Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an
Speaker 1: Eagle one from Eagle Speak at seer Shure your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
Speaker 1: And welcome on board everybody to your pre fourth of
Speaker 1: July free for all. We really appreciate you all taking
Speaker 1: time to join us today, whether you are live or
Speaker 1: you're getting it via the podcast. But if you are
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Speaker 1: about today, but obviously if there's something that's tickling your
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Speaker 1: be waiting for you can't beat the price. And on
Speaker 1: that note, Mark, Hey, happy Sunday to you.
Speaker 2: Hey, thank you very much. Well, I just disappear. Nope,
Speaker 2: and hope you're still here. My screen disappeared. That's always shocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had a little experience we're talking about in
Speaker 1: the pre show for the listeners, just so you know
Speaker 1: you're not the only people that happens to. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a running too. I don't know if we've been
Speaker 1: keeping track of how many times I've been able to
Speaker 1: log on like ten seconds before the those starts, even
Speaker 1: when we have a guest and you had a little
Speaker 1: trouble having to do a Chrome update, shaking a chicken,
Speaker 1: make a sacrifice the ball, and everything else, but you
Speaker 1: did get your computer up and running in time for
Speaker 1: us to do a little bit of appreciative Yeah.
Speaker 2: It what's the what's the character that joebu or from
Speaker 2: a major league mcclass of rum and a cigar and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it came came.
Speaker 1: Up so good nough, So I mean it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we did a free for all last week, but we
Speaker 1: always joked and we only do an hour and we
Speaker 1: could probably talk. Sometimes our post show goes another twenty
Speaker 1: minutes if we don't ever record it. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot going on. But what what what broke above your
Speaker 1: background noise the most for you this week?
Speaker 2: Well, uh, you know, obviously there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion about the the success of the Irane, the Iranian
Speaker 2: the attack on the Iranian nuclear program and uh so
Speaker 2: you know that's that's been, that's been there. We've got
Speaker 2: a lot of other stuff going on. We you know,
Speaker 2: there Jerry doctor, Jerry Hendrix I see is on the
Speaker 2: staff of the the people trying to get the ship
Speaker 2: building program going. He sounds like he's doing doing well.
Speaker 2: But among other things, there was a there was a
Speaker 2: post an x what do you call him tweet? I
Speaker 2: don't know what to call him now, tweet tweet, Yeah,
Speaker 2: by a guy by a guy who goes by the
Speaker 2: name of Infantry Dort and uh he he was, you know,
Speaker 2: talking about he didn't want to slide into Islamophobia, I
Speaker 2: don't think, but he talked about some culture shock issues
Speaker 2: facing our forces who were involved in Afghanistan Iraq, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know that that caused me to think about, Uh,
Speaker 2: Samuel Huntington's the clash of civilizations, which has been critiqued
Speaker 2: by a number of people has not been exactly right,
Speaker 2: but a lot of other people are looking at and gone, yeah,
Speaker 2: we see these these new boundaries. With the end of
Speaker 2: the Cold War, the nation state and the and the
Speaker 2: advance of globalization, the nate state, nation state becomes less important,
Speaker 2: and then people are falling where their countries, you know,
Speaker 2: I have have have kind of gone by the wayside
Speaker 2: or are not as important to them as there as
Speaker 2: other things that a lot of times, religion and some
Speaker 2: of the other aspects of life have taken over their
Speaker 2: their center spot in their lives. So, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a pretty He makes a pretty good point somewhere along
Speaker 2: the way that that he's unaware of people. You know,
Speaker 2: you could be a French Canadian, you can be a
Speaker 2: a Algerian French person, but he's never heard of anybody
Speaker 2: being a half half Catholic, half Muslim. And you know,
Speaker 2: there there are certain cultural things and we're seeing a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff come out coming into play these days.
Speaker 2: But the Glastonbury event, a lot of other places where
Speaker 2: we're seeing people who are not assimilating into the culture
Speaker 2: of the of the nations they're currently living in, but
Speaker 2: are hanging on to their their center, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: their religion, not necessarily their race, not anything else or
Speaker 2: where they came from, but the religion that they that
Speaker 2: they belong to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you and I have done a good job over
Speaker 1: the last fifteen years. We try to you know, it'll
Speaker 1: touch on now and the things you can't avoid some things
Speaker 1: and evolve politics or some of the cultural issues. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, inside the lifelines of a national
Speaker 1: security discussion, I think I think there this is something
Speaker 1: that's worthy of discussion because when we look at you,
Speaker 1: within the last one hundred fifty years or so, two
Speaker 1: of the major waves of immigrants came to this country.
Speaker 1: I'll just use as a data point the Irish and
Speaker 1: the Italians, because those big waves are you know, those
Speaker 1: people that were third or fourth generation in But when
Speaker 1: those individuals showed up in the first generation and the
Speaker 1: second generation, one thing that characterized them more than anything
Speaker 1: else were how much they loved this country and why
Speaker 1: they came to this country. Especially on the Union side
Speaker 1: and World War Two, you had a lot of Irish
Speaker 1: that had barely been off the boat and they filled
Speaker 1: out some civil War autist, I'm sure will correct me,
Speaker 1: but it was a couple of regiments of Irish that
Speaker 1: fought on the Union. There's actually some smaller units around
Speaker 1: Charleston area mostly that fought for the Confederacy as well.
Speaker 1: Very patriotic, very self sacrificing for their country. The big
Speaker 1: wave of of Italians, it came over here in the
Speaker 1: first couple of decades of the twentieth century, especially right
Speaker 1: after World War One. We had no shortage of Italian translators.
Speaker 1: During World War Two, they were great Americans. You look
Speaker 1: at even the way they were treated after December seventh
Speaker 1: of forty one. Japanese Americans, a lot of them at
Speaker 1: that point were second generation. Even though they were put
Speaker 1: in camps, they enlisted in tremendous numbers and produced the
Speaker 1: most decorated unit in the US Army in World War Two,
Speaker 1: or one of the Japanese Americans units. So you have
Speaker 1: that data point. And the Japanese came here that was
Speaker 1: mostly Buddhist culture, though a lot of them became Christians
Speaker 1: when they came over here. And of course you had
Speaker 1: a lot of the Christians from Nagasaki who came over
Speaker 1: as well. But that is a different flavor of people
Speaker 1: that have come here. And I'll use one example that
Speaker 1: covers two different parts of the country and I'll name
Speaker 1: names because she's been out there and been quite advocate
Speaker 1: advocating her position. You look at Representative il Han Omar,
Speaker 1: and there's also I can't recall her name off the
Speaker 1: top of my head, but she's a state representative for
Speaker 1: Maine from around Lewiston. They're both from Somalia. And when
Speaker 1: you look at ill hand Omar specifically, her father was
Speaker 1: a colonel in the communist government of Somalia that got
Speaker 1: overthrown in a revolution, was in a refugee camp, came
Speaker 1: to the US, I'm believe when she was nine years old,
Speaker 1: and she got elected to Congress, and she's got a
Speaker 1: lot of her family over here in the best country
Speaker 1: in the world, and yet you will find somebody who
Speaker 1: at every turn has the worst things to say about
Speaker 1: her adopted nation that she represents in one of our
Speaker 1: highest bodies an official can be elected to. And very
Speaker 1: similar that's been echoed in Maine with that Somali community that.
Speaker 2: You have there.
Speaker 1: I am here to represent the issues of Somali Americans.
Speaker 1: Completely flipped from what we have seen in previous And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't agree with everything that Infantry Door
Speaker 1: put in the comment section, but a lot of it
Speaker 1: ring true, especially for those of us that deployed on
Speaker 1: the ground in the Middle East that I spent most
Speaker 1: of much twenty years and twenty one years involved in.
Speaker 1: And it's something that it's difficult to have a conversation
Speaker 1: about because people will immediately call you the most nasty
Speaker 1: things in the world. Though I don't think it bites
Speaker 1: as much as it used to. But we need to
Speaker 1: look clearly at it because it's a different challenge when
Speaker 1: you have people immigrate to this country who do not
Speaker 1: want to not only don't want to assimilate, but are
Speaker 1: actively hostile to it. And it's founding neath us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some of the stuff that Infantry Door put
Speaker 2: in there was reflects more culture shocked than cultural clash.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's although sometimes hard to tell the difference,
Speaker 2: but you know, what he reports is not much different
Speaker 2: than what I saw when I lived in an Islamic
Speaker 2: country back in the late nineteen sixties. So some of
Speaker 2: the the activities are apparently timeless. Uh And and if
Speaker 2: you have any doubt, you could watch lorens of Arabia
Speaker 2: and see some of those activities continued there too. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is is the question really is, is there is
Speaker 2: it possible for people who are so wrapped up in
Speaker 2: their culture to assimilate or even want to assimilate into
Speaker 2: a culture they view as being totally counter to their
Speaker 2: belief systems, And it is, you know, I find that
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know. I'm not proposing that we
Speaker 2: we intern anybody and and do all the stuff we
Speaker 2: did to the Italians and and the Japanese in World
Speaker 2: War two. I'm just curious as to where we're going
Speaker 2: to go with this and how how long you know,
Speaker 2: the classic line from Abraham Lincoln, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: country divided against itself survive and how you know? Right now,
Speaker 2: it's a fairly small group of people, but there are
Speaker 2: also a lot of We've seen a lot more return
Speaker 2: to religious religious behavior. Secularization seems to be kind of fading.
Speaker 2: We're getting more young people involved in religion, in Christianity
Speaker 2: and other religions. A lot of people are seeking something
Speaker 2: to give them a basis because the society as a
Speaker 2: whole seems to be a little bit of drift right now,
Speaker 2: as whereas the shared values we had if we you know,
Speaker 2: sixty eighty years ago, you know there was some we've
Speaker 2: been all unite against the communist menace. We could well
Speaker 2: not all of us. Some of us just became elected
Speaker 2: representatives and centator from New Hampshire where he's from Vermont anyway,
Speaker 2: So you know, it's a question, and I think that
Speaker 2: is a national security issue. You can you have people
Speaker 2: who were in this country who are acting against the
Speaker 2: best interests of of the society they live in.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned something I think that also ties into it.
Speaker 1: And there's a little bit of this that the you
Speaker 1: have your relative distance that it takes to travel to
Speaker 1: assimilate to a new culture. For instance, back when we
Speaker 1: were kids, Dearmore and Michigan or my hometown had Lebanese
Speaker 1: palesin what's now called Palestinians and Syrians have been coming
Speaker 1: here for one hundred and twenty five years. But they
Speaker 1: were Christians and they were no different than somebody who
Speaker 1: had a German last name or Scottish last name. They
Speaker 1: just their redneck accent was worse than mind. Their families
Speaker 1: had been for so long, and there was very little
Speaker 1: cultural difference, no more than there is between somebody at
Speaker 1: English Extraction and somebody of Irish Extraction or the Italian
Speaker 1: American Club on the other side of town. So there
Speaker 1: wasn't much problem there. But you look at places like Dearborn.
Speaker 1: Now are some of the other places where you now
Speaker 1: have people who come over there are still wearing the
Speaker 1: outfits they wore in Pakistan or you see in the
Speaker 1: fundamentalist neighborhoods in Damascus. That's that's not assimilating, and that
Speaker 1: is dangerous. So I think it dovetails with another trend
Speaker 1: going back to Glastonbury is I think I mentioned it
Speaker 1: here before, but I've written about it a few times.
Speaker 1: I know part of it was the way I was raised.
Speaker 1: Anti Semitism and jew hate was foreign to me because
Speaker 1: I just had so many Jewish people I grew up
Speaker 1: with here, no different than Methodists. I did not think
Speaker 1: that we would have seen in our nation the level
Speaker 1: of red and tooth and clawed jew hate that we've
Speaker 1: seen in the last two years. And it's not realized,
Speaker 1: not just here but another places. And you saw this
Speaker 1: as a young adult. I was either still in diapers
Speaker 1: or running around in early grade school. But you go
Speaker 1: back to the Summer of Love. You look back at
Speaker 1: a lot of the anti war protests against Vietnam, and
Speaker 1: after that you had the anti nuclear Saint Freeze of
Speaker 1: the late seventies and the nineteen eighties, and you've got
Speaker 1: had green peace, the environmental movement. Yeah, they had some
Speaker 1: fellow travelers on the edge, Students for a Democratic Society,
Speaker 1: the IRA, various People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Speaker 1: National Command. You know, they were on the fringes. They
Speaker 1: weren't in the center and their call for violence and
Speaker 1: killing or on the fringes at the center of it.
Speaker 1: It was a relatively peaceful movement. But that's not true
Speaker 1: where you have a very popular group of singers at
Speaker 1: a music festival that are calling for the murder of
Speaker 1: members of parliament that they disagree with them politically, and
Speaker 1: they call for death to the IDF because it rhymes.
Speaker 1: But we all know that they're more than just the idea.
Speaker 1: If they're interested in and they get away with it,
Speaker 1: it's a different vibe that I don't see what type
Speaker 1: of positive direction that goes to if there isn't an
Speaker 1: honest conversation about that type of violence that is coming
Speaker 1: from that particular part of the political spectrum. Those folks
Speaker 1: have got to police themselves, but we've got to police
Speaker 1: them as well. It's just it, it spirals in a
Speaker 1: direction nobody wants to go to if you allow that
Speaker 1: type of stuff to go without being challenged.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's part of the thing that I am
Speaker 2: troubled by is that you know, certainly people are free
Speaker 2: to express their views. Yeah. I may not agree with them,
Speaker 2: but as as I certainly spent some time defending their right,
Speaker 2: as as you did, defending their right to have those
Speaker 2: opinions and to be able to talk about them. But
Speaker 2: the other side of it is the minute you take
Speaker 2: on some of these issues, then you can be accused
Speaker 2: of all kinds of of anti you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: anti Islamic, you're anti whatever, and it is it is
Speaker 2: uh where where you know where? Why can you not
Speaker 2: have a conversation about this that doesn't end up in
Speaker 2: being resulting in it in a death threat or you
Speaker 2: know we're going to I mean, it has just gotten
Speaker 2: to the point where the people who need to stand
Speaker 2: up and say this, this is not right, what you're
Speaker 2: what you know, are not being there. They're being accused
Speaker 2: of being a phobic of whatever thing that you're standing
Speaker 2: up against, and that that is a problem. I mean
Speaker 2: that happened a lot when when just take an example
Speaker 2: of parents who were complaining about the some of the
Speaker 2: materials their kids were being exposed to at school. You know,
Speaker 2: that should have been a nice topic for debate. Why
Speaker 2: you know, why the kids should see it when a
Speaker 2: kid shouldn't see it, But it got to immediately got
Speaker 2: to these parents are you know, accused of all kinds
Speaker 2: of a criminal activity necessarily but opinion, you know, bad
Speaker 2: think if you will, from nineteen eighty four, so wrong think,
Speaker 2: and it's that that cannot stand in this country. We
Speaker 2: you know, we need to defend the right for people
Speaker 2: to be say what they want and to be right
Speaker 2: or wrong and be judged on the merits of what
Speaker 2: they say, rather than just attacking them blindly and incorrect.
Speaker 1: Freedom of speech. It's a messy area, but I think
Speaker 1: you do have a line. Part of the problem is
Speaker 1: we allowed ourselves to lose the language, especially over the
Speaker 1: last ten years, where words you are violence, but violence
Speaker 1: is words type of things. No, you know, people should
Speaker 1: be allowed to be insulting, but you've got to draw
Speaker 1: a line where there is a clear incitement to that violence.
Speaker 1: And I don't think just because you're a musician. Music
Speaker 1: is an art. Writing is also an art. And if
Speaker 1: you write and tell people go out and kill MPs,
Speaker 1: and you're in a society where other people have been
Speaker 1: jailed who simply write something even more benign than that,
Speaker 1: you are throwing kindling on a fire. And we have
Speaker 1: similar challenges over here where you have to have equality
Speaker 1: before the law and either you cannot incite violence or
Speaker 1: you can incite violence. You can't have a situation where
Speaker 1: one side of the political spectrum, or one side on
Speaker 1: a socio cultural political view is allowed to do whatever
Speaker 1: they want, but on the other side disagrees in any way,
Speaker 1: then the full power of the law is going to
Speaker 1: come down on these people. That is not only contrary
Speaker 1: to a free society, it is throwing kindling on a
Speaker 1: fire because that pressure will build up in a society.
Speaker 1: Societies will take it, there's others won't. And it's something
Speaker 1: that you're seeing in spades in the UK, and you're
Speaker 1: seeing it a little bit here though. I think it's
Speaker 1: gotten a little bit better now because there's a Department
Speaker 1: Adjustice that's kind of let what had been abused previously.
Speaker 1: Go And again I'm trying really hard not to be political,
Speaker 1: but freedom speech should not be a political issue. That
Speaker 1: should be bipartisan. You can say somebody is rude, that
Speaker 1: was a little uncalled for, or I think that's a
Speaker 1: bad faith argument. I think that's fine. But saying you've
Speaker 1: said this, I disagree with it. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: destroy your family, your name, your business, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to dox your house. Those swat agents come over your
Speaker 1: house at two o'clock in the morning and shoot your
Speaker 1: dog that barks at him as a kick in the door.
Speaker 1: That's a totally different matter. And I think the director
Speaker 1: of the FBI, Cash Bettel, I think three or four
Speaker 1: weeks ago his house was his house was docked. And
Speaker 1: there have been other people who are living remotely from
Speaker 1: their families. So it's we're reaching that stage with violence.
Speaker 1: And I wish everybody from the right, the left, in
Speaker 1: the center has a level of intolerance towards calls for violence,
Speaker 1: because we should. We should encourage and allow everybody to
Speaker 1: have the US debate. You can call people's ideas stupid, wrongheaded,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and so forth, but what we can't do
Speaker 1: is say will you use the wrong pronoun. That's the
Speaker 1: violence is the same as somebody is saying go out
Speaker 1: and kill your member of parliament or some other political
Speaker 1: person because you disagree with them on a policy issue.
Speaker 1: That uh, that's a different, different kettle fish altogether. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I hope that this will change, I have not
Speaker 1: seen a full spectrum response to people in society saying
Speaker 1: we will not accept that, just the opposite, and it's said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, you look at the universities, uh,
Speaker 2: the stuff that's been going on in the Ivy League
Speaker 2: and other UH schools where some of these you know,
Speaker 2: these anti Semitic groups are taking over libraries, they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're attacking the Jewish students and the on the campus,
Speaker 2: not letting them go to class I mean, and then
Speaker 2: you know, the resistance of the administration of those schools
Speaker 2: to people saying this isn't right. You've got to enforce
Speaker 2: the the the law, which is that they you know,
Speaker 2: it is discrimination not to let your Jewish students participate
Speaker 2: in the in the benefits of the university. And where
Speaker 2: you know, when did the university has become places where
Speaker 2: it's not just that you're you're you made a bad argument.
Speaker 2: You know, if you disagree with someone, then you're evil
Speaker 2: and and and they don't you know that if you're evil,
Speaker 2: it's it's that justifies all their actions against you. And that,
Speaker 2: you know, that is a deeply troubling, uh part of
Speaker 2: our current society where people won't listen anymore, there is
Speaker 2: no debate. You're you know, it's a it's become black
Speaker 2: and white. You know, if you don't agree with me
Speaker 2: on this, I will no longer communicate with you. And
Speaker 2: because you're evil, and that that is that is a
Speaker 2: very sad thing to have happen.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a culture of denouncement, which again has
Speaker 1: as a pedigree. You know, it used to be calling
Speaker 1: somebody a witch. I remember I lived in Norfolk, Virginia
Speaker 1: Witch Duck Road, and I was like, that's a strange name.
Speaker 1: And then I read up on some of the Norfolk
Speaker 1: history in the first years that Norfolk Virginia, which is
Speaker 1: one of the older parts of the US. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: where they actually for you Monty Python fans, you know,
Speaker 1: dunk the witch in the water. If she floats, she's
Speaker 1: a witch. If she sinks, she's been embraced by the
Speaker 1: by the water and she's not a witch. Either way,
Speaker 1: she dies. But in more recent history, Uh, one thing
Speaker 1: I forced my kids to watch is and I think
Speaker 1: it's one of the best films ever made is The
Speaker 1: Killing Fields about what happened at Cambodia, and they're the
Speaker 1: plenty of stuff. There's not really an equivalent that I
Speaker 1: can think of, except for maybe the opening episode of
Speaker 1: I think it's on Netflix three Body Problem that went
Speaker 1: through the cultural what happened during the Cultural Revolution in China,
Speaker 1: where this logically leads. When you have a culture of
Speaker 1: denouncing people in that type of political environment, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have a good history. And again it's everybody should call
Speaker 1: it out red life. I don't like when people do
Speaker 1: it from the right. I don't like when people do
Speaker 1: it to the left, because it has a history, it
Speaker 1: has a track record, and it's something everybody should be
Speaker 1: conscious of. And it is national security related because when
Speaker 1: that feeds people to pick up a gun and shoot
Speaker 1: at members of Congress who are playing baseball, are a
Speaker 1: presidential candidate who's making a speech or tries to ambush them,
Speaker 1: or leaves pipe bombs lying around. There's a connection. You
Speaker 1: call for violence clear enough, or if you do not
Speaker 1: hold people accountable properly who are planning or supporting violence,
Speaker 1: then you're going to get more of it. And I
Speaker 1: was born years after it took place, but the last
Speaker 1: time we had a major political assassination in this country
Speaker 1: it still resonates. That of course, was Kennedy's. You don't
Speaker 1: want that in a society like ours, especially if it
Speaker 1: is easily assigned to a group of people who, eitherby
Speaker 1: political standing, ethnicity, race, or anything else type of advocates
Speaker 1: a crazy person. People can deal with, because mental stability
Speaker 1: has no flavor. But when it's done under a banner
Speaker 1: of some sectarian organization or cause that has been encouraged
Speaker 1: by people who are charted with being responsible, Uh, then
Speaker 1: it definitely is a national security issue. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: we talked about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah this, I mean, it's not like the US has
Speaker 2: not had this in the past. I mean the the correct,
Speaker 2: the Cake, the k k K, the the was, the
Speaker 2: know nothings, and the I mean all these anti Catholic movements,
Speaker 2: the certainly the anti Freeman. Uh yeah, I mean all
Speaker 2: that stuff. We've had it, but we we we worked
Speaker 2: to overcome it. You know, the the government, especially under
Speaker 2: Grant UH enforced the the law against these people. They
Speaker 2: sent troops down there. I mean, that's the whole reason
Speaker 2: the pass Poss Comitantis Act got passed by Congress was
Speaker 2: to stop the federal government coming in and assuming the
Speaker 2: the law enforcement role because the Southern states didn't necessarily
Speaker 2: like it. Well you know that, but a lot of groups,
Speaker 2: I mean, the Mormons, they got discriminated against. They when
Speaker 2: they their people were murdered, their temple was burned in
Speaker 2: uh in Navu, Illinois. I mean, you could go through
Speaker 2: a litany of almost every group in the country and
Speaker 2: religious and otherwise that has been discriminated against. And that's
Speaker 2: why we have all these laws that forbid it. But
Speaker 2: you know, if you're not enforcing the laws, if you're
Speaker 2: allowing these activities to to prosper, then you are you
Speaker 2: are We're going back to those uncivilized times where certain
Speaker 2: groups who had strongly held UH beliefs that were you know, illegal,
Speaker 2: because that you can't discriminate on the basis of various things,
Speaker 2: then that is that is that is contrary to the
Speaker 2: American way. What we'd like to think of as the
Speaker 2: American way when we've certainly had you know, discrimination against this.
Speaker 2: We talked about the Italians, the Irish, the the you know,
Speaker 2: the Hispanics, the America can Indians or Native Americans, the
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it is it is something we
Speaker 2: have to strive to keep overcoming. And and it's the
Speaker 2: to to foster the kind of resemblance that leads to
Speaker 2: violence is simply wrong.
Speaker 1: And there are certain people that prosper from that unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and I think it's it's good to call them out.
Speaker 1: There are people who either they what's the old what's
Speaker 1: the old cliche? There are some people who will let
Speaker 1: the world burn just so they can rule over the ashes.
Speaker 1: There's those people. They are also the people that get
Speaker 1: a little tingle up the legs from getting crowds excited
Speaker 1: and grabbing their pitchforks and their torches. Again, that's as
Speaker 1: old as human history. We could literally entire library shelves
Speaker 1: are full of examples of that. It's it's in the
Speaker 1: dark part of every human heart to join in a
Speaker 1: crowd like that, but it's it's to be called out avoided.
Speaker 1: I think in our nation too, it's problematic because we
Speaker 1: are as our founders said, we're an experiment, and self
Speaker 1: government can a polyglot republic polyglot as defined throughout human history.
Speaker 1: It does not share a race, creed, color with everybody
Speaker 1: else can be united under a certain idea and a
Speaker 1: concept of ambition, checking ambition, representative government, appeals, justice, all
Speaker 1: those things that people used to be taught in civic class.
Speaker 1: That would be nice if they brought that back so
Speaker 1: people don' understand what's going on when you have people who,
Speaker 1: whether they are the KKK or ibermex KINDI are the
Speaker 1: no nothings or anything that when they take a wedge
Speaker 1: and they try to find a crack, because there's always
Speaker 1: going to be cracks, and they pound and pound and
Speaker 1: open up that wedge, I think it's incumbent on the
Speaker 1: rest of civil society, which we saw to our great
Speaker 1: credit in the nineteen sixties and in the Civil rights era.
Speaker 1: Did other people's society come in and say, no, it's like,
Speaker 1: we're going to spot, well the cracks, we're going to
Speaker 1: heal the crap cracks, We're going to pull it back together,
Speaker 1: and we're going to make this strong and together again.
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the point that we're at
Speaker 1: right now. We need to have civil society to come
Speaker 1: in and call these people out and to try to
Speaker 1: pull folks together, as opposed to going, yeah, let's throw
Speaker 1: some more wedges in there, and if we have a
Speaker 1: problem with people who are here. This is where I
Speaker 1: had a little back and forth with a few folks
Speaker 1: about deporting. I don't know, we want to go to
Speaker 1: the step that we did one hundred years ago, like
Speaker 1: we did with Emma Goldberg and some of the more
Speaker 1: ridiculous anarchists about denaturalizing people. But people are guests in
Speaker 1: this country, whether they're on a student visa or they're
Speaker 1: on a visiting visa, tourist visa, whatever they're calling it,
Speaker 1: at HR work visa, whatever. You and I, as citizens
Speaker 1: of the US, you know it's our birthright to be
Speaker 1: difficult with each other. That's fine. So if you're a
Speaker 1: guest in this country, are to no obligation to let
Speaker 1: you create discord in our street. If you want to
Speaker 1: create discord in a society, go back to the one
Speaker 1: that your passport belongs to. So that's one thing that
Speaker 1: the Secretary Rubo I think, has been very strong about
Speaker 1: and I support is a lot of these people who
Speaker 1: are promoting division and are on the edge of civil
Speaker 1: disobedience and violence, they're not holding a US passport. They
Speaker 1: can go home and they can do that where they're from.
Speaker 1: That's the type of steps you have to make the
Speaker 1: point point. If you don't stop a line and make
Speaker 1: an example, it's only going to get worse. And it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting to see how much longer this path will go.
Speaker 1: But if we want to halt the advancing tide of
Speaker 1: whether it's people calling for violence in the street over
Speaker 1: things that are happening overseas, are people accepting the fact
Speaker 1: that we have people whose loyalty is not here in
Speaker 1: the US, you're just going to get more. You get
Speaker 1: more of what you encourage, you get less of what
Speaker 1: you discourage. And I think we can do that inside
Speaker 1: the lifelines of the liberty and freedom that we as
Speaker 1: citizens have as a nature having a US passport. But
Speaker 1: if you have a passport from country X, and you're
Speaker 1: over here talking about my neighbor to my left or
Speaker 1: my right, whether or not I agree with them, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to promote people to create negative outcomes for them,
Speaker 1: now you can take the first plane back. I will
Speaker 1: not shed a tear for you are people in your family,
Speaker 1: we don't need you here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we would be unique in the world if
Speaker 2: we didn't have that stance. I know plenty of people
Speaker 2: who became persona non groud in some country because they offended, uh,
Speaker 2: some local national pride issue and got they got properly
Speaker 2: sent home because they misbehaved. And I don't, I don't
Speaker 2: that happens used to happen all the time. I just
Speaker 2: you know, I and I want to make sure that
Speaker 2: you know we're not we're not talking about any particular
Speaker 2: group that we don't like. But it is, uh, it
Speaker 2: is a question of having the groups conform to a
Speaker 2: certain expected standard, that that this country requires to to
Speaker 2: be able to function properly, and that that that standard is.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's civil discourse. Maybe it's if you're
Speaker 2: going to engage in civil disobedience as the as certainly
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the sixties did with the
Speaker 2: with the during the civil rights movement. You know, that's fine,
Speaker 2: that is that you're certainly entitled to that. But that was,
Speaker 2: as you may remember, you might have been I don't
Speaker 2: know two or three, Uh, you know, that was non
Speaker 2: violent and that's what made that really helped make the
Speaker 2: point when when the the TV in those days covered
Speaker 2: the like the march in Selma, Alabama, or some of
Speaker 2: the other activities that went on, you know, the violence
Speaker 2: that was that was being inflicted on these on these
Speaker 2: marchers and and people who were not engaged in the
Speaker 2: activity which was violent enough to have anything happened to him.
Speaker 2: That that really helped change a lot of minds about
Speaker 2: about what civil rights meant in this country and what
Speaker 2: it would how how things should work, rather than how
Speaker 2: they were working. And I think that kind of consciousness
Speaker 2: raising was important, is important, and uh, we're but we're
Speaker 2: seeing that as you said, you know, the human mind
Speaker 2: tends to revert to certain prejudices, and you know, so
Speaker 2: now we're but to encourage it at the especially at
Speaker 2: the university level. I'm appalled by the administration of those schools,
Speaker 2: who are you know, allowed the stuff to happen without
Speaker 2: calling in the police. And because in the in the
Speaker 2: days when there was resistance to integration of the universities
Speaker 2: in the South the UH we certainly had National Guard,
Speaker 2: state Police, all kinds of folks coming in to help
Speaker 2: enforce the the integration of those schools. Now, it may
Speaker 2: not have been pleasant for the for the first students
Speaker 2: who came into one of those one of those schools
Speaker 2: and faced all that prejudice, but you know, you you
Speaker 2: would not know what today, uh, that that that had
Speaker 2: been an issue, that it was as big as it
Speaker 2: was back in the sixties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can look at let's just use the timeframe
Speaker 1: of the last twenty five years since two thousand. You
Speaker 1: go twenty five years back from nineteen sixty five and
Speaker 1: it's nineteen forty. The amount of change, and you know,
Speaker 1: twenty five years after nineteen sixty five is nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: The amount of change that took place in that period
Speaker 1: is absolutely amazing, and it's something that you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of these people who are complaining, they're not dumb people.
Speaker 1: They have to know their history. When you look at
Speaker 1: how other nations have self corrected and then how our
Speaker 1: nation has self corrected, we've done so with less bloodshed
Speaker 1: outside of the US Civil War than almost anybody else has.
Speaker 1: Because you look at especially Martin Luther King's early marches.
Speaker 1: They were done and this is very smart on their part,
Speaker 1: but also I think it was legitimate. A lot of
Speaker 1: affection for their nation and what was the common rephrase,
Speaker 1: you know, live up to its own ideals. That's very
Speaker 1: different than what we have seen in other places where
Speaker 1: it is we'll use the George Floyd riots in especially Minnesota,
Speaker 1: where these people consciously let the worst players burn their
Speaker 1: city down for mostly political reasons. And you can have
Speaker 1: civil protests without violence, which is why it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be perfect example for those that aren't tracking. In the
Speaker 1: Free State of Florida, were setting up what we call
Speaker 1: the Alligator Alcatraz for illegal foreign nationals who are found
Speaker 1: in Florida waiting deportation, where out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Everglades. They're going to be building a detention facility
Speaker 1: for five thousand people. And they had some protesters out
Speaker 1: there during the construction, and it's because things happen pretty
Speaker 1: fast in Florida. It'll be built here by August. However,
Speaker 1: all the protesters were by the side of the road.
Speaker 1: They weren't blocking the road, because one in Florida, if
Speaker 1: you block a road, the police will grab a collar
Speaker 1: and pull you off. Plus the governor has come out
Speaker 1: and said that somebody is blocking your road and you
Speaker 1: perceive them to be a threat you can run through them.
Speaker 1: So the protesters are doing peaceful protests by the side
Speaker 1: of the road, letting their opinion know, but they're not
Speaker 1: interfering with the lawful commerce of the state in the process,
Speaker 1: where as you see in other places where that is
Speaker 1: where these protests are taking place, and that's where you
Speaker 1: get with your reward. You get less of what you
Speaker 1: punish that peaceful protest. Redress agrievances. That's as important as
Speaker 1: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and everything else. But
Speaker 1: it needs to be done within those proper, proper guidelines
Speaker 1: and you'll get more of the right type of redress agrievances.
Speaker 1: Which if you don't think having five thousand people surrounded
Speaker 1: by alligators and pythons is what we should do with
Speaker 1: people in the nation illegally, then that gives you an
Speaker 1: opportunity to say you don't agree with it and maybe
Speaker 1: come up with other options in the process. So we
Speaker 1: can have this radical thing called civil discourse as opposed
Speaker 1: to what we've seen in other places where cars are burned,
Speaker 1: people are run over, given wood shampoos all the nine yards.
Speaker 1: So by having the right contacts, the right structure, and
Speaker 1: the rights civil leadership, people can do their constitutional right
Speaker 1: to protest and redraft the agrievances. It can be done,
Speaker 1: but it has to be encouraged, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Yeah, being somewhat older than you, I remember there was
Speaker 2: a lot of violence committed against the Civil War civil
Speaker 2: rights people, everything from the I don't know they saw
Speaker 2: the movie Mississippi Burning, but the the the the civil
Speaker 2: rights workers who got killed and buried in a levee
Speaker 2: somewhere in I think it was Mississippi. The you know,
Speaker 2: Medgar Evers got shot, Martin Luther King got shot, Bobby
Speaker 2: Kennedy got shot, jfk got shot. Uh. You know, the
Speaker 2: history of of moving that process forward, it was not
Speaker 2: as gentle and genteel as we sometimes would like to
Speaker 2: think we got there. It was a hard grow The
Speaker 2: people who who brave that the threats, I think, uh
Speaker 2: deserve special recognition for the courage they showed and and
Speaker 2: the fortitude it took to to to move it forward.
Speaker 2: It's it's a shame that they just might At the time,
Speaker 2: the the theory was they wanted to be treated just
Speaker 2: like everybody else, and that you know, how hard is
Speaker 2: that a concept? And having grown up in the as
Speaker 2: a military brat during that era. You know, we the
Speaker 2: military had been integrated a long time before the rest
Speaker 2: of the country got there. And you know it, I
Speaker 2: never I never really thought about it because I you know,
Speaker 2: had we had a wide variety of people that we
Speaker 2: lived with, we we played with, we you know, coaches
Speaker 2: on your sports teams, the other kids on the teams.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was, it was, it was just the
Speaker 2: way it was. I was quite shocked when I first
Speaker 2: got back to States from being overseas that there were
Speaker 2: still places. Of course it wasn't it was it was
Speaker 2: in the in the late sixties, but there were still
Speaker 2: a lot of and still is probably a lot of
Speaker 2: bigotry that is totally uncalled for.
Speaker 1: But the thing that's nice nowadays is a lot of
Speaker 1: that bigotry. People are so ashamed of it, people that
Speaker 1: still have that in their heart, and civil society rejects
Speaker 1: it so much that it's hidden. It's not out out.
Speaker 1: Look at you little rock. When they opened up the
Speaker 1: high school, that that open vitriol. People say, yeah, see
Speaker 1: my face, I want to say the most vile things
Speaker 1: in the world. That's one thing to loop back what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before that. I still am having
Speaker 1: trouble getting my head around five. We allow circumstances at arguably, though,
Speaker 1: I think this is going to change our best schools.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Cornell Harvard, Columbia, where our fellow citizens
Speaker 1: who just happen to be Jewish are prevented from walking
Speaker 1: around campus, they have to hide their identity. They have
Speaker 1: their Hellll Center, and they're predominantly Jewish sororities, fraternities having
Speaker 1: rocks thrown at them, having protests outside that should not
Speaker 1: be happening and would not be tolerated if that was
Speaker 1: being done towards predominantly African American fraternities are cultural centers
Speaker 1: by the general student population and being permitted by administrators,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be I think. I don't
Speaker 1: think we've talked about it here, but I'm really proud
Speaker 1: of the University of Florida. There are more Jewish students
Speaker 1: at the University of Florida than any other campus in
Speaker 1: the US, And right after the events of the seventh
Speaker 1: of October of twenty three, Chancellor former Senator Ben Sas
Speaker 1: made it very well known that whatever is happening in
Speaker 1: Columbia and elsewhere, it's not happening here in Gainesville, and
Speaker 1: that created a culture where people that wanted to protest
Speaker 1: one side or the other could do it. But besides
Speaker 1: a couple of individual cases, there is no organized and
Speaker 1: systemic threat to anybody who just happened to be Jewish
Speaker 1: on that campus, and it isn't to this day when
Speaker 1: you talk to the people who are there. So again
Speaker 1: it goes back to leadership, expectations and enforcements. That creates
Speaker 1: an atmosphere where people can exercise right A without impinging
Speaker 1: on right B and definitely with out making people feel
Speaker 1: like they're in physical danger. And that is something in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five that more parts of our civil society
Speaker 1: need to hit the pause button and ask why we
Speaker 1: have allowed this to take place, and why are we
Speaker 1: giving a pass to people politicians in office and running
Speaker 1: for office who have been part of that. That is
Speaker 1: a conversation I want to see more of because I
Speaker 1: was told we weren't going to allow this to happen
Speaker 1: again in civil society, but we are. It just happens
Speaker 1: to be at somebody else's time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always back in during the Vietnam War days,
Speaker 2: if you were an ROTC student, you could be you know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of violence and discrimination against people
Speaker 2: who were willing to serve the country, and so there
Speaker 2: were bombings of Ratza unit, there were threats of not
Speaker 2: just threats. I remember we at one time at in college,
Speaker 2: we were doing on our ow GC can remember it
Speaker 2: was a Memorial Day march or some it was something
Speaker 2: that we were marching through campus and a bunch of
Speaker 2: protesters that came up and tried to tried to interfere
Speaker 2: with that, and they were not they were not peaceful protesters.
Speaker 2: And one of our senior midshipmen at the time got
Speaker 2: bopped by one of them, and he countered and just
Speaker 2: late laid this guy out. But I mean, the point
Speaker 2: is that a lot of these I wonder how many
Speaker 2: of these people, especially since when you see all these
Speaker 2: older people at these protests, various protests, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: how many of them are reliving as we've talked about before,
Speaker 2: we lived in their glory days when they were anti
Speaker 2: anti Vietnam War protesters and and and the kind of
Speaker 2: violence that that as you said, the the SDS there was,
Speaker 2: I mean, who were the ones who blew themselves up
Speaker 2: in a basement in New York City? I can't remember
Speaker 2: who they were.
Speaker 1: I think that was a branch of SDS. That what
Speaker 1: the weathermen, the weatherman, yeah, Bob President Obama's friend, Bob
Speaker 1: Airs and those guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, you know, I just to to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a group of people who idolized those
Speaker 2: those ancient protesters and and admire how they stood up
Speaker 2: for their beliefs. But that was not the right way
Speaker 2: to stand up for your beliefs. And and they wouldn't again,
Speaker 2: they would not engage in debate, really they would. They
Speaker 2: would prefer to to go blow up a Rozza unit
Speaker 2: someplace then, or one of them, I mean one of
Speaker 2: them they killed a guard, robbing what a banker or
Speaker 2: a armored car something to get money to fund some
Speaker 2: of their operations. I mean, that's just that's just thuggery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we haven't quite reached that type of revolutionary cell action,
Speaker 1: thank goodness. It's a little just disaggregated. I guess the
Speaker 1: closest we have to it are the the paid Antifa
Speaker 1: types that are that that are busted all over the
Speaker 1: country to go be the cell. I'm reminded that over
Speaker 1: in my hometown some of those imported guys tried to
Speaker 1: get involved in one of our protests, but the local
Speaker 1: sheriffs after day one and all these people disappeared because
Speaker 1: they're either in jail, the hospital, or they got they
Speaker 1: got out of town because they didn't want to wind
Speaker 1: up in the jail or the hospital. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's that's part of the sixties. I think you're right
Speaker 1: that sometimes we forget that they the Summer of Love
Speaker 1: had some bookends on either end that we were quite
Speaker 1: bloody from a different direction, whether you're on the receiving
Speaker 1: end and the bull Connors fire hose, which is why,
Speaker 1: unlike Europe we don't use fire hoses for crowd control anymore,
Speaker 1: or on on the other end, you were a cop
Speaker 1: in a restaurant somewhere that got blown to bits by
Speaker 1: a bomb placed by the SDS. So yeah, that that
Speaker 1: we haven't reached that level, thank goodness, and hopefully hopefully
Speaker 1: we won't, but we will see. I do think though,
Speaker 1: victories have a way of calming a lot of seas.
Speaker 1: And when you look on the national security front, where
Speaker 1: we've we've done what a lot of people said you
Speaker 1: couldn't do, which was to go in and punch our
Speaker 1: rent in the face real hard and go back without
Speaker 1: leaving any boots on the ground. Israel has held create
Speaker 1: the conditions where Lebanon might be able to exert a
Speaker 1: little more influence over its southern part, where has Blah
Speaker 1: has been able to do as one to two for
Speaker 1: a long time, there might be an ability to moderate
Speaker 1: what's his name, Jo Nani Jolani, whoever's in charge of
Speaker 1: Syria now. Egypt is not having anything to do with
Speaker 1: Hamas and hasn't for a long time. Israel will find
Speaker 1: some solution to Gaza at some way. I think we're
Speaker 1: about to see phase two of the Abraham A. Gord's
Speaker 1: breakout and one of the other things that have happened recently.
Speaker 1: We've got the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda has
Speaker 1: signed a treaty. There are millions of people have died there.
Speaker 1: So there's a chance where if you continue to have
Speaker 1: some successes, maybe that will not encourage people to be
Speaker 1: the water in which the bad players swim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we could use the respite we need to.
Speaker 2: As one of the people in the chat room says,
Speaker 2: we need a strategic pause to allow us to rearm
Speaker 2: and and get you know, we're going through the weaponry
Speaker 2: faster than we we can afford to do it. We
Speaker 2: also need to I'm hoping, as I said at the
Speaker 2: start of the show, that that the the movement to
Speaker 2: get the American shipping industry and the Navy back on
Speaker 2: track for the number of ships and the number of
Speaker 2: you know, the vital equipment we need. I hope that
Speaker 2: that comes to pass and that we're getting back on stable,
Speaker 2: stable ground.
Speaker 1: I still think we're it's hard to believe that. See
Speaker 1: what is at the end of June, so the from
Speaker 1: of Administrations only bit office five months. It seems like
Speaker 1: couple of years. A lot's happened, So you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot that we still need to see. But that's
Speaker 1: a great point. It'd be nice for the world to
Speaker 1: give us an operational pause where we can have a
Speaker 1: few years maybe where we now just do six months
Speaker 1: deployments without disgorging a couple of replenishmentships worth of weapons
Speaker 1: every time we go out. That we don't do nine
Speaker 1: months eleven months deployments, we don't short cycle our DDGs,
Speaker 1: and we can concentrate on reconstituting and rebuilding to get
Speaker 1: rather for larger challenges as opposed to being held down
Speaker 1: by a thousand little putins pulling us down. One thing
Speaker 1: that I'm wondering about, though, is on the Navy side
Speaker 1: of the house. We'll probably know more by the fall,
Speaker 1: but how we get ready for the Pacific fight if,
Speaker 1: as rumors are playing out, the FA xx is defunded,
Speaker 1: if we don't build the FFG sixty two, the Constellation class,
Speaker 1: if we're not going to do that, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you build the navy that we
Speaker 1: need for the Pacific when we're canceling the programs that
Speaker 1: can maybe imperfect, but they need to be displacing water
Speaker 1: and making shadows on the ramp. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you get from A to B. But you've heard me
Speaker 1: say before. You know we're predominantly a maritime and aerospace power.
Speaker 1: In the maritime, we keep slipping and falling down. I
Speaker 1: haven't really gotten our grip, but I'll tap a hat
Speaker 1: to our aerospace friends, the boys in Blue. They're having
Speaker 1: a pretty good year so far. Right out of the bat,
Speaker 1: they said we're going to build the F forty seven,
Speaker 1: which still cracks me up. There it the forty seven,
Speaker 1: but it is.
Speaker 2: What it is.
Speaker 1: And they have with the strike on Iran, with their
Speaker 1: probably all of their fully mission capable B twos that
Speaker 1: they have, they underline the fact that the B twenty
Speaker 1: one needs to be fully funded, the utility of having
Speaker 1: a global reach with heavy strike. That also is going
Speaker 1: to give them a boost to buy more tankers because
Speaker 1: they still have a museum quality tanker force, even though
Speaker 1: we do have some more coming online. That they've caught
Speaker 1: the moment right, and how we're postured right now to
Speaker 1: not be involved in all these little battles all over
Speaker 1: the place. The Air Force has been able to say, hey,
Speaker 1: here's what we're being, here's what we're doing in the
Speaker 1: new strategic environment. Help fund all of our stuff that
Speaker 1: is going to enable that. Now I look over the
Speaker 1: Navy side of the house and uh, it's like looking
Speaker 1: at a VW this uh disassembled into his constituent parts
Speaker 1: that five or six mechanics are running around trying to
Speaker 1: put together all of a sudden. So I will I
Speaker 1: will tip my hat to the boys in blue that
Speaker 1: they've caught the moment right, I think, to to get
Speaker 1: the funding that they need for the programs that they
Speaker 1: believe is the best answer to the Pacific fight. So
Speaker 1: you know, here's the you boys in blue. You better
Speaker 1: to be lucky than good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's a pretty good piece and uh
Speaker 2: and uh on the us NI website about uh. It's
Speaker 2: probably locked up about Fleet Admiral Ernest King, the Navy's pope,
Speaker 2: and and he was trying he got he knew that
Speaker 2: the Air Force was winning the pr battle uh during
Speaker 2: World War two. And but so his an was to
Speaker 2: host a bunch of of reporters, you know, for beer
Speaker 2: and in his place and all that. Well, you know
Speaker 2: that's not what the that was not what the Air
Speaker 2: Force or Air Corps in those days was doing. So
Speaker 2: they kind of stole the march on him. And here
Speaker 2: we are again. You know that the Navy's doing all
Speaker 2: this stuff and a lot of the the hard work
Speaker 2: and being there all the time. The Air Force flies
Speaker 2: in typical Air force, I mean my dad for the
Speaker 2: Air Force officer, typical Air Force. They fly in, they
Speaker 2: do their thing, and they go home. You know it's
Speaker 2: that when right now we've got what five destroyers out
Speaker 2: there on the med carry a couple of carriers. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's still you know, we had we're a presence that is.
Speaker 2: I don't like the presence mission, but exactly what it
Speaker 2: is is a presence and that that is the job.
Speaker 2: And we need to have enough ships so that that
Speaker 2: job and people so that the job doesn't become harder
Speaker 2: than it has to be. And that's you know, that's
Speaker 2: where the Navy needs to to push for with these programs.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the cancelation of these programs is
Speaker 2: a serious thing or it is a shot across the
Speaker 2: Navy's bow saying, you know, if you don't get your
Speaker 2: act together, we are going to cancel these things because
Speaker 2: we can't afford to have you thither and waste money. Again,
Speaker 2: this is you know, if you had a history of
Speaker 2: being productive and getting this job done on time, like
Speaker 2: the Coastguard has done with their National Security cutters, we
Speaker 2: might cut you some slack. But since you can't even
Speaker 2: decide what you want on your ship while you're building it,
Speaker 2: that you know that that can't last.
Speaker 1: We have not, we have not done a great job
Speaker 1: last quarter century to prove people that we can competently
Speaker 1: run programs. Yeah, there's blood in the water. There gets
Speaker 1: one to hope. And I don't think we've talked about it.
Speaker 1: But Admiral Caudle the nominee. I think I'm pronouncing his
Speaker 1: name correctly. If not, somebody correct me in the uh
Speaker 1: in the in the chat room, who's due to be
Speaker 1: the next cn O. He's a submariner, and he's got
Speaker 1: a heck of a lot of experience of command at sea,
Speaker 1: and he hasn't been a professional staff weenie or anything
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I have people who I know, I've talked to him background,
Speaker 1: I have kind of people giving me mixed reviews of him.
Speaker 1: But uh, I think in the in the present moment,
Speaker 1: he would not have been picked for the position if
Speaker 1: he wasn't somebody that was going to kind of move
Speaker 1: that needle, because goodness knows, there's there's nowhere nowhere to
Speaker 1: go but to improve. I don't think are from a
Speaker 1: program management point of view, we could we could get
Speaker 1: much worse than we've already been the last quarter century.
Speaker 1: And one thing about nukes and submariners, uh, they uh,
Speaker 1: they like their like facts and they like math, and
Speaker 1: they're they're able to look you straight in the eye
Speaker 1: about performance because there's a very little room for error.
Speaker 1: So I think it would be interesting to see what
Speaker 1: his priorities are and what type of moves we see. Again,
Speaker 1: we're not really going to see anything until the fall.
Speaker 1: Goodness knows when the Senate is going to approve his nomination,
Speaker 1: and then it takes a few months before you actually
Speaker 1: start to seize the movement one way or another.
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully somebody is telling me good his you know,
Speaker 2: his people together, get his act together and be ready
Speaker 2: to and he ought to be working already. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're going to be designated and you think they're
Speaker 2: going to get the job, and you've got to hit
Speaker 2: the ground running in that that needs to be done quickly.
Speaker 2: You know, he's got I think he's got the experience.
Speaker 2: I don't know enough about him, but we're at least
Speaker 2: he's uh, you know, he's had Fleet Forces Command. He
Speaker 2: understands a lot of the issues.
Speaker 1: I kind of I just just shared it on the
Speaker 1: live stream, said a comment. It is true that at
Speaker 1: Fleet Forces Command his most re an announcement, the good
Speaker 1: Admiral was wearing his his algae flage the Navy's a
Speaker 1: little green. There's no reason for a submarine or to
Speaker 1: ever wear camo unless he is on the deck somewhere
Speaker 1: doing a staff job in country next to an Army guy.
Speaker 1: I really hope that we don't see him as Cno
Speaker 1: wearing the Navy's little camouflage uniform one or another. I
Speaker 1: will give one thing that I've enjoyed because occasionally I
Speaker 1: make fashion comments because I like to be petty. I've
Speaker 1: gotten a kick out of Chairman of Joint Chiefs General
Speaker 1: Kine wearing his Air Force uniform because whereas the Navy's
Speaker 1: been bouncing around uniforms all day long, the Army's gone
Speaker 1: back to World War two's pinks and greens. The the
Speaker 1: Air Force, blessed their heart, they have stuck with their
Speaker 1: old Cold War Air Force uniform that they've kept it
Speaker 1: so long as it's kind of making me think that
Speaker 1: like the Marine Corps, it's not archaic, it's kind of
Speaker 1: retro and self identifying. It's not look as it's an
Speaker 1: outdated fashion statement. It's just tradition. So you know, the
Speaker 1: Air Force probably is at the point now kind of
Speaker 1: like the Marine Corps. They shouldn't change their uniforms now
Speaker 1: because it used to be the Air Force uniform just
Speaker 1: the blue version of the Army green one. Now it's
Speaker 1: kind of unique and it kind of looks professional, and
Speaker 1: maybe it has to do with the fact that he
Speaker 1: was in the civilian world for a while. But I've
Speaker 1: also noticed that General Caine, what do the Air Force
Speaker 1: call their equivalent of our service stress blue, their their
Speaker 1: blue uniform with the tie that's been tailored. He did
Speaker 1: not buy that off the shelf, which are our senior
Speaker 1: any field grade officer or above, though I did it
Speaker 1: even as as a as a lieutenant. Get your unit
Speaker 1: if you have. If you can't wear stuff off the rack,
Speaker 1: that because very few people can go get them properly
Speaker 1: tailored to fit right. So there's the fashion observation of
Speaker 1: the day from.
Speaker 2: Well, no matter what we wear, we're going to be
Speaker 2: better off than the space for us. I don't think
Speaker 2: I've ever seen such a horrible collection of uniforms.
Speaker 1: They tried, they tried, they and we're already over over
Speaker 1: an hour, and I appreciate everybody sticking with us. We
Speaker 1: covered a little bit of of nautical and military stuff
Speaker 1: at the end, but you know, Mark and I were
Speaker 1: talking in the pre show that the other issues that
Speaker 1: we spoke about most of the show, I think because
Speaker 1: we haven't really covered it much like we have. But
Speaker 1: I think we're at a moment in time mark that
Speaker 1: you're you're exactly right that it deserves to be talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, we need to have a
Speaker 2: long national conversation about this stuff and get our act
Speaker 2: together and quite allowing people to go beyond acceptable limits.
Speaker 2: People need to be put in jail. I mean, not
Speaker 2: for free speech, but for for violence in the name
Speaker 2: and then pretending it's free speech.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you if you throw a brick at somebody,
Speaker 1: you need to go to jail, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: spend spend some money on attorneys. And halfway halfway through
Speaker 1: our discussion, I realized that, you know, hey, before July fourth,
Speaker 1: it's actually not a bad topic to talk about. That's
Speaker 1: what you know. July fourth is for we have a
Speaker 1: unique experience with our republic that we have a lot
Speaker 1: to be proud of. There's always things that could be improved,
Speaker 1: and there have been times that we we could have
Speaker 1: done better at the time, but we didn't, but we
Speaker 1: self corrected. So be part of the self correction and
Speaker 1: not part of the destruction, and be proud of the
Speaker 1: those that help us improve through the generation. So there
Speaker 1: there's a there that's another reason why. I'm glad we
Speaker 1: covered the topic because July fourth is more about more
Speaker 1: than the hot dogs and warm beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wait, we really do need to appreciate our freedoms
Speaker 2: and and appreciate how we how we keep those.
Speaker 1: And on that note, we will not have a show
Speaker 1: next week, but we will be coming back this summer
Speaker 1: and we'll have some guests, which is which is always
Speaker 1: a plus. And I wish you and yours Mark a
Speaker 1: great July fourth and everybody else as well. Oh, thank
Speaker 1: you and you too, and that we also have dogs
Speaker 1: in the background. That was a good July for the
Speaker 1: official dog of the mid Rats podcast. And thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us for another edition of mid Rats,
Speaker 1: especially those in the chat room. I hope y'all all
Speaker 1: have a great July fourth and a great Navy Day. Cheers.
Speaker 3: Molly Roy replies, worry Paddy, all like my lonely one
Speaker 3: to marry me and to leave a friend of becardily
Speaker 3: for you being to blame my love family to love
Speaker 3: me sill faulting your tame.
Speaker 4: It's a long way to Dipper, It's a long way.
Speaker 4: It's a long way to Dipper. Army to be Queen
Speaker 4: gor B becdi.
Speaker 3: Farewell, leftwell, it's.
Speaker 4: A long long way to dinner, but my plum plum