Speaker 1: If he if you could only read it in your
Speaker 1: progressive liberal voice, Olsen.
Speaker 2: Is so smart.
Speaker 3: Everybody listen to Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen.
Speaker 4: My Ray, Why why think alone when you can drink
Speaker 4: it all in with.
Speaker 5: Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour. Join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
Speaker 5: John You, and the international woman of Mystery Lucretia.
Speaker 4: Where they slapped it up it David, ain't you easy
Speaker 4: on the should have.
Speaker 6: Got a giving Well?
Speaker 3: Welcome everybody to this edition of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a little bit different because we
Speaker 3: were not able to schedule live for our many followers
Speaker 3: on substack.
Speaker 2: We're going to have to record.
Speaker 3: This and post it up for you later on this week.
Speaker 3: So we are going to leave a side headlines for
Speaker 3: the moment and try to get into some deeper subjects
Speaker 3: that our listeners are often asking about.
Speaker 2: So first of all, I'd like to welcome.
Speaker 3: My co hosts Steve Hayward, Cheers and John You.
Speaker 2: Hey, John, do you have any liquor yet? Now?
Speaker 1: I'm still moving, so I just have this Taco Deli
Speaker 1: hibiscus tea.
Speaker 3: So John, when we come to visit you next week,
Speaker 3: we're gonna We're gonna take you on a field trip
Speaker 3: to that fancy liquor store.
Speaker 1: No, no, we want to go to the one that's
Speaker 1: the size of a Walmart.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean, the fancy Ohia, the large flicker store.
Speaker 2: That'll be fun. And of course yes you do. I
Speaker 2: don't know about this.
Speaker 3: You being there in that kind of lonely looking place
Speaker 3: with no out alcohol, having to deal with Texans all
Speaker 3: day long?
Speaker 2: How is that going?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would definitely need more alcohol in order to
Speaker 1: deal with Texans. They're riding so high right now. They
Speaker 1: have a sense of they have too much confidence and
Speaker 1: sense of superiority. But that's because their state seeds we
Speaker 1: covered so much better than everybody else's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is true.
Speaker 3: So and I'm Lucretia, the international woman of not so
Speaker 3: very much Mystery anymore. In fact, in fact, you could
Speaker 3: see that I don't even have the right name on
Speaker 3: my screen if those of you are watching the video
Speaker 3: rather than listening to the audio. But we've got a
Speaker 3: really exciting show for you. We're all very excited about
Speaker 3: the things we're going to discuss because they are reaching
Speaker 3: deep into our areas of expertise and the first one
Speaker 3: is so far out of out of my area of
Speaker 3: expertise that I'm going to play the dumb blonde and
Speaker 3: let Steve and John explain the entire thing to me,
Speaker 3: because they're going to do something about the constitutional the
Speaker 3: takings clause and property rights and zoning.
Speaker 2: Okay, take it away, guys.
Speaker 4: John, you want to go first or me? What do
Speaker 4: you want to do?
Speaker 1: I could just briefly describe it. This is the one
Speaker 1: hundredth anniversary of a case called Euclid versus Ambler Realty,
Speaker 1: which upheld the constitutionality of zoning. And I've always thought
Speaker 1: this decision was wrong. I've never looked at it that closely,
Speaker 1: except me and Steve were invited to participate in a
Speaker 1: conference that's going to take place this weekend about the
Speaker 1: hundredth anniversary. And so it's a puzzle because the author
Speaker 1: of the opinion at the Supreme Court upholding zoning was
Speaker 1: Justice Sutherland, who otherwise was quite a believer in natural rights.
Speaker 1: It's always seemed to me zoning violens natural right of property.
Speaker 1: That the government telling you that you can only use
Speaker 1: your property for some small set of uses is a ticking.
Speaker 1: It's unconstitutional. It's an invasion of your right as a
Speaker 1: property or do whatever the hell you want on your property. Steve, however,
Speaker 1: has a much more forgiving attitude towards the progressives and
Speaker 1: the strong hand of government to tell us what we
Speaker 1: can do with our natural rights.
Speaker 4: Steve, as usual, you're trying to promoke us with complete
Speaker 4: disinformation and misinformation.
Speaker 5: Well look, yeah, so what listeners should know is Euclid
Speaker 5: was a suburb of Cleveland, and Cleveland was growing, but.
Speaker 3: It was he was a gym, a mathematician.
Speaker 5: Who's well, see, that's that's part of the mystery about
Speaker 5: this is the Euclid case held it up and people think,
Speaker 5: you know, Euclidian zoning sounds like something to do with
Speaker 5: straight lines and corners and triangles, right, and and that's
Speaker 5: an odd coincidence of the name of this case, right,
Speaker 5: It's it's totally coincidental with the name of the place.
Speaker 5: If it had been you know, Tuscaloosa versus Ambler Realty,
Speaker 5: we wouldn't think of it the same way because sor Ry, Yeah,
Speaker 5: Lincoln was a Euclidean zoning sounds right to me, nothing
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 4: With it, right, It's a Euclid.
Speaker 5: Was this suburb, and and it was you know, it
Speaker 5: was on a sort of a make It.
Speaker 1: Would make a lot more sense if it was called
Speaker 1: City of Berkeley versus amble.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: Or there are actually a bunch of famous tickings clauses
Speaker 1: like the involved Berkeley Tibberer all these towns in California
Speaker 1: which are left wing hotbeds, which have no problem. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, it's Stevens support of oppressing all of us
Speaker 1: in our use of property.
Speaker 5: Although brief aside on all that I have, I still
Speaker 5: haven't found the right place to take the picture of
Speaker 5: those signs. John When you drive into Berkeley and there's
Speaker 5: a big sign to the city limit that says Berkeley
Speaker 5: is a nuclear freeze zone, and I always want to
Speaker 5: sort of crouch down and get a picture of.
Speaker 4: That sign with the Lawrence Livermore Lab on the top
Speaker 4: of the yell above the campus. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's one of the sizes right next to
Speaker 1: the nuclear Yeah, right next to nuclear weapons lab.
Speaker 4: Yeah right. And of course it's federal property, so it
Speaker 4: can't apply. There was.
Speaker 5: By the way, I think I may have mentioned this once,
Speaker 5: there's a loophole in that famous town ordnance from forty
Speaker 5: years ago said no development, uh, deployment, you know, basing whatever,
Speaker 5: of nuclear anything. And I always left out they left
Speaker 5: out testing. They didn't say we couldn't test nuclear weapons.
Speaker 5: And Berkeley and I thought when a neutron bomb came
Speaker 5: along that killed all the people and left the buildings,
Speaker 5: I thought, well, okay, there's a loophole here we can use.
Speaker 4: Okay, so so that the thing.
Speaker 2: The buildings aren't that great, Steve, I've seen them.
Speaker 4: No, wait a minute, that's that's not quite right.
Speaker 5: There are in the oldest part of the campus, not
Speaker 5: the part Juco the north, the north side.
Speaker 2: You have some now where John is that nowhere John is.
Speaker 1: That's far end of the campus.
Speaker 5: But on the north side of campus, which is a
Speaker 5: very long beauty have some wonderful Julia Morgan design buildings.
Speaker 4: Now it's kind of a hodgepodge.
Speaker 5: I mean, I have to the University of Colorado at
Speaker 5: Boulder did the Florence Italy thing, which is the buildings
Speaker 5: are a uniform designed.
Speaker 4: I think that's very pretty.
Speaker 5: It's three times the footprint of the Berkeley campus. Never mind,
Speaker 5: I'll leave that from underside. So but Euclid was on
Speaker 5: one of those arterial roads out of Cleveland.
Speaker 4: This was where you had national highways in interstates.
Speaker 5: Clear that development was going to head out that way,
Speaker 5: and as clear the main road was going to be commercial.
Speaker 5: And the city came in and said, we don't want commercial,
Speaker 5: we want it residential. We don't want commerce here, we
Speaker 5: don't want industry here. And Amberor Realty had a whole
Speaker 5: big plot of property they intended to develop for a
Speaker 5: commercial and maybe industrial purposes. And their estimate was that
Speaker 5: their the value of their land would go down by
Speaker 5: seventy five percent I think by this down zoning.
Speaker 4: And so that's why they sued.
Speaker 5: Now Sutherland and we're probably gonna hear from Hadley about
Speaker 5: this because he listens to us, but also love Yeah
Speaker 5: High Hadley High Garrett the he was wrote the majority opinion.
Speaker 4: Although there's an interesting backstory to this.
Speaker 5: That said, well, really, zoning represents the sort of codification
Speaker 5: of the common law principle of nuisance, you know, use
Speaker 5: your and he actually quoted the old Latin phrase use
Speaker 5: your property, so was not to injure that of another.
Speaker 5: You don't think that's that's his actual reasoning, John.
Speaker 4: No, I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's incorrect I think it's oh, yes, okay,
Speaker 5: I agree with you there. But the point is there
Speaker 5: are people, including some smart libertarians like the rate late
Speaker 5: Robert Nelson, who was a pal of mine, who said.
Speaker 4: Well, if done right, and there's.
Speaker 5: Where you put the asterisk and say the if part
Speaker 5: is crucial and where we fail, zoning done right would
Speaker 5: lead to nets social welfare benefit, as our pal Richard
Speaker 5: Epstein likes to say, who also hates this decision because
Speaker 5: you know, it would resolve land used conflicts and elevate
Speaker 5: everybody's property rights collectively, and it would get rid of
Speaker 5: clogging the courts with endless nuisance suits. That would just
Speaker 5: be a man. That's where the old common law method
Speaker 5: probably wouldn't work. Maybe there's some plausibility to that in
Speaker 5: the real world.
Speaker 4: That has not happened.
Speaker 5: And even Hadley I have to say that because I
Speaker 5: went back and looked and his defense of Sutherland in
Speaker 5: his book about the Great Book about Sutherland said probably
Speaker 5: more mischief has been conducted under zoning laws and more
Speaker 5: corruption ever since then than any other kind of regulation.
Speaker 4: So I think even he.
Speaker 5: Knows that there's defects with the way zoning has worked
Speaker 5: in practice.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me be the dumb blonde here knows
Speaker 3: nothing about this and ask you guys, then I actually
Speaker 3: do believe that allowing people to do whatever they want
Speaker 3: with their property can.
Speaker 2: Lead to nuisances.
Speaker 3: And I would argue that if you have ever been
Speaker 3: on the border, live on the border as I do,
Speaker 3: and you cross or you've probably done the same thing
Speaker 3: in San Diego into Tijuana, you cross the border, and
Speaker 3: the difference is night and day. Now, some of that,
Speaker 3: of course, is are things like we have mortgages, you know,
Speaker 3: whereas in Mexico they tend to build houses, excuse me,
Speaker 3: build houses and whatnot as they can afford to. So
Speaker 3: it's a hodgepodge number one. Now they don't have inspectors
Speaker 3: and things like that. But zoning laws will prevent you know,
Speaker 3: things like a porn shop next to an elementary school.
Speaker 2: So how would you do that without zoning?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, So this is the coast theorem takes care
Speaker 1: of all this. That's what I don't understand.
Speaker 2: I don't know this. This is a genuine question from
Speaker 2: don't John.
Speaker 1: Here, Go ahead, John, but you're no, no, go ahead, Steve.
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you have to say first.
Speaker 4: Well, so, I mean two things to be said about that.
Speaker 5: Really, what you're pointing at is not the lack of zoning,
Speaker 5: but the lack of prosperity. What you're really observing is poverty. Now,
Speaker 5: there is some chaos at the margins of America. You
Speaker 5: mentioned sort of things you see out in the desert
Speaker 5: in Arizona. But ponder two things. One, it sounds like
Speaker 5: a small but it's not. How did all the famous
Speaker 5: medieval towns.
Speaker 4: In Europe develop? And some of the downtowns on Old America?
Speaker 5: I think of, Oh, John, you'll appreciate Doylestown, Pennsylvania. You've
Speaker 5: been at Doylestown place, right, and that place was built
Speaker 5: without zoning?
Speaker 4: And why did it happen the way it did? Hold
Speaker 4: that question.
Speaker 5: But the point is is all the places that people
Speaker 5: want to go to visit as tourists or in America,
Speaker 5: just like a quaint downtown, were places that developed without
Speaker 5: any zoning in the nineteenth century. By the way, if
Speaker 5: you try to build Doylestown today, look it up listeners
Speaker 5: if you want, You could not build it under modern
Speaker 5: zoning codes.
Speaker 4: How dumb is that?
Speaker 5: And then the second point is much more significant, and
Speaker 5: it's one word, and that word is Houston. Houston is
Speaker 5: the last major city without a big zoning plan. And
Speaker 5: I used to talk John. I can't believe I never
Speaker 5: talked about this, John, I knew Bernie Segant I talked before.
Speaker 5: Well we haven't, but I've never mentioned that. I knew
Speaker 5: Bernie Segan pretty well thirty some years ago, right, I mean,
Speaker 5: he's long passed away, but he was the person who
Speaker 5: wrote the really detailed books about Houston. And his first
Speaker 5: question was, how come Houston doesn't look much different from
Speaker 5: the other major city.
Speaker 4: And I've been to Houston.
Speaker 5: A lot because I was fascinated with this more than
Speaker 5: thirty years ago. And I would drive around. You'd see
Speaker 5: some odd things. You'd see some things you wouldn't see
Speaker 5: next to each other in other cities. But they weren't like,
Speaker 5: you know, the pig rendering plant next.
Speaker 4: To a school. You never saw the absurd parade of horribles.
Speaker 5: The defenders of zoning put out what they do in
Speaker 5: Houston is they allow neighborhoods at any scale to have
Speaker 5: their own local neighborhood governance, which means, you know, covenants
Speaker 5: and things like that, restrictive covenants. But they don't have
Speaker 5: a zoning board, they don't have the grand comprehensive plans.
Speaker 4: And guess what I think of all the major cities.
Speaker 5: Houston is the most affordable housing prices for everybody. It
Speaker 5: is the easiest place to start a business in the
Speaker 5: country by all the measures of how long it takes
Speaker 5: to get permits.
Speaker 4: And all that.
Speaker 5: And it's where especially minorities love to go right, and
Speaker 5: Houston is thriving by the way. You know, progressives run Houston.
Speaker 5: They don't mess with this. They kind of figure out,
Speaker 5: we can mess with a lot of crazy stuff, don't
Speaker 5: mess with this. And anyway, I used to talk to
Speaker 5: Bernie not about the takings aspects, as he wrote a
Speaker 5: lot about that, but we talked a lot about Houston
Speaker 5: and saying, I don't why people don't look at Houston
Speaker 5: compared to Dallas and everyplace else that zone. That makes
Speaker 5: clear that the dead weight losses of zoning, and even
Speaker 5: a lot of progressives agree with this now are massive.
Speaker 1: End of random John, Yeah, so I thought about it.
Speaker 1: One is the coast theorem should take care of this problem.
Speaker 1: So the coast theorem is one of the most influential
Speaker 1: principles in law and The idea is that as long
Speaker 1: as you have strong, clear legal entitlements, people will negotiate
Speaker 1: around those entitlements for the most efficient result. And Coasts,
Speaker 1: who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, used between property
Speaker 1: owners as the example.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, if you have meant like the
Speaker 3: ocean coast.
Speaker 4: No nost.
Speaker 1: So the idea. So the idea is, you know, like
Speaker 1: if you're His basic point is, Okay, suppose you have
Speaker 1: the factory upriver and you pollute, right, you could have
Speaker 1: the right to pollute. Or suppose you're the downstream property
Speaker 1: owners and you have the right to stop the pollution.
Speaker 1: He said, it doesn't really matter who has that right,
Speaker 1: because whoever wants the thing more will pay the other
Speaker 1: side to let them do it. Right, So, if it's
Speaker 1: really worth more to have the pollution and it's better
Speaker 1: than that polluter will pay the other people to let
Speaker 1: them pollute. But if it's actually worth more to the
Speaker 1: downstream proper owners not to have pollution because of their
Speaker 1: property values, they'll pay the guy upstream not to pollute.
Speaker 1: And so his point, which you need to have as
Speaker 1: clear property rights, it does doesn't matter who gets to
Speaker 1: develop or not. They will transact around the property right,
Speaker 1: and the efficient result will occur either way.
Speaker 3: So the most efficient result about my example would be
Speaker 3: that the porn shop owner who wants to also open
Speaker 3: a brothel right next to the school, We'll just pay
Speaker 3: off the school and they can have a brothel and
Speaker 3: have better quality prostitutes I guess, and better quality school.
Speaker 1: Films, or the way the government could pay them not
Speaker 1: to build next to the school if they really thought
Speaker 1: it was worth it, and instead of moving.
Speaker 5: So, you know, John, this is this is a really
Speaker 5: wonderful moment that we should savor. It's because I actually think,
Speaker 5: let me start this again. I actually met Ronald Coase
Speaker 5: a few times. I mean, he was like ninety at
Speaker 5: the time, but he.
Speaker 1: Was just a wonderful short guy.
Speaker 5: He was really delightful, and he actually kind of admitted
Speaker 5: once that he wrote that famous article for listeners who
Speaker 5: don't know what, referring to his article is called the
Speaker 5: Problem with Social Costs When nineteen sixty I think, are sixty.
Speaker 1: One the journal from the thirties?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, it's not that far back. No, it's
Speaker 5: it's the late fifties. But the reason I know that
Speaker 5: is because Milton Friedman wrote about this. He went to
Speaker 5: a little seminar where Coast presented a draft of the article,
Speaker 5: and Milton Friedman said, I went in completely skeptical, and
Speaker 5: by the end I was utterly convinced he was right.
Speaker 5: The thing is the problem with social cost. I'm pretty
Speaker 5: sure it's nineteen sixty one or thereabouts in the journal
Speaker 5: I think of Law and Economics, when it was just nineteen.
Speaker 1: Sixty Okay, I was wrong as usual. But the post
Speaker 1: theorem he actually published in the thirties, and then I
Speaker 1: don't published it twice, But go ahead, I.
Speaker 5: Don't think that's right. However, here's two points about it.
Speaker 5: One is, I believe it is still true. It is
Speaker 5: still the most cited article in law reviews and economic literature.
Speaker 1: In his I think, ever the most psycho article.
Speaker 5: It's just humbling, and but the one reason for that
Speaker 5: is and here's the second point where the fun comes.
Speaker 4: I heard him once admit.
Speaker 5: That he wrote it in a deliberately he not quite deliberately,
Speaker 5: but sort of a perverse, obscure way to make people
Speaker 5: get headaches. I think it'd be fun, John if you
Speaker 5: and I made Lucretia read it, because our head would explode.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm happy in my ignorance. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I do want to ask you, guys.
Speaker 4: It is great. He was a wonderful, great artist.
Speaker 1: It's a great idea.
Speaker 4: There's other stuff.
Speaker 3: That's for me, okay, But I do have a question
Speaker 3: for you then, because you you alluded.
Speaker 2: To some of the other kinds of.
Speaker 3: Forces, influences and so on that would keep people from
Speaker 3: from creating nuisances with their property.
Speaker 2: Absent zoning laws.
Speaker 3: I want to bring in the only thing I know
Speaker 3: about zoning, which isn't really zoning, but as homeowners associations,
Speaker 3: which are those kind of more private agreements. Now, mind you,
Speaker 3: the piece of property that I wanted to buy because
Speaker 3: of its amazing location was already owned by or you know,
Speaker 3: some kind of association, so there was no choice but
Speaker 3: to agree to their idiotic anyway. And just so you know,
Speaker 3: the homeowners association called up mister Lucretia one day and said,
Speaker 3: you know, you're building a house and we haven't.
Speaker 2: Got your plans.
Speaker 3: And he said, oh that you know, I'm sure that's
Speaker 3: something that the builder's supposed to take care of the contractor.
Speaker 3: And she said, well, we don't have them. And if
Speaker 3: and the house was just about done. And if we
Speaker 3: don't have them and you turn them in and we
Speaker 3: don't like it, you'll have to tear your house down
Speaker 3: and start over. Like Yeah, but they did tell me that,
Speaker 3: I that my my dragon for Halloween was out three
Speaker 3: days too early and they were gonna find me for it.
Speaker 2: Okay. So I have.
Speaker 3: A huge banner in my garage that says defund the HOA.
Speaker 3: So I'm, as a conservative, sort of torn between this.
Speaker 3: I have seen the result of no zoning, right. However,
Speaker 3: I also don't like all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my property.
Speaker 3: I get to do what I want to, very basic
Speaker 3: natural right, right, guys?
Speaker 2: Am I right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, Well we conservatives like to argue about these things,
Speaker 3: don't we.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, most different because the HOA you gave it
Speaker 1: up in the contract, you signed it.
Speaker 6: I did it.
Speaker 3: I was forced into it though. Well yeah, okay, what
Speaker 3: about when they change it them?
Speaker 7: I hate them, but yeah, I know you're right, My
Speaker 7: Karen's right.
Speaker 5: I actually think those things could be successfully challenged legally.
Speaker 4: But that and.
Speaker 3: They have been to some extent, like when they have
Speaker 3: interfered with First Amendment rights to fly flags and things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: We can't put up political science.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: But now, John, so you went to the coast theorem
Speaker 5: as the remedy, and well, that's interesting, and I think
Speaker 5: that's basically right. And I can actually play out a
Speaker 5: coast a little better than you did a coast theorem
Speaker 5: resolution of Lucretia's brothel and porn shop.
Speaker 4: Next to a school. But really, there's the takings issue.
Speaker 2: Elementary school, elementary.
Speaker 4: Well okay, I mean.
Speaker 5: Well these days okay, yeah, no, I remember the old
Speaker 5: joke of Actually it was Jesse Helms forty years ago
Speaker 5: he said, you know, really, maybe we ought to encourage
Speaker 5: sex education in schools because no one will know how
Speaker 5: to do it. And here we are with a collapsing
Speaker 5: fertility rate.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm interested, no interest. How is it even possible?
Speaker 8: Ahead?
Speaker 2: Go ahead?
Speaker 5: But John, the bigger question is Ambler Realty said they're
Speaker 5: going to lose three quarters of their value of their land.
Speaker 4: Isn't that a taking justice?
Speaker 5: Sutherland too easily accepted the proposition of the defenders.
Speaker 4: Of EUCLID that that's merely I don't think that's true. Now,
Speaker 4: I think we have very.
Speaker 5: Well functioning landmarkets and can say pretty confidently that you'd
Speaker 5: lose a lot of value from a different zoning scheme
Speaker 5: and other regulations. I mean that was true in the
Speaker 5: Lucas case, for example of nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 4: Right anyway, And the point.
Speaker 5: Is if you struck, if you overturn euclid or modified it,
Speaker 5: it wasn't mean you could not have zoning at all.
Speaker 5: It only means you would have to pay for it,
Speaker 5: and you'd have to find out some scheme to transfer
Speaker 5: the gains from the winners to the losers.
Speaker 4: And that's part interesting.
Speaker 5: Well, No, it doesn't say the government can't restrict land
Speaker 5: uses through their police powers. It just says if someone
Speaker 5: loses value, you have to pay them for it. You
Speaker 5: have to compensate them.
Speaker 4: It's taking just compensation, like the Fifth Amendment says. And
Speaker 4: I am reading right now. I'm a little late for
Speaker 4: this because I'm supposed to present Friday. But Bernie Segen's
Speaker 4: last book was all.
Speaker 5: About about you know, all the ways, which so by
Speaker 5: the way, he first started writing about this was the
Speaker 5: late seventies, before you had Nolan and Lucas and a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of the other cases that have come since then.
Speaker 5: And he realized that all of those are chipping away
Speaker 5: at the basis of euclid and so here we are.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Does that mean we're going to not have zoning anymore.
Speaker 5: No, it just means well, oh look. Richard Epstein's point
Speaker 5: in his Takings book was if you had a more
Speaker 5: robust application of takings clause, it would discipline government at
Speaker 5: all levels about what they regulate and how they regulate.
Speaker 5: And by the way, the Lucas case, the one from
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety two, listeners don't know.
Speaker 4: This is a guy who bought a Beats front lot
Speaker 4: between two other.
Speaker 5: Houses zoned for residents, paid a lot for it eight
Speaker 5: hundred thousand bucks or something. The state coastal nanny said, oh,
Speaker 5: you know, we need to open space, so you can't
Speaker 5: build on that now.
Speaker 4: So he's suton the taking's clause. And they sat in.
Speaker 5: Court, well, you know, you can't build a house, but
Speaker 5: we have a deprived of all use. He could go
Speaker 5: camp on it on the weekends. The court said, nice, try,
Speaker 5: But now here's the point. What happened after South Carolina
Speaker 5: lost They sold the land to a developer to build
Speaker 5: a house. When the government was imposed with the cost
Speaker 5: of their regulation, they said, actually, yeah, no, You're right,
Speaker 5: it's not worth it if you if you have a
Speaker 5: rigorous understandings of taking the government will rationalize and calculate
Speaker 5: what regulation makes cost benefit sense and what doesn't. If
Speaker 5: it's free to the government, they're going to regulate out
Speaker 5: the wazoo.
Speaker 4: If it cost them, they won't.
Speaker 3: That's a really eternal, invernal optimistic view of government, Steve.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't.
Speaker 4: Well, I worked in South Carolina.
Speaker 5: I mean, they turned on a dime and they stopped
Speaker 5: confiscating lots from people on the beach who bought them
Speaker 5: for legitimate purposes.
Speaker 4: So it did work there, So.
Speaker 2: Now doesn't work in Berkeley with bike lanes.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, sorry, So you know, I gotta go
Speaker 3: where I actually know things about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's that's you know, This is.
Speaker 4: Uh, This is uh.
Speaker 5: This is rather typical of conservatives who could argue with
Speaker 5: each other, right, I mean, we argue with each other
Speaker 5: at time.
Speaker 3: We argue with each other all the time, and we
Speaker 3: hear all the time. We hear a lot, especially online,
Speaker 3: about conservatives attacking other conservatives. We don't really attack each other.
Speaker 3: We love each other, but we we we we will
Speaker 3: bring in some some fighting now and then. Sometimes it
Speaker 3: even seems, however, as we've discussed on this podcast many times,
Speaker 3: that conservatives are fighting each other more than they fight
Speaker 3: the left right And if that interests you at all,
Speaker 3: if you find that subject interesting, there is in fact
Speaker 3: a new podcast on Ricochet called Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen,
Speaker 3: who's a senior fellow at the Ethics and Policy Public
Speaker 3: Policy Center. His podcast doesn't shy away from these disputes.
Speaker 3: It leans into them by putting two conservatives who disagree.
Speaker 2: I'd love to do that, by the way.
Speaker 3: You disagree about an important issue together to hash it
Speaker 3: out on the air. Every other week, Conservative Crossroads does
Speaker 3: what most other programs don't do, which is explore conservatives
Speaker 3: disagreement without name calling.
Speaker 2: That would count comment, no comment.
Speaker 3: Conservatives Crossroads is the podcast for conservatives who want to
Speaker 3: understand what's happening to their movement. And I'm sure many
Speaker 3: of you are familiar with Henry Olsen. If you're not,
Speaker 3: I will tell you that I've had the pleasure of
Speaker 3: meeting him. Lovely man but also has a practically encyclopedic
Speaker 3: knowledge not just about domestic politics and polls and populism
Speaker 3: and electoral outcomes and how this county voted in nineteen
Speaker 3: forty two. You know, he could just off the top
Speaker 3: of his head. But he also knows so much about
Speaker 3: international affairs. I mean he wrote a piece on subject
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago about.
Speaker 2: What the Irish and the left and the Irish. You know,
Speaker 2: he just knows everything.
Speaker 3: And when there's ever any kind of election or crisis
Speaker 3: or something, they often go to Henry because he always
Speaker 3: know what's really going on. It doesn't matter what country
Speaker 3: it is, it seems like, and you know, he's a
Speaker 3: great commentator on conservatism. So if that interests you, I
Speaker 3: absolutely encourage you to turn on that podcast join him
Speaker 3: and his guest Henry and his guests at Conservative Crossroads
Speaker 3: every other Monday as a hash the ideas and principles
Speaker 3: that will secure and decide the future of the right.
Speaker 3: Download Conservative Crossroads from our partner Ricochet or on any
Speaker 3: platform where you get your podcasts. Conservatism is at a crossroads,
Speaker 3: which is why all conservatives need Conservative Crossroads.
Speaker 4: Today. All I can say is James Lodex better watch out.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, Actually I really mean it, because I read
Speaker 3: everything Henry writes.
Speaker 2: I don't always agree with him. But god, he's so
Speaker 2: damn smart.
Speaker 4: Oh, I can tell stories.
Speaker 1: Pay you a bonus, and you should pay you a bonus.
Speaker 1: But if you could only read it in your progressive
Speaker 1: liberal voice.
Speaker 2: Olsen is so smart and you're like that, here's all
Speaker 2: the podcast with us once.
Speaker 1: John I have listenership to his podcast.
Speaker 3: Everybody listen to Conservative Crossroads with Henry Olsen.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, but let's get back to our podcast now.
Speaker 3: Uh, you can listen to Conservative Crossroads all the time
Speaker 3: as long as you don't let it interfere with three
Speaker 3: whiskey Happy Hour. So there you have it, all right,
Speaker 3: our next issue, guys, we've had I've had a lot of.
Speaker 2: Questions come to me. I've watched a lot of debate.
Speaker 3: About this where people just really don't seem to quite
Speaker 3: get the whole situation. So we're gonna turn actually to
Speaker 3: John first and foremost, and then we'll pick apart what
Speaker 3: John did wrong. But a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: questions around the First Amendment. In all of these protests
Speaker 3: against ice in Minnesota, ice in other places, they're protesting
Speaker 3: here in my state of Arizona, and you hear this
Speaker 3: comment about even from idiot Republicans, which I know that
Speaker 3: that's sort of redundant most of the time, but that,
Speaker 3: of course there is a right to protest in the constitution, John,
Speaker 3: is there a right to protest in the constitution?
Speaker 1: Not a right to protest? But Congress is not allowed
Speaker 1: to pass laws of bridging the right of freedom of
Speaker 1: speech and assembly. And there's yeah, and assembly, So there's
Speaker 1: a right to I think, to make known your opposition
Speaker 1: to government policy. You don't have a right to obstruct
Speaker 1: federal law enforcement if they're carrying out value federal law.
Speaker 1: So I don't think there's a right. I think there's
Speaker 1: a right to protest. And since you have a right
Speaker 1: to go on public streets and say that as long
Speaker 1: as you're obeying the law and say you disagree with
Speaker 1: the government, that if that's protest, I think you do
Speaker 1: have a right to protest. It's subject to reasonable time, place,
Speaker 1: and man restrictions. So you can't don't have a right
Speaker 1: to protest in a residential neighborhood at one clock in
Speaker 1: the morning with bullhorns. But I do think the government
Speaker 1: can't say we're not allowing anybody to have a public
Speaker 1: demonstration protesting our policies.
Speaker 3: Okay, there's a lot of nuances there though, John, I
Speaker 3: mean honestly a lot of them. You don't have a
Speaker 3: right to speak where you don't have a right to
Speaker 3: be do you have a right for instance? And I'm
Speaker 3: not trying to bring up headlines, but one of the
Speaker 3: things that the protesters in Minneapolis have been doing now
Speaker 3: for some time is taking their rape whistles of God,
Speaker 3: can you imagine anything worse than some blue hair, Not
Speaker 3: that you could see it, because she presumably she'd have
Speaker 3: on a huge coat of the squishy coats and some
Speaker 3: sort of hat over her ugly blue hair, but with
Speaker 3: a stupid rape whistle, screaming and carrying on with this
Speaker 3: rape whistle outside of a hotel they think ice agents
Speaker 3: might be and generally making their lives miserable, not necessarily
Speaker 3: being violent, okay, not being violent. Or the example of
Speaker 3: the church, let's maybe turn there for just a moment.
Speaker 3: What was it called the City's Church? That was the
Speaker 3: name of it. A sort of non denominational, quasi Baptist church.
Speaker 3: In the middle of a service, Don Lemon and crew
Speaker 3: go in and start screaming at these people. They block
Speaker 3: the parents from picking up their children from Sunday School whatever.
Speaker 2: Do they have a right? I mean, that's why I
Speaker 2: said what I said at the beginning.
Speaker 3: Don Lemon says, this is doing journalism and you have
Speaker 3: a right to protest, and you know, on and on
Speaker 3: like the idiot that he is. But do you have
Speaker 3: a right to protest inside of a church?
Speaker 2: John?
Speaker 1: No, I think you're quite right. You don't have a
Speaker 1: right to enterprivate property.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's actually related to what we're just talking
Speaker 1: about with euclid right. The right to own property means
Speaker 1: you have the right to exclude people, and in fact
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court has actually made clear that if
Speaker 1: you are a private property owner, you don't you are not.
Speaker 1: The government cannot force you to turn your property into
Speaker 1: a public form. And in fact, the right to keep
Speaker 1: people out of your property to prevent them from speaking
Speaker 1: is your own speech as a private property owner, because
Speaker 1: you may disagree with their message. So no, I don't
Speaker 1: think you have a right to protest in private property,
Speaker 1: just like you don't have a right to protest that
Speaker 1: time places and manage it inappropriate. Now, you know, you
Speaker 1: think about Martin Luther King, you know his point was
Speaker 1: I'm going to break the law because it's an unjust
Speaker 1: law and I'm going to be arrested for it. Right
Speaker 1: the person Martlink, he's not claiming First Amendment right, he
Speaker 1: wants to be arrested. The consequence of breaking the law
Speaker 1: is how he shows the injustice of the law. It right.
Speaker 1: So that's the opposite of these people saying I have
Speaker 1: the right to you know, bust into a church and
Speaker 1: not be arrested for it, or I have the right
Speaker 1: to enter a hotel and prevent ice agents from getting
Speaker 1: their rest at night. That's exactly the opposite of Martin
Speaker 1: their king's approach.
Speaker 3: Yes, can I bring up a really funny thing I
Speaker 3: saw and I the other day the Minnesota National Guard
Speaker 3: were ordered to provide the protesters with donuts and coffee,
Speaker 3: and but I follow act. I follow a bunch of
Speaker 3: really great veterans with a lot of great experience and
Speaker 3: you know, subsequent careers in law and so on. And
Speaker 3: one of them came out and said, you know, sort
Speaker 3: of hm related to the Mark Kelly incident. If I
Speaker 3: was ordered to give those lousy communists hot coffee and donuts,
Speaker 3: I would disobey that law and gladly go to Fort
Speaker 3: Leavenworth as a consequence when I was court martiall.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of what you're saying here, John.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, in a funny sort of way, if
Speaker 3: you're going to protest and break the law that's not
Speaker 3: protected by necessarily protected by a First Amendment, either the
Speaker 3: freedom of speech or the freedom.
Speaker 2: Peaceably to assemble.
Speaker 3: That was the distinction I wanted to make, actually, which
Speaker 3: is there is a difference between protests with rape whistles
Speaker 3: and getting in the way and getting in the face
Speaker 3: of and peaceably assembling.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, what they're doing is obstruction of federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement. It's a criminal.
Speaker 2: Would you agree, Steve Well?
Speaker 5: I completely agree, Except my head is spinning because on
Speaker 5: a now, of course, you're the host today, Lucretia, and
Speaker 5: you're trying to be reasonable and sober and serious, and
Speaker 5: that doesn't fit your nature. And no, I'm sitting here thinking,
Speaker 5: of course, there's a I think.
Speaker 4: The line is pretty bright.
Speaker 5: I don't think it's hard to draw a right line
Speaker 5: of what's protest and what is unacceptable illegal behavior. But
Speaker 5: what we know about what's going on in Minnesota, and
Speaker 5: question one, not the rhetorical question, why is it only
Speaker 5: happening in Minnesota. Well, because there's been an organized effort
Speaker 5: to make it happen there. More and more details are
Speaker 5: coming out that this is financed organized. Oh, our pal
Speaker 5: Richard Samuelson was watching this on TV. He said, wait
Speaker 5: a minute, recognize that guy. He's been protesting in front
Speaker 5: of the Heritage Foundation. You have professional protesters. Okay, one
Speaker 5: thing if you want to, Yeah, that's it. But there
Speaker 5: you know, the the the you know, docsing the agents
Speaker 5: and getting their license plates and where they're staying.
Speaker 4: In hotels and and and.
Speaker 5: Uh so you know this is ah okay, somebody said,
Speaker 5: and I embrace it, holy which is this is normally
Speaker 5: your department in the Creatia.
Speaker 4: This is the parrot military wing of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 5: And I don't want to get off into the guy
Speaker 5: was shot last week, because that's still a big jumble
Speaker 5: of a.
Speaker 2: Mess and we don't know all the facts yet exactly right.
Speaker 4: I don't want to get into all that.
Speaker 5: But the point is is that this is not simply
Speaker 5: let's go, oh my little county here in Santa Sobisco's
Speaker 5: let's move out of Minnesota for a minute. So I'm
Speaker 5: driving down to Pepperdine on Sunday and I drive by
Speaker 5: the county jail, which is actually not downtown, it's actually
Speaker 5: out of town in little ways. But there's three hundred
Speaker 5: people with their signs, and why are they there, Well,
Speaker 5: they want to have their signs. Who will see it?
Speaker 5: Will people driving by? Not that many people on a
Speaker 5: Sunday morning. Now today the sheriff, by the way, this
Speaker 5: is kind of a not quite a right wing county,
Speaker 5: but you have a conservative DA and a conservative sheriff.
Speaker 5: But under California state law, they have to appear once
Speaker 5: a year before they're county Board of supervisors to say,
Speaker 5: how are we complying with some stupid state law the
Speaker 5: Democrats have passed in Sacramento. And I think as we're
Speaker 5: recording here at seven forty five pm Pacific time tonight,
Speaker 5: the hearing is still going on before the County Board
Speaker 5: of Supervisors. There's no actual business. It's just, you know,
Speaker 5: let's make the sheriff sweat. Because the sheriff here is
Speaker 5: very good. He's a very solid guy, unlike the rest
Speaker 5: of California. And there was a huge protest in front
Speaker 5: of downtown the county courthouse I saw in the evening news.
Speaker 5: So now I bet it's not hard to turn out
Speaker 5: people in a college town like Sandel's obispo. But this
Speaker 5: is happening a lot of places, and it's organized. I'll
Speaker 5: just slightly change subjects for a second, not quite entirely.
Speaker 5: But you may have caught the news today that it
Speaker 5: was the daughter of one of the high ranking mallahs
Speaker 5: in Iran turned out to have a teaching job at
Speaker 5: Emory University. Well, our pals in the conservative media world
Speaker 5: publicized this starting.
Speaker 4: Ten days ago or so.
Speaker 5: So I'm happy to report to listeners that person was
Speaker 5: fired for Emory today. But I learned it there were
Speaker 5: protests in front of Emory University or on the campus.
Speaker 4: By you know, some group of conservatives. I don't know
Speaker 4: who organized it. I'd like to see more of that.
Speaker 5: I'd like to see counter protests in front of these
Speaker 5: ice people. I'd like to see protesters showing up at
Speaker 5: Columbia or wherever that has some crazy lunatic professor who's
Speaker 5: related to Irani and Mala's And so this is all
Speaker 5: very good.
Speaker 3: I except that, you know what, that's just not what
Speaker 3: conservatives do a they have jobs, you know, you know exactly,
Speaker 3: So the problem with that, it's always going to be
Speaker 3: that way, and then when you do have situations like
Speaker 3: you know, during the Black Lives Matters protests and Kyle
Speaker 3: Rittenhouse that that ends up blowing up at them, and
Speaker 3: then people are very wary of that.
Speaker 2: People are wary. Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 5: Well I agree with all that, except let's roll the
Speaker 5: tape back fifteen years and we had the tea party protests.
Speaker 2: Now very peaceful.
Speaker 4: Oh no, oh no, the behavior again.
Speaker 5: You know, they would clean up after themselves, whereas the
Speaker 5: lefts always lose their trash everywhere. But not just that,
Speaker 5: but the fact but they that did happen, It got
Speaker 5: organized quickly, and that of fell apart.
Speaker 4: And it's a long.
Speaker 5: Story, but the point is it's not you know, we
Speaker 5: actually have some examples of where our team can turn out.
Speaker 5: How do I'm actually deep in discussions with people about
Speaker 5: can that be replicated, can be revived, what can make
Speaker 5: it work?
Speaker 4: And I just picked that little.
Speaker 5: Data point of some people showing up with protest signs
Speaker 5: at Emory about an awful Iranian despot unemployed on there
Speaker 5: and then they.
Speaker 4: Fired the person. I mean Emory. It is Georgia, true, but.
Speaker 2: Still I think that that it's Emory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there may be some opportunities here.
Speaker 3: I do want to ask John, so, I think this
Speaker 3: has been interesting and it is against a little bit
Speaker 3: of a bigger question, not just as it applies to
Speaker 3: the Don Lemon fiasco. So, the Biden administration for many
Speaker 3: years used the Face Act to prosecute people who were
Speaker 3: praying inside of, or write next to, or on the
Speaker 3: sidewalks of abortion clinics. They weren't violent, they weren't intimidating,
Speaker 3: but they were there praying.
Speaker 2: And you know, the.
Speaker 3: Famous examples of it are where the not only did
Speaker 3: the Biden administration and Diet prosecute these people, but you
Speaker 3: know they did the full swat thing at five o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning, you know, hauling the dad out in
Speaker 3: front of his eleven kids and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And then they attached to that the KKK Act charges
Speaker 3: the enforcement It is the Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy
Speaker 3: one is its real name, right, and which is depriving
Speaker 3: a person of their civil rights. We discussed that in
Speaker 3: a previous podcast. Now, of course, Harmeiat Dylan is wanting
Speaker 3: to use the Face Act against the like the protests
Speaker 3: that happened that Don Lemon was a part of just
Speaker 3: out of curiosity. Do you see in a general sense,
Speaker 3: not either side of it, but in a general sense,
Speaker 3: that either the Face Act or the KKK Act is
Speaker 3: in fact a violation of those rights that you just
Speaker 3: articulated that protected by the First Amendment right freedom of
Speaker 3: speech and right to peaceably assemble.
Speaker 4: In other words, what is a new lemon test?
Speaker 9: Oh, you could see Steve was like waiting for the
Speaker 9: last ten minutes to say this, but you I know,
Speaker 9: he's finally I exploded out of the breasshak.
Speaker 1: Cake that one. Uh. You know, I don't think the
Speaker 1: application and the faith of the Face Act by the
Speaker 1: Bide admonistration the way you described is constitutional as long
Speaker 1: as they were you know that people who were praying
Speaker 1: or protesting were doing it on public property right there.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to exercise your First Amendment rights on the sidewalk, sidewalk.
Speaker 4: On the street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you enter the property of the abortion clinics.
Speaker 1: And I don't think any of these protests did. And
Speaker 1: if they did, they you know, the part of why
Speaker 1: they want to protest is to get arrested, to show
Speaker 1: the unjustness of the law. The other thing about the
Speaker 1: Biden administration, what they're doing is they were I think
Speaker 1: obviously doing it to punish only protests of a certain viewpoint, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't think they were using it to
Speaker 1: prosecute pro life protest I'm sorry, pro choice protesters. And
Speaker 1: so if that's the case, then they would have had
Speaker 1: a good argument that they were the government was still
Speaker 1: violating the free speech clause. This is very interesting. This
Speaker 1: is a very fine opinion by Justice Scalia about can
Speaker 1: the government, even in an area where the government can
Speaker 1: regulate speech heavily, chew can choose amongst the viewpoints of
Speaker 1: whose speech is restricted. So this is a case called
Speaker 1: riv versus Saint Paul. All these problems have to do
Speaker 1: with Minneapolis and Sat Paul.
Speaker 2: You know, there used to be nice people there too, Justice.
Speaker 1: Scleia said, is suppose there's an area of an area
Speaker 1: where the government is allowed to take action to restrict speech.
Speaker 1: For example, suppose you know, we allow, for example, the
Speaker 1: government sometimes to restrict conduct that is speech related, but
Speaker 1: the conduct is so important they allow the speech to
Speaker 1: be the conduct to be restricted. But suppose they only
Speaker 1: did it for for example, Republican people. Only Republicans were
Speaker 1: prosecuted in this area, but not Democrats, and Scalia said,
Speaker 1: even in areas where the government is allowed to regulate,
Speaker 1: is allowed to control, it can't use its power to
Speaker 1: favor one viewpoint over another. And that sounds like what
Speaker 1: the Biden administration was doing. Well, remember so it's still unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: Remember what when Merrick Garland was hauled before Congress to
Speaker 3: try to explain why they targeted, you know, Catholic churches,
Speaker 3: why they targeted parents at PTA meetings and that sort
Speaker 3: of thing, and why and the figure I threw out
Speaker 3: there at the time was accurate.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it still is.
Speaker 3: Ninety seven percent of the prosecutions under the Face Act
Speaker 3: were against pro life protesters. If you recall Merrick Garland's
Speaker 3: answer to the latter question was, well, you know protesters,
Speaker 3: pro life protesters do their protesting in the daytime where
Speaker 3: they can be seen. And people who bomb because there
Speaker 3: was one hundred such incidents during the Biden administration that
Speaker 3: went absolutely unprosecuted.
Speaker 2: Is that the right word?
Speaker 3: Anyway, They didn't prosecute bombings of pregnancy crisis centers, they
Speaker 3: didn't prosecute bombings of churches that had active pro life
Speaker 3: initiatives that sort of thing, and His answer was that
Speaker 3: the first happens in the daytime pro life protesters protesting
Speaker 3: the day and so we can see them on cameras, etc.
Speaker 3: And these other things happen at night under cover of darkness,
Speaker 3: and they're a lot harder to prove, and that's why
Speaker 3: the FBI hasn't prosecuted them.
Speaker 1: I got to confess. You may remember, I'm sure the
Speaker 1: preacher is going to remind me of this, so I'm
Speaker 1: going to beat her to the punch. Is I was
Speaker 1: a defender of Meryrick Garland as a moderate, and you did,
Speaker 1: over the four year period of his term in office
Speaker 1: persuade and persuade me that he was a terrible attorney general.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that he did that, I didn't do it, John,
Speaker 3: I mean, we all had a kind of much more
Speaker 3: optimistic view of him going on into being Attorney General.
Speaker 2: We really did.
Speaker 3: We expected, based upon his decision making and so forth
Speaker 3: as ap pellet judge, that he would be Yeah, that
Speaker 3: he would be a much not just moderate, but rational.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the dumbest.
Speaker 3: Thing I've ever heard in the idea that somebody could
Speaker 3: say that and not expect to be laughed off. You know,
Speaker 3: the stage is just crazy to me. So I don't
Speaker 3: blame you for that. You just you have loyalties that
Speaker 3: that I don't have. That caused you to have to
Speaker 3: stay with it a little bit longer. But you did,
Speaker 3: You did come around, Steve.
Speaker 2: You, on the other hand, I don't know. Oh, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2: I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Speaker 3: Okay, before we completely thank you for that job. That
Speaker 3: was what I was hoping to hear, just that kind
Speaker 3: of analysis. And I've gotten people asking me about it.
Speaker 4: Just wants us to submit and then we're good. That's
Speaker 4: really what this is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I didn't.
Speaker 3: So this is here's your chance, Steve. I hope that
Speaker 3: John can think of things to make fun of you here.
Speaker 2: So twenty years ago, oh, al Gore.
Speaker 3: Al Gore did a documentary, right, I guess it's a
Speaker 3: documentary called An Inconvenient Truth, and then he followed it
Speaker 3: on some years later with an Inconvenient Truth something something.
Speaker 3: But in the first one, twenty years ago, he made
Speaker 3: a bunch of predictions that he said, we're going to
Speaker 3: happen as a result of global warming. We now call it,
Speaker 3: of course, climate change, because global warming doesn't explain enough
Speaker 3: of the things that they find wrong with what human
Speaker 3: beings are doing to the planet. An inconvenient sequel truth
Speaker 3: to power.
Speaker 2: That was the name of it. Sorry, I just remembered. Yeah. Whatever.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So I have a list, and I'm not going
Speaker 3: to go through all of them. But twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: twenty years ago, al Gore made these predictions that we
Speaker 3: would that the entire Arctic Sea would be ice free
Speaker 3: in the summers.
Speaker 2: Has that happened, Steve?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I think by twenty fifteen or something, or
Speaker 5: twenty twenty, I mean some years behind us now.
Speaker 4: And of course no, everything he said was wrong.
Speaker 3: No more snow and kill him in Jarrows. So all
Speaker 3: these people went and climbed to kill him in jars
Speaker 3: so they could see the snow before it was gone.
Speaker 3: Is the snow gone?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No? By the glaciers in Glacier. I went to Glacier
Speaker 3: National Park, Yeah no, and had to listen, you know,
Speaker 3: the docent on the boat had to tell me that, yeah,
Speaker 3: these glaciers are receding because of climate change.
Speaker 2: And all I'm gonna tell you is, damn, let.
Speaker 5: Me do it this way instead of going through those things,
Speaker 5: because I think most of our listeners.
Speaker 2: Going to I just want a couple of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 5: But so, by the way, you know what ten days
Speaker 5: from now or to whatever, it's two weeks from now,
Speaker 5: we're going to be together in Austin. And I won't
Speaker 5: say the name now, I'll tell you guys later, but
Speaker 5: we have one of the chief climatistas is on one
Speaker 5: of the panels, not one of the ones that we organized.
Speaker 4: John.
Speaker 5: I was sort of taken by surprise that they'd added
Speaker 5: this third panel, and I, oh that guy. Oh, I
Speaker 5: have paper on that guy, as they used to say
Speaker 5: in sort of mafia language.
Speaker 4: Right, I'll tell you later about all that. So there's
Speaker 4: two three funny things about all that.
Speaker 5: One is I actually got to meet Al Gore once
Speaker 5: in person before his movie was for the movie I know,
Speaker 5: Lucky meet. By the way, actually, I think listeners will
Speaker 5: enjoy this in person in a small group of people.
Speaker 5: He's remarkably lifelike. I mean, that's the old joke, right,
Speaker 5: how stiff he was?
Speaker 4: No, he was funny.
Speaker 5: He was self effacing. Although except there are two things
Speaker 5: that were curious. One was, this is two thousand.
Speaker 1: He kissed Steve. He sounds like he did a number
Speaker 1: on Steve.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I got him pretty good.
Speaker 6: Here.
Speaker 5: The one thing that I didn't ask this, but somebody
Speaker 5: this is like two thousand and six. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 5: maybe order two thousand and seven. Before two thousand and six,
Speaker 5: he somebody mentioned Hillary Clinton and he suddenly stiffened up.
Speaker 5: I try to suppress it, but that was going to
Speaker 5: be his rival, right he hated. Okay, that was funny.
Speaker 5: And the other one was I asked a question and
Speaker 5: I said, so, you know, Vice President Gore, you have
Speaker 5: said it's a terrible error to think that human beings
Speaker 5: can't damage the planet. Rush Limball used to say that,
Speaker 5: by the way, nor it's too big, we can't possibly
Speaker 5: damage it, and I thought, and I actually try to
Speaker 5: persuade Rush once one time. I talked to him that, yeah,
Speaker 5: the environmental wackos are wackos, but you know, you just
Speaker 5: take seriously what humans can do. And he's like, that's
Speaker 5: too hard to do and talk anyway. I take your
Speaker 5: point about that we can damage the planet if we're
Speaker 5: heedless about it. On the other hand, I think you
Speaker 5: and your friends think that there's no risk to human liberty.
Speaker 4: From your endless interventions. Through regulation. What say.
Speaker 5: By the way, you know his book Earth and the Balance,
Speaker 5: it mentions liberty once to say we have too much
Speaker 5: of it, I wrote along five thousand.
Speaker 2: To be honest, right, if it's an X, I'm a moment.
Speaker 4: I know you're going go ahead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And you know it's not my point, but
Speaker 3: I have to play devil's advocate. If climate change, climate change,
Speaker 3: the climate.
Speaker 2: Changes, folks, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Anyway, if climate change is truly an existential threat to
Speaker 3: all life on this planet as we know it, then
Speaker 3: of course liberty doesn't matter because in the list of
Speaker 3: natural rights, life comes before liberty.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, his answer was his answer. He was totally befuddled
Speaker 5: by the question. His answer was, this is a group
Speaker 5: of conservatives, he a weay to meet with. I should
Speaker 5: give that little little extra detail about this and uh
Speaker 5: and he said, well, I would think you conservatives will
Speaker 5: be much more concerned about threats to liberty from the
Speaker 5: Patriot Act.
Speaker 4: That was his answer back, Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean this is two thousand and six unbelievable, right,
Speaker 5: this is just and right over his head.
Speaker 4: Right, So anyway, there's that. And the other thing to
Speaker 4: say is what I had a second point about all that.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh you this is fun.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is a little bit of a fun
Speaker 5: war story and boasting. But as you know, Lucretian, this
Speaker 5: is how you, I think, caught sight of me on
Speaker 5: the radar after years.
Speaker 2: I was gonna mention.
Speaker 4: Okay, so I did my own little conzo film call.
Speaker 2: An Inconvenient Lie.
Speaker 5: No, it was inconvenient truth or convenient fiction. And so
Speaker 5: I don't know if you ever seen it, John, you
Speaker 5: can find it on YouTube, I think, and we filmed
Speaker 5: it that the hair.
Speaker 1: You made a movie you made.
Speaker 3: And I saw it when I hadn't seen Steve in
Speaker 3: twenty years.
Speaker 1: Right wait, wait, so you made a movie and you
Speaker 1: were in it, and you guys had not talked for
Speaker 1: twenty years, and this is how you were brought back together.
Speaker 4: Kind of yep, oh, this is this is box off.
Speaker 1: I mean, Steve being in a movie is like guaranteed
Speaker 1: to be rating's death.
Speaker 2: It's before you go on.
Speaker 3: I know that the thing that's so popular on TikTok,
Speaker 3: which is the you know, the the chick who's in
Speaker 3: her car and she's she's got some kind of stand
Speaker 3: for her phone and she's videoing herself having a meltdown. Now,
Speaker 3: Steve wasn't having a meltdown, but a good portion. As
Speaker 3: I recall it, Steve, is you driving in the back
Speaker 3: of the car or the camera on you?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know it's like the TikTok video.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the worst movie ever video of a
Speaker 1: car talking about.
Speaker 2: No, I just remember that laughing about it.
Speaker 6: Sorry, No, I.
Speaker 5: Actually hired a producer to this, you know, a tiny
Speaker 5: fraction of what Gore spent on his movie, of course,
Speaker 5: but our friends with pr I put it together.
Speaker 4: But what happened was is, uh so I did this thing.
Speaker 5: And if you ever saw Al Gore's movie, and you know,
Speaker 5: if you didn't, don't bother. But there's one scene where
Speaker 5: he gets on this big fork lift and goes up
Speaker 5: on this giant like iMac screen to show you this
Speaker 5: line of where Co two goes and temperature and it's
Speaker 5: all wrong. And what I did is I had somebody
Speaker 5: pull out a ladder and I said, I'm going to
Speaker 5: climb a ladder.
Speaker 4: It was so anyway, it was a very comic moment.
Speaker 2: Very dangerous by the way.
Speaker 5: No, well, actually I got to give that movie once
Speaker 5: on a cruise ship. But the cruise line would not
Speaker 5: have a ladder because you're out on the ocean, right.
Speaker 4: Okay, never believe that side.
Speaker 5: But here's the punchline to all this is our friends
Speaker 5: at pri I did something very clever. They rented a
Speaker 5: theater in downtown San Francisco, announced it like a premiere
Speaker 5: of a movie, packed the place out, and the New
Speaker 5: York Times sent their cultural reporter, and the culture reporter
Speaker 5: Jesse McKinley was his name.
Speaker 4: He wasn't, you know, a political reporiler. But he posted
Speaker 4: a big feature in The Times that ran on a
Speaker 4: Saturday morning and it says something like finally a.
Speaker 2: Foe for Gore.
Speaker 5: And that headline was changed within five hours, by the way,
Speaker 5: But it was all about really funny stuff. Because I said,
Speaker 5: so you know it is, I'll find a story. I
Speaker 5: can still find it somewhere and post it. I said,
Speaker 5: you know, mister Hayward, who is saw we say big boned.
Speaker 1: You should assumed them for I means times committed Lucas
Speaker 1: look asm against you.
Speaker 3: Actually wait, wait, wait, I have to honestly tell you, Steve,
Speaker 3: what happened was is I saw that somehow I came
Speaker 3: across that. I think probably whatever I saw your name.
Speaker 3: So I tried to look you up in the early
Speaker 3: days of Wikipedia, and what it said was this is true,
Speaker 3: and this is how I ultimately found him, because it
Speaker 3: said I think you were at Heritage or somewhere. Ay,
Speaker 3: you are at a and that's how I found you.
Speaker 3: But it said Steve Hayward had looked at himself in
Speaker 3: this movie and decided enough is enough and went on
Speaker 3: a diet.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was, but that was in Wikipedia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 5: But you know who the Wikipedia entry, John, You'll love this.
Speaker 5: It was Ted Frank did my Wikipedia entry.
Speaker 4: Really I love That's a great.
Speaker 1: Guy, the amateur. So this whole operation just compounds itself.
Speaker 3: Okay, so before we it is spinning, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 3: it back to one important point so that they that
Speaker 3: our listeners don't think we've completely gone off the rails.
Speaker 3: And that is one of one of al Gore's big
Speaker 3: predictions after Katrina it was proven to be true, was
Speaker 3: that there would be all of these extreme weather events
Speaker 3: caused by climate.
Speaker 8: By climate change, and see it works, and you know people,
Speaker 8: you know, millions of people were going to die as
Speaker 8: a result of these extreme weather events caused by climate change.
Speaker 2: What's the truth of the matter, Steve.
Speaker 5: Well, I haven't mastered it, but I think landfalling hurricanes
Speaker 5: can in the US continue to decline over like a
Speaker 5: sixty year period, right, Not just.
Speaker 3: That, but fatalities from extreme weather events have declined precipitously.
Speaker 5: Well, that's a resilience thing. But that's I mean, that's significant.
Speaker 5: But it's technology all the.
Speaker 4: Measures of you know, drought and all the rest of that.
Speaker 5: I mean, the great thing about climate change is it
Speaker 5: can apply to anything.
Speaker 4: Here's a little, tiny.
Speaker 5: Little footnote. That's funny if you go back twenties plus
Speaker 5: years ago, when Robert F. Kennedy Junior was really crazy
Speaker 5: and it was a climate change fanatic, he attacked climate change
Speaker 5: as a phrase.
Speaker 4: He said, it's global warming.
Speaker 5: Climate change is the deceptive language of the anti environmentalists
Speaker 5: until everybody embraced it because they had to because it
Speaker 5: wasn't working.
Speaker 7: Okay, Yeah, And by the way, I wish can I
Speaker 7: just say, sitting in Austin, Texas, where one inch of
Speaker 7: ice has brought the state to a complete halt for
Speaker 7: three days, I welcome global warming.
Speaker 1: I want it to be warmer. I don't want there
Speaker 1: to be any ice caps. What's wrong with having free
Speaker 1: passage up north? If it's warmer, things grow more, There's
Speaker 1: going to be more food. More people die of being
Speaker 1: cold than being hot, and I wish out we're right
Speaker 1: and it was getting too hot.
Speaker 5: Actually shows you how far sighted Trump is wanting to
Speaker 5: acquire Greenland now before the Iceman place is glorious.
Speaker 3: So stop for a second, and this is this is
Speaker 3: not funny. I read earlier today that twenty people in
Speaker 3: New York City died, presumably of exposure. The implication is
Speaker 3: that the homeless people dying of exposure. Okay, but that
Speaker 3: I mean, they've had extreme storms, cold weather storms and
Speaker 3: that sort of thing. The reason that those people died.
Speaker 3: They don't want to come out and say it against
Speaker 3: Mindami Swami Wami, but he's stopped policies that tried to
Speaker 3: force homeless.
Speaker 2: People to go into shelter. Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Again wait, not enough information to make any sort of
Speaker 3: blanket statement here. But my point is is that resiliency
Speaker 3: isn't the whole story.
Speaker 5: Sure well, I mean this will sound callous on the surface.
Speaker 5: The fact that it's only twenty is actually remarkable. More
Speaker 5: people die of cold weather every year all around the
Speaker 5: world than hot weather, and those numbers would have been
Speaker 5: much larger, you know, fifty sixty, seventy eighty years ago,
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, order magnitude larger.
Speaker 3: So especially yeah, shutting down gas natural gas pipelines because
Speaker 3: there's just not enough to go around in a major
Speaker 3: event like that, it could have been much much worse.
Speaker 2: I get I get it.
Speaker 3: Okay, anyway, I'm I'm going to go with the fact
Speaker 3: that there have not been as many hurricanes or extreme
Speaker 3: weather events.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, go ahead, this is your well.
Speaker 5: If you want to sort of end with the Gore business,
Speaker 5: if you want to know what a it has been,
Speaker 5: he has been so.
Speaker 4: First of all, the whole Davos thing a week ago,
Speaker 4: more than a week ago.
Speaker 5: Now, it's amazing how little climate change was talked about,
Speaker 5: even by the people. They left all the major people
Speaker 5: left in out of their speeches. Second, Al Gore was there.
Speaker 5: I don't know why, probably because there's nothing better to do.
Speaker 5: But he had some little meeting of you know, let's
Speaker 5: gather and talk about climate and I think only like
Speaker 5: twenty people showed up.
Speaker 4: I mean, it is so over for those guys. They
Speaker 4: have a lot of mole mentment, bad policies, but it
Speaker 4: is over for these people.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's that's been a pretty constant theme for
Speaker 3: even by people on the left. Our friends who write
Speaker 3: for Liberal Patriot, which includes Henry Olsen. Yeah well now right, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: I actually I read them every day. I want sometimes
Speaker 3: I get so angry, not with Henry but with some
Speaker 3: of the others with the obligatory and gratuitous Trump bashing
Speaker 3: that has to happen before they say, look, Democrat, you're
Speaker 3: being a bunch of idiots and you're never going to
Speaker 3: win election again.
Speaker 4: Do they want to keep those guys reading?
Speaker 3: So I think that's okay, I know, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean I can't point it out all right time for
Speaker 3: babyl MB's guys too cold to start civil war?
Speaker 2: Right now? National agrees.
Speaker 3: This won't make sense to us, because it didn't make
Speaker 3: sense to us when there was a reference to it
Speaker 3: last week. But I'll say it anyway. Nations starting to
Speaker 3: wonder if people who spend life singing to toddlers on
Speaker 3: YouTube might not be all there mentally.
Speaker 2: I guess you have to be there.
Speaker 3: I don't know what this refers to, but because I
Speaker 3: don't follow it, tragedy as entire studio audience drowns in
Speaker 3: flood of Jimmy Kimmel's tears.
Speaker 4: Oh know what that means.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he cried on his late night show about the
Speaker 5: guy was shot in Minnesota. Man again, it's supposed to
Speaker 5: go off air too, and then he came back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's horrible.
Speaker 3: So this one's for you, John J. Sixers wishing they
Speaker 3: had thought of branding themselves legal observers us posts Minneapolis
Speaker 3: on Craigslist fifty dollars our best offer. Finally, w NBA
Speaker 3: or w NBA players vowed to continue missing layups until
Speaker 3: Ice withdraws from Minnesota. Oh boy, sorry, all right, you guys,
Speaker 3: your turn.
Speaker 1: Shrinky Whisky, Neat, buy more books and Steve, what has
Speaker 1: AI given your given you today?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I kind of failed today.
Speaker 5: I asked chat GBT several times to give us a
Speaker 5: debate between Hamilton, so I thought we might talk about Hamilton,
Speaker 5: and we didn't. Between Hamilton and you, you John U
Speaker 5: debating about executive power.
Speaker 4: And I tried several in.
Speaker 1: We would have no differences.
Speaker 4: Well that's the thing, and I think that's what up right.
Speaker 5: It's so I'll just give you a couple of lines
Speaker 5: and it's written kind of in you know, the cadence
Speaker 5: of either Wrap or the Hamilton musical.
Speaker 4: What's that's it?
Speaker 1: Or thing about?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: So Hamilton step aside unitary executive fanfit king.
Speaker 4: That's you. See you read the constitution like it's doing
Speaker 4: your bidding.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'll skip a bunch and then here's you you
Speaker 5: John u icy, smug, bold talk from a man who
Speaker 5: loves centralized control. You'd rationalize the weather if it fit
Speaker 5: your role. Agencies run wild, Congress hides and defers than
Speaker 5: court's rubber stamp. What's courts rubber stamp rules?
Speaker 4: Nobody voted for. That's all stupid. I'll try something better
Speaker 4: for next year.
Speaker 2: It's John. Wait, so that we don't end up with stupid.
Speaker 3: I have a I have one last battle. Frustrated dun
Speaker 3: Lemon wonders what a guy has to do to get
Speaker 3: sent to men's prison.
Speaker 2: Bad, bad, bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we'll be we'll try next week. We're on the
Speaker 5: road again next week to who knows.
Speaker 3: We're together, So maybe we have a breakfast episode.
Speaker 4: That would be fun.
Speaker 5: But we want to we do want to go back
Speaker 5: to substack because I it's it's a mixed fact.
Speaker 4: There's something's about we'll.
Speaker 2: Figure it out.
Speaker 3: Just because Steve freezes with funny faces all the way through,
Speaker 3: it actually makes.
Speaker 2: It a lot of fun to watch.
Speaker 3: Exactly, Thanks everybody, bye.
Speaker 6: To my train of thought.
Speaker 5: Recent in section got switched down the menus infection, and.
Speaker 6: Now he spread the infection.
Speaker 5: That you bad down your woad.
Speaker 6: Whoa you know, blow with leg. Yeah, every morning at
Speaker 6: the cracking down, the jumping in the water, roll around
Speaker 6: the house.
Speaker 4: It's really fine. The only water wall going on. Ricochet
Speaker 4: joined the conversation