Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 499: Who Should Vote?

Transcript

Episode 499: Who Should Vote? · Words & Numbers

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Coming up next on Words and Numbers, Aliens, a question for
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audiophiles, $40 a pack, cigarettes and.
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Who's really allowed to vote for president?
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All this and more coming up next on Words and Numbers, a Civil
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original production. Check us out at civil.com.
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That's C ivl.com. Hi, I'm James.
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And I'm Anthony. And this is words and numbers.
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Ants, what's known exciting in your world this week?
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James, I know you're a musician and very heavily into music,
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listening, producing, the whole thing.
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Do you you play, You have a number of guitars and they're
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all electric. Is that right?
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Or a number of them are electric?
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Yeah, almost all. Can you tell the difference?
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Because I know companies advertise their special high
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quality copper wire sheathing, whatever.
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Can you tell a difference between the high quality, low
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quality cabling? In a nanosecond.
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Well, all right, see this is I I figured.
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There are different, I mean, I without getting too far into the
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weeds here, there are different uses for copper wire in the
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making of music. One of those uses is spooling
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around a magnet which makes a pickup which gets the sound from
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the strings to the amp. And I can, I can tell if you if
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you're using lousy copper or adulterated copper, I'll know in
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a heartbeat now. OK.
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Cables on the other On the other hand, cables.
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That thing that goes from your guitar to the amp?
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Not nearly as much. Not yet.
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OK audio files for years have been trying to sell people extra
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special speaker cables that cost them like $1,000,000 a foot
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because they because you can hear the difference.
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No, you can't. But.
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Yeah, I I vented my spleen. Say what you.
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Need No, no, I I I know that. I I figured that in part because
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our producer Danny, when trying to track down an errant noise,
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had me buy some super duper wire that connected my computer to
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something else and it didn't do anything.
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The problem is my air conditioner was running.
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But this article comes from a website that I have used for
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decades. I love this site, Tom's
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Hardware. He talks about basically
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computer stuff. He ranges into other electronic
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things as well, but it's just a just a quality site Anytime I
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want to know. All right, what's the final word
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on something to do with computers?
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I can go to his place, Tom's Hardware, but I ran across this
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article from Tom's Hardware in a blind test.
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Audio files couldn't tell the difference between audio signal
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sent through copper wire, a banana or wet mud.
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All right, I find that a little hard to believe.
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Well, this was now this was specifically the the cabling
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that you were describing that apparently they, you know, stuck
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it. Literally I've got a picture of
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2 ends of cables, you know with the ends off stuck into a banana
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and they still. Realize the banana.
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Might as well. They ran a test and discovered
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that no, indeed, there's no big difference.
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Yeah, people pay a lot of money for speaker cable.
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I just log on to Amazon by the industrial strength kind that
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doesn't break easily and is screwed about the room.
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I don't. I don't.
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Worry about speaker cable at all.
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I, I concern myself with other things, right?
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The speakers are really important.
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The receiver is or the amplifier is really important.
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But you know, I, I, I listened once I went with our friend Phil
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Magnus to a store, very little specialized shop, and the guy
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inside asked me what my favorite album of all time is.
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For those of you who care about such things, there are two it's
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Clutching at Straws and Brave, both by Marillion and I asked
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for Clutching at straws and I listened to it on a stereo that
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literally cost 1/4 of $1,000,000.
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I've owned houses that didn't cost that much and it and it
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sounded great. And the guy said, are you, are
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you interested? And I said, no, you idiot, I'm
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not interested. 1/4 of $1,000,000 And I said, and even
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if I were, I would have to tell you frankly that this sounds
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great and I mean great, but the delta between this and the
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system that I have at my house that cost, yeah, $2000 maybe all
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in is not that big. It's not worth the extra
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$247,000, right? How could it be now?
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He said he said all due credit to him.
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He said, look, I'm I'm dealing with people who have more money
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than they know what to do with and they choose to have me come
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and install these things in their homes.
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But I, I get it. The the difference isn't that
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great because. You know, it's interesting you
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say that because I've had that experience, that kind of
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experience twice. Of course, I'm not into audio
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things like you are, but once with a bottle of wine and once
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with a bottle of Scotch. And in both cases they were, it
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was a over $1000 bottle of wine, $1000 bottle of Scotch.
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I didn't know it at the time, but, but it was markedly, each
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of them, markedly better than anyone or any Scotch I'd ever
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had before. Clearly, hands down, no
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question. However, that extra delta is not
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worth the extra 8 hundred $900 in price.
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And again, how could it be right?
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I mean, we live right. We live in world in in a world
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that is constrained. We have all kinds of
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constraints. If money were no object, I would
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buy the best of everything and I wouldn't think twice about it.
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But money's always an object. Nothing you can do about that.
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But I want to talk about something that's way more fun
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than this. And I I don't think I matter of
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fact. I know I've never said this
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before. This is a sentence I have never
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uttered. Barack Obama has done a
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wonderful thing. Well, not even curious.
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You're not even curious. I am curious, what's he done?
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I mean, in retrospect, I was not at all happy when he was
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elected. But it's one of those things, I
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think we do that with many presidents.
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We look back and say, oh boy, if only we had him now.
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And I think what I think what's actually happening is we're
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looking back to the to the era and seeing it through rose
7:07
colored glasses. And what we want is to go back
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to that. But nonetheless, what's he done?
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Obama Obama was a jerk and he was an especially incredible
7:16
jerk in his second term. But on a podcast with the the
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article I'm dealing with this from the New York Post, they who
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credits Brian Tyler Cowen. Oh.
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Yeah. So is that is that Tyler Cowen
7:32
that we? Know.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have. No idea but why?
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Why does everybody call him Tyler if his name is Brian
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Tyler? Cowen, but he just goes by his
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middle name, I guess. Well, we got to, we got to go
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talk to him because on his podcast, Barack Obama said that
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aliens are in fact real. Are what form former President
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of the United States. Here's They are in fact what?
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Real. They exist.
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They're a thing. That's not a question.
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It did, he expound. Is this is this knowledge he has
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gained from being president or his personal experience?
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Knowledge he has gained from being president.
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They are, they're real, he said. But I haven't seen them.
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So he's been briefed on them, he's talked with his people
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about them, but he's never laid eyes on them.
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No follow up question. And here's where Tyler, no
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follow up. Nope.
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Tyler Cohen needs needs to get yelled at because no further no
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follow up questions on the topic were asked.
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Whoa, yeah, I got all kinds of questions.
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Yeah, for me too. First amongst.
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Them If I was president, if I were president and found out
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through official channels somehow that aliens existed, I
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would demand to see. One.
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Well, maybe we don't have one to show him.
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I don't know. All right, so maybe.
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They've come. They've said hello.
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They've left what? They've come.
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They've crashed. They died.
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Millions of possibilities out there.
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But look, we have a former president of the United States
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looking someone straight in the eye and saying, yes, aliens are
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real. Now.
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Are there lots more questions? Yes, I would love to ask them
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and we should we should get old Barry, Barry Hussein Obama here
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on the on the podcast. He's not coming because we would
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ask actual questions that he wouldn't want to answer.
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Well, well then, hang on, I have a question.
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Is it the case that 'cause I can't imagine Tyler letting that
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go, Did Tyler really not ask or was it excised later?
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I'm reading an article from the New York Post, not watch podcast
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or listening. I'm going to go track that
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podcast down so I could find out, you know, what the hell?
9:53
I'm Anthony Davies, Co host of Words and Numbers.
9:55
James Harrigan and I are proud to be on Sybil's network because
9:58
we believe in their unifying principle of human respect,
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which is the idea that our well-being as humans is
10:04
diminished when we employ coercion and that conversely,
10:07
our happiness and prosperity are maximized when we cooperate.
10:10
If you agree, please join us at civil.com.
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That's cibl.com. And aunt, that's that's, that's
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not even close to foolishness of the week.
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Can you believe it? Can you believe it?
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Yeah, missing the opportunity to ask about aliens to a former
10:24
president. Yeah, that's.
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That's that's high on. My list of foolishness of the
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week. But for the real foolishness,
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we're back to our good friends in Australia.
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And I, I don't know how they do it 'cause I really kind of
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wanted to move to Australia as my my last home.
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I thought maybe it'd be lovely to wind out my final years in
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Australia. And now I, I think that might be
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a phenomenally stupid idea because every time I hear
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anything about Australia, it's about the government being a
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bunch of hacks. I don't know what the hell is
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wrong with these people. I did volunteer to become the
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arbiter of what is and is not hate speech online.
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There's apparently one person who does that job and or one
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person in charge of all the people who did that job.
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And she's an American. So if they want an American to
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go down there and tell them what hate speech is, I'll do it.
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Matter of fact, I can do it from here.
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There's no such thing there. We're done.
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But but I digress. I want to talk yet about the
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series of tax hikes. There have been 8 tax hikes in
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10 years that were put in place to reduce the rate of smoking
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and that has in fact happened. And a carton of cigarettes now
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in Australia costs 55 Australian dollars, which is $40 American.
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$40.00 for a pack of cigarettes. For a single pack, that's $4.00
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a cigarette. Wow.
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OK, economist, what do you figure has happened?
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I'm sorry, I'm still reeling from the four that's like that.
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Those are reasonable cigar prices at that.
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Point. Yeah, you could buy if you know
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how to do it. You can buy a very good cigar
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for 4 bucks. Anyway, economist, what
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happened? Now?
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What's what's just happened? Oh.
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Well, there's got to be. Black market run rampant in
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cigarettes down thriving black market that apparently people
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can't even come close to getting a handle on.
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It's called a multibillion dollar industry that accounts
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for as much as half of all tobacco sales in the country and
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as much as half. Let let me underline that a bit.
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That is, the tax is so egregious that it is likely that the
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profit to be made in the black market is so high that the black
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marketeers themselves would lobby to keep those taxes in
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place. Oh yes, yes, that's exactly
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right. This is the Bootleggers and
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Baptist. Problem all over again.
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We should have somebody on to talk about that.
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We, we, we never really have. It's a good book.
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You should go look into it. You should look it up online,
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etcetera, etcetera. But this is a perfect example.
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The, the nannies of the nanny state decided it would be best
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if nobody smoked. So they kept ratcheting,
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ratcheting up the tax. And they did it so much that the
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tax is now egregious. A pack of cigarettes, $40 that
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other people and, and the other people are bringing these
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cigarettes in from Africa in the Middle East where they're much
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cheaper. And to give you an idea of how
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much when I was in the Middle East, 2010, 2011, so these are
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older prices, a carton of smokes cost me $14.00 when I came home
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for Christmas. That same carton cost 6850 in
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Pennsylvania. That was the difference.
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So you you can get nearly free cigarettes in certain parts of
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the world and enterprising entrepreneurs go and gobble up
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all those cigarettes sensing a an arbitrage opportunity and
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they move it to some other place and they get people not to pay
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55 Australian dollars, but maybe 25, which is still ridiculous.
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And I mean, think about this. This is this is a country that
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is the size of actually, I just saw this recently.
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It is literally the size of Pluto.
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It's the size of a former planet.
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Yeah, it's almost. It's.
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Border. It's border is 100% water.
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How do you keep the cigarettes out?
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I don't know, but man, I got to tell you, I really want to get
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into the cigarette business. Right now, right?
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I mean, no, I'm not kidding. I think it's everybody's right
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to smoke whatever the hell they want to smoke.
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And if I can undercut the competition, which the
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competition is being extorted by the Australian government pay
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good for me. And, and herein lies an
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interesting tale of of the unintended consequence of making
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things illegal. Because under normal
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circumstances, if you wanted to go in and compete, you go in and
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compete. Now, in this instance, you go in
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and try and compete and you wind up dead because why?
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They're going to use force to keep you out.
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And how can they do that? Because they're already
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operating in an illegal space you have.
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There is no government protection for you if you go in
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and attempt to compete with them.
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And that's that's the unintended consequence of making these
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things so expensive that in effect, you've made them
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illegal. And then there's no peaceful
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adjudication when the people who rush to market start killing
16:13
each other. And they will.
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Yes, and then and then illegal. Drug market and and look for the
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bodies. You'll find them every time.
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And people will throw up their hands saying why do we have such
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a violence problem surrounding cigarettes politicians, what can
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you do about this when it's actually the politicians fault
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in the first place? Well, the politicians answer is
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well let's make them a little more expensive.
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Right. Yeah, that's.
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Always their answer. Anyway, this volition of the
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week really, really angered me as a former cigarette smoker.
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And you know, one of my New Year's resolutions aunt was to
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start smoking again. So we'll see.
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We'll see. Really, why the hell not?
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This week's episode came about because I was as I do maybe once
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or twice a week, I go through our comments on YouTube and
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respond to things that require responding to.
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And somebody posted some statement about the fact that
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you have to be AUS citizen to vote.
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And somebody else said, no, it's not in the constitution.
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I thought, well, that's weird. I went to ChatGPT and said, show
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me where in the Constitution it says you have to be U.S. citizen
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to vote, expecting it to say, well, Article 3, Section 4,
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whatever it is. And ChatGPT says, well, there is
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no place in the constitution that says you have to be U.S.
17:35
citizen to vote. So I start digging into that and
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is correct, and I end up in this weird space where I just texted
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you and said, hey, could we do an episode on this?
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Because I don't know what the heck's going on.
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Yeah. Who decides who's allowed to
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vote? Well, let me start for the
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reason who decides? Right now, the answer is still
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the states. I suspect that's not going to be
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the answer for a whole lot longer.
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But as of this moment in time, the States and the reason why
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that's the answer is because that's what the the the men at
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the Constitutional Convention decided, right?
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And they decided. Each state makes its own
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decision for who can vote. Yeah.
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And, and look, there, there was a problem that they faced.
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How is it that people get elected to things, to offices,
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and the only thing that they really cared about it to any
18:34
degree was the House of Representatives, right?
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Because remember, at the time the Constitution was on the
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table up for ratification, a lot of people thought it was going
18:48
to become a cumbersome thing that would violate their rights.
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So everything was done that could have been done to remove
18:59
anything from it that would look like that.
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And one of the things that would look like that would be telling
19:05
the states they couldn't run their elections anymore.
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I mean, imagine you're trying to decide whether you want this new
19:12
Constitution or not. You consider yourself a
19:14
Virginian before an American, right?
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As members of the states did at the time.
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What are you going to have a knee jerk reaction to?
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And one of the things is federalization of voting.
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So they didn't do it. And there there were other
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reasons besides slavery lurks below the surface here, right?
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And, and we can get into that at some point, probably not today,
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but at some point. But the the standard they came
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up with was if you can vote for the lower house in your state,
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then you can vote for the the House of Representatives in the
19:54
federal government. All right, so, so whatever the
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state says, if the state says you're eligible to vote for the
19:59
State House, then you're eligible to vote for the.
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And the state presumably could say anybody within the confines
20:07
of the state citizen, non citizen doesn't.
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Matter could have, could have the states, the the long and
20:16
short of it is that the states had different standards and, and
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we know a bunch of them just off the top of our head, right?
20:23
We know that women weren't voting, except they were in New
20:28
Jersey, right? Does that mean they should vote
20:32
for the House of Representatives federally?
20:35
Well, from in the New Jersey vote, yes, blacks weren't
20:40
voting. But yeah, free blacks in the
20:42
North were voting in, I think at least three states at the time.
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So what does this mean? What what age do you have to be?
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Different answers, different places.
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Here's the big one. Do you have to hold property or
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not? And there are.
20:58
There is a perfectly good reason to to have only property holders
21:04
voting because non property holders in mass can vote to take
21:10
away the property of other people.
21:13
You can see where that leads. They will eventually take it
21:16
all. So there are all kinds of good
21:19
reasons to restrict the vote. Are we going to let the feeble
21:24
minded vote? We do right now in places I've
21:28
seen it happen, so I'll tell it in the story after the episode.
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All these questions are on the table in 1787, and the only
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politically appropriate answer is whatever you guys are doing
21:46
in the states, you just keep right on doing it.
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And that's how we'll decide who's in the House of
21:51
Representatives and the state legislatures.
21:56
Decided who? The senator.
21:58
Was going to be that's right. At the time, people didn't vote
22:02
for the senators, right? So that's no big deal.
22:06
The only federal office there is is the president and the and the
22:11
vice president and the various states got to decide who they
22:17
wanted to have vote. And if they decided that non
22:22
citizens could vote for the president and vice president,
22:26
they're within their rights to do so.
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I believe it's fair to say that not one state is doing that now.
22:32
OK, but let let me pause there for a second.
22:35
Because the people weren't and still aren't voting for the
22:39
president. They're technically voting for
22:42
the electors, the electoral. College.
22:44
Let's just let's keep this as simple as we can.
22:47
Well, but I I could see, I could see the federal government
22:54
making a rule saying you could only elect the president, for
22:57
example, if you're AUS citizen. But that would have to apply to
23:00
the Electoral College by definition, because the people
23:04
don't vote for the president. Well, yeah, And, and I I don't
23:07
think that makes a hill of beans worth the difference.
23:09
But here's the thing. Any the United States Congress
23:14
could have at any time made made the the law different, right The
23:22
Constitution specifies. So let me get the exact
23:25
language. Article 1, Section 4.
23:29
We're always in Article 1, Section 8.
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But Article 1 Section 4 clause one says the times, places and
23:37
manner of holding elections for Senators and representatives
23:41
shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature
23:44
thereof. Semi colon.
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Listen to this next part though the same clause.
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But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such
23:58
regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.
24:03
What I just took from what you said is that the for example,
24:08
the president's push now to have your voter ID, for example, it
24:14
that's outside of his purview. This is a.
24:16
This would have to be an act of Congress.
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Careful, careful. Yes, no, yes, no, Ray, all these
24:24
things we've got President Trump going on and and I'm going to
24:30
out myself here because I think it matters.
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I have always and I mean always been in favor of an ID to vote.
24:42
I think it would be we should be at Do I think there's a lot of
24:46
voting malfeasance in this country?
24:48
I absolutely don't, and I say as much every time somebody starts
24:51
with that nonsense. That election was stolen.
24:54
Trust me, it wasn't 300,000 votes in the state.
24:58
Nope, not a chance. The empirical research on this
25:03
is so clear that the only people who are convinced of this
25:09
problem have never done empirical research on this
25:13
problem, meaning to say they've, they've retweeted things.
25:18
But nonetheless, I, I think as a matter of course, we should
25:24
identify ourselves as we vote because the vote in a
25:28
representative Republic is sacrosanct.
25:32
It's the end of the line. It's what determines everything.
25:37
And look, if we have the technology and we can laminate
25:42
paper things, so we do. And that technology is available
25:47
to all. And it is, I mean, I hear all
25:52
these kind of Karen type white women saying things like it's
25:57
racist, Black people can't get these IDs.
26:01
And then I see black people saying, but do you think we're
26:04
too stupid to go to the DMV and get a license?
26:08
It it's the soft bigotry of low expectations and it's
26:12
disgusting. Now, are some people going to be
26:15
put out a little bit by this? Yes.
26:18
But how do they do anything in present day America without an
26:25
IDII can't do a goddamn thing without yanking my ID out of my
26:31
wallet. So everybody needs to shut up
26:34
about that. This was a Trump thing.
26:39
Trump pushes this because he's also pushing the 2020 election
26:44
nonsense right where it was stolen from me.
26:47
Well, let's separate cause and effect here, because the cause
26:51
is idiotic. But the effect would be
26:53
perfectly fine. There is, I think, no problem at
26:56
all having a national ID now or a series of state I DS.
27:02
That would be acceptable, sure. So now the United States
27:07
Congress does in fact get involved and they come up with
27:11
this thing called the SAVE Act, which all the Democrats are
27:14
presently telling American women, married American women
27:18
who changed their last names that now they won't be allowed
27:21
to vote because their name doesn't match their birth
27:23
certificate. Oh, for crying out loud, will
27:25
you shut up that that's if that ever happens, I will eat both of
27:31
my shoes. So they come up with this idea,
27:35
the SAVE Act, which is going to require an ID, and wrapped into
27:42
the SAVE Act is the necessity of being a citizen to cast a vote
27:47
in a federal election. And by federal election here we
27:51
mean House, Senate, president. I have no problem with this.
27:57
Is there, is there a problem that only American citizens
28:01
would vote for federal offices? I think only citizens, only
28:06
citizens should vote for all offices.
28:09
But you know, if Milwaukee wants people that don't live in
28:13
Milwaukee to vote for Milwaukee offices or people who are not
28:17
citizens of Milwaukee because they're not citizens of the
28:21
country or whatever, that's Milwaukee's call because
28:25
federalism. But at the federal level, House,
28:30
Senate President, the SAVE Act passed the the House.
28:35
I don't know if it can pass the Senate, right.
28:38
They're going to need 60 in the Senate.
28:40
And I don't know if they can peel off enough Democrats to
28:43
make this happen. And and that's where we are with
28:47
this. Can non citizens vote?
28:50
No, not really. Why?
28:54
Because the states don't let them.
28:56
Because the states don't are there.
28:58
Are there certain places and certain elections in which non
29:02
citizens can vote? Yes, there are right city
29:08
boards. Things like this often let
29:12
non-us citizens vote. But it doesn't switch state
29:18
houses. It doesn't give the president to
29:22
one party or the other. It you would call it statistical
29:27
noise, right? There's there's not enough there
29:30
to make it relevant in any way, shape or form.
29:33
But as a matter of just pure constitutionality and the
29:39
constitutional ethos that we've had lo these many years, I think
29:45
it's fine to say political rights accrue to citizens,
29:51
right? Natural rights belong to humans.
29:55
The First Amendment, the second. These are human things.
29:59
Voting is a political right. You don't get to just have that.
30:03
You should have it wherever you're a citizen.
30:05
That's an assertion I'll make all the time.
30:08
But you, you, you shouldn't have it where you're not a citizen.
30:12
Why would I be allowed to vote in Ireland?
30:16
I mean, I'm, I have Irish heritage.
30:18
It's idiotic for me to say that I should be voting in Ireland if
30:22
I go move to Ireland and stay there for a while, should I vote
30:26
in Ireland then? I mean, I have a vested interest
30:30
but I'm not an Irish citizen and these are easy distinctions and
30:36
it's really up to the Irish whether they want to let me
30:39
become a citizen or not. And I'm OK with that too.
30:44
I wish people were much more liberal with their immigration
30:48
policies, us included, but the people have the absolute right
30:55
to determine who will and will not become a citizen.
30:57
It's one of the reasons why elections actually do matter.
31:02
And you see what I think is really unfortunate treatment
31:07
right now of people who would very much like to be citizens
31:11
and are being shown the door because a bunch of American
31:15
citizens decided they don't want them around.
31:18
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That's civl.com. You know it.
31:44
It's interesting because I'm listening to this conversation
31:47
and it's reminding me of the conversation we had in the
31:51
opening where I was asking you about the cabling that goes
31:55
between your guitar and the amplifier.
31:57
And your your answer ended up being that the wiring in the
32:01
speaker matters a heck of a lot more than the wiring between the
32:06
thing in the the the guitar and the speaker.
32:09
But that's the thing that people make a big deal about.
32:11
But it doesn't matter. And that's all coming back to me
32:14
as we have this conversation and we make a big deal about, you
32:18
know, the ID and only citizen should vote and and you're
32:22
disenfranchise all of that nonsense.
32:24
And I would argue along the same lines.
32:27
That's not where the action is. The action is in the fact that
32:31
we've got two parties that lock up the debate so that we can't
32:36
have 1/3 option show up on the stage.
32:39
If you want to do something to reform the electoral process in
32:43
the United States, that's where the action is.
32:46
That's going to make a heck of a lot more difference than whether
32:50
an extra group of people can vote.
32:52
But but but this is the fun part, right?
32:54
Because now I would love it for the I the save act to pass.
33:01
I would love it because now non citizens are not voting and in
33:06
order to vote you need this ID. What are we going to complain
33:09
about next? Because all right, it's going to
33:12
be the next thing that steals elections when elections are not
33:16
stolen, right? And it's going to be something
33:20
else. It's always something else.
33:24
The duopoly needs it to always be something else.
33:28
Right, because they don't want us looking at the real problem,
33:31
which is that the Democratic and Republican parties have the
33:33
whole thing locked up. They're the problem.
33:37
If, if we open if, if a third party were able to displace one
33:43
of the two and actually make inroads to the tune of 40% for a
33:48
brief little while, things would change and then that party would
33:53
become part of the new duopoly. Yeah, and and in turn shut out
33:58
another third party. Because of course it would.
34:02
This is why electoral politics, while important and I I've never
34:08
said otherwise, is relatively hopeless.
34:10
You'll get your way, or your neighbor will get his way, but
34:13
only if you're each choosing one of two ways.
34:17
So this conversation goes a long way to explaining the business
34:23
about the Supreme Court not stepping in in gerrymandering
34:26
cases because how a state conducts its voting is up to the
34:31
state. And, and the gerrymander is the,
34:34
it's the, it's the spoils of victory.
34:38
If you win the state and your party is in power, it's your
34:43
right to district that state any way you want and other parties
34:50
will fight you, but they won't win because that's just one of
34:56
the things you get to do. That's like saying, well OK, you
34:59
you took a massive majority in the state, but you're not
35:02
allowed to pass any laws. Why the hell not?
35:05
If you win a majority in the state and you can get a
35:09
redistricting going, which it typically happens after the
35:14
census, but it, it doesn't have to.
35:17
And now you're seeing it in the, in the mid census period, which
35:21
is purely political. But So what?
35:25
It's purely political. It's it's the same as when I say
35:29
that impeachment is whatever the House of Representatives says it
35:32
is. They could impeach somebody for
35:34
being left-handed or having blue eyes, right?
35:39
They they could literally do it for any reason, the same way
35:43
that the winner of of the state contest gets to redistrict that
35:47
state. Well, and and if you don't, if
35:51
you don't like it, go to your state government and propose, go
35:56
through the process to propose an amendment to the state
35:58
constitution that prohibits it. Yeah, you can't prohibit it,
36:01
right? There's there's always going to
36:03
be a problem with redistricting because people move and places
36:10
grow and they require representation and other places
36:13
shrink. It happens at the state level
36:15
the same way it happens at the national level.
36:18
And there will be interested parties in that system no matter
36:23
what. Some states try to have a, a
36:26
bipartisan Commission. What the hell you you think
36:31
that's going to work? When on earth has that ever
36:34
worked? It's never going to work.
36:36
There's always a family in that ointment, and a deal will always
36:40
be made. You guys can have these safe red
36:42
districts. We'll take these safe blue
36:45
districts, and we'll fight over these three.
36:48
And whoever wins those 3 gets to run the place for two years.
36:53
That's exactly the crap we pull at the federal level.
36:58
All right? And now we're going to have only
37:00
citizens voting. What kind of Jackass do you have
37:04
to be to be against that? Do you really want non Americans
37:10
voting in American elections? What is your malfunction?
37:15
OK. And then you're going to have to
37:16
prove you are who you say you are.
37:20
That just doesn't seem to be all that horrible either.
37:23
You can make the case that it's unnecessary, but I think the
37:27
better case is that it's performative and it's performing
37:32
about that exactly. It's it shows.
37:36
I see you are in fact who you say you are and I think that's
37:41
an important thing to show and it alleviates a lot of confusion
37:46
at the polls for that matter. Now, how this is all going to
37:50
play out in vote in mailing, I, I have no idea.
37:54
I have no idea. My guess is that when you
37:56
register to vote, you're going to have to show an ID of some
37:59
kind and it'll follow you around electronically in some way.
38:05
But I haven't read the full save act because you know how long
38:09
these idiotic things are and you know they bury, they bury the
38:13
details that you don't want, that they don't want you to see
38:17
in places they know you're never going to be looking.
38:19
So we'll wait and see if it's OK of it.
38:23
It's nothing new. You know, I can, I can log on to
38:27
Social Security's website and I have to, I have to prove who I
38:32
am, but it will show me my earnings history and their
38:35
estimate of what I'll get from Social Security benefits when I
38:38
retire. I had to identify myself
38:41
remotely. We already do this with the
38:43
federal government. Yep.
38:45
And, and here now at the end of this conversation, which I I
38:49
think we're at the end of this, aren't we?
38:52
Yeah, at the at the end of this conversation, we have to get our
38:57
our leader and big toe Donald Trump back into the picture
39:01
because he says if this stalls in the Senate, maybe I'll have
39:07
an executive order on voter ID. No, Donald Trump, no you won't
39:13
because you're not Congress and only Congress has the right to
39:19
overrule the states in how the states are doing their electoral
39:24
business. That should be perfectly clear
39:28
by the constitutional text that we read out loud earlier.
39:33
I don't think Donald Trump has ever read the Constitution and I
39:35
don't think people in his orbit like to remind him of what it
39:38
says. But this is his fall back
39:42
position. If it doesn't work in the
39:43
Senate, and I, I don't know, man, I don't think this is going
39:46
to work in the Senate. I really don't it it might, but
39:50
boy, it's hard to imagine. And you know, if it doesn't work
39:54
in the Senate, it's dead on arrival.
39:57
It's just a still birth at that point.
39:59
This will happen sooner or later.
40:02
It's just probably not going to happen right now.
40:06
But it's a bad look for a party to be against this.
40:12
I mean, it, it sends the signal that you believe.
40:16
Not only do you believe that there's illicit voting going on,
40:20
but that you're benefiting from it.
40:22
Well, they don't of course, put it in those terms.
40:28
They're on the the side of they say non racism because it's
40:33
racist, etcetera. Everything is always racist when
40:36
you don't have a particularly compelling argument in in the
40:41
space. And look, our own fans come
40:45
after us on this very point, but some of them are going to be
40:48
very angered by things I have said today.
40:50
And yeah, sorry, but if you're against the simple idea of only
40:56
citizens voting and having to identify yourself with something
41:01
as you do, so if you're against that, you, you really are
41:07
saying, I think my side benefits from those things not happening.
41:15
And I don't think any one side would benefit one way or the
41:19
next because I'm on record as saying, I don't think that we
41:23
have rampant voter fraud, but this will sure prove it and it
41:28
will shut people up, right? It will finally be done with
41:31
these people. But.
41:32
The the the you phrase it is shutting people up.
41:35
But it interests me in that it would bring back a perhaps
41:40
needed sense of legitimacy to the elections for everybody to
41:46
say, yeah, well, look, I may not like who won, but legitimately
41:50
he won. There will still be people who
41:53
will decline to believe the result of many elections.
41:59
And those people, generally speaking, a, have no earthly
42:05
idea what they're talking about or B, are mentally ill or see
42:11
both. And with, with either of those
42:14
groups, there's literally nothing anybody can say that
42:17
will make them see the light. So brush that aside.
42:22
But there would be a lot of other people, and I think it
42:24
would be quite a lot who would say I, I think our, our
42:27
elections are more legitimate today than they've been in the
42:31
past. And that's, that's never a bad
42:34
thing. I mean, never.
42:38
So why don't we just do that? Why don't we admit that that's
42:43
not a bad thing to do? I don't understand why this is a
42:47
particularly partisan issue, except that no matter what
42:52
Donald Trump says, the Democrats will say that's an awful idea.
42:57
I I remind our Democrat friends, and we have a lot of them.
43:00
You can hate Donald Trump and still think he had a
43:03
particularly good idea. Ideas and people are not linked
43:08
at the hip. Maybe when the Democrats take
43:11
over, all the Republicans will decide then that they don't want
43:13
IDs or citizenship requirements. It would be just like them.
43:18
That would be exactly what I would expect we've.
43:20
Always been at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with
43:24
Eurasia. That is exactly right.
43:27
And on that happy note, I know you're all going to send me all
43:31
kinds of bitchy e-mail and you ought not.
43:34
But if you must, you must. And if you do, Anthony will read
43:39
every word. Mewerethenumberspodcast@gmail.com.
43:43
There you go. So he loves getting the hate
43:46
mail, so send it to him. He responds to almost all of it
43:49
to, or at least did up until recently.
43:51
I do. I got behind.
43:52
I made the mistake of traveling for a couple of weeks.
43:56
I got behind and now it's just snowballed and I'm afraid to
43:58
look. That's like the 25,000 unread
44:01
emails in my inbox. I'm something tells me I'm never
44:07
going to see what those said. I'm damn it, just saying.
44:11
But anyway, I will do my due diligence.
44:13
I will do the thing I'm supposed to do here, and I will remind
44:17
you all to be nice to each other in these trying times.
44:24
At Words and Numbers, we spend a lot of time talking about what's
44:26
going on in the economy and the government.
44:28
But fundamentally, all of this boils down to one thing.
44:31
The greatest threat facing modern society is a lack of
44:35
respect. The people who disagree somehow
44:36
find it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss their
44:39
differences in a civil manner. We at Civil are interested in
44:42
upgrading civilization by encouraging people to engage
44:45
with new ideas and ultimately engage civilly with each other.
44:49
If you share this idea, please join us by subscribing at
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civil.com. That's Civ dot com.
44:55
For those of you who are still here, I've got a story for you.
44:59
I've told it before. I don't think I've ever time
45:02
out, time out. Are you going to use profanity?
45:05
I don't think so. Yeah, probably, probably.
45:12
OK, James is about to use profanity.
45:14
So those of you with young children and teenagers.
45:16
Maybe, only maybe have I ever told the story of the the push
45:24
and to get the residents of the group home I worked at to vote
45:28
if I ever told that story on the podcast, I.
45:30
Recall, I recall that happened. I don't know the details of the
45:34
story. All right, so.
45:37
If I did tell it on the podcast, it's so long ago you can't
45:40
remember, which means a bunch of our listeners will never have
45:43
heard it. So here, here we go.
45:45
I used to work in Group homes and mental institutions.
45:49
You can all have a good laugh at my expense right now.
45:52
And I was often hired. As a matter of fact, I was
45:56
always hired in those places because I was big scary man and
46:01
this was primarily a woman's field.
46:03
So every, I ended up working everywhere that had real
46:06
violence. And when I say real violence, I
46:10
mean the kind where the bone comes sticking out of the skin
46:13
after the attack, right? This, this kind of violence.
46:17
But somehow, aunt, in the course of things, I ended up at this
46:23
beautiful home in Bloomfield, CT and that was just gorgeous,
46:28
nicer than any house I'll ever be able to afford.
46:31
And there were six people there and they were all geriatric
46:37
cases. I wasn't going to get my ass
46:40
kicked in this place in 100 years, right?
46:43
It's just, and I would go there and this is when I was working
46:46
third shift so I could take classes during the day.
46:50
I would work 4050 sixty hours a week nights.
46:53
And then I would take 2124 hours of credit during the day on on
46:57
campus, which was like an hour and a half from where I was
47:01
working. So you can imagine the gruesome
47:03
nature of my life for a few years when they did this.
47:07
Anyway, some guy, I'm going to call him.
47:12
I don't want to use his name. He's such an idiot.
47:14
It wouldn't be fair. I'm just going to call him to
47:16
the Jackass. The Jackass from administration
47:19
came over and and handed me a bunch of papers and said we got
47:23
to get everybody registered to vote.
47:26
And I said, come again. He said the residents, they all
47:29
have to vote. And I said, we don't let them
47:35
cross the street. Five of the six of them are non
47:41
verbal. Let's do an experiment real
47:45
fast. And I gathered them with the
47:48
Jackass with me. And I said, who's the president
47:52
right now? And everybody looked at me like
47:57
a deer would look at a tree. And one person, one one woman
48:03
said, is it Roosevelt? So she was in the right ballpark
48:08
calendar problem of ethnic proportion.
48:12
But they right ballpark. And I said, you still want to do
48:17
this? And he says we have to, it's
48:19
their constitutional right. And I said, oh, oh, now I
48:24
understand we have to, it's their constitutional right.
48:28
I would like to go get them all gun permits.
48:33
They all have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
48:36
And he said, no, we're not doing that.
48:38
And I said, you're right, we don't have to do that.
48:40
If you don't want to carry a gun outside, you could just buy it
48:43
and bring it and leave it in your house.
48:45
So I'll take care of that. He was still very much against
48:51
this and couldn't tell me why we would differ on the necessity of
48:56
the 1st Amendment versus the 2nd.
48:59
And I said, I'm not touching any of this.
49:02
This is the dumbest shit I've ever seen in my life.
49:06
Shame on you. And then I left because when you
49:11
work third shift, you don't have to see administration very much.
49:15
And I, I just went on with my day and I never thought about it
49:18
again. And that Election Day came out
49:22
and I took the I took a few hours early because I could add
49:26
extra hours on. And the League of Women Voters
49:30
showed up with absentee ballots and went to all these people, 5
49:39
non verbal people and said and who will you be voting for?
49:45
And then they intuited the correct answers and.
49:50
Surprisingly, all 5. Of the residents voted for the
49:53
same party, 6 voted for Bill Clinton, two voted for a third
49:59
party. So shockingly, there were no
50:02
Republican votes cast at the House, right?
50:05
Who would have predicted such a thing?
50:08
Who could have predicted? So when you think to yourself,
50:12
oh, every vote is, every vote is sacred, Well, maybe, but maybe,
50:17
maybe, again, not. And I, I, I swear to God, this
50:22
story happened. I am not making this up.
50:26
This happened. It happened in Hartford, CT when
50:30
I worked for the Hartford Association of Retarded
50:33
Citizens. You know how I like telling
50:36
people who did what? You know what's never happened?
50:40
Yet when I tell people who did what, I've never been sued.
50:46
Isn't that something? These people did exactly what I
50:50
just told you they did, and shame on all of them for doing
50:53
it. Some people ought not vote.
50:56
How, how, how You could not see that is baffling to me, but here
51:01
we are. Good story.
51:04
Yeah, not a bad one. I'll try to think of something a
51:06
little more uplifting next time, at at which time I will see you
51:10
again, which which is always a nice part of my day.
51:14
So see you next time and hope everything goes well.
51:18
See you next time, James.