Speaker 1: Well whiskey coming gabtain money, Oh why don't you?
Speaker 2: From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com.
Speaker 2: This is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders
Speaker 2: Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International Woman of
Speaker 2: Mystery Lucretia cat Gotta giving.
Speaker 3: Let that whiskey bloon where you're being in love down
Speaker 3: he lod.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Hi everybody, It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour from two
Speaker 1: different time zones. I am today coming to you from
Speaker 1: Ricky mc iceland home off what I just showed lucretiaan
Speaker 1: John the Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat. That really is
Speaker 1: such a thing, and I'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And there's also some strange hot dogs here that are
Speaker 1: gonna give John a run for his money for the McRib,
Speaker 1: I think, and I'll quite understand that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, how are you guys.
Speaker 4: Doing doing well?
Speaker 5: Steve? How are you well?
Speaker 3: Jet lag? But right, oh right, I want.
Speaker 4: The record to show that actually I prefer hot dogs
Speaker 4: to the McRib it's only because McDonald's doesn't make hot
Speaker 4: dogs that I have to eat mcgribs. Oh, I love
Speaker 4: hot dogs. I've had hot dogs everywhere I travel.
Speaker 3: I think I can.
Speaker 4: That's like the first American food I can remember eating
Speaker 4: as a kid.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, so quick question Sebrettes or Nathan's.
Speaker 4: Oh Nathan's, come on, it's really how you can compare them.
Speaker 4: It's more like whether you like them boiled or grilled.
Speaker 4: I don't understand boiled hot dogs at all. Grilled they're
Speaker 4: so much better.
Speaker 5: Now, you're right about that. And if you can't grill them,
Speaker 5: you put them in a frying pan. And you know.
Speaker 5: But I will tell you that I wouldn't eat hot
Speaker 5: dogs except at our favorite liquor storage on Costco cells
Speaker 5: hot dogs that don't have any junk in them. They're
Speaker 5: just beef spices. I know, what are you going to do?
Speaker 5: But they're pretty good.
Speaker 4: Like despite all its crazy progressive values. I love cost
Speaker 4: Co for right. They have for was it a dollar
Speaker 4: fifty nine hot dog and soda? And they claim the
Speaker 4: price has never changed and will never change because.
Speaker 3: It's a lost leader, I think.
Speaker 1: But then the next question, then, John, is this, I'm surprised,
Speaker 1: after all these years we haven't actually made a pilgrimage
Speaker 1: to Top Dog in Berkeley.
Speaker 4: The oh I love top Dog In fact, the listeners.
Speaker 4: If you ever stopped in Berkeley, you should come. It
Speaker 4: is run by some crazy libertarian in the inside of
Speaker 4: the Top Dog is wallpapered with all kinds of weird
Speaker 4: libertarian stuff like Cato newsletters are like the most you know,
Speaker 4: liberal thing you'll find in there. He's got his own
Speaker 4: handwritten writings in there. But yeah, that makes total sense
Speaker 4: for a guy who's probably working on a two percent
Speaker 4: profit margin.
Speaker 3: It's been around forever.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it goes back to the seventies,
Speaker 1: and it's an institution, right.
Speaker 4: One of the great one of the great things is on.
Speaker 4: Governor Pete Wilson was speaking at Berkeley a few years
Speaker 4: after he left the governorship and so I was escorting
Speaker 4: him after and I was trying to take him some
Speaker 4: find some place for lunch. I was like, oh, you
Speaker 4: want to go to the faculty Club. You want to
Speaker 4: go this place? He goes, Hey, what's that hot dog
Speaker 4: stand over there? And that's where he wanted to go.
Speaker 4: So we had two top Dogs, which is a you know,
Speaker 4: it's like a Manhattan There's a long, skinny hot dog,
Speaker 4: which I really like.
Speaker 3: And the guy had no idea who.
Speaker 4: Governor Wilson is. And so when we were leaving, Governor
Speaker 4: Wilson said, he said, my friend, you make a tough
Speaker 4: top dog. That's great.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think the owner actually works the counter,
Speaker 1: I mean a hired hell.
Speaker 3: But yeah, okay, right, well.
Speaker 1: All right we yeah, listeners, we have a big debate
Speaker 1: to have amongst us here today, which I'll introduced a
Speaker 1: new course.
Speaker 3: But just a little bit of the news.
Speaker 1: One of the blessed things about going overseas and being
Speaker 1: jetlagged is that I missed the Kamala Harris CNN interview.
Speaker 1: By all accounts I read online, it sounds pretty dreadful.
Speaker 1: And you know, it used to be I would say
Speaker 1: the foremost depressing words in the English language are the
Speaker 1: bar is closed. But I now think the foremost depressing
Speaker 1: words in the English language were uttered by Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: in her interview last night. My values haven't changed. She
Speaker 1: said that several times. That was the main message, my
Speaker 1: values haven't changed. That's a pretty frightening thought. And I
Speaker 1: am pleased to see that the Trump campaign is out
Speaker 1: with an ad.
Speaker 3: At least it's up on social media. Say more about that.
Speaker 1: Picking up on this line as they ought to and
Speaker 1: then just doing clips of all the radical opinions and.
Speaker 3: Values she has had over the years.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what they ought to do. But
Speaker 1: what a frightening thing to say. Do you guys watch
Speaker 1: it or what are you paying attention to on any
Speaker 1: of that?
Speaker 3: In front?
Speaker 5: I couldn't watch it. I don't have that much inner
Speaker 5: fortitude anymore. But I watched, you know, after the fact.
Speaker 5: I couldn't watch it live.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Oh. The funny thing was, is that before before she
Speaker 5: before they released it. I guess I should say before
Speaker 5: they released it. They released one line from it. It
Speaker 5: didn't make any sense to me, but the line was,
Speaker 5: if I hold on, I'm looking for it, the climate
Speaker 5: crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to
Speaker 5: which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to
Speaker 5: deadlines around time. And I could see and my thought was,
Speaker 5: if they're released this is what CNN released, what's the
Speaker 5: rest of it going to be like? If they edited
Speaker 5: I mean, or what did they edit out of it?
Speaker 5: I mean, if this is the best they can do.
Speaker 1: Apparently two thirds of the interview was edited out because
Speaker 1: they talked for nearly an hour when they only broadcast
Speaker 1: eighteen minutes worth or whatever they did said, which is astounding.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah that I mean, she's been taking some
Speaker 1: heat for not talking about clim a change, which is
Speaker 1: on purpose because they finally got the message that it's
Speaker 1: a super low priority for voters.
Speaker 3: And that may be I think, actually, what.
Speaker 1: Is she saying? My values haven't changed? That is a
Speaker 1: hint to all the progressives. Don't worry about me changing
Speaker 1: my mind on fracking and quote unquote moving.
Speaker 5: To the the border and for.
Speaker 1: The rest of that right, once I'm in offense, it's
Speaker 1: going to be the same old you know, Joe Biden
Speaker 1: times ten crazy stuff. The progressive mob will still be
Speaker 1: in charge and so forth. But I have to say, John,
Speaker 1: has CaMLA captured your vote by claiming that she worked
Speaker 1: at McDonald's as a young person.
Speaker 4: Apparently she lied. I bet she's the reason why Dolan
Speaker 4: Valor the McClory machine's always broken because of her.
Speaker 5: No, you cannot blame kamalamading Dong for that. She actually
Speaker 5: lied about it. There is no evidence it's stolen valor
Speaker 5: that she worked at McDonald's. There's no evidence from McDonald's.
Speaker 5: There's no She never discussed it in any of her
Speaker 5: previous biographies, it's never been on a resume, and so
Speaker 5: it turns out she lied about it.
Speaker 4: Well, what was she got her to do is identify
Speaker 4: the actual place and who the manager was actually even
Speaker 4: exists that actually worked the machines.
Speaker 5: Maybe you can get Dana Bash to ask her that
Speaker 5: and then give her the answer to But I actually.
Speaker 4: Think the interview was a little was clever in this respect.
Speaker 4: I think it's as Steve said, she's running from the
Speaker 4: left and she's trying to portray herself for as a moderate.
Speaker 4: The interesting I didn't hear her talk about was any
Speaker 4: identity politics, right. She didn't go on and on about
Speaker 4: how she'd be the first woman president, so first black
Speaker 4: woman president. I thought that was obviously. She didn't talk
Speaker 4: much about abortion, which you know, on the stump has
Speaker 4: been her big issue, barely mentioned it, if she did
Speaker 4: mention it more than once. In terms of this other
Speaker 4: than talking about freedom, freedom, freedom, I didn't see it.
Speaker 4: It was you know, she she made her pitch based
Speaker 4: on making life better for eco, life better for the
Speaker 4: middle class, which you know, all the policy she's have
Speaker 4: been involved with for the last three years have.
Speaker 1: Ruined, you know, this whole McDonald's thing is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting in this sense. It was true at one point,
Speaker 1: and I haven't looked for a long time, but twenty
Speaker 1: some years ago I heard a statistic, which I think
Speaker 1: was correct, that something like two thirds of all non
Speaker 1: college educated working Americans had their first job in fast food,
Speaker 1: you know, as teenagers, so you know, McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, whatever.
Speaker 3: It was an enormous number.
Speaker 1: In other words, that is the entry level job experience
Speaker 1: for a very large number of Americans.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if that's still true or not.
Speaker 1: It might be, but with all the immigration other things
Speaker 1: that it might have crossed it up or made it bigger.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do wonder if there isn't
Speaker 1: something interesting to be done in a careful study of
Speaker 1: you know, again, it's another aspect of the class divide.
Speaker 1: To the people who had their first jobs at McDonald's
Speaker 1: and other fast foods, are they overwhelmingly Trump voters. I'll
Speaker 1: bet the answer is yes. And are the you know,
Speaker 1: the people who worked as interns at the Human Rights
Speaker 1: Campaign Fund or whatever, right, you know, the more elite
Speaker 1: occupations of the world and the higher education and so forth.
Speaker 1: Are they skewed the lab. I bet that's probably true too,
Speaker 1: could be interesting.
Speaker 5: I don't know nowadays. Go ahead, I was just going
Speaker 5: to say, so a couple of things on that I
Speaker 5: have not yet seen a McDonald's lately that wasn't staffed,
Speaker 5: not by young, pimply faced people in high school or
Speaker 5: in college, but by robots. You know, they're all kiosks.
Speaker 5: And so number one, number two, Uh, there's the only
Speaker 5: couple of McDonald's in the time in which I live,
Speaker 5: one of them in a sort of there's not much
Speaker 5: else out there. On a Saturday night at six point thirty,
Speaker 5: we drove by it. There was one car in the
Speaker 5: drive through, no cars in the parking lot. McDonald's is suffering, suffering, seriously.
Speaker 5: So I don't think any any of those hard working
Speaker 5: middle westerners, you know, teenagers are working at McDonald's anymore.
Speaker 5: Is when it comes down. But they did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is shocking how expensive it is
Speaker 1: now if you're not eating on the dollar menu like
Speaker 1: John does.
Speaker 5: But you know he eats on the app.
Speaker 6: I the app.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you get free fries almost every time you order
Speaker 4: on the app. Steve, you are so primitive. But I
Speaker 4: don't know I think Lucreatie is right. Every time you
Speaker 4: go into McDonald's, I've always impressed at the latest technology
Speaker 4: they've adopted. So they yeah, the ki everybody uses the
Speaker 4: kiosks now.
Speaker 5: But I do remember fondly the commercials that were popular
Speaker 5: might have been before John's time, but I'm sure Steve
Speaker 5: you'll remember it. I think I mentioned it before, is
Speaker 5: the commercials of all the famous people whose first job
Speaker 5: it was a McDonald's commercial, was first job was working
Speaker 5: at McDonald's. It was really I thought quite a quite
Speaker 5: a compelling commercial.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, part of the point of that old
Speaker 1: statistic I mentioned was is everybody looks down on We
Speaker 1: used to call the mac jobs, you know, fast food job,
Speaker 1: burger flipping. But that teaches young people the first discipline
Speaker 1: of the workplace, right, Yes, you got to do a
Speaker 1: job well, you got to show up on time, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So they got to put up with lousy bosses and
Speaker 1: co worker. You know, it's a it's a can have
Speaker 1: to be quite useful, something schools can't.
Speaker 5: Teach and not intended to be a lifetime occupation. Correct,
Speaker 5: That's why you don't have to have a minimum wage
Speaker 5: to shouldn't have to have a minimum wage to work
Speaker 5: at McDonald's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, and the opportunity to be surrounded by great
Speaker 4: American food twenty four to seven. It used to be
Speaker 4: great American food that you should pay for the privilege.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, Actually, one funny thing is we've all been traveling
Speaker 4: abroad these last few years, and I always go to
Speaker 4: McDonald's and places abroad, and I think McDonald's has become
Speaker 4: the kind of like a hit place for teenagers in
Speaker 4: other countries to hang out. Yeah, like the it's people
Speaker 4: who don't want to eat like Italian food or French
Speaker 4: food all the time, they go hang out at McDonald's.
Speaker 2: Love. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Two things about the one is that I remember in Germany,
Speaker 5: back to the McDonald's in a second, that the people
Speaker 5: would stand in line in the summertime for and it
Speaker 5: was field corn. It wasn't sweet corn, but corn on
Speaker 5: the cob, because that was such a novelty in Germany.
Speaker 5: But the other thing was so and we were transferred
Speaker 5: to Germany and we'd only been there about a week,
Speaker 5: and our getting there, the whole arrival was pretty much
Speaker 5: of a disaster that I won't go into. So we
Speaker 5: have little kids, you know, the kids are little, and
Speaker 5: we see a McDonald's and it just looks like home.
Speaker 5: It looks like home. So we go to McDonald's. My
Speaker 5: little guy, my big guy was then a little guy,
Speaker 5: get him a happy meal. First of all, they want
Speaker 5: to charge you for ketchup. It was ten fennings for ketchup,
Speaker 5: but mayonnaise was free for your French fries bill Esteine's.
Speaker 5: But also so the happy meal came with a hot wheel.
Speaker 5: It was a hot wheel happy meal. So it came
Speaker 5: with a little hot wheel car and a little and
Speaker 5: a piece of track. The piece of track had mandatory
Speaker 5: direction of travel arrows on it, which is if you've
Speaker 5: ever spent any time in Germany, it was just such
Speaker 5: the German what would you call it? Subversion of the
Speaker 5: great American happy meal. That's my story about McDonald's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well they're beating the crap out of them. Twice
Speaker 4: didn't fully work. We gotta go back one more.
Speaker 5: We gotta go back on that note. Then then the
Speaker 5: little guy went to German kindergarten and got kicked out
Speaker 5: on the first day because somebody tried to take a
Speaker 5: toy from him, which I guess is allowed. And he
Speaker 5: beat the you know what out of.
Speaker 4: Them, Steve. Steve's a big fan of The Simpsons. One
Speaker 4: of the I think funniest things I ever saw the
Speaker 4: Simpsons was the ann Rand Kindergarten.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and ran school for tots, Yes, where the
Speaker 1: motto on the on the side of the wall was
Speaker 1: A is not non a.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that was wonderful stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, all right, Well enough about Kamala and McDonald's.
Speaker 3: And uh so we'll go onto the main course, shall we.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could talk about poles, but that'll keep
Speaker 1: because I have lots of thoughts on that and they
Speaker 1: will change. All right, So, listeners, today is a back
Speaker 1: to the classroom episode, and really it's John is sitting
Speaker 1: in the corner in the dunce cap, so we're making
Speaker 1: him go back to the classroom.
Speaker 3: You did realize that was going to happen, John, Right,
Speaker 3: Let me give them.
Speaker 4: Back then I learned best from the best from the
Speaker 4: back of the room, probably like most of the listeners.
Speaker 3: Okay, let me set the scene for listeners.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: This story, this story topic that evolved during the week.
Speaker 1: So early in the week on Twitter, Seth Dillon, who's
Speaker 1: one of the proprietors of the magnificent Babylon Bee posted
Speaker 1: a tweet, a long one. I guess he's got one
Speaker 1: of those accounts where you can write over two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty characters, in which he expressed supreme disappointment and
Speaker 1: criticism in Donald Trump for going wobbly on abortion. Uh
Speaker 1: and and there's like recent news on that. Late in
Speaker 1: the week, he said he opposed the Florida law the
Speaker 1: would ban abortion of six weeks, but then his campaign
Speaker 1: issue to state and saying not necessarily.
Speaker 3: So it's a very confused scene.
Speaker 1: Never mind exactly where he stands. It was Dylan's argument
Speaker 1: that's important. What he said was, look, you know, we
Speaker 1: didn't leave slavery to the states. That wasn't Lincoln's position.
Speaker 1: Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery something words to that effect,
Speaker 1: to which our own Lucretia Recla replied at some length
Speaker 1: on Twitter saying you didn't put it this way, Lucretia,
Speaker 1: but sent your Babylon beefan.
Speaker 3: The subtext was, look.
Speaker 1: I love you, Seth, I love to be, but you
Speaker 1: are misunderstanding Lincoln's prudence in the case. And I have
Speaker 1: more ways to set up the depth of topic, but
Speaker 1: I will let you go ahead and restate the argument
Speaker 1: as you put it, because you'll do it better.
Speaker 3: Than I am.
Speaker 5: Yes, I probably won't because I had to think that
Speaker 5: one through really well as I was writing it. Not
Speaker 5: that I don't understand the argument, but to make it.
Speaker 3: Started to interrupt.
Speaker 1: I mentioned I did post it the whole exchange on
Speaker 1: power line early in the week, but for people didn't
Speaker 1: see it, I'll a link to it in the sh
Speaker 1: oh no, but but go ahead.
Speaker 5: So so the point I think that number that because
Speaker 5: John has mentioned this before and in podcasts, there are
Speaker 5: quite a few analogies between the debate over slavery and
Speaker 5: the debate over abortion, beginning with the fact that it
Speaker 5: is a question of what is a human being? That
Speaker 5: was a question, uh that was very prominent in the
Speaker 5: slavery debate. People don't necessarily want to confront that all
Speaker 5: of the time, but it's the same question that comes
Speaker 5: up in the abortion debate. When when When is an
Speaker 5: unborn baby? When is a fetus uh, actually a human
Speaker 5: being and therefore deserving of the protection of the state.
Speaker 5: The question in the Antebellum period about slavery was, of course,
Speaker 5: is a is a slave a black? A person born.
Speaker 5: You know, as Dred Scott put it, the decision, uh,
Speaker 5: is a person of African considered a human being that
Speaker 5: possesses all the rights and privileges that we give to
Speaker 5: human beings. And the Supreme Court's decision in that case
Speaker 5: was no right just very much as you might say
Speaker 5: the decision in Roe versus Wade was a no. You
Speaker 5: know that an unborn child is not a human being,
Speaker 5: at least not for the first two trimsters, I guess
Speaker 5: you could say anyway. So that's the first part, and
Speaker 5: that's the beginning point for Lincoln, which is that yes,
Speaker 5: in fact, and he spent a lot of time, a
Speaker 5: lot of conversations proving that not only was a black
Speaker 5: a human being, a slave a human being, but that
Speaker 5: the South and slave owners considered them human beings as well.
Speaker 5: The nature of their laws, the protections, that the fact
Speaker 5: that slaves could in fact be held to the criminal code,
Speaker 5: to the moral law, all of these things proved in
Speaker 5: Lincoln's view that blacks for human beings, and if human beings,
Speaker 5: then should have the protection guaranteed to them by the
Speaker 5: Constitution as human beings under the meaning of the Decoration
Speaker 5: of Independence. But that being said, Lincoln understood probably better
Speaker 5: than anyone, why it was impossible, either in seventeen eighty
Speaker 5: seven or perhaps even in eighteen save fifty four, simply
Speaker 5: to abolish slavery and make all the slaves free, and
Speaker 5: then that, in that way make the Constitution consistent with
Speaker 5: the Declaration of Independence. That was really his you know,
Speaker 5: over simple like yeah, jump in.
Speaker 1: Steve, Well, just interrupt to make sure you enumerate what
Speaker 1: those factors are.
Speaker 3: I think maybe you would.
Speaker 1: But it's public opinion was not supporting that, certainly in
Speaker 1: the South.
Speaker 3: But gets it.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, couple ahead. But you have people saying that
Speaker 5: Lincoln was just outright against slavery, which he was. He
Speaker 5: believed it was a he believed it was a moral evil.
Speaker 5: He believed that that official support for the idea that
Speaker 5: slavery was a positive good, that blacks were somehow an
Speaker 5: inferior form of being, not deserving of the same rights
Speaker 5: as whites, all of those things, if those became the
Speaker 5: official positions, would destroy the possibility of freedom and really
Speaker 5: destroy the possibility that the Constitution could protect the rights
Speaker 5: of even white citizens. I'm not doing a really great
Speaker 5: job of this because I'm trying to pull too much together.
Speaker 5: But that being said, the Constitution did in fact make
Speaker 5: slavery legal, or excuse me, I'll say this right, Steve, Sorry,
Speaker 5: the Constitution did in fact allow states to make a
Speaker 5: decision about slavery under the principles of federalism, and that
Speaker 5: the fact of slavery, the institution of slavery among so
Speaker 5: many Southern states, the economic dependence upon it. You have
Speaker 5: the great Jefferson line that says, can the liberties of
Speaker 5: a nation be thought secure when we've removed their only
Speaker 5: firm basis that our rights are the gift of God?
Speaker 5: And he goes on and talks about how God's going
Speaker 5: to bring about his wrath on slave owners and it'll
Speaker 5: be justified. I mean, Lincoln Jefferson are very clear slavery
Speaker 5: was a moral wrong, but it was enshrined in the
Speaker 5: Constitution for reasons we've talked about. If you use Lincoln
Speaker 5: as your model for how you should resolve the slavery debate,
Speaker 5: which is what Seth Dylon did, and it was shorthand
Speaker 5: so you know, I give him some cut him some
Speaker 5: slack there. You have to understand what Lincoln understood, and
Speaker 5: that is what Steve just said what is possible, what
Speaker 5: is possible in this political environment. And it wasn't just
Speaker 5: we give up, because there are lots of people who
Speaker 5: are committed to the institution of slavery. Their powerful they
Speaker 5: they hold at that time most of the reigns of power,
Speaker 5: am I not? Am I right, Steve? I mean they
Speaker 5: had the Supreme Court, they had the Presidency, they had
Speaker 5: you know, at least fifty to fifty in the Senate.
Speaker 5: And that was one of the reasons why they were
Speaker 5: pushing so hard to extend slavery into the territories, because
Speaker 5: if those territories came into the Union as free states,
Speaker 5: they would lose their power. Again. This is you know,
Speaker 5: could spend days talking about this. But Lincoln understood the
Speaker 5: difference between prudence in the question of trying to move
Speaker 5: the country. He called it to the ultimate extinction of
Speaker 5: slavery and simply trying to argue for the abolition of
Speaker 5: slavery immediately. And that's where you can't use Lincoln as
Speaker 5: your analogy against Trump, because actually I think Trump is
Speaker 5: being very linkeent Linconian about this.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, let me put let me put this way,
Speaker 1: because I want to actually bring up John's problem or
Speaker 1: the problem we have with John and bring him into this.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the sharp parallel is, uh Dylan
Speaker 1: didn't quite say this directly, or maybe he did, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying pro life people are saying, well, gosh,
Speaker 1: Trump has abandoned us, we shouldn't vote for him.
Speaker 5: What's that the iv P stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm not paying attention. I'm not paying attention to all.
Speaker 5: That's a big part of it, though, Steve. But anyway,
Speaker 5: you don't have to.
Speaker 1: It's fine, that's yeah. And and the point is at
Speaker 1: least two observations you can start with. One is I mean,
Speaker 1: would we have thought we now would? I think hast
Speaker 1: a rather uh severe judgment. Maybe it's too strong against
Speaker 1: people who said, well, you shouldn't vote for Lincoln, he's
Speaker 1: not sufficiently robust enough against slavery, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: some urban abolitionists did constantly criticize, right William Lloyd Garrison
Speaker 1: and others.
Speaker 3: And then the second one is.
Speaker 1: This is a rough parallel, but the initial political position
Speaker 1: of Lincoln the Republicans was West stop the expansion, the
Speaker 1: further expansion of slavery period. And we believe we have
Speaker 1: constitutional power to do that, which I think they were
Speaker 1: right about. Well, that's a rough parallel to Trump saying
Speaker 1: or Republicans saying, let's repeal ROW and give the matter
Speaker 1: back to the states and to the political branches. Because
Speaker 1: by the way, again I don't like Holocaust analogies very much.
Speaker 1: But although it does not end abortion, it certainly allows
Speaker 1: for a lot more room and for restrictions on abortion,
Speaker 1: including restrictions that a majority of the public probably supports,
Speaker 1: like on late term abortion and sex selection abortions and
Speaker 1: certain other things.
Speaker 3: And so one.
Speaker 1: Practical question you want to ask is, in the absence
Speaker 1: of the total abolition of abortion, which seems very unlikely
Speaker 1: and that the public does not support, what is wrong
Speaker 1: with it is hard to criticize the position of Trump saying,
Speaker 1: let's give it back to the States, and we have
Speaker 1: to take a long term view.
Speaker 3: Of the matter. That's one way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1: In other words, John, here'she we run into trouble with you,
Speaker 1: or where you erase.
Speaker 3: Your mischievous review of things.
Speaker 1: The first pass on prudences, it's matching means with ends,
Speaker 1: although it assumes that you know what the ends are
Speaker 1: and have it deliberated. In other words, that's a matter
Speaker 1: of deliberation itself. And your response was, and now I'll
Speaker 1: let you speak for yourself. You said, nah, prudence has
Speaker 1: just cost benefit analysis. It's sure you utilitarianism coming out again.
Speaker 1: Is that a fair one sentence summary of your view
Speaker 1: or your Yeah, Jack, does a prudence?
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: I don't understand what this term prudence means the way
Speaker 4: you use it. So I think any sensible, self interested
Speaker 4: political actor will want achieve whatever goal they have, and
Speaker 4: then they will try to choose amongst different policies and
Speaker 4: paths that maximize their success over the long term. If
Speaker 4: that's what you mean by prudence, that makes total sense
Speaker 4: to me. But I don't think it needs a special
Speaker 4: not that doesn't need a special word, so you could
Speaker 4: say Lincoln and especially makes sense in a you know,
Speaker 4: in a republic where you have different people who have
Speaker 4: different values, so everybody will compromise to UH because they
Speaker 4: believe it brings them closer to their ultimate goal. But right,
Speaker 4: you can decide to pursue a short term outcome, but
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes requires you, if you're doing it right,
Speaker 4: to choose something where you might not get as much
Speaker 4: right now for something you'll get later, longer term, so
Speaker 4: you could say Lincoln had different choices before the South seceded, right,
Speaker 4: he had said that he would not try to end
Speaker 4: slavery in the states where it already existed. He did
Speaker 4: say he thought slavery could be regulated by Congress and
Speaker 4: the territories that. You know, from the short term perspective,
Speaker 4: you could say that put aside, that would have made
Speaker 4: abolitionists angry. But he's taking account of the political system
Speaker 4: and the chances for success now. So for him, it's
Speaker 4: a gradual process of winning victories in the hope of
Speaker 4: eventually winning in the long term. I don't see why
Speaker 4: you need a fancy word like prudence to describe that.
Speaker 4: I think that's just what politicians do all the time.
Speaker 4: I think that's what the leaders do all the time.
Speaker 4: So they can get it wrong, they can get it wrong.
Speaker 1: But so listeners, Uh, while while Lucretia sorts out her
Speaker 1: microphone has suddenly gone dead, you should know that she's
Speaker 1: been shaking her head vigorously in the background while John
Speaker 1: has been laying out his position.
Speaker 4: You pretend like that's something unusual. Now, I'm often doing that.
Speaker 1: I was going to toss to Lucretia right away to
Speaker 1: one more so, one more example.
Speaker 4: You guys threw its Churchill. Oh, Churchill's greatest example of
Speaker 4: prudence blah blah blah. So you know Churchill did some
Speaker 4: controversial things, like a good examples, he decided to sink
Speaker 4: the French fleet after the French had surrendered.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 4: I don't know what prudence adds to it. It's just like,
Speaker 4: is it better to prevent that from falling into the
Speaker 4: hands of the Nazis? Even though you take this short
Speaker 4: term political hit, in the long run, it makes more
Speaker 4: sense to sink the French fleet and prevent the Germans
Speaker 4: from getting control that fleet. But it's not.
Speaker 3: I also think fancy.
Speaker 5: It is something fancy John, because you keep using you
Speaker 5: keep using economic terms and pragmatic terms. The point is
Speaker 5: why would Lincoln? It's not why would Lincoln care if
Speaker 5: slavery was abolished. The only personal anecdote or example that
Speaker 5: Lincoln ever brought to bear about why he cared about
Speaker 5: slavery from a personal point of view was how he
Speaker 5: took a trip down the Mississippi one time, a horrible trip,
Speaker 5: and on the barge or the boat that he was on,
Speaker 5: there was a I don't know, a group of slaves
Speaker 5: who were shackled together being transported to somewhere down south,
Speaker 5: and he says that that site put me in constant misery. Okay,
Speaker 5: because it tore at his heart, it offended his morals,
Speaker 5: whatever you want to say. But that was his single
Speaker 5: only example of why slavery affected him personally. Okay, from
Speaker 5: the point of view of your cost benefit analysis, that
Speaker 5: was his only cost that he ever expressed publicly. I
Speaker 5: actually it wasn't publicly. It was in a letter to
Speaker 5: his friend, right Steve, but to Joshua Speed. But why
Speaker 5: did Lincoln care? Then? What was the Lincoln came out
Speaker 5: of political obscurity and essentially founded the Republican Party in
Speaker 5: opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act of eighteen fifty four,
Speaker 5: which wanted to sort of leave it up to the
Speaker 5: people of the territories to decide if they wanted slavery.
Speaker 5: It was a magnanimous and statesmanlike offer, a policy offer
Speaker 5: from Stephen Douglas, because it would have taken the question
Speaker 5: of the extension of slavery out of Congress and made it,
Speaker 5: you know, stop tearing the country apart and all that
Speaker 5: other nice stuff. Perfectly pragmatic and probably even to the
Speaker 5: level of statesmanlike policy. Lincoln opposed it. Why it wasn't
Speaker 5: like he was ever going to be forced to own
Speaker 5: a slave. It probably wasn't even like he was ever
Speaker 5: going to be a slave. Why would he oppose it?
Speaker 3: Well, I think, by the way, I think Lucretia.
Speaker 1: A more acute example of this is during the you know,
Speaker 1: the long transition from the election to his inauguration in March,
Speaker 1: which remember was in March in those days, and you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of states voted to secede and along comes
Speaker 1: Senator Critten. Wasn't he from Kentucky. I think he proposed
Speaker 1: a compromise to avert a war. And you probably know
Speaker 1: what John that critin did. Compromise was essentially to re
Speaker 1: establish the old Missouri Compromise and allows slavery to be
Speaker 1: extended out to the west below the Mason Dixon line,
Speaker 1: probably the states where it was not really gonna work,
Speaker 1: like you know, New Mexico, later, Arizona, Nevada, those would
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't who knows.
Speaker 1: But the point is Lincoln said he drew the line
Speaker 1: on that he was willing to consider a lot of compromises,
Speaker 1: but he drew the line on that, and I think
Speaker 1: you have to ask why did he draw the line
Speaker 1: there and not other places? And there I think you
Speaker 1: have to recur to his judgment, which you can quarrel with, because,
Speaker 1: by the way, it's one of those great what ifs
Speaker 1: if he ever, if Lincoln had lived, and you could
Speaker 1: have asked him, you know, was the Civil War worth
Speaker 1: it for that much death and destruction? And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what answer he would have given. He might have
Speaker 1: said he kind of yeah, I mean, he kind of
Speaker 1: said it was necessary and inevitable.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's right.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, you just see
Speaker 1: the wear on his face right alone. Yeah, and moment
Speaker 1: has four knowledge of these things, John, But I want
Speaker 1: to go back to the Churchill example and we can
Speaker 1: draw them together because by the way, you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't mention the French fleet in our text chats because
Speaker 1: you were so completely wrong about that, but you didn't
Speaker 1: mean another example.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, all right.
Speaker 4: Let's do that through the French fleet example.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So what the listeners should know is that
Speaker 1: Churchill demanded that the French either surrendered their fleet to
Speaker 1: the British or be sunk.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course the Germans were saying, no, you got
Speaker 1: to hand your fleet over to us. We just conquered
Speaker 1: you remember, and uh, you know, they sent an ultimatum
Speaker 1: to the commanding admiral of the French fleet, which was
Speaker 1: what anchored somewhere down in Africa.
Speaker 4: I thought it was loose actually, but was it?
Speaker 3: I thought it was.
Speaker 5: Anyway, this is so obscure compared to the conversation.
Speaker 1: Move on. But there is a point to this, which
Speaker 1: was after the ultimatum was refused, the British Navy opened
Speaker 1: up and sank the French fleet quite a lot of
Speaker 1: We killed a lot of French sailors.
Speaker 4: That it was an iron It wasn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah in Iran, that's right. So uh.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the French fleet could have sailed
Speaker 1: to the United States or somewhere. Look, the point is
Speaker 1: that struck a huge moral blow. That was when Roosevelt
Speaker 1: and his people said, you know what the British mean
Speaker 1: it They actually mean to win this thing. That impressed
Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelt enormously, who else, and impressed the French resistance.
Speaker 1: You know, they you know, it's very controversial, a lot
Speaker 1: of propaganda, but the French resistance, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the French people said, yeah, you know what, De Gaulle
Speaker 1: are going to free this country again, and they're really
Speaker 1: serious about going about it.
Speaker 3: Uh and so you know.
Speaker 1: So my point is moral effect cannot be reduced to
Speaker 1: cost benefit analysis or utilities.
Speaker 5: That's not the best example example.
Speaker 1: Well, but pairs with the other one though. Let me
Speaker 1: finish the other one that John did raise in our text.
Speaker 5: Check Well, my example is that.
Speaker 3: Okay, but I think they connect. But go ahead.
Speaker 5: The example I gave John is, you know, famous the
Speaker 5: example of Coventry, where by the time that the British
Speaker 5: and their allies had sufficiently deciphered the German communications through
Speaker 5: Enigma and so on. With Ultra, they were able to
Speaker 5: tell where Germany was likely to bomb inside of Britain,
Speaker 5: and they got information that the town of Coventry was
Speaker 5: going to be bombed in the German bombing that on
Speaker 5: a particular night, and a lot of the people working
Speaker 5: on Ultra were actually had their families in Coventry, but
Speaker 5: they knew that if they Churchill knew that if he
Speaker 5: alerted the people of Coventry that they were about to
Speaker 5: be bombed that night, because they had deciphered the communications,
Speaker 5: then Churchill would know and might not give me Hitler
Speaker 5: would know, yes, you're right, sorry, Steve, and and might
Speaker 5: not continue to use those communication channels, which would have a,
Speaker 5: you know, a very severe impact on how the war
Speaker 5: might turn out. And he was left with this awful choice,
Speaker 5: you know, kill friends, kill family, allow a town to
Speaker 5: be destroyed, not not somebody else's damn army or navy,
Speaker 5: the French fleet, but his own people's family, And to
Speaker 5: set with the the not certain promise that this was
Speaker 5: going to help him win the war, but a very
Speaker 5: good likelihood. And he let the town of Coventry be
Speaker 5: bombed and it was practically destroyed and many many people died.
Speaker 5: That's not a cost benefit of analysis.
Speaker 4: That is not cost benefit in now job. It's obvious.
Speaker 4: I mean this is so there's two points. One is
Speaker 4: I wasn't making the claim that the political end is
Speaker 4: a cost benefit question. Uh, you know, everybody has different
Speaker 4: political views that they arrive at, you know, not strictly
Speaker 4: through you know, like pro life versus pro choice. I
Speaker 4: don't think that's a cost benefit analysis for the people
Speaker 4: who decide on I think, you know, ends are you
Speaker 4: come from outside this, it's then how you achieve the
Speaker 4: end I think is cost benefit. And that's why I
Speaker 4: thought you were talking about prudence. Is you're saying, prudence
Speaker 4: is how you decide how you achieve your ultimate outcome.
Speaker 4: Because finished Lucretia, I mean, I didn't interrupt you for
Speaker 4: the last fifteen minutes.
Speaker 5: I thought you were.
Speaker 4: Oh, I stayed silent. You noticed the whole time because
Speaker 4: I knew you were making an oration to the people. No,
Speaker 4: so the no, But the prudence, I thought, the way
Speaker 4: you guys were talking about does not tell you what
Speaker 4: your ends are. Doesn't tell you whether you're pro slavery
Speaker 4: against slavery. It doesn't tell you whether your Calhoun or
Speaker 4: Lincoln prudence. The way you guys using is how do
Speaker 4: you achieve the win, as it were?
Speaker 3: And then correct but keep going, Okay, well, let it explain.
Speaker 4: It to me, because I don't see why prudence would
Speaker 4: actually tell you what the right moral view is. But
Speaker 4: putting that aside, then, actually, I think slavery is harder
Speaker 4: for me than the questions you're raising about war, because
Speaker 4: in war, the leaders may cost benefit decisions, terrible ones
Speaker 4: all the time. They have to decide sacrifice, some lives
Speaker 4: to save others to lose lives in some campaigns because
Speaker 4: they're there's gonna be a broader strategic benefit. And it
Speaker 4: seems to me that's exactly happened in Coventries. Churchill decided
Speaker 4: he had to sacrifice those lives because he thought that
Speaker 4: the gains to Britain in the war in the long
Speaker 4: run were greater from maintaining this intelligence advantage. If they weren't,
Speaker 4: then he made the wrong decision. It was, but I
Speaker 4: don't think there's a prudence tell Prudence is a word,
Speaker 4: doesn't tell you what the right decision is. It's just
Speaker 4: you're measuring the benefit. And it's actually, I think clearer
Speaker 4: in war time than it is on social issues, social
Speaker 4: domestic issues.
Speaker 5: The simple answer I would give to that, John is
Speaker 5: what you're misunderstanding is the ends. When prudence is brought
Speaker 5: to bear, the ends informed the means. The ends inform
Speaker 5: the means so that it's it's it's It makes no
Speaker 5: sense to say that prudence isn't about ends. Good ends
Speaker 5: inform good means. What you're tending to think of it
Speaker 5: as I hate to say, it is a good Machiavellian.
Speaker 4: Oh, I love it that's the nicest thing you've said
Speaker 4: about me in many years.
Speaker 5: Well, the means justify the end, ends justify themselves, and
Speaker 5: the means are appropriate to those ends. I guess you.
Speaker 5: I'm not really saying it very well.
Speaker 4: But well, let me ask you a different question away.
Speaker 4: Put it is a person with bad means act prudently
Speaker 4: in your view, I mean, sorry, bad ends that you
Speaker 4: disagree with. Suppose you're John Calhoun. Are you saying it's
Speaker 4: impossible for John Calhoun to act prudently?
Speaker 5: Yes, I absolutely am, Because.
Speaker 4: Then I don't understand what prudence means.
Speaker 5: Assumes natural right. I mean, prudence is just a way,
Speaker 5: a different way of saying natural right. What is ultimately right, everywhere, always,
Speaker 5: all the time, has to be applied to particular circumstances.
Speaker 5: What's always right, everywhere, all the time, applied to particular circumstances, may,
Speaker 5: in the prudential view of the statesman, actually require something
Speaker 5: that seems to be totally against what is universally right, like,
Speaker 5: for instance, allowing slavery to continue. Allowing slavery to continue
Speaker 5: is an immoral act that goes absolutely against the universal
Speaker 5: truth of all human beings created equal. So what could
Speaker 5: possibly justify Lincoln saying, yeah, we're going to leave slavery
Speaker 5: alone where it is. What could justify Lincoln during the
Speaker 5: Civil War refusing to extend the Emancipation Proclamation to border states?
Speaker 5: What justifies that? Why did he not just end slavery everywhere?
Speaker 5: What under his powers as commander in chief?
Speaker 4: So this is what I don't understand, is No, No,
Speaker 4: I don't understand this, because then you're saying prudence is
Speaker 4: only a concept that we can apply to people that
Speaker 4: you think are pursuing the right moral ends, and has
Speaker 4: no application really to understanding everybody else. So if say,
Speaker 4: in our country right now, I'm just making this up,
Speaker 4: say thirty percent of Americans believe in natural rights as
Speaker 4: you do, and seven don't, then prudence has no application
Speaker 4: to those other seventy percent because you have you're saying
Speaker 4: it only can apply if you think they already have
Speaker 4: the right moral views and right moral ends, that is.
Speaker 5: But if I think it's if they simply do. Okay,
Speaker 5: it's not what I think it is because it's not relative.
Speaker 6: Is right?
Speaker 4: But my point is, Okay, so that other seventy percent
Speaker 4: who you disagree with in terms of their moral views,
Speaker 4: prudence just doesn't matter. It just doesn't help us understand
Speaker 4: how they act or how they should act, because.
Speaker 5: One could say, I'm not going to say what I
Speaker 5: think about seventy percent or anything like that. But if
Speaker 5: if your ends are not determined by justice, if your
Speaker 5: ends are not determined by what is good, then prudence
Speaker 5: does not apply. It is something like you you you
Speaker 5: would call it, John, cause benefit analysis or a Machiavellian
Speaker 5: approach to things, how best to achieve this particular goal.
Speaker 5: But if the goal it's self is not just, then
Speaker 5: prudence doesn't enter into it. Difficult statesman's job to apply
Speaker 5: what is naturally right, naturally just to particular situations.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, Can I try it this way, John, and
Speaker 1: get back to a little bit of abstraction. Then back
Speaker 1: to some specific examples again. One is is there's never
Speaker 1: just one end in the mind of a statesman. There's
Speaker 1: usually a whole lot of ends. There's a hierarchy of ends,
Speaker 1: and the priority of those hierarchies are subject to judgment
Speaker 1: and deliberation.
Speaker 3: That's a key task of prudence.
Speaker 1: So you know, the first the first end in the
Speaker 1: modern liberal mind, by that I mean classical liberal mind
Speaker 1: is from your guy Hobbes is self preservation. Right, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty important end for individuals and for nations. But
Speaker 1: below that or you know what means you used to
Speaker 1: self preservation and ah, so your point about coventry is, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can make a cost benefit analysis. That Churchill thought,
Speaker 1: and I think this is the way they thought, is
Speaker 1: if we surrender at an early point and what's going
Speaker 1: to be a long war, the small advantage we have
Speaker 1: an intelligence gathering, we won't have an advantage later when
Speaker 1: it will be more to our benefit.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I think that's a conspentific way of putting it right,
Speaker 3: And but that but let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: Let me ring in the second instance that you brought up,
Speaker 1: which was did you really mean it's John you thought
Speaker 1: that Churchill should have negotiated an end of the war
Speaker 1: because look how disastrous it was for written in the end,
Speaker 1: losing your empire and all that.
Speaker 4: If Churchill's view was right, I want to I'm fighting
Speaker 4: this word for the preservation of the British empire, which
Speaker 4: was yeah, what he said his goal was.
Speaker 3: He did a pretty poor job of that.
Speaker 4: If it was for this noble if you think the
Speaker 4: Churchill was this sort of natural rights warrior, and he
Speaker 4: wanted to stop the evils of authoritarianism. Then I would say,
Speaker 4: is a different goal in mind, and maybe it was
Speaker 4: right to fight to the end, which is what he
Speaker 4: was saying he would do.
Speaker 1: Ah, well, okay, Now the prudent person says, you have
Speaker 1: two you just stipulate two ends. Good, one was Hitler
Speaker 1: needs to be defeated. Two I'd like to preserve the
Speaker 1: British Empire.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And one of those ends turns out to be incompatible
Speaker 1: with the other because the first one. And why did
Speaker 1: you say it was imperative to defeat Hitler? He said, because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, if we don't, I mean, I forget the
Speaker 1: language that one particular speech where he says, if we don't,
Speaker 1: if he, if he, if he triumphs over all of Europe,
Speaker 1: it will begin a thousand years of darkness, which you'll
Speaker 1: eventually reach the United States, he said, And Roosevelt largely
Speaker 1: agreed with him in that judgment.
Speaker 4: That killer response to you, but go ahead.
Speaker 3: Well okay, I'll bet, I'll bet it's wrong, but go ahead, okay.
Speaker 4: So can we agree that FDR definitely was not a
Speaker 4: natural rights guy? I mean his second Bill of Rights,
Speaker 4: the second Fourth Bill of Rights for freedom stuff. I
Speaker 4: mean that guy is typical progressive because ther does not
Speaker 4: believe in natural rights.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter, John, That's not the point. Whether or
Speaker 5: not you believe in natural rights. Then he's whether your
Speaker 5: cause is just.
Speaker 4: But he can't believe imprudence in the way you say it,
Speaker 4: because he.
Speaker 5: Doesn't care what he believes in. That has not You
Speaker 5: keep using that as if it's relevant. Who believes in
Speaker 5: what is not the point. It's what is and what isn't.
Speaker 5: Whatever else you can say about Roosevelt, and I can
Speaker 5: say a lot of bad things about him, and often
Speaker 5: do uh his support ultimately for Churchill and then and
Speaker 5: then you know, our participation in World War two was
Speaker 5: based upon an idea of justice that was that. I
Speaker 5: think any reasonable person, if they deliberate about it, as
Speaker 5: Steve was saying, has to understand is absolutely true, we
Speaker 5: defeat an evil. He doesn't have to believe in natural rights.
Speaker 4: Understand. You don't care what other people's self professed moral
Speaker 4: views are. You're you're just You just care how they
Speaker 4: advance your moral views of natural law and natural rights. No,
Speaker 4: because FDR would not have said he belied in natural rights,
Speaker 4: but you're saying he's acting in a just direction for
Speaker 4: reasons that he doesn't may not even believe.
Speaker 5: We really not look at that what I said and
Speaker 5: agree to that. Or is this just a relative thing
Speaker 5: and Hitler one?
Speaker 1: Great?
Speaker 5: If we didn't great, that's those are your options.
Speaker 1: I think what Lucretia is trying to say is that
Speaker 1: FDR's prudence in the matter was incomplete and partial, and
Speaker 1: so you know, you give him a c.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's one way of putting it. I think
Speaker 3: I don't think that's I.
Speaker 1: Mean, he understood that Hitler was, as the phrase use today,
Speaker 1: a true existential threat to civilization.
Speaker 3: He could figure that out the help.
Speaker 1: By the way, I always thought this is an interesting point.
Speaker 1: Churchill Roosevelt New German. He'd learned it growing up, so
Speaker 1: he could listen to Hitler's speeches and would comment on
Speaker 1: them and translate them with And that's one reason why
Speaker 1: he Rearleon said we should take this guy seriously. He
Speaker 1: really means all the bad stuff he says or has
Speaker 1: everybody else had.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me.
Speaker 5: Get a totally just a different, different thing. John. There
Speaker 5: was a thing the other day I saw where a
Speaker 5: sixteen year old girl had been raped in some barbarian
Speaker 5: I won't use all the adjectives. I want to use
Speaker 5: Muslim Islam country, some awful, god forsaken place. She was raped,
Speaker 5: and so she was stoned to death for committing I
Speaker 5: don't know. I don't even know. Those people are the
Speaker 5: greatest source of evil in the world. But anyway, can
Speaker 5: you I mean, do we say that, Oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 5: their view of justice, So that's okay. Are you willing
Speaker 5: to say that? No?
Speaker 4: No, My point is that I could still say that
Speaker 4: whether they're acting prudently or not, I don't know.
Speaker 5: But you have to start with the end. You can't
Speaker 5: just talk about prudence as something more.
Speaker 4: I now have a better understanding of what you guys
Speaker 4: mean by prudence. My point is that you're making it
Speaker 4: a very narrow tool then, because it only applies to
Speaker 4: people you only you only applied in the context of
Speaker 4: where you think it is advancing natural rights.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not sure understanding that.
Speaker 3: No, it's well, I wasn't sure how far.
Speaker 1: Let me go back to the Churchill example for a
Speaker 1: minute and refer you to one of the readings I
Speaker 1: suggested you ponder. You know a lot of people have
Speaker 1: said rigionists like John Charmley, David Irving, a very dodgy guy,
Speaker 1: and even Pap Buchanan in his book The Unnecessary War, Right,
Speaker 1: you know, he criticized our involvement in World War Two.
Speaker 1: He said Churchill should have cut a deal, hit or
Speaker 1: wanted to make a deal, which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: think is true.
Speaker 3: I think there were hints at the time.
Speaker 4: And remember he sent that guy over right.
Speaker 3: Well, no, that.
Speaker 1: Was later, but I mean, you know, there's good evidence
Speaker 1: that he ordered the German armory to pause at Dunkirk,
Speaker 1: hoping he could sweet talk the British into making a deal.
Speaker 1: You know, it was sort of an area and racist thing.
Speaker 1: They'll leave you guys alone. You can't keep a lot
Speaker 1: of it. He was going to get very generous terms,
Speaker 1: and the revisionists, especially guy like David Irving, who's you know,
Speaker 1: a borderline Holocaust denier and who, by the way, probably
Speaker 1: faked a lot of his sources in his books. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know that guy's name. He was
Speaker 1: a big deal thirty years ago. Anyway, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: there was the Italian opening in late May of nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: Churchill's in office two weeks it's what's dramatized in the
Speaker 1: movie A couple of years ago reasonably well, and Churchill
Speaker 1: said no. And one of the reasons Churchill said no
Speaker 1: was he had an instinct, which, by the way, there's
Speaker 1: some survey research John Lukeatch dug up on this that
Speaker 1: showed that if word got out, well, first of all,
Speaker 1: all the service chiefs and all the body said, the
Speaker 1: key thing and us holding out is going to be
Speaker 1: the morale of the military, which doesn't have any weapons,
Speaker 1: and the morale of the people. If word gets out
Speaker 1: they were even considering a deal with Hitler, morale will
Speaker 1: collapse and we're.
Speaker 3: Done for now.
Speaker 1: The reason I use that as a preface is, you know,
Speaker 1: if you read Churchill's chapter, and I don't know, the
Speaker 1: only thing may help you at this point, John, you
Speaker 1: read the end of Churchill's chapter on the Munich agreement,
Speaker 1: and what he says there is quite interesting.
Speaker 3: He says, Look, we can't really I'm paraphrasing here.
Speaker 1: He says, we really can't criticize Chamberlain for making the
Speaker 1: attempt and maybe even making the deal. He might have
Speaker 1: turned out to be right. He doesn't quite put it
Speaker 1: that way, and he says and you know, people who
Speaker 1: have to make decisions in the moment without the hindsight
Speaker 1: of history later on, you know, they can't know what
Speaker 1: the right course might be. They might turn out to
Speaker 1: be right. But then he says this here I will
Speaker 1: quote it. There is, however, one helpful guide, namely for
Speaker 1: a nation to keep its word and to act in
Speaker 1: accordance with its treaty obligations to allies. This guide is
Speaker 1: called honor. It is baffling to reflect that what men
Speaker 1: call honor does not correspond always.
Speaker 3: To Christian ethics. That there's a whole book you could
Speaker 3: based on that.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the epigram to Jaffis first book on
Speaker 1: Tonism and Aristotelianism.
Speaker 3: Here's the point. Churchill said, what we did there was dishonorable.
Speaker 3: Now my simple question to you, John, is freet natural.
Speaker 3: For a minute?
Speaker 1: Is honor a real thing or not? And is there
Speaker 1: not something tangible to human beings behaving in honorable ways
Speaker 1: and taking the idea seriously? In which case Britain would
Speaker 1: have done the right thing in September nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 1: And that's a judgment of prudence. There's more to Churchill
Speaker 1: says there, But is their thing.
Speaker 4: When I asked you guys to provide too much of.
Speaker 3: Shakespeare sp Sorry, no, no, I.
Speaker 4: Was asking, Remember, I asked you guys provide me with
Speaker 4: some kind of extended discussion about what prudence is from
Speaker 4: some of the great philosophers. And you guys pointed me
Speaker 4: to people like church Show and things like that, and
Speaker 4: some of Lincoln's statements. But they're not really right. They're
Speaker 4: not written now is or philosophical attempts right, they're more
Speaker 4: you were pointing me more, I think, to examples rather
Speaker 4: than anyone's really thinking it through.
Speaker 3: And so it's correct because there's not a formula for this. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 3: not a formula.
Speaker 4: But doesn't see she's really a fully thought through concept.
Speaker 4: And that's that I find it really puzzling because all
Speaker 4: these examples from Churchill, I think you Churchill, you know,
Speaker 4: he stands as example someone had to make these tough
Speaker 4: choices where he sacrificed lives in the short term for
Speaker 4: the bigger benefit in the long term. But to me,
Speaker 4: it doesn't reflect on whether his national goals were the
Speaker 4: right one, and I think I could when it comes
Speaker 4: to international politics, I have a really hard time applying
Speaker 4: this idea of prudence if it's defined as things that
Speaker 4: we really analyze because of its advancement of natural rights.
Speaker 4: Because I don't think that concept really works in international politics.
Speaker 5: I mean that because right and wrong and justin unjust
Speaker 5: don't exist in international politics or.
Speaker 4: The rare they rarely do. Instead, countries are pursuing their
Speaker 4: own interests.
Speaker 5: And that's not what I said. I didn't say whether
Speaker 5: they believe in it.
Speaker 4: I said why, No, I'm not saying whether they believe
Speaker 4: or not. I'm just saying, that's what nation. You want
Speaker 4: to talk about, what nations do. Most of the time,
Speaker 4: they're just trying to expand their own influence. The United States,
Speaker 4: I think is unusual and that we do try to
Speaker 4: spread a certain moral ideology in the world. Most countries,
Speaker 4: like you know, like Great Britain, they're not I don't
Speaker 4: think much of their history. They're acting on behalf. They
Speaker 4: are acting because they're expanding natural rights or want to.
Speaker 4: They're just expanding the power of the British Empire.
Speaker 3: You can say.
Speaker 5: Say that, John, that's not what I said.
Speaker 4: No, No, I'm not putting any words in. I'm just
Speaker 4: describing my view and what they did. And then you
Speaker 4: look at the British Empire, and you say, well, regardless
Speaker 4: of what they think, what they did or not was
Speaker 4: either good for natural rights or not.
Speaker 5: It's that's good for natural rights. It's either just or
Speaker 5: unjust rights out. Okay, So it's either just or unjust.
Speaker 4: Okay. So how do you decide whether the expansion of
Speaker 4: the British Empire is just or unjust?
Speaker 5: It's a whole lot of things.
Speaker 1: I'll just give you one, just one piece of data,
Speaker 1: which is it bequeathed to the world the largest democracy
Speaker 1: that exists, which is India. I mean, where do you
Speaker 1: think India got its political institutions, political culture from.
Speaker 3: It got it from the.
Speaker 1: Colonizers, as we now say, right, I actually think the
Speaker 1: British Empire was on net a force for good in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: I did too, But they did lots of bad things too.
Speaker 4: They violated a lot of naturites at the same time.
Speaker 4: Say that's true too. So how do you decide whether Lincoln.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's a I could I could quote,
Speaker 1: I could quote one of the great utilitarians, John Stuart
Speaker 1: Mill on.
Speaker 3: That point, but I won't.
Speaker 4: The nations, when they pursue their self interests, whether for
Speaker 4: whatever reason they do it. You're making them an You
Speaker 4: judge them on whether they were acting justice, and then
Speaker 4: only when they're acting justly do you compute what they're
Speaker 4: doing with this idea of prudence. Justly. Then prudence doesn't really.
Speaker 5: Apply if you really want to make it formulaic. And
Speaker 5: Steve's right, it's not formulaic, but it's a cost benefit
Speaker 5: analysis all of the time. It becomes prudence when good
Speaker 5: means are followed to good ends, and that and the
Speaker 5: reason prudence is a difficult concept is because it's not
Speaker 5: always possible to just follow a straight, formulaic cost benefit
Speaker 5: analysis to those ends. Sometimes you have to make which
Speaker 5: is why I gave you the example that I gave
Speaker 5: as stark as it is. You have to make really
Speaker 5: tough choices that are not just cost benefit analysis. Well,
Speaker 5: I mean, from the point of view of a human being,
Speaker 5: I would rather save my family than I would necessarily
Speaker 5: save Western or Western civilization from Nazis. Right, But so
Speaker 5: you're making it something something You're trying to remove justice
Speaker 5: from the equation. What's just in that situation You can
Speaker 5: only know by deliberation, as Steve said, and by trying
Speaker 5: to figure out how you do the most good while
Speaker 5: doing the least amount of evil in a situation. That's
Speaker 5: not utilitarianism because good and evil don't matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me see if I can being drawing us
Speaker 1: to a conclusion with a couple of short observations.
Speaker 3: One is.
Speaker 1: This is an important point, just to make it crystal clear,
Speaker 1: there isn't a formula for this. Churchill himself said prudence
Speaker 1: can't be taught. He said it can be armed. And
Speaker 1: my argument to you, John, as you're showing up unarmed
Speaker 1: to many of these circumstances. And here's why second point,
Speaker 1: Economists and lawyers are alike in this way. Lawyers like
Speaker 1: bright line rules, they like, you know, clarity, and you
Speaker 1: like to refine the law and so forth. Economists like
Speaker 1: a number, They like to be able to reduce things
Speaker 1: to a quantitative calculation. Our argument is is that prudence
Speaker 1: can't be reduced to either one of those things. And
Speaker 1: that's why that's why Jaffa used to say, and this
Speaker 1: is where Walter Burns agreed with him. By the way,
Speaker 1: Jaffa's a version of it was the proper study of
Speaker 1: political science would be the close study of the deeds
Speaker 1: and speeches of great statesmen. So, by the way, prudence
Speaker 1: doesn't I mean, I don't even think prudence applies to
Speaker 1: calculations of colonization of the British Empire, except in certain
Speaker 1: cases like should we get.
Speaker 3: Out of India after the war? And right.
Speaker 1: In other words, to put a mundane example, to decide
Speaker 1: whether a new road should be three lanes in each
Speaker 1: direction or only two lanes in each direction, that really
Speaker 1: is something that you know, what's the end, You want
Speaker 1: the traffic to flow freely. That's not really a matter
Speaker 1: of that is, that doesn't involve any necessity of prudence
Speaker 1: or genius on the part of a decision maker, and
Speaker 1: they might get it wrong, and so you're stuck in traffic,
Speaker 1: and that's not the end of the world.
Speaker 3: Would be the end of the world. Go ahead.
Speaker 5: And then one point I want to add is that
Speaker 5: nothing about prudence is a guarantee that the actions of
Speaker 5: a statesman acting prudentially will guarantee success. That's the difference.
Speaker 5: But again, Steve probability, Steve's Steve's example is a good
Speaker 5: one in that case, it doesn't matter that much. But
Speaker 5: you know what if the statesman trying to balance that
Speaker 5: the different means to the to the end chooses this
Speaker 5: or that. There's no guarantee that the statesman will be successful.
Speaker 5: And what defines prudence in that that process? I guess
Speaker 5: you could say is that the statesman was acting according
Speaker 5: to what was just and right. One could say according
Speaker 5: to his conscience, but only if his conscience was informed
Speaker 5: by what was just and what was right. That doesn't
Speaker 5: matter when you're planning out a highway, and that doesn't
Speaker 5: matter in some case. Is in the international scene, when
Speaker 5: you really are talking about, you know, the the ultimate
Speaker 5: what's good for this particular country's you know, extinsion or
Speaker 5: non extinction, whatever those things might be. A statesman acting
Speaker 5: with prudence could be an ultimate failure at achieving that goal, right,
Speaker 5: but not a failure if that statesman did not abandon
Speaker 5: the principles that were guiding him along the way. Am
Speaker 5: I making sense, Steve Well?
Speaker 3: I was just going to say, I was going to
Speaker 3: mark you down as undecided.
Speaker 6: John.
Speaker 4: I think you've made it worse because now you're arguing
Speaker 4: against clarity and against you. Of course, we are more
Speaker 4: abnormous and difficult to.
Speaker 5: Understand because it's not easy.
Speaker 4: And then I don't understand your view about how to
Speaker 4: learn it is not through education but through repeated practice.
Speaker 4: Is that what?
Speaker 1: It's the only way you can begin to appreciate it is,
Speaker 1: you know, as I said, close study of the great
Speaker 1: deeds and words of statesmen.
Speaker 3: I mean why, I mean that honor question from minute?
Speaker 1: Why is it that the human imagination is still captivated?
Speaker 1: I want to share one more Churchill quote, but the
Speaker 1: preface is why are people still captivated by you know,
Speaker 1: the three hundred Spartans who held out against the Persians?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: We make movies about it, we still talk about it.
Speaker 1: Why do we still read and draw lessons from the
Speaker 1: elite in the Odyssey? Why do we talk about what's
Speaker 1: what's the Roman battle where the legion goes in knowing
Speaker 1: you're going to be wiped out, but they say that's
Speaker 1: their honors at stake?
Speaker 3: That can I? Can I? How do you just pronounce
Speaker 3: that one?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Can I? The Battle of can I?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And why that?
Speaker 1: The joke now and the memes are why you know
Speaker 1: young all right, young men who think a lot about
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire?
Speaker 3: Well, why are they doing that? Well?
Speaker 1: I should have actually given you the last two sentences
Speaker 1: of that Churchill passage from the Gathering storm when I say,
Speaker 1: you know, honor would have.
Speaker 3: Led us the right way.
Speaker 1: Here's how he explained it. And this, I think Lucretia
Speaker 1: gilds the point you just made an exaggerated code of
Speaker 1: honor leading to the performance of utterly vain and unreasonable
Speaker 1: deeds could not be defended. However fine it might look.
Speaker 1: That's a rejection of pure principle.
Speaker 3: John right here.
Speaker 1: However, next sentence, the moment came when honor pointed the
Speaker 1: path of duty, and when also the right judgment of
Speaker 1: the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates.
Speaker 1: You may know, John, by the way that we now
Speaker 1: know subsequently it was true. But there was some intelligence
Speaker 1: at the time that the German military was about ready
Speaker 1: to revolt against Hitler because they had had it with
Speaker 1: his reckless aggressiveness, and if the British and the French
Speaker 1: had stood up to Germany over Czechoslovakia, they were going
Speaker 1: to stage a military coup against him. And it was
Speaker 1: after Hitler once again correctly judged the weakness of the
Speaker 1: Western statesman that the military said, well, I guess we
Speaker 1: just have to fall in behind this guy now, after which,
Speaker 1: of course Hitler ruthlessly rooted out any generals he couldn't trust, right,
Speaker 1: But I would like to propose closing by paraphrasing Kamela
Speaker 1: Henderson saying that at least Lucretia and I our values
Speaker 1: have not changed.
Speaker 5: So can we just bring this back around for a
Speaker 5: quick moment to what the point was here, which was
Speaker 5: that the analogy between Lincoln's approach to the question of
Speaker 5: the abolition of slavery and Seth Dillon's approach. And by
Speaker 5: the way, let me just say, just in case, on
Speaker 5: some miracle, Seth Dillon is listening to this, he posted
Speaker 5: yesterday on Twitter that he does, in fact believe that
Speaker 5: we should be voting for the person who's likely to
Speaker 5: do the most good.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, right, you know he.
Speaker 5: It was at the end of a long tweet, and
Speaker 5: so I think he does understand. I know that one
Speaker 5: of the reasons that Lincoln was successful in moving public
Speaker 5: opinion toward the abolitionist view, toward the idea that slavery
Speaker 5: was a moral evil, all of those things was because,
Speaker 5: in fact that part of his coalition included those radical abolitionists.
Speaker 5: Trump's coalition has to include those people that are radical.
Speaker 5: I don't think of it radical at all. It's my
Speaker 5: position that all abortion should be completely illegal in all circumstances.
Speaker 5: In rape, I don't believe that if you an unborn
Speaker 5: child should pay for the sins of its father. So okay,
Speaker 5: But you know, I'm not as vocal about it as
Speaker 5: some people are. Those people have a role to play
Speaker 5: in moving the country's public opinion more and more to
Speaker 5: the idea that abortion is a great moral wrong. Right
Speaker 5: now is I think one of you pointed out, No,
Speaker 5: the country as a whole does not believe that. The
Speaker 5: country as a whole did not necessarily believe that. Certainly
Speaker 5: the South didn't believe that in eighteen fifty four. How
Speaker 5: do you get people moving in that direction, and how
Speaker 5: do you get the political establishment moving in that direction?
Speaker 5: Do you elect Kamala Harris because you're pissed off at
Speaker 5: Trump because he's in favor of IVF and not necessarily
Speaker 5: going to push hard for a national abortion a band
Speaker 5: constitution constitutional amendment. Excuse me, that makes no sense. That's
Speaker 5: what we learn from Lincoln, That's where we learn where
Speaker 5: prudence applies in this case. How do you ultimately get
Speaker 5: to the place in this country where abortion is considered
Speaker 5: an absolutely immoral wrong, and it can be outlawed across
Speaker 5: the board everywhere and all the time. You're not going
Speaker 5: to do that by voting in Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I'll bet you probably out never mind, why
Speaker 1: don't we Why don't we move to our usual closing
Speaker 1: order with you have some Babylon be's handing the p I.
Speaker 5: Do, although I'm trying to keep up with John because
Speaker 5: he's good. He's a lawyer. He's good at these arguments.
Speaker 4: You know, That's why I tend to win.
Speaker 5: Well, we'll see, we'll see. What what do you think
Speaker 5: my policies might be? Kamla asks CNN's Dana Bash during interview.
Speaker 5: Tim Walt spends entire CNN interview making balloon animals to
Speaker 5: distract attention from Kamala Harris. By the way, I just
Speaker 5: want you guys to know that I've now had about
Speaker 5: five some of them. I think you've gotten, Steve, about
Speaker 5: five different people who point out to me whenever somebody
Speaker 5: else uses the term kambel amma ding dong.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, so it's catching on.
Speaker 5: It's catching John uh strong capable woman asked man to
Speaker 5: come with her to job interview in case they ask
Speaker 5: any hard questions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're long. So this is an example of Seth Dylon.
Speaker 5: This is on Babylon B. Pro lifers criticized for asking
Speaker 5: pro life candidates to support pro life policies, and so
Speaker 5: that gives you an idea of where they're coming from.
Speaker 5: Last one, just because I can't help it, we didn't
Speaker 5: even talk about this whole controversy with Trump going to
Speaker 5: Arlington National Cemetery. By the way, I have placed to
Speaker 5: wreathe myself on the soldier on the tomb of the
Speaker 5: unknown soldier, and I am not a former president or
Speaker 5: a current president or anything like that. I saw a
Speaker 5: bunch of people put you know, he shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 5: This is only for current presidents to do. Well, I've
Speaker 5: done it, and I'm neither. Kamala solemnly places joy sticker
Speaker 5: on tomb of marine killed in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: Oh I already hate to laugh at that, but that's yeah,
Speaker 3: that was right.
Speaker 5: In case anybody missed it. By the way, that whole
Speaker 5: crap about not being able to take pictures at Arlington
Speaker 5: National Cemetery for political campaigns and all that, it's crap,
Speaker 5: and it's they were the left was so embarrassed by
Speaker 5: Trump's success in going to Arlington, you know, at the
Speaker 5: request of the families and so on. They've been trying
Speaker 5: everything they can to try to undermine that story. But anyway, okay,
Speaker 5: I'm gone.
Speaker 3: All right, John send us out.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know how much we have left.
Speaker 3: Oh well, well sign off.
Speaker 4: Rather than drink your whiskey meat, because we don't wait
Speaker 4: for something to replace a bid.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of suggestions which I haven't got
Speaker 1: handy unfortunately, because you know, I'm running behind them and
Speaker 1: traveling and I don't actually have the right ending. So
Speaker 1: how about I just do this, uh and say, to
Speaker 1: paraphrase Kamala Harris, our ending has not changed.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next.
Speaker 1: Week when we'll get back to talking about uh, you know,
Speaker 1: uh our ordinary subjects of you know, politics, law and
Speaker 1: all the rest of that. And we'll stop trying to
Speaker 1: tutor forge on you or torture for John too. Whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing, we're doing something.
Speaker 5: He's not tortured. Look at him, grinning like.
Speaker 4: I'm just I'm please thinking about all the hot dogs
Speaker 4: I'm going to get for this.
Speaker 5: Right by you, guys, Hey.
Speaker 6: Guys, Ricochet join the conversation