
I want to? It's I'm just taking as a given,
which maybe maybe not, but I when you say somebody
is just dumb, then that is over right. It is dumb, right,
And like, okay that she's dumb. I don't think she's dumb.
I mean you know, she passed the bar. She't all
though it wasn't great law school, all us things. You know,
I just did a podcast with John Padrit's, and you know,
John Panriits is very very critical of her, like she's
an idiot. And I get it. I get that answer,
I get that answer. I just mean that to me,
it feels to me like she doesn't she she has
no courage, which you desperately need to join this campaign,
this this late. They're enormous. Her problem is really simple
as a political problem, it's not that hard. She needs
men and she needs moderates, that's it. And she needs
to paint the other guy as a lunatic. Well he's
gonna do that part himself, and all she needs is
that part. And she's just she seems to have a
hard time connecting to that. The boiler plate answers that
she could have given that, you could have memorized that,
aren't you know complicated? Are just show this kind of
terror and fear and unwillingness to sort of act like
she wants it. You know, it's a weird way. It's
almost like she thinks that, Okay, well I'm gonna be
It's like a gig. It's like, no, you have to
have a you have to want to take the country
in a direction. You know, when you if you answer
a question, hey, look this is a very complicated question,
then you have to give me a complicated answer. You
can't just you know. I find it. I find amazing.
Look at her now. It's how terrible this campaign has
become because it started so great. I mean, you got
to give him credit. Sure has a billion dollars. She
made all the right phone calls. She looked really good.
I mean I was saying a month ago, you know,
weirdly about her. She's actually good at this, and it's
all kind of you know what, It's all kind of evaporated,
the way it does when the consultant packs up and
leads and the company's left to actually make the things work.
Speaker 3: She was good at when everybody saw the picture, or
the big smiling picture, different kind of energy, so different
than the glowering orange amount and the rest of it.
A lot of that was just vibe and imagery. I
think part of the pride. I don't disagree with anything
either of you said, but I think part of her
problem or inability to compose herself well and impressively in
these interviews is that she's suffering, she's experienced in the
consequences of a lifetime of intellectuals. The disinterest is in
the world, lack of curiosity, isolation, isolation, but also lack
of curiosity. Just if somebody who's hungry about the world
will know enough about it to be able to be
asked for a few minutes when the question is asked,
he'll have a template about that issue in their head
because their mind has ranged by view of the places.
That's just kind of what you would like to expect
she doesn't have.
Speaker 2: I mean, right, but I mean Bill, if I could interrupt,
I mean Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Remember both had
taught constitutional law in law schools, Clinton Arkansas and Obama
in Chicago. And I know people in classes from Obama
at Chicago Law School, and.
Speaker 4: They said he knew what the conservative arguments were.
Speaker 2: Us to read Robert Borke in our classes with him,
so they knew what the other side thought. I don't
think Harris has ever for a moment picked up a
copy of National Review or any other or heard anything
certain argument ever, Right.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I find it very baffling. I mean, and
especially I mean, because it's like we're looking these two
desperately bad circus bears grappling, and you know, like last week,
suddenly Trump goes to McDonald's.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: Rob, you, as a show business person, you have to
thought that was a master stroke.
Speaker 1: It was brilliant. Oh, I totally. I think it was
absolutely But but I thought to myself, like it took them.
How long? It's October fifteen, whatever, he was October twentieth.
It's a couple of weeks for the election, and this
is the first time this guy has done this. The
laziness with which that campaign has, like, well, let's give
another rally, give another rally. No, no, no, you put
him and McDonald's. I would take him to Costco. I
would put him. I would have him do the checkout
at home depot. I would have this guy, this billionaire,
orange billionaire, at every real job in America once a week.
Don't do the stupid rallies where he blathers and lies
his way through fifty minutes of nonsense. He was great
at McDonald's, and people, the voters like to see that
the president knows what a McDonald's looks like inside. And
I mean, yeah, he was there fifteen minutes he made
some jokes that should have been I tell you, I
honestly believe from labor day on, he had the job
a week and not a stupid, embarrassing, insulting rally, he'd
be twenty points up.
Speaker 3: He would have to be a job a week because
people absolutely would forget the next thing. I mean, we've
moved on past the assassination attempts pearled, and he would
have to. You're right, Rob, do this every single day,
rotate through all of the various franchises, sparing nothing. He'd
love it too. I mean, just imagine the jokes, the
self deprecating jokes. Who could be done if you put
on the orange apron. You know, you just sit there
and talk about it. Matches. Before we go any farther, though,
I'm going to welcome Rob back by forbidding him the
opportunity to bust my segue. I'm simply going to go
right into a spot.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, listen, I want to say this, James. I,
as you know, I'm I'm on my way to taking
religious orders. So I'm trying to take take seriously the
only two commandments that we as Christians have to follow,
which is one is God, honor your God, basically gratitude,
and the second is to love your neighbor. And so
in the spirit of that, I'm I'm not going to
interrupt your sege to your spot.
Speaker 3: It is a philosophical disquisition I would love to have
if somebody is saying they are not interrupting your spot,
but yet they are interrupting your spot. Does intention count
or does the effect of their actions? We can talk
about that a little bit, but.
Speaker 4: It's a Christian paradox, James, is what I think.
Speaker 3: Certainly, there's no paradox when it comes to data security.
You need it, you want it, and it's a big
problem when.
Speaker 1: You interrupt somebody's spot. You know it, I mean, you
do it. You just go right to like you with intention,
that's the most important thing. That's actually the most important
thing theologically I think see is intention is like this
is what I have. You know this is there's no
half metage anyway, right, you were something, you're right.
Speaker 3: But if someone believes actually that their interruption is actually
improving that it's a bit that is a joid by all.
Then there's a little bit of the overweening ego in
there that says that you're not actually doing a good thing,
You're doing something to aggrandize yourself. Say, having said that,
I would like to remind people I had made a
point about data security and why it's important. I thought
this all the time. I was just over in Europe,
and every time I wave my phone at something or
tapped this, or accept the rest of it, I thought,
exactly where is my data going? I'm on another continent.
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Ricochet podcast. And I wonder, however, if it's in kung Yee,
I want to see, you know, the the Italian language
lessons that I took back in college would make me
want to in clung Yee, but probably not. And anybody
who speaks of telling me is probably just wet themselves
in my accent. All right back to the election that
we have now. Rob was saying that it'd be a
great thing if Trump continued to do this, but the
blowback would be so delicious. I mean the fact that
that one McDonald's trip generated so many pieces of hair
on fire about. You know, he wasn't wearing a hairnet.
Two of them. I saw about that. Somebody else went
back and pulled the records to see what.
Speaker 1: You know, It's not real hair. It's an antibacterial, micro
antimicrobial fiber.
Speaker 3: Well I would like to know that. But you know,
for being the most vetted candidate in modern history, somehow
we haven't gotten around to the microfiber nature of it's here.
But they don't see the latest thing, of course. And
I'm going to say something which I know it was
going to be shocking to you guys, but it appears
to me as if they're trying to make Donald Trump
sound like Hitler I know, I know, or a fascist.
Speaker 4: Now we all are old.
Speaker 3: Enough to note that every single president of a Republican
nature in our lifetime has been Hitler, and I was
the one. If you go back and search in Lexus nexus,
I am convinced that the first mention of this phrase
is mine a long time ago, which was in the future,
everyone will be Hitler for fifteen minutes. And I mean
Reagan was Hitler Bush Hitler the one word I and
Kamala Harris I believe gave a speech today what she
called them a fascist. And these people have very little
understanding what fascists I mean other than it's the things
I don't like, and they know they don't. They don't
like it, so I'll give it to you. Then is
ninth time to charm? So the old Hitler fascist thing.
Speaker 4: He would have thought that at some point, let's do this.
Speaker 2: Let's stipulate that Trump is as awful as they say
he is, or that Rob sometimes says he is.
Speaker 4: I think he's not. But all right.
Speaker 2: The point is, you would would have thought that somebody
in the democratic hierarchy would at some point have read
the old fable of the little Boy who Cried Wolf
and reflect that they shouldn't have made such damn fools
out of themselves. Going back seventy years now, by the way,
I have all receipts on this. The first instance I
can find was nineteen forty when Henry Wallace, in a
Democrats charged that Wendell Wilkie. He was an old one world, right,
Wendell Wilkie was Hitler's preferred candidate in the election that year.
And by the Hitler was a real thing going in nineteen.
Speaker 4: Forty, right. I can't remember this from the history books. Yeah,
and then you know Tom Dewey was Hitler.
Speaker 2: That's what Harry Truman said actually right about the same
week in the ninth forty eight election cycle, late October.
Speaker 4: And then Goldwater.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I mean I go on for pages
about all the ways that he was made out to
be Hitler, and any go on down the list.
Speaker 4: You know, Regulus Hitler. Right.
Speaker 2: The only Republican who has never called Hitler was Eisenhower.
If you think about it for two seconds, it's hard
to make it stick on the guy who actually routed
Hitler on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
Speaker 4: But so, I mean, I think they made damn fools
of themselves saying this.
Speaker 2: They can't seem to come up with anything original, and
it just shows their desperation.
Speaker 4: In my mind, they just said one other things. Well,
I'll stop there, let roam on the Hitler.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say the fashion thing to think
about fascism is like, I mean, okay, stipulate that fascism
is bad. We don't like it, but it doesn't seem
like it's not much of a you know, it's like racist,
you know, it's like okay, yeah, it's have any value.
And I don't think it's connecting to the voters the
way what you want to do. What she's just they're
failing at that one thing, which is we've seen it.
We've seen this movie already, the Trump movie. She's change,
She's going to bring back change. We need change. Turn
the page. He's exhausting and crazy and and incompetent in
many ways, and there's a little bit of a trap
there for him for them because, in my opinion, the
thing that disqualifies him the most, aside from post election nonsense,
is his handling of COVID, which was atrocious and wrong.
But they agreed with it. So that's the problem, right, really,
was that they agreed with everything he did. They were applauding,
like if you could shut down the country more, they
would like to do that. Like Trump, Davin knew some
plan for the United States economy was to destroy it.
Speaker 4: He wasn't fast enough about COVID.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. I mean, we need a little Ronda
Santis Brian Kemp to keep the trains run on time
in this country and so they but they're not connecting
to what they should be connecting to. And weirdly he
isn't either. But I think he's going to start. But
I just to me, it's just it's it's it's banana.
It's like it's like a faculty lounge argument, which they
still don't know is not America.
Speaker 2: Well, the approximate cause of this, the charge of this
week is that General Flynn said that Trump said.
Speaker 4: I wish I had generals Lelly Doenal Kelly Sorry, oh god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that Flynn was the one that yeah, yeah, very general.
Speaker 4: Maybe he is the kind of okay.
Speaker 2: The point is that apparently Trump can't name a single
World War two German general.
Speaker 4: Apparently he never heard of Irwin Rommel when somebody brought
him up. So I mean, really, you take this seriously?
Speaker 2: Uh and oh Trump said this four years ago now
and we're only hearing about it now two weeks before
an election.
Speaker 4: Gosh, that seems awfully convenient, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: Maybe he was saying that he just wanted to, you know,
the sort of generals will leave a bomb under the table. Yeah,
that's right, and take a phone call outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, part of the problem is that we already
had four years of Donald Trump and he did not
annex the sedateent Land.
Speaker 2: The Battle on b As one of their typical classic headlines,
it was Democrats tell us Trump wanted to be Hitler
in his first term but simply forgot right.
Speaker 3: Indeed, well, the whole idea of nothing outside the state, nothing,
that basic fascist concept is not something that sticks well
on the right, because the left is very very progressives,
are very proud to tell us how much everything should
be gathered into the loving and embrace of the states,
of the village, of the rest of it. We must
have collective effort for climate change, we must have collective
effort to reduce systemicisms, and all the rest of it.
I mean, they're all about using the instruments of the state,
maximum powered in order to force course change human behavior.
So I find it amusing when they make that charge,
still believing somehow in their heart of hearts that it's
nineteen sixty eight and that they're the party of just
nothing but free love and absolute, total free expression and
freedom for all the rest of it when they've morphed
into the very sort of authoritarian apparatus that they supposedly
aided in sixty eight. But moving beyond Trump and Kamala
something even more important British election interference in American politics.
This is a weird, strange story, and Steven, I think
you might be the one to describe it for people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Kier Starmer the new Prime Minister of Britain
with the one of the largest labor landslides ever. They've
got like four hundred and twenty five seats on the
six hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4: That you have in the House.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the opinion polls show that Starmer
is more unpopular than any new prime minister has been
in the last fifty sixty years.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's cratering already.
Speaker 2: And in the midst of this, he decides that he
and his party they want to come over en mass,
like one hundred members of the House of Commons want
to come over and campaign for Kamala Harris. Now there's
two things about this. Where are the screams of foreign
interference in our elections? And second, how stupid could Starmer
be I mean, with all the momentum right now behind
Trump and the likelihood that Trump is going to win,
why would you want to alienate for no good reason
of your own the next president of the United States,
who you're gonna have to deal with about Ukraine and
the European.
Speaker 4: Union and all kinds of other things.
Speaker 2: It's just to me, is this shows how incredibly inept
a Starmer is as a political leader.
Speaker 3: I was just over there, and you're right, he's not loved.
And there are a series of steps that were being
towered in the Telegraph. Yeah, I know the Telegraph, but
it's not exactly a raping right wing paper. The Telegraph
was noting that there's been a series of art movements
in number ten Downing Street paintings that have been removed. Yeah,
because they have the wrong message. Sir Walter Rawley, he's
out Elizabeth first, she's out of here.
Speaker 1: Slavery for both of them.
Speaker 3: Gladstone I think got the boot at some point. She
took down Margaret. He took down Margaret Thatcher's painting, right,
because there's it on the wall, and he says she
had nothing to do with her politics. He just didn't
like paintings in which someone was looking down on him,
And I thought, if you took thatcher's portrait and put
it on the floor, it would still be looking down
on you, mister Jover. The other thing that he recently
took out was William Shakespeare. Apparently that one had to
go and is going to be replaced by something that's
a little bit more diverse, Walkie Sparkly, et cetera. They
took all of the paintings of men out of eleven
Downing Street, a meeting room where they meet four people,
and it replaced them with women or pictures of women,
in order to show their commitment to empowering the rest
of it. So these are kind of tone deaf things.
There are statements that you make to placate a certain
number of your base, but they don't. They fall like
a cold coal on the floors of the rest of
the people in the country. You are wondering exactly why
this was necessary exactly to do, But that's what you
get from all the year zeroach type. We think it's
bad over here, there are There was a proposed legislation
that new rules to govern whether or not a pub
owner an obligation to interfere when the banter between some
mates in the back having a pint becomes injurious to
the sensibilities of various protected groups. It's in order to
keep the workers health and safety. Of course, that they
might themselves having their ears upbraided by an off color
joke would suffer harm and distress. So now there's talk
of the publitions have to be banter cops, that everybody
has to look around their shoulder and see if there's
somebody who's taking down what they said in the local boozer.
And you know, I talked to people who can labor
all their life and they just they grit their teeth
and they just sort of despair of this nonsense ever ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like I remember years this is sort
of somewhat similar. But years ago when New York City
had a smoking in Restaurants ordinance, and of course it
went it got you know, everybody knew it was going
to happen, and those restaurant owners hated it because it's like,
come on, let me just do anything. And you had
to go when you went in a restaurant, you're, oh,
I'm an old man, right, Remember when you go to
a restaurant, they go smoking or non r and oh,
it doesn't matter because the smoking section non smoking section.
And of course it was like masks no masks. It
was stupid because like there'd be a table that was
in the smoking section next to a table that was
a non smoking section one. But you had to designate
a certain number of tables, a certain amount of things
you had to have, like the smoking area had to
be like it was incredibly, incredibly onerous, and the city
Council Andre Sultaner, the great chef Andrea Sultner, who ran
one of the best restaurants ever called Lutesse. You know,
he cooked almost every meal there for thirty plus years.
When he retired. It was a front pace show of
the New York Times. When he retired and his uh,
somebody asked his wife, well, what are you gonna do
with all your free time now? And she said She'd
live in New York City for thirty three years because
you know, I've always wanted to see a Broadway play.
But of course she could ever see one because she
was always working anyway, So he went down to town
Hall and he was like arguing against this, He said,
what are you doing. I've run a restaurant in the
city for thirty years. I think I know best how
to keep my customers happy. I think I know how
to run a restaurant. Why are you telling me how
to run a restaurant? And they looked at him, they
acted like he was like from he was, well, what's
the worst thing you could be? Like he was some
kind of fascist, right, he was to bliedly Right, He's like,
if I don't if I don't serve my customers, they
will not come. That is the only regulation I need.
And he was right, And it's the same thing. But
these pub owners like, if I let things get out
of hand and I don't step in. Everybody who's ever
been behind the bar knows there's a time when you
step in, there's a time when you people away. That's
the job of a bartender, partly like you don't need
a commission to tell you how to do that, and
if you do, you're going to be out of business
soon anyway.
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we go, gentlemen, anything else that you would like to
discuss elon musk say anything this week that we should
be worried about. I'm never really worried about anything that
he says. I mean, he'll repost something on next Twitter
and then say either wild or two exclamation points, and
from that I'm supposed to infer that he too is
hit or his handbath.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I make a comment on Rob's point and
your question about having a commission to regulate what goes
on in pubs. Look, you know, I always show to
students the public opinion polls showing the complete collapse and
confidence in our institutions. And one of the reasons for
that is that our government is no longer competent of
doing its basic task like, oh, I don't know, policing
the streets, providing quality public education, of picking up the garbage. Right,
But they want to start policing what we think and
what we say because their competence apparently extends.
Speaker 4: Into that right and people.
Speaker 2: I think this is why people don't respect their institutions anymore,
as they aren't any good.
Speaker 4: And the media same thing.
Speaker 2: Right, people can see that the media is completely partisan
and superficial and so forth, and that explains I think
some of Trump's appeal, and he's crude about it, but
when he says we never win again, I think a
lot of people import into that exactly, that sentiment that gush, no,
nothing seems to work. That's supposed to work. And meanwhile
they're telling us we have to wear masks, pa is
what we say, We're gonna censor Twitter and so forth.
And so here's where let me try this, James. I'm
gonna see if I can reach concord with brother Rob's
and I don't know if we're gonna see the election.
Speaker 4: Brother Rob.
Speaker 2: But let's let's stipulate the that that Trump may not
deserve to win. For all of the criticisms that you
and many others make, but I believe the left richly
deserves to lose to Trump. Not just a Republican, they
deserve to lose to Trump.
Speaker 1: Great, that's a theological question that meant to be right. Well,
I don't you know, I don't think anybody deserves you know,
I believe in salvation by grace. I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4: Well, we may need that after Trump wins.
Speaker 1: But I think that we I think that we as
a country and as a culture, deserve President Trump or
President Harris. I don't think these are two of our
best choice. Is I don't thin they're two of our
best leaders. I think we're kind of in a decadent
phase where we think that all the questions are small
and little and they can be sort of either insulted
away on X or words slided away and some other way.
And I think that we, you know, we the country
kind of agrees, right. And what I what I what
I object to about from my liberal friends is this
idea that this is somehow new and oh those you
suddenly discovered this like and it just drives me up
the wall because it's like, this is not new. This
this the the stupefication of American and political conversation is
something that's I mean, I hate sounding like the kids
saying you started it, but you started it and congratulations
because you the left. And I think in many ways
that the institutional left, which simply operated on the assumption
that the grown ups will always be in charge, the
grown ups always hold me back. I could do whatever
I want. I'm a spoiled kid, and it's okay cause
Daddy's Yeah, they're gonna they're gonna pull me back from
the abyss. They're gonna they're gonna keep this from getting
too weird. So you know, we can say nasty, horrible,
ridiculous things about President George W. Bush or President HW
Bush for that matter, or Mitt Romney or anybody we want,
and we can go way over the top on that.
But you know that's okay because we're the kids and
we're allowed to do that, and the grown ups will
never do that. And now they've discovered now you've created
a whole new political movement. You've energized the political but
half the people like that half, but a huge part
portion of the energy and the Republican Party now are
people who are been Republican for about twenty five minutes.
And that you created this, and you you set the
table for it, and now guess what people are coming
to eat And they're not the people you expected. And
now you want to go You want to put the
toothpaste back in the tube and say, oh no, can
we just please go back to what it was like
when it was nice? And if you're if you were
a sentient conservative or even center right figure of a
certain age, you're like, well, you guys hated all the
Republicans you love so much. You hated and vilified and
called fascist, as James put it, So like, what do
you expect me to do.
Speaker 3: That was yesterday. It was yesterday, and yesterday is everybody deserves.
Speaker 1: Everybody deserves what they Everybody deserves what they're going to get,
and they deserve to get a good and hard.
Speaker 3: Well. I'm not so inclined to believe. So I like,
when I say that we deserve this, I don't think
we do. But the very fact that everybody has chosen
it willingly tells me that I'm probably wrong. But I'm
many things. What I don't know is, am I, uh well,
Robi you had a piece for commentary, but the Daily
Wire Matt Walsh is, am I racist? Tell us a
little bit about that on the way out.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, well, I mean, if you if you
want to. I mean, in choises is the crisis of comedy.
They're looking for comedy, know what makes people laugh? And
Matt Walsh and I guess producer of The Daily Wire,
Jeremy Boring, who's a really smart guy, and Ben Sapiro
they sort of produced this movie. And Matt goes around
and he has these I mean, it's like, I can't
even I don't want to describe it. If you haven't
seen it, treat yourself. It's it's the funniest movie you're
gonna the funniest and truest movie you're gonna see it.
And it confirms the things that we've all known, which
is that the sort of TEI nonsense, it's nonsense, and
that it's not really serious, and that those people are
kind of like off their rocker. All that stuff is
in this in this movie and it's and what I
love about it is that not only is it does
it do? I agree with it? And I am applauding
to it. I'm also laughing at it because it's like
genuinely funny, and it is a It is a financial
box office success, which is great. That is good news
for everybody.
Speaker 3: Really, what it says something about the bubble in which
a lot of these people live. If somebody was saying,
I want to do a movie on what is a
conservative and they wanted to talk to me, and they
called me up and I said sure, and I show
up and it's John Stewart in a grout show. Glass
is with the notes, And I would say, but you're
John Sewart. Mel wolves can go to all these people
and nobody ever says, I where have I seen you before? Oh?
It was that movie about what is a woman? That
was all over the place or it was that twitter
the rest of it, no intersection whatsoever. That's the point
non contiguous information streams. Steven, have you seen the movie?
And if so, uh, why not?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I know I have seen, but I haven't seen I
haven't seen that, right, I haven't seen the whole.
Speaker 2: Thing yet, and I've been no good reason I was
overseas whatnot. But at the point is is it used
to be Michael Moore who was the funny guy who
had ambushed and now our team is doing it just
as well. And yeah, I mean Walls won't be able
to get away with that many more times. But it's
what you just say is they didn't know who he
was and so they were utterly candid with him. Uh
and you know, oh and of course the left, like
the devil Rob hate to be mocked and laughed at.
Speaker 1: And yeah, well, I mean, you know, then don't be
so funny. There's a I started out as always commentary columns.
I try to like talk more about show business than
anything else. But reminding everybody this is great. There was
great long running TV hit called Candid Camera, Right, Alan
Funt did it for years if you're a certain age,
not even that old, like you remember Alan Funt and
his son Peter took over after Alan got too sick
or too old. And there's always been Hayden camera shows
on TV. There's Ashton Kutcher had punked and there was
like a bunch of them, a bunch of them. And
the tagline for Candid Camera was we catch people in
the act of being themselves. And it was this wonderful, warm,
funny thing like normal people being normal and it's just
it's funny, it was, and that is exactly what Matt
Walsh did. He caught people in the act of being
themselves and they will never forgive for it.
Speaker 3: I believe that candid Camera grew out of candid microphone,
which is on the radio, which is a whole different thing.
It's like ventriloquism on the radio that release on how
that works. But ended camera, unfortunately, I think, sort of
spawned prank culture, which is a lot more boorish and
a lot more yeah, I mean, invasive and mean and
the rest of it. But I too remember a candid
camera when I was a kid at Grappa's place watching
it on whatever night it was, and that's the sort
of little giggle that people got when they realized that
they were in this. And the very fact that an
entire culture, i mean, the show was very popular. The
idea that you might be on Can did Camera was
sort of this omnipresent question in minds so bad millions
and something weird happened for you for decades you thought
you look around for the camera because Alan Tunt with
a little bald paint might stick itself off from a
potted plant. And you give you a big smile and said,
you've just been on the national television back before the
days where everybody, of course wanted to be an influencer
and make full of themselves for absolutely no reason having
done so, that might just myself here, No, for a
very good reason. To promote Ricochet and to promote Lumen
and Incognitate, two great products, lumin for your metabolism and
Cogni for your digital safety, and we thank them for
sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. We thank Rob Long for coming back.
Of course, we thank Steven again a regular member of
the Flagship podcast family. And we thank you for going
to Apple last week and giving us those five star reviews. Really,
we thank you you, on the other hand, who hasn't
done it yet, go do it. And also, by the way,
if you haven't joined Ricochet, this is a great time
because we're having a lot of fun discussing the election
and there are meetups in person. Yeah, and we're gonna
have a lot of fun discussing the election afterwards too
in the member feed. But you've got to be a
member to be a member of the member feed, he said, tutologically,
that'll do. Guys. It's been a lot of fun and
I hope to see both of you next week. In
the meantime, we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet
four point.
Speaker 1: See you soon, PILs, Great to see you, Rob, Good
to see you guys too. Yeah, bless you my sons.
Speaker 4: Ricochet join the conversation.