Speaker 1: Meaning a light man like this man letting butterfly flapping
Speaker 1: his wing big down in a forest.
Speaker 2: Man, it gonna cause the tree fold, letting five thousand
Speaker 2: miles away.
Speaker 1: Man, nobody seen, nobody else see. You don't need to
Speaker 1: know many flu You followed another story and.
Speaker 3: You got back to flect that man's man got back
Speaker 3: to name.
Speaker 1: On the panel. Man, Man, you don't don't matter. Man.
Speaker 2: All right, Brax and McCoy, welcome back to the Jay
Speaker 2: Burton Show.
Speaker 1: How you doing that? Good dude, how are you doing well?
Speaker 2: I think you and I might have the highest delta
Speaker 2: between how often you and I talk on the phone
Speaker 2: and how much you and I talk on the internet.
Speaker 2: It's been shoot, almost two years since you and I spoke,
Speaker 2: you know, on a podcast or whatever.
Speaker 1: Wow, but uh where I I have.
Speaker 2: To talk to you at least once a week, and
Speaker 2: it's punishing. I wouldn't wish on my worst end.
Speaker 1: I hear that in many such cases. I hear this
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah, yeah, you're supposed to be out
Speaker 1: here bear hunting for the second year in a row,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to do it. From what I
Speaker 1: can tell, Yeah, I know, I'm honestly it is a
Speaker 1: character flaw. I'm just horrible at planning things, because you
Speaker 1: probably noticed as evidence actually by this podcast where we
Speaker 1: planned it a week in advance, with no specific time
Speaker 1: and no specific topic past I think like two lines
Speaker 1: I gave you twenty seconds ago. So the kids say
Speaker 1: it's a skill issue. I really had nothing better than that.
Speaker 1: I get it. I got the same problem. Well, you
Speaker 1: got like a TBI. I was just born this way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I was like I was bad before, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's just like increased. I was born retarded. Did
Speaker 1: you know my mom had me tested when I was
Speaker 1: a kid because she thought I was retarded. Did I
Speaker 1: ever tell you about that?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: But I got tested too, And they're like, uh no,
Speaker 3: And I think, honestly, this is like the early nineties, right,
Speaker 3: So if it was now, they'd be like, your kid's autistic,
Speaker 3: you know, But back then they were just like, no,
Speaker 3: we don't we don't really know what's wrong with them.
Speaker 1: He's not retarded.
Speaker 2: But well I got I got tested the same thing
Speaker 2: my parents. I was not doing well. My parents pulled
Speaker 2: me out at homeschooled me and they're like, there's there's
Speaker 2: something ain't right because I was like eight or nine
Speaker 2: and just refused to learn how to read. I just
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. And so they bring me in and
Speaker 2: they like gave me the like pig drink and the headphones,
Speaker 2: the whole thing. And lady's like, all right, I don't
Speaker 2: know how to tell you this. Your son's not autistic,
Speaker 2: he's not retarded. He's just really stubborn. And they're like,
Speaker 2: all right, well, I mean you know that's not a
Speaker 2: medical condition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this sounds like my middle son. Dude, he's totally
Speaker 1: like that. Like for a while, I was even like,
Speaker 1: is he We're gonna have to help him a little bit,
Speaker 1: like with reading and stuff. But then he'll like blurt
Speaker 1: out something that's like a systems level analysis. I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's no way that you understood that by yourself, and
Speaker 1: like are struggling with certain parts of reading.
Speaker 2: You just don't want to do it, you know, which
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, there's a discussion for another day. But
Speaker 2: in my mind, one of the real flaws of education
Speaker 2: is that it tracks guys like that into like the
Speaker 2: special bus, you know, and it's like, Okay, maybe we
Speaker 2: need to do this a different way. Whatever you are,
Speaker 2: you're not the same as like the kid who can't
Speaker 2: tie his shoes or like blow snot bubbles, Like those
Speaker 2: are two both problems from a certain perspective, but completely
Speaker 2: separate things. But Braxton, since the last time we spoke
Speaker 2: on air, you went on Tucker, you started a conservation organization,
Speaker 2: or at least I became a way of it. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious before we get into this, where did this
Speaker 2: come from?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Where did this kind of passion for the outdoors, you know, originate?
Speaker 2: And well, to be honest, man, why do you step
Speaker 2: up and start something? I mean, my youth is where
Speaker 2: it all really started.
Speaker 1: Like we outside all the time, you know, with Grandpa
Speaker 1: and just the whole family. Grew up rural and we
Speaker 1: were constantly up on the mountain fishing or hunting or whatever.
Speaker 1: And then I was with a different organization like ten
Speaker 1: years ago working on this kind of stuff. Uh, dude.
Speaker 1: And I used to tell them all. I can remember,
Speaker 1: like multiple conversations sometimes even in DC, talking to these
Speaker 1: guys before we'd go, you know, sit down with senators
Speaker 1: or whatever, and telling them like, look, man, you have
Speaker 1: got to approach this from a right wing perspective as
Speaker 1: far as like sales and transfers and this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff goes. The left is not the one, at least
Speaker 1: back then that was pushing for that. It was always
Speaker 1: the right. So bringing these kind of lefty talking points
Speaker 1: is not going to sway right wing congressman at all,
Speaker 1: because he knows instinctively that you do not represent his voters. Right. So,
Speaker 1: in fact, one time, the head of the organization, we were
Speaker 1: having lunch and I was like, is your goal to
Speaker 1: just have a liberals who hunt group? Because if that's
Speaker 1: your goal, then you've done it. So anyway, so I
Speaker 1: was doing that kind of stuff back then, and I
Speaker 1: just couldn't really get my position within the organization pushed forward.
Speaker 1: A couple other guys had the same complaint and left,
Speaker 1: So then I just kind of started writing about it
Speaker 1: and talking about everywhere I would go. And then Mike
Speaker 1: Leathan came up and you know, with the with the
Speaker 1: big beautiful bill stuff, and they were absolutely trying to
Speaker 1: sell off all of the BLM. Like they'll try to
Speaker 1: tell you they weren't doing that, and that forrest too,
Speaker 1: Like one map they tried to say was a bullshit
Speaker 1: map was not anyway, the main goal was selling all
Speaker 1: off and this was like a gateway in. So when
Speaker 1: I was reading kind of behind the scenes and then
Speaker 1: talking to friends, I just basically made it my job
Speaker 1: for two weeks to troll Mike Lee. I told my wife,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is all I'm going to do
Speaker 1: for two weeks. We're just not going to let this
Speaker 1: guy breathe, right, So I started doing that and then
Speaker 1: somehow that got the attention of Sean, Ryan's former producer,
Speaker 1: and he reached out and was like, can you be
Speaker 1: out here in like two days? And I said yeah,
Speaker 1: no matter what. And he's like, can you handle the travel?
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, whatever, dude, I'll be there, Like
Speaker 1: this is a big deal for me. And so I
Speaker 1: wrote kind of what the show outline would look like.
Speaker 1: You know, Sean's a passionate outdoorsman, but this is like,
Speaker 1: this topic is hyper niche, right, so you've got to
Speaker 1: be into it, and it takes a long time to
Speaker 1: understand all the different kind of political machinations behind the
Speaker 1: scenes and all that, so you really sort of need
Speaker 1: somebody who's been steeped in it. So I wrote the
Speaker 1: show outline and sent it to him, and obviously they
Speaker 1: made adjustments. They're pros and they were like, hey, we'll
Speaker 1: see you on Thursday or whatever it was. And then
Speaker 1: I flew out there and did that, and then that
Speaker 1: got the attention of Tucker and I had a friend
Speaker 1: hit me up, Philip, I think it was it was Philip,
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, you have to start
Speaker 1: an org. You have to kind of start your own organization.
Speaker 1: I said, all right, So we set that up and
Speaker 1: so that's how we got here. That's that's the rambling
Speaker 1: version of how the organization got started. Well, I think
Speaker 1: it the issue of a public lands and the kind
Speaker 1: of like natural birthright of our country. I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting one because it sort of strikes at this
Speaker 1: fault line right between To be honest, it's like what
Speaker 1: are we conserving? Like what is the point of this country?
Speaker 1: And you know they're this fight has been raging for
Speaker 1: longer than you or I are been alive. But it's
Speaker 1: sort of this perfect encapsulation of it is the point
Speaker 1: of America to be this sort of strip mall where
Speaker 1: anyone can come and get rich and as long as
Speaker 1: the business is doing well, you get a positive cash
Speaker 1: flow and that's a good country. Or is it a
Speaker 1: place for a people a place for Americans to live,
Speaker 1: and it really, I think, struck a chord with a
Speaker 1: lot of people because it's there are few things as
Speaker 1: popular as in natural parks and public land. Don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, there are issues you know better than I
Speaker 1: the whole situation with water rights and grazing and all that.
Speaker 1: But the number of people who say, yeah, we should
Speaker 1: take that, sell it to property developers and move the
Speaker 1: entire population of Mumbai there is next to zero. It's
Speaker 1: not particularly popular.
Speaker 2: And especially in an era where immigration is such a
Speaker 2: live is you and where you have people who describe
Speaker 2: themselves as you know, hardline MAGA conservatives and seemingly they'll
Speaker 2: say that, you know, they'll say like, oh, we've got
Speaker 2: to you know, all the problems that you know, mass
Speaker 2: migration and all the problems that have started to affect
Speaker 2: our communities.
Speaker 1: That's bad.
Speaker 2: And then you lift the curtain up a little bit
Speaker 2: and you're like, wait a minute, Bud, you're selling that's
Speaker 2: the amount of land to your bodies to provide space
Speaker 2: for like low rent housing. What do you think happens there?
Speaker 2: And I think that I'll be the first to admit
Speaker 2: before you started talking about it, wasn't even an issue
Speaker 2: that I really thought about because I live in a
Speaker 2: part of the country where there aren't a lot of
Speaker 2: public land, and you know, like a lot of East
Speaker 2: Coast guys, was shocked and amazed when I went out
Speaker 2: west and saw like, oh, this like incredible natural beauty.
Speaker 2: And then to be told by an immigration restrictionist, maga
Speaker 2: hardliner like Lee or any others, oh wait, we're going
Speaker 2: to sell that off because we did it with the
Speaker 2: private market. It's okay, It's like we look, man, I
Speaker 2: don't care, like I don't care about that part. The
Speaker 2: reason I care about America is because it's a home
Speaker 2: for people like me, you know, not because it's a
Speaker 2: balance sheet, says USA at the top.
Speaker 1: I can yeah, man, that's exactly right. And a lot
Speaker 1: of it is so. Mike Lee has been wanting to
Speaker 1: do this since he got in office. In fact, you
Speaker 1: can go back. Somebody found a campaign flyer from twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: I think it was the year he first was campaigning
Speaker 1: to for I think Congress and then Senate is how
Speaker 1: he did it. But he might want straightened the Senate
Speaker 1: either way. Clear back on the campaign flyer, he's talking
Speaker 1: about this and if you look at like his his
Speaker 1: prior work, he worked as a litigator for or in
Speaker 1: house council rather for energy solutions, So it really it's
Speaker 1: kind of a you don't have to scratch your head
Speaker 1: to figure out why he even ran for office to
Speaker 1: begin with, right, So in some ways this is his
Speaker 1: main things and as far as the immigration restriction is part.
Speaker 1: This is my view of politics is that different. Everyone
Speaker 1: is representing an interest of some kind, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason that Republicans will look as if they're
Speaker 1: like flip floppy or wishy washy on stuff is they're
Speaker 1: reading the tea leaves of like political discourse, and then
Speaker 1: they'll try to kind of chameleon into one little part
Speaker 1: of it in order to look a certain way, but
Speaker 1: they didn't actually change their fundamental purpose for being there.
Speaker 1: Look at like Ted Cruz with Zionism, Mike Lee with
Speaker 1: public land. You see this kind of pattern emerge, and
Speaker 1: they'll pretend to be super based on something, but really
Speaker 1: it's just in furtherance of whatever reason they were elected
Speaker 1: to begin with. So that's something to all in my
Speaker 1: view to bear in mind. When you're watching these people,
Speaker 1: they're they're not as some people say, oh, they just
Speaker 1: you know, this guy will change his position sort of
Speaker 1: at a whim, you know, if that's what people want.
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, so now why is he there? Right?
Speaker 1: You have to ask the next question, and most people
Speaker 1: don't do that. And to your other point, as far
Speaker 1: as like my GDP and line go up and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, libertarianism sort of libertarian economic theory kind of
Speaker 1: infected all of right wing populist politics through I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not a person who should tell you
Speaker 1: when it started. But for most of my life this
Speaker 1: was like the definitional conservative was the guy who says
Speaker 1: less government, less taxes, all this stuff that doesn't address
Speaker 1: the main question like what are you conserving if you're
Speaker 1: a conservative? So that sort of ethos, in my view,
Speaker 1: has got to go. And it's not to say it's
Speaker 1: like a wrong economic theory. It's just got a bad
Speaker 1: starting point. So like, let's go back to the starting
Speaker 1: point and then if you want to overlay this economic
Speaker 1: theory back in and see how it works out, and
Speaker 1: then maybe we can do that. But the starting point
Speaker 1: should be, uh, is this good for American families? Because
Speaker 1: that's what I'm trying to conserve is that people Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw this, Braxton, but there's
Speaker 1: been a viral post going around Twitter of this guy
Speaker 1: who basically, you know, made his son, you know, sell
Speaker 1: like pistained carpets so that he could buy his first
Speaker 1: car when he turned sixteen. And okay, fair enough, like
Speaker 1: I worked crappy jobs by my first car. Whatever.
Speaker 2: But the objectionable part, at least in my mind, is
Speaker 2: he gave him a loan for like fifteen hundred bucks,
Speaker 2: but his loan to his dad is like twenty five percent.
Speaker 2: It's like the mostly regius interests. Yeah, and so people
Speaker 2: are you know, doing the normal reactions like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is everything wrong. But I think it's kind of interesting
Speaker 2: because I think that a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: conservatives rightly have this understanding that like, you know, you've
Speaker 2: got to you've got to practice tough love, and you've
Speaker 2: got to raise your kids in such a way that
Speaker 2: they understand, you know, they can't depend on hand numps,
Speaker 2: which I understand that's a laudable goal. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sure we've all seen examples of you know, kids
Speaker 2: who are given way too much and they become monsters
Speaker 2: as an adult. And so all right, fair enough, we're
Speaker 2: seeing that instinct to leave something to your children, a
Speaker 2: less right, something that will prepare them for the world
Speaker 2: after you're gone. And I think that's an instinct that
Speaker 2: conservatives naturally have.
Speaker 1: They get that.
Speaker 2: But on the other end, there is a part that
Speaker 2: there are assets that are not yours to dispose of.
Speaker 2: You know, you own them now, but it's like the
Speaker 2: family farm. You know, it's something to be passed through generations.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think of you know, one of
Speaker 2: my best friends, his family farm is deeded to them
Speaker 2: by the king, right, that's how long it's been there,
Speaker 2: and you know, every subsequent generation has you know, maybe
Speaker 2: they managed it well, maybe they managed it poorly, but
Speaker 2: it was never something for someone to burn. And now
Speaker 2: it's something that sort of serves as you know, an
Speaker 2: economic engine, a retirement plan for you know, their eighty
Speaker 2: five year old grandfather. And so that's something that yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: any one person at a point in time could have
Speaker 2: cashed in their chips, right, they could have sold they
Speaker 2: could have individually made their lives better. And conservatives, right wingers, libertarians,
Speaker 2: that whole side of things really like property rights, and
Speaker 2: I understand why right, because the government, the lefties whatever,
Speaker 2: they're attacking that, you know, they want you to own
Speaker 2: nothing and be happy quote unquote, But like the correct
Speaker 2: understanding of property is like, yeah, it is yours, you
Speaker 2: own it, but it's not yours in the sense that
Speaker 2: it is right for you to do whatever you want
Speaker 2: with it. Right, just as you have an obligation or
Speaker 2: you were given something by those people before you, you
Speaker 2: have an obligation to those people who come after you.
Speaker 2: That's the conservation. You're sort of conserving, the like civil
Speaker 2: as a seed corn and the idea that like, well
Speaker 2: it says my name on the deed, so I can
Speaker 2: burn everything down so that I can go out on
Speaker 2: a cruise ship or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's.
Speaker 2: It's it's like penny wise and pound foolish. And perhaps
Speaker 2: the worst example of this is George Bagbee, who's routinely
Speaker 2: on my show has made no secret about the fact
Speaker 2: that he's worked on cruise ships. Right, it's how he,
Speaker 2: you know, funds his life. And here's this little telegram
Speaker 2: channel maybe six hundred people in it, or he'll leave
Speaker 2: either these texts or voice messages of talking to people
Speaker 2: on cruise ships. You know, after the fact like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is the conversation I had. Man, let me tell you,
Speaker 2: it's the most black billing thing you'll ever listen to
Speaker 2: the world, because it'll be people like sitting around joking
Speaker 2: about like, yeah, this, I'm on my kid's college fund
Speaker 2: right now. You know this, twenty thousand dollars voat trip
Speaker 2: My kids are going to be working for every set
Speaker 2: And look like, you know what, I don't grudge anyone
Speaker 2: enjoying their retirement, right, but taking that and sort of
Speaker 2: turning that into a joke and like laughing about it
Speaker 2: that I am going to, you know, take everything with me.
Speaker 2: Obviously that's not literally what you know, Mike Lee or
Speaker 2: any of these guys are saying. But it's that same thing,
Speaker 2: right of like effectively burning this asset and for what
Speaker 2: to make up a fraction of the debt that we're
Speaker 2: never going to pay back anyway, to line your pockets
Speaker 2: in your friend's pockets. It's like, one that is far
Speaker 2: from a conservative impulse. And two, once it's gone, it's gone.
Speaker 2: You can't sell the farm twice. You can't you sell
Speaker 2: more of this effectively irreparable or irreparably irreplaceable kind of
Speaker 2: natural beauty and I don't know, man, it's it's an
Speaker 2: attitude that really bothers me.
Speaker 1: Well I would, uh, I would take it a step
Speaker 1: further and say that it's it's fundamentally an anti American.
Speaker 1: Like if you if you go back all the way
Speaker 1: to like John Smith, you know, he gets done killing
Speaker 1: Turks and being a slave and all this stuff and
Speaker 1: being a pirate and all this other cool shit, and
Speaker 1: then he comes over to America and that original Jamestown colony.
Speaker 1: I know, there were a couple other attempts, but the
Speaker 1: Jamestown Colony, the intent was exploitative. They had been seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, the Spanish bringing back hordes of gold, and
Speaker 1: they were like, well, I'm gonna go get mine, right,
Speaker 1: So it was a purely profit driven venture to begin with.
Speaker 1: But the real turn happens when John Smith realizes that
Speaker 1: the land is actually what's valuable, like the place. So
Speaker 1: at the very core route beginning of America is this
Speaker 1: idea that the dirt is what makes this place what
Speaker 1: it is, you know, or in terms of like value.
Speaker 1: So to ignore that and be like, well, whatever, how
Speaker 1: about some fiat for the you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to get rid of this thing
Speaker 1: that actually was the you know, the foundation of what
Speaker 1: the country became. I'm going to get rid of that
Speaker 1: for some printed you know money, like what what are
Speaker 1: we even doing here? Like? You know, So I would
Speaker 1: argue that America as an idea begins with John Smith.
Speaker 1: Many people make that argument, but it's the land itself.
Speaker 1: So an American is something tied to this idea of
Speaker 1: an expanse from the very start.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to do something. I realize you're Orthodox,
Speaker 2: so I might scare you here by reading in English
Speaker 2: from the script, but I've been going through with a group,
Speaker 2: going through Ecclesiastes along with a great book by Peter Creeft,
Speaker 2: Three Philosophies of Life. Creeft is Catholic. I am not,
Speaker 2: but he's an exceptional writer. And so this section just
Speaker 2: reminded me of that. This is from ecclesiastic If you
Speaker 2: see the oppression of the poor and the violent perversion
Speaker 2: of justice and righteousness in the province, do not marvel
Speaker 2: at this matter or high official for the high official
Speaker 2: watches over high official and higher officials over them. Most
Speaker 2: interesting part, the last one, moreover, the profit of the
Speaker 2: land is for all, even the king is served from
Speaker 2: the field. And that idea, right that the land is
Speaker 2: the nation that is where the prosperity sort of flows
Speaker 2: up from, I think is one that has really been
Speaker 2: we've really moved away from. You know, you can talk
Speaker 2: to you know, listen to my buddy, you know, Peruvian Bull,
Speaker 2: who's been on the internet forever talking about this, that
Speaker 2: there's sort of a maximum stable amount of your economy
Speaker 2: that can come from finance, usury, right, moving money around.
Speaker 2: I guess a useful thing. You know, it's helpful to
Speaker 2: be able to get loans so you can do things.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, let's be honest, the settlement of America
Speaker 2: was you know, in certain places done on right. You know,
Speaker 2: you get a loan and then when you set up
Speaker 2: your farm you can pay it back. Right, we understand that.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, the maximum number historically is
Speaker 2: something like you know, five to twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Like that's stable.
Speaker 2: But as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, you
Speaker 2: start to get these weird per person sentives because you
Speaker 2: make money not by doing anything providing a service, per se,
Speaker 2: but by shifting things around on a spreadsheet. And I
Speaker 2: think that you know, that instinct to basically take a
Speaker 2: physical asset and reduce it into kind of fungible money,
Speaker 2: right tokens on a balance sheet.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: You were you were pulling something that is real that
Speaker 2: lasts forever into something that is like sand. Right, it
Speaker 2: rolls through your fingers. Because let's be honest, right, how
Speaker 2: much money? You probably know the number? How much money
Speaker 2: would we as like AMERI Corp. Gain from selling all
Speaker 2: this land?
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea? Yeah? They So they tried
Speaker 1: to say during the first of all, what you said
Speaker 1: before was great and true, and I want to put
Speaker 1: a pin in that because I'm in a reference of
Speaker 1: Protestant scholar here in a second, but they put out
Speaker 1: a number and they tried to say one hundred trillion. Okay,
Speaker 1: that is totally poem, like pulled out of their ass
Speaker 1: It's made up. I don't even know what okay, So
Speaker 1: what would happen? I did my own like just basic
Speaker 1: math on it. Right now, like sprub land type stuff
Speaker 1: out here is higher than I've ever seen it, like
Speaker 1: we would call it grass like grazing ground or whatever,
Speaker 1: higher than I've ever seen it, And the average is
Speaker 1: probably around thirty five hundred an acre, and that's incredibly
Speaker 1: high given that it can't even produce five hundred an acre. Right,
Speaker 1: if you actually did thirty five hundred an acre, you
Speaker 1: could buy all the land in the state of Idaho
Speaker 1: for around hundred billion. Maybe it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifteen billion that I found. So just given how much
Speaker 1: public land is in the state of Idaho and how
Speaker 1: much public land is in the rest of the West,
Speaker 1: and use the number one hundred and fifteen billion, and
Speaker 1: then kind of times it by the eleven public land states,
Speaker 1: because the number is going to be lower in Nevada
Speaker 1: because the ground is worse even less. So you just
Speaker 1: kind of do that and you come up to about
Speaker 1: like what a trillion, you know, So where are you
Speaker 1: getting this one hundred x figure? They're just making it up, right,
Speaker 1: So you sell all this off and you get a trillion. Well,
Speaker 1: we're what forty trillion into what was the number right now?
Speaker 2: I mean, well, and the rate at which that debt
Speaker 2: is increasing anyway, it's like we even if we count
Speaker 2: that one trillion, it's like, all right, it's a step
Speaker 2: in the right direction. It's like, well, in the time
Speaker 2: it took you to draw up those contracts, how much
Speaker 2: more has been added, Right, It's a drop in the bucket.
Speaker 2: And it's why I don't believe that's the actual reason,
Speaker 2: right that that smells to me like something that they
Speaker 2: came up with after deciding they wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, it's it's minerals. So it's it's private interest, right.
Speaker 1: The data center a lot of money in the data
Speaker 1: center tech stuff, so it's partly that, but it's it's
Speaker 1: mineral rights. That's what they want. Uh. And that Lee
Speaker 1: tipped his hand in the final you know, adjustment that
Speaker 1: he made to his proposal on the Big Beautiful Bill.
Speaker 1: It was like, Okay, well you can keep the land,
Speaker 1: but just give us the mineral rights. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: well that's what it's for. So it's pay it's kickbacks,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's like everything else in politics, right, it's
Speaker 1: it's personal interest or personal gain rather.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the things that I
Speaker 2: I sort of find insulting about it, because like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not naive about this. I understand how
Speaker 2: people are corrupt. Politicians are corrupt. It is what it is,
Speaker 2: you know, It's it's the human condition. But to sort
Speaker 2: of try and you know, big man, everyone one be like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this is the real conservative position.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, it's not. You just want to get paid.
Speaker 2: And I know he can't just say that, but it
Speaker 2: almost be more honest to just come out, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, you got hold.
Speaker 1: On and I know a more piece of evidence for that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make this just a Mike le Hayeka,
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is the same guy. This is the
Speaker 1: same guy who just like you know that, uh teams
Speaker 1: up with Kamala to try to end per country caps
Speaker 1: on H one B visas. Right, Like that is obviously
Speaker 1: not a conservative position, obviously, So you don't get to
Speaker 1: come in here and tell like, define the word for
Speaker 1: me now when it's it's so like and we'll get
Speaker 1: you face value and see that you're just trying to
Speaker 1: get paid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's pure and naked corruption and the partisan
Speaker 2: aspect of it as well. It is just kind of
Speaker 2: shameless because so many people who were so willing to
Speaker 2: tell you, oh, you know, the Democratic Party is bought
Speaker 2: and sold by China, you know, or oh, you know,
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson is bought and sold by Qatar. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: when we get to India, suddenly you get real quiet
Speaker 2: or other nations will leave it there. But in my mind,
Speaker 2: and this is a sort of a sidetrack and get
Speaker 2: back to, you know, the kind of nature of American soul,
Speaker 2: which I want to get to. But I think, like
Speaker 2: a lot of people, I didn't realize how big the
Speaker 2: India lobby had gotten until the I think it was
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty four RNC. Right, oh yeah, where all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we've got someone at the front leading
Speaker 2: the whole crowd and some kind of Hindu prayer And
Speaker 2: you're like what yeah, And you look at it and
Speaker 2: you're like, where where did this come from? Like, not
Speaker 2: only is this not like, oh, you know, a slow burn,
Speaker 2: it's like out of nowhere. Ostensibly the party of the
Speaker 2: American people, right, the people who've been here for a while.
Speaker 2: If you look at the voting patterns and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: it's like, where did this come from?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Just literally jumping into bed with you know, a foreign nation,
Speaker 2: which I guess for the Republican Party they're probably used to.
Speaker 2: But speaking about that kind of tie tie to the soil,
Speaker 2: it's one of the really interesting things. You you read
Speaker 2: in the kind of accounts of very early settlers to
Speaker 2: America is what was the what were the big draws? Okay,
Speaker 2: for a little bit they thought there was goal on
Speaker 2: the ground at it and turn out at.
Speaker 1: Least not here.
Speaker 2: But it was basically, well, to be fair, okay, some
Speaker 2: of you can get a choice. My antist never kidnapping
Speaker 2: kids out its prison and they ended up but anyway.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 2: I at all point it's but basically it was the
Speaker 2: idea of you can go to this this virgin continent
Speaker 2: and you can have land and a lot of land
Speaker 2: and look like part of the weird thing about America
Speaker 2: is we never really went through a feudal stage, right,
Speaker 2: and a big part of that is that from a
Speaker 2: very early era, normal people could have access to land,
Speaker 2: which historically is you know, this huge store of wealth.
Speaker 2: And you compare the idea of like the King's Forest
Speaker 2: where there's a limited amount of you know, game animals,
Speaker 2: there's a limited amount of fish, animal protein, and you
Speaker 2: were not able to access it. And then you read
Speaker 2: you know they're in Jamestown. They're talking about like oysters
Speaker 2: like as big as your hand, you know, in an
Speaker 2: almost unlimited amount of you know, deer and fish in
Speaker 2: the rivers, and the access to basically live like a king,
Speaker 2: right to eat better than you know, nobility would in
Speaker 2: your home country like that, that was a huge draw.
Speaker 2: And all throughout the kind of settling of America you
Speaker 2: have this process of basically you know, second sons of
Speaker 2: guys who you know went bust. You always have the
Speaker 2: option to go west and keep going west. And you
Speaker 2: see this over and over again in you know, American film,
Speaker 2: American literature. There's this great section from my favorite book,
Speaker 2: All the King's Men, where the main character where I
Speaker 2: take my online pseudonym from, basically has this sort of
Speaker 2: crisis and he does this crazy you know, one sitting
Speaker 2: drive from Louisiana all the way to uh to Palm
Speaker 2: or to Long Beach, sorry my bad, across the country
Speaker 2: and it's maybe three paragraphs of text, and he's talking
Speaker 2: about like, going west is what you do in America
Speaker 2: when the note comes due, you don't have money, when
Speaker 2: the well goes dry, when the police are out for you,
Speaker 2: that's what you do. And so even as someone who's
Speaker 2: lived their entire life, you know, within in the Blue
Speaker 2: Ridge Mountains, the the kind of symbolic importance of undisturbed.
Speaker 2: You know, Western Wildland is huge. It's our nation. It's
Speaker 2: our national story, right, like the cowboy is our version
Speaker 2: of you know, the Knight in arm or the Samurai whatever.
Speaker 2: It's our thing. And so yeah, sure, there's the economics
Speaker 2: which don't add up. There's the very real sense of
Speaker 2: betrayal that you're selling us out for India. But on
Speaker 2: another level, it's like it feels the same as you know,
Speaker 2: taking dynamite to I don't know, the Lincoln Memorial or
Speaker 2: you know, something like that. It's a national symbol that's
Speaker 2: very core to Yeah, that's absolutely the American Americans, right.
Speaker 1: We're intrinsically tied to it. I think, for for me, whenever,
Speaker 1: whenever I think about this stuff, anytime I'm using the
Speaker 1: word land, I'm almost using it as a euphemism for
Speaker 1: my people. You know. It's like I love my people,
Speaker 1: and without this they don't exist anymore. Man Like it's gone.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the cultural piece is for me, the most important.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like bloodsport debate with retarded politicians,
Speaker 1: it's kind of not very effective, even though it should be.
Speaker 1: It's just not very effective. So what they would say
Speaker 1: to this, they're wrong in lying. But what they would
Speaker 1: say to what you just said is, well, yeah, the
Speaker 1: draw was that you could own your own land, and
Speaker 1: these guys can't own their own land because you know,
Speaker 1: it's all swallowed up by bl and enforcers. That's not true.
Speaker 1: There are government I've found in a book. I text
Speaker 1: you about this when I found it, but so I
Speaker 1: don't have it in my hand, so I can't show you,
Speaker 1: but I will put it out a document all the
Speaker 1: way back from like sixteen forty five where they're talking
Speaker 1: about the right to hunt and fish on all public properties.
Speaker 1: So this idea was intrinsic to the building of our people. Right,
Speaker 1: So you feel that you feel it as like emotion,
Speaker 1: but it is true historically too, like as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact.
Speaker 2: And on that point, right, the and I understand why conservatives,
Speaker 2: right wingers, whatever you want to call those people are
Speaker 2: to be honest kind of nervous with the idea of
Speaker 2: like the public good, you know, because it smells like
Speaker 2: socialism and look like you and I understand that there
Speaker 2: are things that are technically for the public good that
Speaker 2: aren't for you and I. Right, you know, Section eight housing, welfare,
Speaker 2: public transport. Right, that's not really for you and I,
Speaker 2: and so I understand that. But if you look at
Speaker 2: how actually has national land been used, graded on a
Speaker 2: curve of government programs, people like it and it's going well.
Speaker 2: I think that honestly, and not looking to get into
Speaker 2: the whole Bundy thing, like we said, there are issues
Speaker 2: there one hundred percent, but I even look at positive
Speaker 2: developments within the Trump administration, for instance, you know, charging
Speaker 2: non citizens for access to this land, which I mean,
Speaker 2: that's great. Like I remember when I went to Yellowstone,
Speaker 2: I was thirteen, so what fifteen years ago, and even then,
Speaker 2: you know, it looked like it was Shanghai. You know,
Speaker 2: it was wall to wall and Okay, you know what,
Speaker 2: that's not ideal. That's a problem that could be addressed.
Speaker 2: But there are a few things, in my mind, kind
Speaker 2: of more American than the American road trip, right, that
Speaker 2: idea of going to these places, and it's something that like,
Speaker 2: you don't need to be particularly rich to do. It's
Speaker 2: a very normal middle even lower middle class thing to
Speaker 2: have seen these sites, and it's something that we all
Speaker 2: do benefit from, you know, we all do gain some
Speaker 2: sense of like this is a useful kind of end
Speaker 2: to my taxes, end to my money. And don't get
Speaker 2: me wrong, like there are any number of things that
Speaker 2: my tax dollars are spent on feel like a complete
Speaker 2: and total waste, right, you know, blowing up girls schools
Speaker 2: halfway across the world, you know, smashing pictures of Jesus. Like,
Speaker 2: I don't like that. I don't like the fact that
Speaker 2: my money is used to you know, promote, you know,
Speaker 2: trans stuff in schools. But when it's like a minute
Speaker 2: fraction of that money that I basically just right off,
Speaker 2: it's just burned, goes to something that me and hopefully,
Speaker 2: you know, my descendants will be able to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we're gonna have taxes. That's not a
Speaker 2: bad place for them to go, you know, in the
Speaker 2: Grand Scheme to things great everything else they do.
Speaker 1: One graded on a curve, as you say, these are
Speaker 1: the best government run institutions that we have. That's not
Speaker 1: to say that they're problem free. I can I can
Speaker 1: just feel the boomer rage right at whoever's listening to this.
Speaker 1: It's not to say they're a problem free, but created
Speaker 1: on a curve, these are probably the best government programs
Speaker 1: we have the National park system makes money every year,
Speaker 1: you know, and we don't want to conflate national parks
Speaker 1: with public lands. But just in that case, it makes
Speaker 1: money every year. It makes enough to pay for the
Speaker 1: floor service and the people in so we can just
Speaker 1: forget about it, right. So that's an important point. And
Speaker 1: then secondly, the idea that for your kids, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing like it's not mine, it's just mine for
Speaker 1: a time, you know, like Teddy Roosevelt said, we have
Speaker 1: to preserve it for those yet in the womb of time. Right.
Speaker 1: This concept is very important and I don't even know
Speaker 1: that you can remain an American without that. Like what
Speaker 1: separates us well, I mean a lot of things now,
Speaker 1: but this is the thing that separated us from the
Speaker 1: British as we were, you know, a fledgling, upstart set
Speaker 1: of colonies and then eventually a nation. It was this thing.
Speaker 1: I feel you just have to be really, really careful
Speaker 1: when you start playing with foundational things, right, Like I
Speaker 1: was gonna say earlier, the Protestants Callar Michael Heiser. He
Speaker 1: talks a lot about sacred geography not to be or
Speaker 1: cosmic geography. That's what he says, not to be confused
Speaker 1: with what's that guy's name, the asteroid guy, Randall Carlson.
Speaker 1: This is a guy making an argument from the Bible.
Speaker 1: And he points out that our modern sort of eyes
Speaker 1: and ears don't detect in the text, this this subtext
Speaker 1: that was obvious to all of them, like the importance
Speaker 1: of the land itself. Right, Like, for example, I forget
Speaker 1: his name, but this pagan guy, he's got leprosy, right,
Speaker 1: and he's struggling, and he's got a Jewish you know,
Speaker 1: Hebrew slave girl or whatever. And the slave girl says,
Speaker 1: just go to the prophet, and the prophet can fix this.
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're complaining, right, And so he
Speaker 1: finally goes to Ezekiel, and Ezekiel won't even come out
Speaker 1: to meet him. Do you remember the story. He's like
Speaker 1: in his tenth and he won't even come out to
Speaker 1: meet him. And the noble pagan guy is sort of
Speaker 1: put off by this, right, He's like, well, you can't
Speaker 1: even come out I'm important or whatever. He's like, just
Speaker 1: go wash in the Jordan River. And as Heiser points out,
Speaker 1: there's nothing about the Jordan River that is particularly special.
Speaker 1: You know, the guy's in his brain thinking like We've
Speaker 1: got better rivers in Syria than this, Like why would I.
Speaker 1: So he goes and baths in it seven times, and
Speaker 1: then his leprosy is cured, and that brings him into
Speaker 1: the fold. Now he knows that God is the one
Speaker 1: true God. Well, the next thing he does is ask
Speaker 1: if he can take dirt from that area, and he
Speaker 1: takes like a camel train or whatever it is of
Speaker 1: dirt back to Syria. Right. So this for them it
Speaker 1: was obvious, you know, the importance of this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But for modern people, we don't. We don't think of
Speaker 1: it on that level, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of we need to figure out how to push
Speaker 1: it out back into the land apologetic without turning off
Speaker 1: you know, the non Christians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think about this a lot. There was a
Speaker 2: map going around where it was the percentage of people
Speaker 2: from any state who lived there that were born there.
Speaker 2: So obviously Mississippi Louisiana's off the charts, as you'd imagine,
Speaker 2: and states like California, Vermont, and Florida are incredibly low.
Speaker 2: And look, I get it, economy sucks. Sometimes you got
Speaker 2: to move. I don't blame anyone for individually making that choice,
Speaker 2: but there is something there's something lost with being a
Speaker 2: nomad in that way, right of never kind of setting
Speaker 2: your roots down. And perhaps some of my best points
Speaker 2: on this I'm just shamelessly stealing from my buddy Arnst
Speaker 2: van Zeel conscious Carocle. He's an afrofum in South Africa,
Speaker 2: and he was talking about this question because he's like,
Speaker 2: constantly people are asking me, why don't you move right,
Speaker 2: why don't you join an expat community in Melbourne or
Speaker 2: in America? Like you'll do well, right, we know the
Speaker 2: boards do well wherever they go. And his whole point
Speaker 2: is like, well, a boor a farmer only exists here, right,
Speaker 2: this is where we are, and when we go away,
Speaker 2: we don't become that anymore. We become we become great Americans,
Speaker 2: become great Brits, we become great Australians. And that's a
Speaker 2: credit to us. Right, we're doing what immigrants are supposed
Speaker 2: to do. But if you care about your people, there's
Speaker 2: a death in that, right, you're becoming something else. And
Speaker 2: he has this great essay talking about building a trench
Speaker 2: where this is pulling on things that happened during the
Speaker 2: Boer Wars, where you know the bors were fighting.
Speaker 1: The Brits.
Speaker 2: Developed trench warfare and jungle warfare. They didn't develop the
Speaker 2: concentration camp, but all of these things that would become
Speaker 2: relevant in later wars. You kind of sprung up in
Speaker 2: that conflict. And he's using this analogy of digging a trench,
Speaker 2: where he's like, well, yeah, sometimes you've got to retreat.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you've got to run. Sometimes you've got to get
Speaker 2: out or you're gonna die. But you don't do that
Speaker 2: to keep running forever. You run so you can find
Speaker 2: a place, dig a trench and fortify it right and
Speaker 2: make it yours. And when I look at and I
Speaker 2: just spent you know, the weekend in DC and DC
Speaker 2: any number of these other kind of you know, leading cities,
Speaker 2: they really are that kind of geography of nowhere where
Speaker 2: it's everybody from anywhere with no real know, kind of
Speaker 2: cultural ties whatsoever, going to these same stores that they
Speaker 2: would go to anywhere else across the globe. You know,
Speaker 2: it's the same type of people, kind of polished, free
Speaker 2: of anything unique or special. And that's what I like
Speaker 2: about America. I like that it's regional, I like that
Speaker 2: it's specific. I like that I've lost it. Who knows
Speaker 2: if I ever had it, But I like that. When
Speaker 2: I talk to old people here, they talk different than
Speaker 2: old people from you know, two states over. And that
Speaker 2: kind of particularity again, once it's gone, it's gone. You know,
Speaker 2: you you took something that took hundreds of years to
Speaker 2: develop and you turned it to kind of gray goo
Speaker 2: and look man like a crappy apartment building, you know,
Speaker 2: a mining concern whatever those are. Those are interchangeable, right,
Speaker 2: those are mechanized, those are designed to be produced. And
Speaker 2: you you look at again, you know, national Parks of
Speaker 2: the Elm Land, and it's like, well, that's that's not fungible,
Speaker 2: that's specific. That is something that is you know, unique.
Speaker 2: There's not something else like it. And so to take
Speaker 2: that and to kind of despoil it and turn it
Speaker 2: into just another part of that kind of like global monoculture.
Speaker 2: It's just like you're watching if that were to happen,
Speaker 2: you'd watch something die in the same way. If you
Speaker 2: know every you know, weird dutchman from South Africa moved
Speaker 2: to you know, I don't know La, that thing, that special,
Speaker 2: unique thing would be gone, and I don't know, man
Speaker 2: like it at a very deep level it. It bothers me.
Speaker 2: You know, it feels like the world getting less interested.
Speaker 1: You're right that they're as a death in leaving your place.
Speaker 1: I think the regional point is important when considering America
Speaker 1: because there's like, there's like all these subcultures still exist
Speaker 1: in rural America. But as you say, like, if you
Speaker 1: go to pretty much name picture metro, it's the same
Speaker 1: the suburban part of it will be the same strip
Speaker 1: mall hell that you see in San Diego or whatever,
Speaker 1: and all the people sound the same. They'll all even
Speaker 1: pretty much behave the same. Right, So if you leave
Speaker 1: like your region, you do become something different. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, if you destroy the rural areas, it's
Speaker 1: over right, like like what do you have now? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know it. I don't know how you get
Speaker 1: this through to somebody, because obviously we're becoming sort of
Speaker 1: city states all of us, like Idaho, the direction it's trending. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody likes to hear this, but all these
Speaker 1: people moving in here, they're supposedly conservative or whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: you build big metros and you're gonna just you, I mean,
Speaker 1: you will become California. California may not have been as
Speaker 1: conservative as something whatever that word even means, as right
Speaker 1: wing ish as a place like Idaho is now in
Speaker 1: the eighties, but it was a completely fundamentally different place.
Speaker 1: It was you know, uh there's it was like a
Speaker 1: ranching production state with some cities in it. And now
Speaker 1: look what happened, right, so I understand the fleeing phono start.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, yeah, dude, look a look at the
Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest right, look at you know, Oregon and Washington, Like,
Speaker 2: why did people end up in Oregon? They were running
Speaker 2: away from California.
Speaker 1: No, no, you're talking that's what happened example, because that's
Speaker 1: kind of thing that happened with like Colorado too. But
Speaker 1: there was a a lot more East Coast influence moving in,
Speaker 1: like Massachusetts and stuff like that. But the same sort
Speaker 1: of stuff happened. You can't know someone what the people
Speaker 1: that do that generally, like as far as leave their
Speaker 1: region entirely. Like if someone moved from West Virginia to
Speaker 1: Virginia for work or whatever it provided, it wasn't you know, Nova,
Speaker 1: A K Street or some shit. He moved there to
Speaker 1: go work at whatever company he stayed like within his people, right,
Speaker 1: that's probably not like a fundamental change coming along with
Speaker 1: that because it's culturally similar. And I don't profess to
Speaker 1: be like an expert on the dynamics of Appoaysia. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to make the point. So someone going from
Speaker 1: Wyoming to Idaho for work like that, culturally there's almost
Speaker 1: no change. So it doesn't really like change. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't impact the state in the same way as
Speaker 1: someone going from a place like California to somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And so when you destroy or when you bring a
Speaker 1: new culture in, even if that person who is really,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, actually just looking for lower taxes, in
Speaker 1: almost every case, That's what I was gonna say earlier.
Speaker 1: You bring that guy in, he may vote Trump or whatever,
Speaker 1: but he is he is adding to the destruction of
Speaker 1: the culture. His offspring will be whatever he is outside
Speaker 1: of taxes, so that cultural change shift can come in
Speaker 1: through the kids. So maybe for ten years you look
Speaker 1: nominally more conservative, but you've broken the culture, right, and
Speaker 1: once the culture is gone, it goes back to the
Speaker 1: almost tiresome question that we all ask online all the time,
Speaker 1: like what are you conserving right? If you're not conserving
Speaker 1: your people, you're conserving nothing. Well man, And.
Speaker 2: You saw this happen in Virginia, right my home state,
Speaker 2: where you know, even within a Republican control, and you know,
Speaker 2: not that long ago, Virginia was a ruby red state.
Speaker 2: And well what happened, Well, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: tax money for you know, inviting in different tech companies,
Speaker 2: different kind of industrial concerns, and well they brought people
Speaker 2: with them. Now, the DC thing, that's its own separate thing, right,
Speaker 2: but you've seen the same thing across the entire southeast,
Speaker 2: right North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, where for understandable reasons,
Speaker 2: you know, the leaders are like, oh, we want X
Speaker 2: y Z factory, we want them to make this, we
Speaker 2: want them to do this, we want our own kind
Speaker 2: of tech hub, like you know what's happening in Austin
Speaker 2: or what they're trying to do in other places. And
Speaker 2: it's like, I get that, that makes sense, but what
Speaker 2: are you what are you trading there? And what you're
Speaker 2: trading is you're getting more of that monoculture, right, You're
Speaker 2: getting this sort of people that we're living in San
Speaker 2: Francesco two years ago. And yeah, you're right, the taxes stink.
Speaker 2: Taxes are you know, inconstarable, So their business ended up moving.
Speaker 2: But it's the same thing as you know, selling the
Speaker 2: public lands, where it's like you're you're getting an immediate hit, right,
Speaker 2: you're getting that increase to revenue, but you're eating away
Speaker 2: at the actual place itself. And I think that like
Speaker 2: because of that kind of fiscal conservative sensibility. Like it
Speaker 2: it's like rat poison, right. It tastes great. It's exactly
Speaker 2: what they want to eat. And for that like immediate rush,
Speaker 2: it's probably great until it starts to eat you out
Speaker 2: from the inside.
Speaker 1: I'm not picking on Texans when I say this, because
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of friends down there and they
Speaker 1: are very touchy about this stuff. But I do love them.
Speaker 1: If you look at Texas, they did exactly this thing
Speaker 1: for decades and they'll still tell you how much they
Speaker 1: love Texas and they know every piece of Texas history
Speaker 1: and all that. But if you were to say, okay,
Speaker 1: can you go to that spot? You know you're telling
Speaker 1: me this. You know, I don't want to pick something
Speaker 1: huge like Santa Ana or something, but you know where
Speaker 1: this where Jack Black killed whatever? Wasn't that his name
Speaker 1: Jack Hayes. That's what I was thinking. He killed whichever
Speaker 1: Indian over in this area, and you know the story
Speaker 1: and it's all important to you or whatever, and it
Speaker 1: makes Texas Rangers very cool and so forth, and all
Speaker 1: that is true, but you can't go there because it's
Speaker 1: under a strip mall or a data center or whatever.
Speaker 1: So for how much this is, you're paving over your
Speaker 1: own history. And then you're wondering why the kids like
Speaker 1: don't care about it. You know, there's another thing in
Speaker 1: Texas I noticed last time I was down there. And again,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to pick on him. I'm really like
Speaker 1: trying to get my people to understand what happens. Right.
Speaker 1: I was at a barber you joint, and I was
Speaker 1: watching the people, like all these dorks wearing like gas
Speaker 1: station cowboy hats and stuff. They're not they're obviously not
Speaker 1: real Texans, but they're doing this like I'm a Texan
Speaker 1: larp thing. And so they've got a gas station Jason
Speaker 1: al denstraw hat or some shit, right, And it's easy
Speaker 1: to look at that and be like, oh, these guys
Speaker 1: are gay, and they are right, but you should lament
Speaker 1: that because so many of them are able to do
Speaker 1: this and walk around and knocket like they're asses kicked
Speaker 1: or made fun of or whatever. Because they're able to
Speaker 1: be this gay, it is proof that the actual Texans
Speaker 1: who that symbol meant something to are gone, you know,
Speaker 1: or there's like not enough of them. So it's easy
Speaker 1: to be glib about it and be like, oh, those
Speaker 1: guys are fags, but there's something worse happening there. You know.
Speaker 1: It should make you think. I'm not saying you should
Speaker 1: like cry about it, but it should make you think
Speaker 1: about what happened to you.
Speaker 2: You know, well, like two things there. One, you know,
Speaker 2: I mentioned the the sort of death or regional accents,
Speaker 2: and my my great grandmother passed not too long ago, right,
Speaker 2: very old, and she's from kind of the same area
Speaker 2: that I am. Actually, if if you ever listened to
Speaker 2: uh the old old Bluegrass uh Doc Watson and talk
Speaker 2: very very similar accent from very similar areas. And you know,
Speaker 2: I was thinking back, you know, to the last time
Speaker 2: we'd spoke, and I kind of hated the fact that
Speaker 2: she sounded like she's from a place and I could
Speaker 2: be from anywhere, you know, like I've got the syntax,
Speaker 2: you know, I still say that, you know, those certain
Speaker 2: words that you can take the New York Times whatever
Speaker 2: accent quiz and it'll you know, find out where you
Speaker 2: are on the map.
Speaker 1: But like that had been.
Speaker 2: Kind of lost, and it makes me think about like
Speaker 2: the kind of crazy neo pronouns, right diseasers, the all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, which like a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, right wingers and conservatives love to
Speaker 2: make fun of and I get why, Like it's ridiculous,
Speaker 2: it's absurd, and they should be bullied more for it.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, like where does that come from?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: That comes from an extreme lack of identity, Right, that
Speaker 2: comes out of a desire of like, well, I want
Speaker 2: to be somebody. I want to have something that reflects
Speaker 2: what I am. And you know, some of that has
Speaker 2: to do with this idea that you know, you have
Speaker 2: to define your own identity. It's not something you are,
Speaker 2: it's something you have to choose, which is you know,
Speaker 2: a discussion for another day. But I think a big
Speaker 2: part of it is all the all the things people
Speaker 2: used to derive identity from, you know, whether that's regional,
Speaker 2: whether that's religious affiliation, whether that's simply patriotic, have kind
Speaker 2: of they've been absorbed into that goop, and so it
Speaker 2: becomes like a costume, right, it becomes that cowboy hat
Speaker 2: you can buy from you know, Safeway or whatever. And
Speaker 2: when we're talking about like, you know, the core identity
Speaker 2: of what it is to be an American, it's like
Speaker 2: that same question, albeit phrased differently, is sort of being
Speaker 2: asked everywhere right where.
Speaker 1: It's like what what am I? Like?
Speaker 2: Why are we here? What's the point of all this?
Speaker 2: And yeah, sure that may not be directly connected to that,
Speaker 2: you know, that guy wearing a stupid cowboy hat and
Speaker 2: a barbecue joint in San Antonio, but like it's the
Speaker 2: same expression of it, right, that kind of rootlessness, lack
Speaker 2: of identity, and again, like it's one of those things
Speaker 2: where it just seems to be kind of a consequence
Speaker 2: of modernity. And why also that question of like who
Speaker 2: is an American is really important? Because if American is
Speaker 2: just an identity you can pick up at the gas station,
Speaker 2: like a you know, twenty five dollars straw hat, like
Speaker 2: what is it doesn't mean any of it. You know,
Speaker 2: you could be American one day, you could be something
Speaker 2: else the next, versus like well, if it's a sort
Speaker 2: of like an ethnic thing, you know, and look like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm a different kind of American than like, you know,
Speaker 2: our buddy of lee is, he's a different thing than me,
Speaker 2: and you know we only start start fights with the wops.
Speaker 2: But like the that's that's a radically different understanding than
Speaker 2: simply like it's another one of those identifiers that I
Speaker 2: can pick up at any time. And well let's play
Speaker 2: that out right, If that's all what it is to
Speaker 2: be American is just I've you know, made certain rational
Speaker 2: like I say, I stand at the front of a
Speaker 2: room and say, yes, I affirm the Constitution, I passed
Speaker 2: my Civics test. Well, then of course those people aren't
Speaker 2: going to have the same feeling towards and reverence for
Speaker 2: our kind of international treasures, right, the things that one
Speaker 2: generation is passed down from one to another. Because they're
Speaker 2: not theirs, you know, they don't have that same kind
Speaker 2: of gut level attack that you know, you and I do.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I just rant. Here's another example of that. In Idaho.
Speaker 1: There's like a lot of Californians moving in and these
Speaker 1: people are nominally right wing, I guess, and they are
Speaker 1: like they've you know, they have a very high freedom
Speaker 1: score from whatever Homo at the Cato Institute would give them,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Uh, I've seen them tweeting
Speaker 1: online about how we should break off Eastern Idaho from
Speaker 1: Western Idaho, and it's like, bitch, you just got here.
Speaker 1: Can you shut the fuck up? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 2: It's like going over to one of your buddies places
Speaker 2: and moving its furniture around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the traditional like Mormon Corridor, Idaho people are
Speaker 1: part of what made the entire Mountain West into what
Speaker 1: it is. Like they I'm I'm not a Mormon, right,
Speaker 1: but I have respect for them as people, and a
Speaker 1: lot of my family are Mormons. Like we've been out
Speaker 1: here since like eighteen forty or whatever the hell. Right,
Speaker 1: they came out and carved their own sort of nation
Speaker 1: out of a place that no one wanted. So to
Speaker 1: come in from somewhere else and within ten minutes start
Speaker 1: talking about carving it up into your own little libertarian paradise.
Speaker 1: Is an expression of that thing you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: Like they don't care, it doesn't mean anything to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's it's yeah, yeah, you said their.
Speaker 1: Backs Philip, you can call me and I'm getified right here, So.
Speaker 2: Now I fill it. Men, Well, what are we gonna
Speaker 2: do with that guy?
Speaker 1: Anyway? Man?
Speaker 2: This has been a really interesting discussion. So, assuming people
Speaker 2: want to get involved with what you're doing at Sagebrush,
Speaker 2: where should they go?
Speaker 1: Stage one Institute dot org and follow scrub Lands. That's
Speaker 1: where I do most of the writing. I've been slacking
Speaker 1: on it, so we're trying to fix the house but
Speaker 1: getting close to be only get back to work on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I will include both of those links in
Speaker 2: the description. Y'all should definitely check it out.
Speaker 1: And I think that.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I have realized, particularly for
Speaker 2: younger guys, is that there are a lot of civic
Speaker 2: institutions whatever that have a surprising amount of sway, and
Speaker 2: the people that run these institutions are very, very old
Speaker 2: and are desperately looking for successors. The point is, if
Speaker 2: you're interested in conservation and getting involved in this, even
Speaker 2: if you know there's not enough guys local to spin
Speaker 2: up something for Sagebrush, dig around because you can. You
Speaker 2: be surprised how far you can go quickly and really
Speaker 2: start to make changes on this front. There is I
Speaker 2: guarantee you there is some sort of you know organization,
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, hunters and fishermen of whatever town
Speaker 2: you live in. And I can almost guarantee you the
Speaker 2: average age of members is like about sixty five to seventy.
Speaker 2: And if you come in, you know, don't be a
Speaker 2: freak about it, right, but you could really make some
Speaker 2: headway on that one. They're just another piece of I
Speaker 2: would say advice there just an additional thought.
Speaker 1: One thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on. Man, this has
Speaker 2: been a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: Before any organization. I made this mistake in the past.
Speaker 1: Before you join any organization, look at who funds them,
Speaker 1: because that's the direction they will go. Yeah, let me
Speaker 1: tell you, you'd be surprised how many how many conservation
Speaker 1: organizations are funded by Qatar and more. Yeah uh huh.
Speaker 2: But in all serious disaspand this has been a ton
Speaker 2: of fun. It is weird and not a bad way,
Speaker 2: but to talk to you on air because I'm not
Speaker 2: quite used to it, and I'm used to just doing
Speaker 2: random stuff around my house and together you on the phone.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm so rambling. Probably you saw the phone
Speaker 1: calls good fact.
Speaker 2: Look man, I've made a career out of rambling into
Speaker 2: a microphone, so you'll get no criticism for me. As
Speaker 2: far as my stuff, Jay Burden Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
Speaker 2: anywhere you want to listen to podcasts. Do you want
Speaker 2: to support me? It's what I do. I depend on
Speaker 2: your support. It's like five bucks a month on Patreon,
Speaker 2: Substack or gum Road.
Speaker 1: Not a bad deal.
Speaker 2: It comes out to like twenty some cents per hour
Speaker 2: of content, which is I'm gonna be honest, I should
Speaker 2: be charging you people more. Anyway, Braxton, it's a ton
Speaker 2: of fun. Everyone at home, keep your head up.
Speaker 1: Good night.
Speaker 3: That's that's what's the Bagariagary program.