Speaker 1: This episode was not take before a live audience, but
Speaker 1: we're going to fake it well, whiskey, come and take
Speaker 1: my pain, honey all right? Why think alone when you
Speaker 1: can drink it all in with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour,
Speaker 1: join your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You, and the International
Speaker 1: Woman of Mystery, Lucretia, where the lapped it up. It'll live.
Speaker 1: It ain't easy on the show taps, gotta give me
Speaker 1: and let that whiskey clone. It's the Three Whiskey Happy Hour,
Speaker 1: the podcast where both our whiskey and our opinions are
Speaker 1: served neat and always at least any proof, if not
Speaker 1: much higher. And this week we had the band back
Speaker 1: together again with John in Philadelphia. Hi John, how are you?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 1: God?
Speaker 3: John?
Speaker 2: Hey guys, and you know, did you get your stuff
Speaker 2: from the University of Tulsa.
Speaker 1: It arrived a humongous bat. I've got my Tulsa glass
Speaker 1: right now, and I made.
Speaker 4: The mistake of taking my Tulsa glass to work to
Speaker 4: show it off, and now I don't have a glass
Speaker 4: to drink my whiskey out of.
Speaker 1: I'm unboxing a brand new bottle of lafreug for tonight
Speaker 1: and needless to say, Lucretia is here from her undisclosed,
Speaker 1: heavily fortified bunker in the desert southwest. At least you
Speaker 1: can tell us what you're drinking, Lucretia. I can.
Speaker 4: I'm drinking the Frank August that was the lovely gift
Speaker 4: from our friends in Tulsa, because it's the only whiskey
Speaker 4: bottle that's not packed away. I will be unpacking my
Speaker 4: kitchen and the whiskey bottles and the rest of the
Speaker 4: bar this weekend because the kitchen is done, but not
Speaker 4: the library. So but in the meantime, I don't have
Speaker 4: any whiskey other than the one I just got in
Speaker 4: the mail, so, and I don't have a glass. I'm
Speaker 4: having to drink it in this but I think it
Speaker 4: tastes the same. We'll see. Ahh okay, and all right, Pellegrino.
Speaker 1: So John, I thought rather than do the usual McDonald's
Speaker 1: and burger stuff. Although actually I'm sorry, John, you did
Speaker 1: send us a note today saying you tried someplace new
Speaker 1: in Texas that you think, yeah, a worthy burger place.
Speaker 1: So briefly, oh yeah, Pete Terry's. Has anyone been to
Speaker 1: Pete Terry's it's the Austin based chain. You go on
Speaker 1: and it kind of looks like it looks like In
Speaker 1: and Out. It's from the nineteen fifties. But I thought
Speaker 1: it was a lot better than it.
Speaker 2: In and Out don't kill me, but you have angus
Speaker 2: beef and the and the Actually, the French fries are
Speaker 2: skinny McDonald's type fries with the skin on the very ends,
Speaker 2: and that's way better. The In and Out fries are disappointing.
Speaker 2: They're like they are batter fries, and so it was great.
Speaker 2: Plus I didn't get it. But they also have a
Speaker 2: chicken burger, which I have to get. That's the concession
Speaker 2: for people need to eat healthy, and they milkshakes with
Speaker 2: like fudge in them.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think it gives In and Out a run for
Speaker 2: its money. Plus I have to say Austin has several
Speaker 2: In and Outs and there are never any lines in them, well,
Speaker 2: no lines that they dry. I threw no lines inside
Speaker 2: the store. Texans are rejecting the California meat virus.
Speaker 1: So you know what they call people who eat chicken
Speaker 1: burgers in Texas? We call them vegans? Head right? All right? John?
Speaker 1: I did think in lieu of extensive burger treatment, because
Speaker 1: you do that every week. I thought it'd be interesting
Speaker 1: to hear from you an account of the debate you
Speaker 1: had today. I thought you were going to be outnumbered
Speaker 1: on Fox, but no, instead you were out numbered at
Speaker 1: where the National Constitution Center.
Speaker 2: No, this was even better. I did a debate today
Speaker 2: at the American Philosophical Society, oh right, which was established
Speaker 2: by Benjamin Franklin, I think in the seventeen fifties, maybe
Speaker 2: even earlier, and it's filled with basically scientists and other scholars,
Speaker 2: a lot of famous people know Bell Laureates, things like that.
Speaker 2: And I did a debate with a professor, a political scientist,
Speaker 2: one of you guys named Roger Smith, who used to
Speaker 2: be at Yale and is now at Penn, who I
Speaker 2: consider a moderate, and we did a debate. We held
Speaker 2: a debate on will democratic will constitutional democracy survive in
Speaker 2: the United States, And it was I was almost as
Speaker 2: if I think I was sent as an ambassador from
Speaker 2: conservatism to explain the strange cultures and ways of my
Speaker 2: land to think people who basically think experts should run everything.
Speaker 2: And there was shock, outrage, even defying and skepticism from
Speaker 2: the crowd. When I said that the progressive era of
Speaker 2: expert government insulated from politics was coming to an end,
Speaker 2: whereupon one of the people on the panel said, experts
Speaker 2: should run all policy. If experts don't do it, who will.
Speaker 2: We can't have politics running policy. It was just right
Speaker 2: out of the Woodrow Wilson playbook. It was so charming.
Speaker 2: And I said, do you think after the political disorders
Speaker 2: were living through that the answer will be give even
Speaker 2: more power to independent experts and give them more authority
Speaker 2: over our lives. No, it'll be the opposite somehow, But
Speaker 2: we haven't figured out what that world's going to look
Speaker 2: like yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Roger Smith, I mean, I know he's a
Speaker 1: big name. I've never paid much attention to him. I
Speaker 1: guess maybe because he is in some ways a moderate
Speaker 1: in the academy. So he never either offended me or
Speaker 1: I thought was very interesting. He was president of the
Speaker 1: APSA about ten years ago, and they usually pick moderates
Speaker 1: or sort of people of big name brands. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, John, at least at one point in life
Speaker 1: he was to the right of you. Because I discovered
Speaker 1: that he wrote a book co authored with our friend
Speaker 1: Peter Schuck called Here's the title Citizenship without Consent illegal
Speaker 1: Aliens and the American Polity nineteen eighty five. So but still,
Speaker 1: you couldn't use illegal aliens in the book title today
Speaker 1: and not be sent to the campus gulag. But the
Speaker 1: other thing I thought was it he argues that, well,
Speaker 1: he doesn't come down on the legal argument about whether
Speaker 1: the fourteenth Amendment should guarantee birthright citizenship, but he says
Speaker 1: Congress should step in and say, no, we should restrict
Speaker 1: who gets citizenship just because you're born to illegal immigrants
Speaker 1: who are residing here.
Speaker 2: Ed.
Speaker 4: Why does he get credit for that? I've been telling
Speaker 4: John that since we started this debate.
Speaker 2: Well, no, the whole point was is that idea you
Speaker 2: know here he said it in nineteen eighty five, but
Speaker 2: no one noted.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if he's did this come up at
Speaker 1: all today? John? Probably not.
Speaker 2: No, it did not. I'm sure he was glad for that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I could have mentioned it, right, But his
Speaker 2: argument was that he was disturbed by the rise of
Speaker 2: the MAGA right and he somehow thought the solution would
Speaker 2: be defined common ground in enforcing the equality provisions of
Speaker 2: the Reconstruction Amendments. And I just thought that was, and
Speaker 2: I said, why do you think the troubles we're living
Speaker 2: through our failure to have common ground? To me, the
Speaker 2: Constitution just establishes the boundaries for a political conflict, doesn't
Speaker 2: expect us to have common ground. I think common ground
Speaker 2: is usually what people say when they're losing that they
Speaker 2: would like to have common ground, but the people who
Speaker 2: are winning is a way to slow down. But either that.
Speaker 4: Or it's defined, especially by the left, as common ground
Speaker 4: is whenever you agree with me, then we have common ground.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why Lucretia and Steve never have common ground
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 4: Because you never agree with the right way of.
Speaker 1: Looking at frames.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So by the way, I mean this is nice.
Speaker 4: By the way, if you guys haven't tried yours, just
Speaker 4: a yeah, it's quality.
Speaker 1: I had some yesterday because it just arrived yesterday, So
Speaker 1: I broke it out open right away. Uh so, John,
Speaker 1: I hope you said what people said, you know, if
Speaker 1: not the experts, who should run the country, Because the
Speaker 1: answer is, I don't know. The people like it says
Speaker 1: the Constitute, what acquaint idea?
Speaker 2: They would have tossed your ass right out onto the
Speaker 2: we wouldn't even made it into the building. Come on,
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful Greco Roman marble palace right next
Speaker 2: to Independence Hall, and which was also amazing right across.
Speaker 2: This is such a Philadelphia thing to do. We've preserved
Speaker 2: the Second Bank of the United States is original building
Speaker 2: which Andrew right the Second Bank which Andrew Jackson destroyed.
Speaker 2: And so I said to them, you guys, I actually said,
Speaker 2: you guys were going to relive what happened right across
Speaker 2: the street at the Second Bank where Andrew Jackson came
Speaker 2: along and destroyed this elitist institution. And we didn't have
Speaker 2: another federal reserve by for one hundred years, for eighty years.
Speaker 2: And they, I don't think they just don't think this
Speaker 2: is possible. They really said, if the experts don't make policy,
Speaker 2: who's going to make it? Then they laughed at me.
Speaker 4: Couldn't you use Lincoln's argument against them? You know his
Speaker 4: uh the fragment that you know, if a comes along,
Speaker 4: it says that, uh, you know, you should be my
Speaker 4: slave because your skin is lighter than mine. You should
Speaker 4: be my slave because you're dumber than me. That's not
Speaker 4: how he puts it. That's my way of putting it,
Speaker 4: of course, But anyway, my point would be to these
Speaker 4: smart ass eletes, a way, if somebody comes along who's
Speaker 4: better educated and more elite than you are, they should
Speaker 4: rule over you without any consent on your part. Do
Speaker 4: you ever make that argument?
Speaker 2: They know they would, because I'm sure they would say yes,
Speaker 2: and that person, I'm sure they wouldn't. I'm sure you
Speaker 2: wouldn't know this. They have such blind faith in science
Speaker 2: to solve as a way to solve all policy problems.
Speaker 4: They really really and we saw how well that worked
Speaker 4: out in COVID. And you know, blind faith in science.
Speaker 4: As long as it's con a system of climate change,
Speaker 4: as long as it's consistent with exactly our political views
Speaker 4: and our political preferences, then we really like science. But
Speaker 4: if it doesn't, if it doesn't conform with that, we
Speaker 4: might not like it so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is funny. It is funny how often what
Speaker 1: the science says coincides with the political views and interest
Speaker 1: of the bureaucracy.
Speaker 4: Right there you go, And when it turns out science
Speaker 4: doesn't really say that after.
Speaker 1: All, by the way, I mean speaking of Second Bank.
Speaker 1: And then we're going to take our first break real
Speaker 1: quick news today you probably heard, is that the Justice
Speaker 1: Department is dropping its investigation into FED Chairman Powell. I
Speaker 1: was thought I was lost. Yeah, I was thought that
Speaker 1: was an air adventure for a bunch of reasons that
Speaker 1: I won't delay us with. But also big news today
Speaker 1: you probably haven't heard. I didn't know this was happening.
Speaker 1: But a ballot measure to require voter ID in California
Speaker 1: has qualified for the November ballot. Wow, this, I think
Speaker 1: it might too. Right. It'll depend on.
Speaker 2: A lot of seventy cent in favor of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even in California, I think so that
Speaker 1: will be interesting.
Speaker 4: And the problem is is that you won't have to
Speaker 4: have voter ID to vote for that ballot measure, and
Speaker 4: that could be the problem.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna go to our first quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be right back. Everybody, don't go away,
Speaker 1: all right. Our first subject today is move over Trump
Speaker 1: derangement syndrome and make way for Thomas derangement syndrome. I
Speaker 1: refer a course to the reaction to Justice Thomas's terrific
Speaker 1: speech last week in Austin. You were there present for it,
Speaker 1: John uh and the reaction to it just shows me
Speaker 1: how sensitive the left is to any criticism of their
Speaker 1: progressive project. Because Thomas had part of a speech, and
Speaker 1: there are many parts that are worthy of note, I think,
Speaker 1: but part of it was a ringing attack on what
Speaker 1: we were just talking about, the cult of expertise and
Speaker 1: a progressivism that sought to replace the regime of the
Speaker 1: founders with the regime of experts. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're following anything reaction, but over to you guys.
Speaker 4: Let me say first, this is not what I expected
Speaker 4: to say. But Erwin, our good friend, Erwin Schimrinski, came
Speaker 4: out on Scotis blog and said it was a wrongheaded
Speaker 4: attack on progressivism. I did too, it's a Scotis blog,
Speaker 4: and so let's see. The problem is that what what
Speaker 4: Thomas is doing is failing to unite the country by
Speaker 4: attacking progressivism. And it's wrong to think of Stalin, Hitler
Speaker 4: and Mussolini as progressives in any definition of that term.
Speaker 4: Because obviously Erwin doesn't understand I was going to say
Speaker 4: a bad word anything anyway. I just thought i'd lead
Speaker 4: with that, because that's a new one. We saw Robert
Speaker 4: Reich any stupidity, you know, we saw Paul Waldman and
Speaker 4: his stupidity. But I think Erin might take the case
Speaker 4: on this one, you know that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. Maybe the one by Ludig
Speaker 2: was the most embarrassing for its settleness, So you know
Speaker 2: there's a moment to address the just I mean, Linda
Speaker 2: Laura Ingram attacked him viciously on fuck but I heard
Speaker 2: barely too where she said, here was a guy, Judge Ludig,
Speaker 2: who was, you know, one of Thomas's best friends, a
Speaker 2: conservative appellate judge didn't get the Supreme Court, didn't get
Speaker 2: the he interviewed for the Chief Justice ship, lost to
Speaker 2: roberts Quit, then became a lawyer for Boeing, and then
Speaker 2: after January sixth has been attacking Trump. But now he
Speaker 2: attacks his friend, former French Thomas, and his argument goes
Speaker 2: like this. It says progressives couldn't possibly be against a
Speaker 2: declaration because Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration and Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 2: was the original progressive. And then he said it couldn't
Speaker 2: be that because these other Democrats also could So there
Speaker 2: I have praised the declaration like Franklin Roosevelt, So there
Speaker 2: couldn't possibly be a conflict between progressivism and now it's
Speaker 2: just it was just so wrongheaded because I think actually
Speaker 2: he mentions Hugo black in there, who I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if he was a progressive, but I remember he was
Speaker 2: in the KKK before he was a senator. But the
Speaker 2: idea that Thomas Jefferson has anything to do with progressivism,
Speaker 2: which arises about one hundred years later, it just it's
Speaker 2: just so it's just just sadly non rigorous. It's just
Speaker 2: sloppy a way to attack this idea that progressivism and
Speaker 2: the Declaration had are actually the same thing. I thought
Speaker 2: that was actually just embarrassing, Uh, just embarrassing logic not
Speaker 2: to mention the kind of stabbing your old friends in
Speaker 2: the back because you're so upset about Trump.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't Trump who failed to nominate him to
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court, did he just sort of There seems
Speaker 4: to be a kind of pattern about people who should
Speaker 4: have been nominated to this who they think should have
Speaker 4: been nominated to the Supreme Court, and then aren't, and
Speaker 4: they just seem to get bitter and stupid. And you know,
Speaker 4: Gorsich is another example of that, not necessarily in the
Speaker 4: Gorsig Sorry, the other guy, Garland I always say the
Speaker 4: wrong one. I apologize, Garland, No, you probably don't. I
Speaker 4: do know the difference. I just get the names wrong.
Speaker 4: But you know the I don't. There's nine justices of
Speaker 4: the Court and literally hundreds of people who could be
Speaker 4: considered qualified at any given time for any kind of opening, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, that's not an unfair thing to say, right,
Speaker 4: Why this bitterness that seems to creep out from some
Speaker 4: people who are so devastated once they don't get that
Speaker 4: nomination that I mean, even Laurence Tribe. I think you
Speaker 4: could say that about but I won't go that far.
Speaker 4: That takes us too far field. One thing I missed
Speaker 4: it mention to you. It goes along though with what
Speaker 4: you were saying about Luddig. And that's from our again,
Speaker 4: from our good friend Irwin, who says that, you know,
Speaker 4: first of all, Thomas doesn't understand what progressivism is because
Speaker 4: he calls Wilson a progressive. And Wilson well may have
Speaker 4: been a progressive, but he was you know, totally totally
Speaker 4: uh you know, a racist and a bigot, and that
Speaker 4: for that makes him not a progressive.
Speaker 1: So yeah, right, the uh, yes, oh, there's a time
Speaker 1: to say about this, so one is again the left
Speaker 1: is very sensitive when you draw connections on the level
Speaker 1: of principle and philosophy to the totalitarians of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I did post this on substack
Speaker 1: the other day. A history a book by a history
Speaker 1: professor at Yale from just a few years ago. Ti
Speaker 1: title Hitler's American Model, United States and the Making of
Speaker 1: Nazi Race Law, and the book explains how from minecomf on,
Speaker 1: a lot of the Nazis were looking at American race
Speaker 1: laws put in place by democrats, let us remember, and
Speaker 1: certain aspects of progressive thought right, and so no, you
Speaker 1: can see why they're so sensitive about this, because it's
Speaker 1: a weak point for them. There was this odd part
Speaker 1: in Luni's article where he said, Wilson's not the It's
Speaker 1: similar to Urbin's point, Wilson's not the progressive progressive as
Speaker 1: it really originates with Teddy Roosevelt. And I thought this
Speaker 1: is a wrong and a historical and stupid and b
Speaker 1: why is he doing that deflection. I think there's this
Speaker 1: equivocation among liberals on the one hand, say, as Irwin did,
Speaker 1: Wilson's a racist. But on the other hand, if you
Speaker 1: tag him with being the premier theorist of progressivism in
Speaker 1: the administrative state, along with people like John Burgess, who
Speaker 1: nobody's heard of except Wirdo's like Hey and other legal
Speaker 1: theorists of the time. Right, Yes, they want to exonerate
Speaker 1: it and make it bipartisan again, so they're off the
Speaker 1: hook for this disaster of progressivism in the last one
Speaker 1: hundred years. So the interesting little thing that slipped by
Speaker 1: I think, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, it's just a historical to claim that Woodrow Wilson's
Speaker 2: not a progressive. I mean, you go back and you
Speaker 2: read the history of the period, and he's he's the chief,
Speaker 2: He's the theorist in charge of progressivism.
Speaker 4: And I think he is. Forgive me for this, but
Speaker 4: I think that the oversimplified way to tie together the
Speaker 4: racism of a Woodrow Wilson to the identity politics of
Speaker 4: progressives today really is back to what John was saying
Speaker 4: about his earlier about his conversation with Rogers Smith, that
Speaker 4: what ultimately what it comes down to is it elites
Speaker 4: want the power to remake society and the image they
Speaker 4: think they should be it should be remade, and early
Speaker 4: progressives sought, let's get rid of the undesirables, and later
Speaker 4: progressives say, let's use the undesirables to of advance our
Speaker 4: own elite interests, in our own elite power. And there's
Speaker 4: really there, you know, And there's certainly no side of
Speaker 4: progressives that really wants what's best for those formerly undesirable people.
Speaker 4: They just want to use them to their advantage. And
Speaker 4: so it's it's just a matter of, you know's what's
Speaker 4: convenient at the time. The same theory holds true either way.
Speaker 2: I mean, the other thing is you got to if
Speaker 2: you read the speech more carefully. It's not just Woodrow
Speaker 2: Wilson who's identified. He's just some, but it talks about
Speaker 2: John Dewey, who also says I think even worse things
Speaker 2: about the American people than Wilson does. And then you
Speaker 2: know your guy's favorite justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, the author
Speaker 2: of Buck versus Bell, you know, one of the great
Speaker 2: progressive justices. They don't even try to pretend he's not
Speaker 2: a progressive or that he loved the Declaration, because he
Speaker 2: basically thinks this natural rights stuff is a bunch of
Speaker 2: whoy and he he's all in favor of right, enlightened,
Speaker 2: rational social policy, and.
Speaker 1: You may know this to natural rights. Teddy Roosevelt later
Speaker 1: greatly regretted having appointed Holmes to the court. And I
Speaker 1: don't know what to make of that, except that.
Speaker 2: I would have seen that. I would have thought they
Speaker 2: said of all the things the same way.
Speaker 1: Look.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I was just going to say, I'd love to
Speaker 4: have somebody who really understood this better than I do
Speaker 4: explain to me if the way to understand Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 4: really is what. Let me put it like this, when
Speaker 4: you read a textbook account of who the progressives are
Speaker 4: and why they are all against the you know, concentration
Speaker 4: of power in monopolies, and they're you know so, so
Speaker 4: that's that part of it is definitely what Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 4: was all about. That's where progressivism gets its start. But
Speaker 4: the theoretical parts of the political parts of the progressivism
Speaker 4: take a very ugly turn very early on. And I
Speaker 4: don't think my understanding. I'm not an expert on Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 4: Although I admire him in many ways, I don't think
Speaker 4: he ever really bought into that part of it, or
Speaker 4: am I wrong?
Speaker 1: Uh, Well, it's a mixed bag. And to sort that out,
Speaker 1: we'll have to have gene Yarborough on sometime.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great, Yeah, she's the expert on this, her books on
Speaker 1: I forget the title of her great book on Wilson. Sorry, Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: but we want to take another quick break and come
Speaker 1: back with more on the declaration.
Speaker 2: Let it let it know, go the passing. She's also
Speaker 2: a great Hamburger cook. Apparently we need to have her,
Speaker 2: yes and play her ware.
Speaker 1: Let me try and get her out here next fall.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned for all that, but we'll be back. Listeners.
Speaker 1: Don't go away. Hey, you're listening to the three Whiskey
Speaker 1: Happy Hour. So, John, you have once again thrown a
Speaker 1: curveball at all of us by writing a piece on
Speaker 1: executive power as it's embedded or implied you think in
Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence. I think I can make this out.
Speaker 1: But give us a quick summary and then we'll see
Speaker 1: if it makes any sense.
Speaker 2: No, all you Claire monsters, you guys can't hit the curveball.
Speaker 2: You guys can't hit breaking balls. You only go for
Speaker 2: the fastballs, and you guys are always swinging for the fences, right,
Speaker 2: so you're like the modern Major League baseball You're always
Speaker 2: striking out. And then you're getting the occasional homer and
Speaker 2: you think that's a baseball game, but actually wants some singles,
Speaker 2: doubles and triples too. So my argument here is that
Speaker 2: if you listen to common political rhetoric, they often say
Speaker 2: the founders are against executive power, they're against presidents, see
Speaker 2: e g. The Declaration of Independence. Right, So I don't
Speaker 2: think actually the attack on the British King, it is
Speaker 2: of course replete with attacks on the British King, are
Speaker 2: really attacks on the executive There are attacks, I think
Speaker 2: of them more as a federalism argument. There are attacks
Speaker 2: on es central power controlling colonies. And so they're complaining
Speaker 2: about the fact that it's really London or Great Britain
Speaker 2: that is taking these rights away. It's really Great Britain
Speaker 2: where we don't you know, the founding fathers don't have representation.
Speaker 2: These are not complaints against what we understand to be
Speaker 2: the nature of executive power from say Machiavelli or even Blackstone.
Speaker 2: They're not complaints about being oppressed by king.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: So I tried to argue that declaration it's anti executive
Speaker 2: heures really more of a complaint about essentral power oppressing
Speaker 2: the decentralized colonies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I am. I'm not sure I buy the
Speaker 1: way you put it together, although I do think you're
Speaker 1: I think you're generally correct about you can tease out
Speaker 1: executive power. But I think that well, what I did,
Speaker 1: of course, is somebody you ignored. I dusted off Harvey
Speaker 1: Mansfield's great book on the ambivalence of executive power. And
Speaker 1: of course we think of Locke and Blackstone together as
Speaker 1: championing parliamentary supremacy. But even in Locke, Harvey says, you
Speaker 1: can make out the understanding that you're going to need
Speaker 1: well the executive progative chapter.
Speaker 2: Yes, you need to have an executive right characteristics.
Speaker 1: But you know, Harvey pulls together in ways that I
Speaker 1: guess I haven't studied law carefully enough. He pulls together
Speaker 1: the way you can see that you want separation of
Speaker 1: powers and federal the things you just mentioned, separation of
Speaker 1: powers and federalism to constitutionalize and contain the executive, even
Speaker 1: though at the margins you can't really contain the executive
Speaker 1: in emergencies. Right, So I guess maybe I'm not really
Speaker 1: disagreeing with you. I'm just laying out a parallel analysis.
Speaker 2: But it's the case that the declaration in these break
Speaker 2: this and this anti king George Litany is always held
Speaker 2: up by critics of president says see see the framing
Speaker 2: is uh. The framing reject executive power. It basically is
Speaker 2: a parliamentary system. The president just exists to execute congressional policy.
Speaker 4: And I, you know, I agree. I don't know that
Speaker 4: I would evanghasize quite the same things you did, But
Speaker 4: I didn't disagree with anything that you wrote. Actually, John
Speaker 4: and I did mention that in our text messages back
Speaker 4: and forth that I was thrilled to see that, uh,
Speaker 4: you admit that, in fact the basis of our form
Speaker 4: of government is in fact consent uh and UH natural law,
Speaker 4: natural rights uh and people consent to the government. And
Speaker 4: that was I thought a wonderful addition to your.
Speaker 2: I was, you know, you know, listener, something is up.
Speaker 2: Either they're drunk or they're trying to get something matter,
Speaker 2: because I do not understand when Linda's being so nice
Speaker 2: to me, you hand quote unquote nice luecret what's up
Speaker 2: with this? Am I about to No?
Speaker 4: I do not, contrary to popular opinion, I am not
Speaker 4: irascible and disagreeable and opinionated against people when I agree
Speaker 4: with them. I mean, when you're right, you're right, and
Speaker 4: I thought you were right. I also said, for what
Speaker 4: is worth it, I don't take the arguments that that
Speaker 4: you just outlined from the other side very seriously because
Speaker 4: it just shows a really fundamental misunderstanding of the whole
Speaker 4: founding period. But I thought it was nice the way,
Speaker 4: and I hope Steve is going to link to it.
Speaker 4: Nice the way you sort of walk through some of
Speaker 4: the experiences between the Declaration with the articles of Confederate
Speaker 4: with the states and their experiences, and and what I
Speaker 4: mentioned to you guys, and this is the truth, is
Speaker 4: that I often when I'm explaining to my students the
Speaker 4: need for the Federalist papers, why Hamilton wanted to write
Speaker 4: the Federalist papers, it's in fact because New York as
Speaker 4: a state did not offer from all of the same
Speaker 4: kinds of bad government, put it that way, ill government
Speaker 4: that some of the other states did. And a big
Speaker 4: reason for that, you know, and they were, you know,
Speaker 4: becoming the economic capital of the world. A big reason
Speaker 4: for that was, in fact, the strong governor in New York.
Speaker 4: And I explained that as a way of saying this
Speaker 4: is you know, the Declaration of Independence does not necessarily
Speaker 4: preclude a strong executive, and I think that you can
Speaker 4: look into the Bill of Particulars and find just as
Speaker 4: many complaints about Parliament as you can about King George.
Speaker 1: So first of all, John, I'll say this that I
Speaker 1: was mulling over this morning that you know, as thinking
Speaker 1: about the show today, I've never had any death threats,
Speaker 1: And then I thought, oh, wait a minute, I have
Speaker 1: had a few from Lucretia over the years.
Speaker 2: I would rephrase that I get lots of death threats,
Speaker 2: but I never took any seriously until I met Lucretia.
Speaker 1: Right. It was this. I was, as I sometimes do
Speaker 1: with you, John, I was fly specking your article more
Speaker 1: than I should because I thought, Arthur Slessiger. You start
Speaker 1: Arthur's Slesznger. I mean, it's Imperial Book junior, okay, and
Speaker 1: then Paul Mayer's book. I think it's got some good
Speaker 1: stuff in it, but here and there she betrays a
Speaker 1: real condescending historicism that you can't help and that always
Speaker 1: annoys me. But that's not your mainior argument necessarily. So
Speaker 1: let's get out with this.
Speaker 4: Can I just give it one more positive thing about John.
Speaker 4: I think that's the reason.
Speaker 3: There's been a lot of silly things written about the
Speaker 3: imperial presidency, et cetera, et cetera, and a lot of
Speaker 3: silly things written even about sort of pro presidency scholars
Speaker 3: who just don't get it.
Speaker 4: So, even though I kind of made a little bit
Speaker 4: of fun of John saying I'm not sure that the
Speaker 4: people who argue that, you know, the declaration is against
Speaker 4: executive power even worth taking notice of. It has been
Speaker 4: a consistent theme for a long time that we should
Speaker 4: you know, that Congress should be ascendant and Congress is
Speaker 4: not acendant, and somehow because the administrative a sense a
Speaker 4: state is a send that we should curtail the powers
Speaker 4: of the presidency, and you know, all of those things.
Speaker 4: So you do think that what you had to say
Speaker 4: was important, and from a very fundamental level, that's that's
Speaker 4: what I wanted to finish.
Speaker 2: Actually, it actually ties together with the debate I had
Speaker 2: at Rogers with Rogers Smith, because they're the people are
Speaker 2: speaking with again mostly scientists and you know, retired academics.
Speaker 2: They they're inherently suspicious of the president. They just really
Speaker 2: are they really But then as like you really you
Speaker 2: really trust Congress. You know, the alternative is parliamentary system,
Speaker 2: and you a really think Congress is doing a great
Speaker 2: job right now, I mean you would if you look
Speaker 2: at the opinion polls, right it says right, Trump's opinion
Speaker 2: polls don't look great, but they're still higher than Congress.
Speaker 4: And there's still Congress has been for years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were years, I think, didn't I I think
Speaker 2: I saw the Washington Post just did a poll where
Speaker 2: Congress's approval rating is now the single digits for the
Speaker 2: first time ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're down to staff and family and maybe the pets,
Speaker 1: and I'm not too sure about that. Right. All right,
Speaker 1: let's let's uh, let's uh, let's take a very quick break,
Speaker 1: and we'll come back with one more thing on the declaration,
Speaker 1: and that's I want each of us to give our
Speaker 1: favorite passage or or theme from Thomas's speech, So don't
Speaker 1: go wait, we'll be right back, all right, lastly on
Speaker 1: the never, lastly in the Declaration, but lastly, for this episode,
Speaker 1: I want each of you to give me one sentence,
Speaker 1: or one passage, or one theme from Thomas's speech that
Speaker 1: you think especially deserves noting and highlighting. So Lucretia, You're.
Speaker 4: Up first, still mine. Of course it's obvious, but I
Speaker 4: don't know that I can remember the last time a
Speaker 4: major public figure actually made this argument. It's an argument
Speaker 4: and I'd made, not that you guys haven't, but I've
Speaker 4: made for years on the three whiskey Happy Hour, which
Speaker 4: is that the source of all of our ills is progressivism.
Speaker 4: And that I think was the most the most jarring
Speaker 4: thing to many people about Thomas's speech. Nobody's come out
Speaker 4: and said it in a public forum like that, Like
Speaker 4: you say, I've been saying it for years. But so
Speaker 4: I want to read the short passage, and this is
Speaker 4: the thing that's driving people absolutely crazy. Progressivism seeks, this
Speaker 4: is Thomas. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of
Speaker 4: the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government.
Speaker 4: It holds that our rights and our dignities come not
Speaker 4: from God but from the government. It requires of the
Speaker 4: people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised
Speaker 4: on the transcendent origin of our rights. And speak about
Speaker 4: you mentioned it in your piece. You know Paine tim
Speaker 4: Taine and his stupid Sorry everybody gets upset when I
Speaker 4: say stupid there is no other word to describe how
Speaker 4: incredibly inane and stupid his remarks were. Our rights don't
Speaker 4: come from God. That's what Islam. Radical Islam believes, you know,
Speaker 4: stupid things like that. So that's my favorite part. And
Speaker 4: God bless Thomas for having the courage to say something
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know who else believe what Thomas said? John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy among others in his inaugural dress. But never mind,
Speaker 1: that's agent that.
Speaker 4: Was, That was what it is sixty some years ago, Steve.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, you know, you you missed the
Speaker 2: one person you missed this, you know for Potosian Reddit.
Speaker 2: Lucretius talked about Steve substack post today where he listed
Speaker 2: all the famous Democrats who appros proved of natural rights,
Speaker 2: but you missed one other skeptic, the Lucretia's favorite justice
Speaker 2: on the Supreme Court. Remember Catan Brown Jackson refused to
Speaker 2: answer the question at her confirmation hearing if there was
Speaker 2: such a thing as natural rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know who else did that? With Atlanta
Speaker 1: Kagan and her confirmation hearings now what twenty years ago
Speaker 1: also refused to answer that question.
Speaker 4: So a long case anybody wonders why that in and
Speaker 4: of itself is such a dangerous question for the progressive left.
Speaker 4: It's a simple answer to that. If there are natural
Speaker 4: light rights, that is a limitation on what government can do,
Speaker 4: and therefore a limitation on their power as they sit
Speaker 4: in government. That is why Tim Kaine and Katanji and
Speaker 4: all those other people want to deny that there is
Speaker 4: something greater than themselves as all powerful government officials, that
Speaker 4: might define how they ought to exercise their power.
Speaker 2: Ye, so some things about the speech. Since I was there,
Speaker 2: it was a watching it is great, but being in
Speaker 2: person was incredible because the video doesn't capture the electric
Speaker 2: atmosphere in the room where you don't hear. Nobody was coughing,
Speaker 2: no one left, you could it was so silent because
Speaker 2: people were really hanging on as every word. I can't
Speaker 2: even remember the last time, you know, there was a
Speaker 2: public speech like that. Another thing, and I sort of
Speaker 2: remarked on this or a Sueider some other professors the
Speaker 2: next day marked and they said, when was the last
Speaker 2: time you heard a serious speech about political philosophy from
Speaker 2: a major political leader? That right, most speeches these days are,
Speaker 2: you know, accumulation of sound bites where everyone's trying to
Speaker 2: sound like John R.
Speaker 1: Spikers, right, and.
Speaker 2: So it's almost said this was almost A friend of
Speaker 2: mine said, this was like a sermon, almost on public virtue.
Speaker 2: And so they said, when was the last time you
Speaker 2: remember an American president, the leader, just Supreme Court justice
Speaker 2: actually deliver a speech. And then the third thing I
Speaker 2: thought was interesting is what do you think when was
Speaker 2: the last time a single person gave a speech in
Speaker 2: our country that sparked so much debate among intellectuals about
Speaker 2: what it means? Is it correct?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Like the amount of discussion going on by right people
Speaker 2: like us by single speech.
Speaker 1: When was the last.
Speaker 2: Time that actually happened? Well, and I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: Harod Jaffa.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no no no, I.
Speaker 2: Said in a seminar Leonard Levy, making John Easton cry
Speaker 2: and class.
Speaker 5: How about a single public speech? Well wait a minute, time,
Speaker 5: Well I lost time that happened, not to this magnitude,
Speaker 5: but look, remember you had I think two Supreme Court
Speaker 5: justices made public statements rebutting Attorney General Ed mess when
Speaker 5: edme said we ought to have original intent back on
Speaker 5: our constitutional interpretation. And we kind of know how that
Speaker 5: debate unfolded. I think that drew out all and all
Speaker 5: the prophet sorry had published lawry articles the this is terrible.
Speaker 5: Our teacher Leonard Levy wrote a whole book attacking bork
Speaker 5: An original intent in nineteen eighty seven, and the later
Speaker 5: backed off.
Speaker 1: Anyway, it was about forty years ago, area, and.
Speaker 4: Even that I wouldn't consider at this level. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is as basic a level about American founding principles
Speaker 4: as you can get. Originalism is a method, a method tied,
Speaker 4: but a method. This is about how the reigning orthodoxy
Speaker 4: of our political elites, pretty much across the board, is
Speaker 4: fundamentally unsound and opposed to our constitutional system of government.
Speaker 4: And I know I'm not supposed to do one more thing,
Speaker 4: but let me just bring this out a little bit.
Speaker 4: And that the other part of what I found so
Speaker 4: compelling about his speech, which is very much such a
Speaker 4: Thomas thing. You know, him and Virginia going out in
Speaker 4: their their temper that rvsiting America. You know, it's it's
Speaker 4: it's I'm not going to speak to you academics. I
Speaker 4: don't care about you academics. If we're going to save
Speaker 4: this country. It's a little bit trumpion here. If we're
Speaker 4: gonna save this country, it's going to be from the
Speaker 4: common sense of the average good American. And you gotta
Speaker 4: love that, you know, and you know Thomas believes it,
Speaker 4: and you know it offends those academics and those elite
Speaker 4: intellectual elites more than anything else. He said, because oh wait,
Speaker 4: you think that the Holy PELOI is going to save
Speaker 4: this country from us? How insulting?
Speaker 2: Right, So he addressed this this point I think in
Speaker 2: the question I keep asking you guys on prove to
Speaker 2: me that natural rights natural rights exist and where they
Speaker 2: come from. And it's the way he says it is.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have any high eluding STRAUSI and metaphysics, which
Speaker 2: I'm sure you guys could have filled in the for
Speaker 2: the speech, but he just says something along the lines of, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, his all the blacks he lived with who
Speaker 2: were living under segregation and has extended from slavery, where
Speaker 2: many were illiterate and uneducated, and they knew it was true.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm still not sure why that proves it. I
Speaker 2: want you guys to explain that to me one of
Speaker 2: these days. But let me give you my favorite quote.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure you're listening very carefully because
Speaker 2: these were These words were no doubt the most important
Speaker 2: words in the speech.
Speaker 1: Wishes.
Speaker 2: I'm grateful for the assistance of my former law clerk,
Speaker 2: Professor John You I. I think he labored over those
Speaker 2: led over them. John.
Speaker 4: I got so many people on Twitter.
Speaker 2: In terms of why that's in the speech just to
Speaker 2: explain is that he was thinking me for inviting him
Speaker 2: to confiicate.
Speaker 4: Ut lots of people commented, but your stock way.
Speaker 1: Up the vote is.
Speaker 2: The real clue. Actually, I got a lot of texts
Speaker 2: from people saying I didn't know you were moving to
Speaker 2: Austin from Berkeley, and I was like, thank you Justice
Speaker 2: for announcing to everyone that I am now leaving, which
Speaker 2: I hadn't even told people Berkeley yet. So my favorite
Speaker 2: line is we were fortunate not to trade our lockey
Speaker 2: and bounds for the supposedly and light world of Hegel,
Speaker 2: Marx and their followers. Fascism, which after all was a
Speaker 2: national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed
Speaker 2: tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and
Speaker 2: the People's Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens
Speaker 2: of millions of their own people. This is what happens
Speaker 2: when natural rights give way to the higher goods, higher
Speaker 2: good of notions of history, progress or, as Thomas sol
Speaker 2: has written, the visions of the annoyance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think really triggered. But as you say, you
Speaker 2: guys saying that, I think that really triggered people on
Speaker 2: the left. They don't want to be associated with the
Speaker 2: right where they got the ideas from, because they don't
Speaker 2: like to see what happens when they carry to their
Speaker 2: natural conclusion.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also, well, John, to to your previous point, Tom, Well,
Speaker 1: first all, the answer your question is where's Thomas anchoring
Speaker 1: the natural rights? It's with the idea of common sense
Speaker 1: understanding a political life of Aristotle. But he does have
Speaker 1: a nice shot of the academics. I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: highlight these for mind, I have a different one. But
Speaker 1: he says, you're in page three of the text that
Speaker 1: I have somehow without formal education, subtle dig there. Right,
Speaker 1: the older people knew that these god given or natural
Speaker 1: rights preceded and transcendent government power or authority. A few
Speaker 1: sentences later, he says, all too often there is an
Speaker 1: unfortunate tendency when discussing a declaration to make these self
Speaker 1: evident truths in first principle of government obscure, well, making
Speaker 1: everything obscure. Right, mind, break.
Speaker 2: Quickly finished the next sentence, because this is a slam
Speaker 2: of you guys in your profession. No, it's not want
Speaker 2: you to believe that our founding are matters of philosophy debate.
Speaker 2: He's talking about you, guys.
Speaker 1: No, he means, he means Jack balcon and people. Never
Speaker 1: mind to be continued, mine do very quickly, and then
Speaker 1: we'll go to a last break and change subsec completely.
Speaker 1: I liked the passage starting on page five where he says,
Speaker 1: when I encounter the declaration of independence in you today,
Speaker 1: I am most struck by the final sentence, and of
Speaker 1: course he quotes it, the sentence about we mutually pledge
Speaker 1: to each other our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honor.
Speaker 1: And he goes on for three more pages to talk
Speaker 1: about what that means, my simple proposition, and then we'll
Speaker 1: go to a break, because I don't need to dilate
Speaker 1: it is honor is another place the progressive left cannot
Speaker 1: go because I really don't believe in it. And and
Speaker 1: if you actually play out the connection between honor and say,
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. This is the point I made
Speaker 1: in Austin two three weeks back when we were all there.
Speaker 1: You realize that, again, these are classical men in a
Speaker 1: deep way, and they weren't. But what's the line Lucretia
Speaker 1: and I forget what Shakespearean play it is where one
Speaker 1: of his characters scoffs at honor. It's a mere word, right,
Speaker 1: and that's what progressive honor is not meaningful to the
Speaker 1: progressive left. So for Thomas to embrace that was one
Speaker 1: more little insult. And they can't go there. They're scared
Speaker 1: of it, That's all.
Speaker 2: Can I say? One laste? I'm not sure this is
Speaker 2: just speculation. Is a lot of the part of the
Speaker 2: speech that isn't getting covered is how he was not
Speaker 2: just criticizing progressives, but you're the language you're quoting who
Speaker 2: was calling on the younger generations to sort of dedicate
Speaker 2: themselves on a level of honor as you're saying, And
Speaker 2: he mentions things like the battlefield of the Revolution, Normandy
Speaker 2: Civil War. Yeah, the Civil War. And so maybe you
Speaker 2: guys edu came me because you're of this same generation.
Speaker 2: It seemed to me he was looking back as a
Speaker 2: baby boomer and looking about all the destruction your generation
Speaker 2: wrought on America and read John has failed to measure
Speaker 2: up to the people from World War Two. He mentions
Speaker 2: World War two several times. And he's hoping the doctor generation, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the generation that follows you restores the principles of
Speaker 2: the And he's hoping for that. But he recognizes, not
Speaker 2: explicit but I think implicitly that his generation is the
Speaker 2: one that dropped the Declaration of Independence and attacks the
Speaker 2: Constitution and you guys made a monk of everything.
Speaker 4: I hear, by the way, all the time from from
Speaker 4: younger people, teacher that I teach, and so on. And
Speaker 4: it's very difficult if you talk about it in sort
Speaker 4: of you know, massive terms to argue against the This
Speaker 4: generation is self you know, they're self absorbed, they're narcissistic,
Speaker 4: they're uh, you know, their pleasure seeking to the worst degree.
Speaker 4: And so he's the fact that he is of that
Speaker 4: generation and can criticize it, I think is also very important.
Speaker 4: And there's a possibility, there is a possibility. It reminds
Speaker 4: me a little bit when I read about that. You
Speaker 4: know who I thought it was Michael J. Fox in
Speaker 4: what was the name of that show, Family Family Ties.
Speaker 4: You know what, when you know, so many years of
Speaker 4: liberal politics and so on, and then then it's the
Speaker 4: Reagan era and the parents of these god awful we're
Speaker 4: not hippies and and you know, right, and and that
Speaker 4: sort of reminded me of sort of appealing. There's a
Speaker 4: possibility as generations flip, you know, that maybe these young
Speaker 4: people actually can be saved, maybe they need to be reminded.
Speaker 1: But well, you push one of you push one of
Speaker 1: my pop culture buttons, because I always say the arc
Speaker 1: of popular culture went from father Knows Best in the
Speaker 1: fifties no to sixties, to Father knows Least be are
Speaker 1: known as all in the family in the seventies. In
Speaker 1: the eighties of Family Ties, Mike Stimock was succeeded by
Speaker 1: Michael J. Fox's character who I don't remember what the
Speaker 1: character's name, but right, he read the Wall Street Journals,
Speaker 1: Alex was he read the Wall Street Journal or a
Speaker 1: tie in quoted William Buckway. Right, that was sort of
Speaker 1: interesting how that turned. Now we don't have sitcoms anymore
Speaker 1: because Rob Long has been made obsolete and redundant.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, before you go to break though, because I don't sorry,
Speaker 4: but really quickly, because you know what you are, you're
Speaker 4: going to move on. I'm concerned watching The Man of
Speaker 4: Sphere and.
Speaker 2: You know, the.
Speaker 4: Weird sort of alt right young men who are taking
Speaker 4: things off into like the worst possible nonsense, and I
Speaker 4: almost look at it as some kind of evil plot
Speaker 4: to prevent that common sense that would otherwise be sort
Speaker 4: of bubbling up in our young men today.
Speaker 1: Yeah that maybe, Yeah, that, John is why we need
Speaker 1: to persuade Justice Thomas to follow the example of Cornell
Speaker 1: West and do a rap album for these junk guys.
Speaker 1: So did he actually do that? Yeah you didn't know that,
Speaker 1: Yeah he did, He really did that. He did. All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we'll come back with
Speaker 1: our closing segment and don't go away. All right. A
Speaker 1: lot of stuff in the news this week worth noting,
Speaker 1: but the one that I think is potentially huge, maybe
Speaker 1: not maybe strike potentially I think is huge is the
Speaker 1: federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I've
Speaker 1: long called the Southern Poverty Libel Center, and they've gotten
Speaker 1: kid glove treatment from the media. Forever, any media organization
Speaker 1: bought her to say, Gosh, I wonder if they're right
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, the Alliance Defending Freedom as
Speaker 1: a hate group. Maybe they went to the Washington Post
Speaker 1: tentatively did that five or six years ago. And so
Speaker 1: now the damn may break because I've known forever that
Speaker 1: they're a corrupt bunch, and it may be worse than that.
Speaker 1: So I'll stop there because I'll bet Lucretia has thoughts
Speaker 1: on this story.
Speaker 2: We can we verify before she goes whether Lucretia is
Speaker 2: actually on the hate map, because I look and there
Speaker 2: is a little little red bob way down to southand Arizona,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you will hear her.
Speaker 4: I do have an answer to that walk out? Start
Speaker 4: with that. Before that, I want to remind you that
Speaker 4: it was only it was less than a year ago
Speaker 4: that the CEO or whatever of the Southern Poverty Law
Speaker 4: Center was you know, as usual Swallwell, Caesar Chavas just
Speaker 4: a typical leftist, treats women like you know what, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera, And that got barely anything. He got moved out,
Speaker 4: they moved on, and you know, imagine if that had happened,
Speaker 4: say at the Heritage Foundation, where the you know the
Speaker 4: head of the Heritage Foundation had been mistreating women. And anyway,
Speaker 4: So here's my little story which may explain the red one.
Speaker 4: It's actually not about me, it's about my son. My
Speaker 4: son was in a class in college that it was
Speaker 4: actually immigration and refugee policy, was the US immigration and
Speaker 4: refugee policy. And he wrote a paper and in his
Speaker 4: paper he quoted something from Breitbart News. Oh, and the
Speaker 4: instructor stood out and read and wrote, this is not
Speaker 4: a legitimate news source and said, do you know what
Speaker 4: they are? Something like what they're rated by the Southern
Speaker 4: Poverty Law Center. Right, And he had to rewrite the
Speaker 4: paper and take out the reference to Breitbart because Breitbart
Speaker 4: was called a racist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 4: There's my little explanation for that red dot down here.
Speaker 2: Notice how she didn't answer the question whether she herself.
Speaker 4: Is in I'd ask for more money.
Speaker 1: I look, look, I know someone who is on the list.
Speaker 1: I'll come back to that. We have a good question
Speaker 1: from Ted, one of our Free correspondents. Yeah, well it's
Speaker 1: in the love Chat. Why are no individuals indicted? And
Speaker 1: I think maybe because they've left the I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: do you know, John, or you probably don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, actually, it's harder to indict an organization criminally
Speaker 2: than it is individual So that's actually more of a
Speaker 2: signal that and maybe that's because the just upon is
Speaker 2: trying to actually shut it down. If you indict individuals,
Speaker 2: then often what a corporation would do is they just
Speaker 2: all righties with the individual and the corporation keeps keeps
Speaker 2: going on like it ever did. So yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is really an effort to bring down the whole, the
Speaker 2: whole organization. And don't want to come.
Speaker 4: Before before we go on, I want to point out,
Speaker 4: just because the left has been so disingenuous about this
Speaker 4: as usual, and that is the fact that it was
Speaker 4: not the Justice Department who just sort of brought some
Speaker 4: sort of presentment against them. An Alabama grand jury brought
Speaker 4: these charges against the SPLC, not the Justice Department. The
Speaker 4: Justice Department. I mean, so you can say that the
Speaker 4: Justice Department and the Trump administration is going after these
Speaker 4: people to hide their racism, and I guess you could
Speaker 4: probably even say that the Alabama grand jury jurors are
Speaker 4: also racist pigs who don't understand what a great organization
Speaker 4: SPLC Isn't They don't understand that this is just like
Speaker 4: when the Department of Justice puts or the FBI puts
Speaker 4: confidential informants inside of an organization. Why are they getting
Speaker 4: so upset about this?
Speaker 1: Right, Well, the SPLC, it is not a law enforcement
Speaker 1: agency first of all. That simple point. Look, I think, well,
Speaker 1: we'll see where this all goes. We'll see what discovery
Speaker 1: brings beause I'm sure there's going to be a lot
Speaker 1: of this.
Speaker 2: See if can I ask you something on you said
Speaker 2: in one of our conversations that you were onto them
Speaker 2: years and years ago. Yeah, right, How like, what are
Speaker 2: the circumstances of that? How did you get on? How
Speaker 2: did you figure out that they were this kind of
Speaker 2: running this kind of fundraising scam essentially that's based in
Speaker 2: making extremism worse. While before the Justice Department did.
Speaker 1: Well, I never, I never, never thought it possible they
Speaker 1: were doing false flag operations. Hold that thought for a moment. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean there have been a few brave journalists, usually
Speaker 1: with bright Bart News, who said, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? And you know, they have had
Speaker 1: a lot of scandals internally before they fired Morris D's
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. But it came to when
Speaker 1: they put Charles Murray on the list. Now, of course
Speaker 1: I know Charles very well and talked to him about this,
Speaker 1: and he said, I thought about suing them for libel.
Speaker 1: So the problem was they have such deep pockets. They
Speaker 1: would put up ferocious resistance. They would draw it out
Speaker 1: for years. They would make my life miserable with depositions
Speaker 1: and discovery. On the backside, they'd want all my emails
Speaker 1: with Dick Hernstein on the Bell Curve and so forth.
Speaker 1: Or I'm sure there's nothing but and he said, but
Speaker 1: I don't want to expend that much mental energy. I
Speaker 1: don't want to have that anxiety for years just to
Speaker 1: prove a point, even though he thought he could probably win,
Speaker 1: and Libel lawyers told him he probably had a good case.
Speaker 1: So it's things like that, Right, they've Charlie Kirk, right,
Speaker 1: they said Charlie Kirk belonged to the hate app And
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm usually I'm cautious about these things,
Speaker 1: but I'm totally comfortable with saying they are complicit in
Speaker 1: creating a climate of hate that led to Charlie Kirk's murder.
Speaker 1: That's probably demagogic, but they e fing deserve it, is
Speaker 1: my view.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was been a shooting at the Family
Speaker 2: Research Oh yes, right, the sugar actually said I got
Speaker 2: the name of this group from the such the hate hate.
Speaker 1: I thought the Family Research Council could have sued them.
Speaker 1: What they might have I'm not sure. But last point,
Speaker 1: and I want to get your opinion on this, Lucretia,
Speaker 1: because this is right down your rally. There's good evidence
Speaker 1: that they are involved in paying somebody a lot of
Speaker 1: money to help organize this famous, infamous Charlottesville Hey, Unite
Speaker 1: the Right rally. And I'm wondering now, gosh, I wonder
Speaker 1: if they had a hand in the events of January. Oh,
Speaker 1: come on, I knew you were going to ruin it.
Speaker 2: You found it so reasonable and oh, I'll do.
Speaker 4: It to split the baby between the two of you.
Speaker 4: And my answer so then I don't send John completely crazy.
Speaker 4: That is that the one thing that we've learned from
Speaker 4: the SPLC scandal, whatever you want to call it, is
Speaker 4: that the supply of white supremacy racism in the United
Speaker 4: States is much is entirely too small to fit the
Speaker 4: need for finding white supremacy in the United States, and
Speaker 4: you might I mean, you guys heard what Trump said
Speaker 4: I think today, which was that if it turns out
Speaker 4: that the SBLC was actually behind all of these things,
Speaker 4: he is going to ask that, I don't know what
Speaker 4: this means. I really don't know what this means. That
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty election be considered illegitimate. You can't really
Speaker 4: do that in my understanding. And again, even if it
Speaker 4: turns out that everything the worst we think is true,
Speaker 4: there are you know, there's things that happen that are
Speaker 4: untrue that have effects on elections that you can't really
Speaker 4: you know, that's the way they go, unfortunately. So you know,
Speaker 4: I think Trump was just bloviating there, But it is
Speaker 4: true that there's not enough racism to go around. And
Speaker 4: that's literally what it comes down to. And all of
Speaker 4: these channeling my Clarence Thomas, all of these civil rights pimps,
Speaker 4: I recognize that without a continued supply of these horrible
Speaker 4: racist incidents, which more and more often turned out to
Speaker 4: be made up or manufactured, they've got no place. I mean,
Speaker 4: DEI is already crumbling. How are they going to bring
Speaker 4: it back when a new regime comes in, they've got
Speaker 4: to have these white supremacists who are lurking underneath every corner.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the right analogy is, but you
Speaker 4: get my point, all.
Speaker 1: Right, Lucretia, you get your Babylon Bees ready, while I
Speaker 1: a last rhetorical question here, which is I wanted for
Speaker 1: a long time? Also, John, how come there's no northern
Speaker 1: poverty law centers? How come there's no Midwestern poverty law
Speaker 1: center with a bunch of guys overalls, you know, Johan Omar,
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity here. Is there's something special about southern poverty?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's I've always thought that was a
Speaker 1: weird aspect.
Speaker 4: Of this is ever a decent organization? I don't really know.
Speaker 2: It started out with noble ideas that attack, you know,
Speaker 2: attacking the KKK. But the KKKY, the society, as you
Speaker 2: pointed out, succeeded in stamping out most of.
Speaker 4: The David Duke didn't get elected to Congress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a weird friend organization.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, they go back a long way. Okay, Lucretia,
Speaker 1: you're up.
Speaker 4: I'm up. Democrats. It's a picture of Schumer is just despicable.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry that man. Oh anyway, now, Democrats devastated to
Speaker 4: learn America less racist than they thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: After losing SPLC funding, KKK forced to buy rogues off team. Okay,
Speaker 4: so we didn't talk about it, but it's a great
Speaker 4: it's a map, and it's it's a great map and
Speaker 4: California's blue, Virginia's blue and blue line in between it says,
Speaker 4: too far gerrymandered. Virginia congressional map includes California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess it works better.
Speaker 4: If you can see it, right, yea? Oh sorry. Trump
Speaker 4: admin moves to legalize marijuana for those with a medical
Speaker 4: need or having to fly on Spirit airlines. O god
Speaker 4: right yeah, oh no, sorry, I get to the last
Speaker 4: page here. Crazy old guy is a picture of Biden.
Speaker 4: Crazy old guy at nursing home keeps telling people he
Speaker 4: was once the president. Have you been watching him lately?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, it's been out there. New evidence reveals
Speaker 4: Judas received his thirty pieces of silver from the SPLC.
Speaker 4: And then we didn't we we didn't talk about the
Speaker 4: polymarket nonsense. But this one's but everybody knows about it.
Speaker 4: This one's actually pretty funny. Nation on Edge after Soldier
Speaker 4: pledges fifty thousand polymarket bet that Trump will nw Goaran.
Speaker 1: Oh that is Oh that's almost worth doing.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, one last one and I'm problems I've done.
Speaker 4: SBLC says funding KKK only three percent of what they do.
Speaker 1: Right. Oh yeah, you have to think about that from
Speaker 1: it before it really drops in.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, I'm done. All right, John, nice to see everyone.
Speaker 2: Always drink your whiskey, need buy more books? And Steve,
Speaker 2: what do you have for us?
Speaker 1: An AI? IW No, I'm not doing AI anymore. I
Speaker 1: may come back to it, but I want to move
Speaker 1: it up. Well, I'm going to think about that, but
Speaker 1: instead we're just going to do a new formal ending.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Three Whiskey Happy Hour, the
Speaker 1: podcast devoted to single malts, say, gular metaphysics and advanced
Speaker 1: Sydney Sweeney's studies. We thank our sponsors, especially the Civitas
Speaker 1: Institute and our production host Ricochet dot Com. If you
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Speaker 1: do please be nice to John and also your favorite
Speaker 1: whiskeys until next week for John and Lucretia. Bye bye
Speaker 1: for now, and we are out Ricochet. Join the conversation.