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The Slippery Slope of Social Media Screening · Bourbon & Rum

• 0:00
  I don't know what we're supposed to do.
• 0:01
  He's too big. And I'm like, I wasn't too big
• 0:03
  yesterday, you Jackass. You want to come to America?
• 0:06
  You you got to send a friend request to Uncle Sam.
• 0:10
  Tell me about this bourbon and rum podcast.
• 0:12
  What is this about is. Welcome to Bourbon and Rum, the
• 0:17
  podcast dedicated to civil conversation.
• 0:20
  I'm Kent, I like rum and I'm from the left side of the aisle.
• 0:24
  And I'm Kyle. I like bourbon.
• 0:25
  I tend to be a little more conservative Brothers talking
• 0:28
  politics for bourbon and rug. What are you drinking?
• 0:43
  I am drinking Benchmark Foolproof.
• 0:47
  Benchmark is a Buffalo Trace brand, but it's like a budget
• 0:51
  brand and they have they got a single barrel, they got a
• 0:54
  foolproof, they got a bottle in Bond.
• 0:57
  I think. I think the foolproof is the
• 0:59
  best of all of them. And they kind of they kind of
• 1:02
  say it's like a stag junior junior.
• 1:05
  Like it's a, you know, there's George T Stag, which is the top,
• 1:10
  you know, really high quality foolproof bourbon.
• 1:13
  And then there's a a stag junior, which is a little bit
• 1:17
  lower age that's high proof. And then this is like a junior
• 1:20
  to the junior, which is it's 125 proof.
• 1:22
  So it's potent, but it's not quite as aged as not quite as
• 1:26
  smooth as it's some of the others.
• 1:28
  But yeah, does the job. For $22.00.
• 1:32
  What are you drinking? I'm drinking a Barbados cocktail
• 1:35
  made with inexpensive rum from the Dominican Republic, but I
• 1:39
  should be rocking the Venezuelan stuff just just to give the just
• 1:44
  to give the finger to the Trump administration.
• 1:47
  Well, if that tanker was that they seized today was full of
• 1:51
  Barbados rum, now that would be a lot of rum.
• 1:55
  Well, we we chatted pre show and you raised kind of an
• 1:59
  interesting kind of an interesting development and
• 2:03
  talking a little bit about ramifications.
• 2:05
  You want to roll with that? Yeah, you know.
• 2:09
  I in general like the the progress that we've had at the
• 2:13
  southern border. I think it's, it's good that you
• 2:18
  know, ending the legal immigration and making, you
• 2:23
  know, be getting some additional security.
• 2:25
  I'm a little worried on some of the stuff I read about, you
• 2:30
  know, I don't know, I, I saw a headline about, you know,
• 2:36
  they're going to start asking visitors from like, you know,
• 2:40
  like the run-of-the-mill European countries to that
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  they're going to have to be able to disclose five years of social
• 2:46
  media history before they can visit the United States.
• 2:48
  And I'm thinking, you know, recently went to the UK and, you
• 2:55
  know, now you can't just travel the UK.
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  You got to file an electronic travel authorization and pay 25
• 3:03
  bucks. I mean, it's not the end of the
• 3:04
  world. And it took, you know, it took
• 3:06
  all of, you know, 2 minutes to process.
• 3:08
  But I think we got to be careful in some of these rules because
• 3:15
  every rule we levy on everybody else in the world, they're going
• 3:18
  to let me right back on us. And now, you know, I love, you
• 3:21
  know, I travel a lot for work internationally and and I travel
• 3:24
  for fun. I enjoy traveling
• 3:26
  internationally. But if going everywhere is now
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  going to be some type of goat rope because we're putting down
• 3:33
  a bunch of restrictions. I mean, all these things are
• 3:35
  reciprocal. And, you know, we've talked
• 3:37
  about, you know, I've talked about some of the issues of in
• 3:43
  the UK around freedom of expression and that sort of
• 3:45
  thing. I don't think I'd want the UK
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  government to see, you know, I'm not concerned about my social
• 3:53
  media history, but I wouldn't want the UK government delving
• 3:56
  into my privacy at all, you know, so I can see that being a
• 4:01
  real problem in the future. You know what we could do using
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  the the miracle of data science and all available data we could
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  assign to every person Picture like a credit score, but a
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  social worthiness credit. Score isn't that.
• 4:21
  Isn't there a movie about that? Oh yeah, no, that's Communist
• 4:24
  China. Yeah, Well, what is the?
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  What is the movie, though? The what movie was that?
• 4:31
  Or that everybody's got a. There was a episode of Dark
• 4:37
  Mirror. That or black.
• 4:38
  Mirror, yeah. Yeah, yeah, You know, what I
• 4:42
  thought was interesting is look, the Democrats do this too.
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  So this isn't just a a partisan thing, but the meaning of this
• 4:52
  bill or this requirement is right at the 0 mark.
• 4:59
  Why would you have to provide your social media?
• 5:02
  Couldn't they just look at your social media?
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  You know, it's it's out there. That's the whole point.
• 5:11
  Yeah, And how are you going to enforce that?
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  I like, is some guy and you know, and I and I should say,
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  you know, I have respect for government officials to a
• 5:26
  degree, but some of these people, like, I don't know, you
• 5:29
  know, all these people are just doing their job.
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  I get it. But like some of the people you
• 5:34
  deal with. So I don't, I don't deal with
• 5:37
  border agents a whole lot. I mean, other than come back
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  from abroad. But like I deal with TSA
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  multiple times a week. I'm 7 feet tall and I also have
• 5:51
  an implant. And so every time I go through
• 5:56
  security, which is, you know, multiple times a week, I've got
• 5:59
  an implant. Well, it all depends.
• 6:03
  It's so inconsistent, like depends on the airport.
• 6:06
  Sometimes I go through the metal detector and then set it off and
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  I'm fine. Then sometimes it sets it off.
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  And when it sets it off, sometimes they say, well, you're
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  an opt in and then you go through like the the full scan
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  or you put your hands up in the air.
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  But then some portion of that time I get up to that machine
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  and depending on who's working, oh, you're too tall for this.
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  I mean, I can be at the same freaking checkpoint and one day
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  I get through fine and then set the metal detector off.
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  The next day I go through and I have to opt in and go through
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  the the thing. And then the next day I go
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  through and say, oh, you're too big for it.
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  And then you have to do a full pat down the, you know, the, the
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  full, you know, molestation by the TSA And it's like, you know
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  it, It's just so like, like they are just making the crap up
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  every time it happens. Well, I don't know what we're
• 6:58
  supposed to do. He's too big.
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  And I'm like, I wasn't too big yesterday, you Jackass.
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  You know, I'm like. Well, OK, so not just to be
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  argumentative, but I do know that one of the things that's
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  talked about in like security circles is that being a little
• 7:13
  unpredictable actually is a more secure way to look at things.
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  You know, if you knew like a like clockwork, oh, Phil's work
• 7:24
  in the desk today and Phil only looks at the ID and he doesn't
• 7:30
  check the boarding. But you know, like I, I think
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  that probably what you're experiencing is ineptitude, but
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  it may be that the ineptitude works to our security.
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  I mean, I am not a good proponent of the government
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  every time I leave TSA because every time I leave TSA, I'm
• 7:52
  like, these people are idiots, you know, But yeah, maybe
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  they're maybe it's an orchestrated thing.
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  I guess where I would, you know, is thinking with that like, and
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  you make a good point, but as I'm thinking about these people
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  that I are, I'm often like, you know, using expletives to
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  describe. I'd be worried that that's the
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  same caliber of individual that's looking at the social
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  media And then is like, oh, wow, you had a Facebook post of blah,
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  blah, blah. Like where where the hell is
• 8:27
  that going? And like, I don't know that
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  these government agencies do well with subjectivity.
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  I mean, again, TSA example, like it's different.
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  How do we handle it like that? Seems like a mess.
• 8:45
  Yeah, I agree. You know, honestly, it flies a
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  little in the face of freedom of speech to me.
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  I I understand, you know, you, you're talking about people who
• 8:53
  want to visit this country from somewhere else.
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  And so it you know, it's not certainly not a violation of the
• 9:00
  1st Amendment, but it, but it kind of undercuts the First
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  Amendment to me, you know what I mean?
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  Like, you can say what you want. I, I, I will give credit to my
• 9:11
  younger son who years ago said this, not that we should create
• 9:16
  a social credit score system, but his point was do whatever
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  you want with social media, but like, it's all indelible, like
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  it all follows you every word of it forever and it and it's out
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  there. So there's no value judgement.
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  There's no score. There's nobody.
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  But you've got to own your words forever.
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  And if you say something irresponsible, you say, well, I
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  was really mad at the time and I didn't mean it, you know, like,
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  but it's out there and you've got to deal with that.
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  That actually kind of made some sense to me.
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  Well, and then I think about, OK, well if there'd have been
• 9:59
  Facebook and social media pre 911, I mean, would the would the
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  guys that flew the buildings or flew the aircraft in the
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  buildings, would they have been posting death to America on
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  their social media? Or I'm guessing not like you
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  wouldn't have a trace of these sons of bitches.
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  I mean they might use like signal like the Secretary of
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  Defense did when he was. A secure system like Signal.
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  Talking to talking to his oh oh, and accidentally had a reporter
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  on the distribution list. This area code 212.
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  Like, I think it it is a good point that those kind of things
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  catch the careless. They they don't catch the
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  criminal mastermind. Yeah, but you also raise a good
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  point that, you know, the law of physics and international
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  diplomacy that every reaction has an equal and opposite
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  reaction. And do we want that?
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  Do we want to have to? I mean, how does that work?
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  Do you show your phone when you arrive at Toronto's airport?
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  And what, you know, like, what did you say about this?
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  You know I. Tell me about the this.
• 11:25
  Tell me about this bourbon and rum podcast.
• 11:27
  What is this about? Exactly.
• 11:29
  We've listened to I, I imagine the, the, you know, The Who, who
• 11:34
  would that be? Would it be like the Mounties
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  that we'd be not going through our back catalog?
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  That's not a slam. They actually go by that term.
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  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is the federal law
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  enforcement in Canada. To your earlier point, like I
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  would hope governments are more sophisticated to find bad guys
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  than well, I, I need him to input his Facebook password so I
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  can see his account. Like, you know, if that's our
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  last line of defense, that's a little frightening.
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  I mean, maybe there's maybe there's an an address that
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  you've got a friend on Facebook and that's how they do it,
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  right? Like you want to come to
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  America? You you got to send a friend
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  request to Uncle Sam? Somebody in the backroom.
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  Like paging through your pictures of your kids birthday
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  parties. Great.
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  Yeah. I mean, you know, like I don't,
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  I'm not worried about the reciprocal barriers to entry of
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  shutting down the southern border.
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  You know, I wasn't planning to go to the UK via a barge across
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  the English Channel. So like, I'm OK having to go
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  through a, a border, but I, I don't think it's good for us to
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  make it harder on us and all these other countries.
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  And I don't know that, you know, you know, there's a lot of folks
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  you talk to a lot of people that don't want to come to the United
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  States because of various reasons.
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  And, you know, I don't know how big of a problem that is.
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  That would be an interesting topic too.
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  Like is tourism revenue down? I don't know that it is.
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  I tell you, I was in New York City this past weekend.
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  Wife and I went up there. And I mean, there's a lot of
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  people, well, I don't know if they're all from other
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  countries, but it, it is amazing being there.
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  We were in line to get into the World Trade Center Memorial.
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  And I mean the languages you hear in line.
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  I mean, it's like every country in the world is there.
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  It is a. It's a neat place.
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  That's cool. You know, I, I just, I think I,
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  I want to say about the border you I, I don't know, I don't
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  want to be mischaracterized and I probably said things that I
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  would have to retract on my social credit score.
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  I am not opposed and have never been opposed to agreeing to a
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  set of laws about our border and enforcing those laws.
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  And it was a frustration that the Biden administration didn't
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  did it do do as well as they should.
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  But it's certainly not only been a Democrat problem, it's been a
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  chronic thing. And enforcing border laws is
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  fine. What I have never understood is
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  why Donald Trump has felt like he had to dehumanize and vilify.
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  There are a lot of people that want to get into this country,
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  and there are a lot of people that would walk across the
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  desert to get into this country. And you can call that illegal,
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  but that is a very different thing than someone coming here
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  to perform terrorism. And I'm not opposed to closing
• 15:03
  the border and not letting them across and enforcing that is
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  fine. But I have not contempt for, but
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  great respect for someone that says America represents what I
• 15:15
  aspire to and is willing to, to, to cross the border.
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  So it's the vilification of the people that I find most
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  repugnant. But, you know, enforcing the law
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  is fine. The other problem with it,
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  though, is that we can talk about, oh, it's law and order.
• 15:30
  Oh, we've got to enforce the law.
• 15:32
  Oh, we got to close the border. We can go off the rails, I
• 15:37
  think, and say those brown people are rapists and
• 15:41
  murderers. And I think that that's
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  outrageous. But you know what's not getting
• 15:45
  talked about in any of that is? Why?
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  What are the economic incentives?
• 15:52
  Why do people want to come to this country?
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  Trust me, they're not lining up to get into this country for
• 15:58
  free healthcare. They're coming here to work and
• 16:01
  to send money home, and we need them.
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  They're coming here because people hire them when they get
• 16:07
  here. We need workers in this country.
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  And so I, I wish we could bundle this conversation with some
• 16:17
  common sense about the economics of it.
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  I'm an economist first. I believe that the law of supply
• 16:26
  and demand takes things and there is supply of foreign
• 16:30
  workers that want to come here and there is demand from
• 16:33
  companies that want to hire them.
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  Why? Why are we opposed to that?
• 16:39
  Well, there's a lot to unpack there.
• 16:40
  It's a good thing you're going to get another cocktail because
• 16:42
  I have a lot to unpack. I don't think there's an
• 16:46
  opposition to bringing people here to do work.
• 16:51
  And I think I actually Trump, the Trump administration has
• 16:55
  been pretty favorable toward the types of visas needed to bring
• 17:02
  skilled workers. I think the issue is about, you
• 17:05
  know, just letting anybody in without any, any vetting at all.
• 17:14
  And, you know, it's funny because we kind of started this
• 17:17
  like I'm a little worried about the level of vetting.
• 17:19
  Well, is the vetting going to be too much because that because
• 17:22
  then we're going to have to vet everything.
• 17:24
  But, you know, I don't think a good defense is that people can
• 17:29
  just walk in. I think people walking across
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  the border without controls, there's the security element.
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  But I, I think there's also a basic fairness element too, in
• 17:39
  that, you know, other people doing it by the by the books,
• 17:44
  through all the legal nonsense and other people can just get
• 17:47
  away with not having to do it. And so I think there's a
• 17:50
  fairness issue. I don't know what you meant by
• 17:52
  the brown people comment about. Was that quoting something?
• 18:00
  Well, kind of a hybrid. First of all, before I answer
• 18:04
  that, I think that the argument about fairness, I think that's a
• 18:07
  totally fair argument. And, and so I'm not arguing that
• 18:10
  we should just throw the doors open.
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  It is the vilification of people and.
• 18:17
  I, I mean, I that that's the number one issue.
• 18:21
  And you talk to anybody who's opposed to legal immigration.
• 18:24
  It's about security. It's about.
• 18:26
  OK. OK.
• 18:27
  So then wouldn't ICE for deportation prioritize those
• 18:37
  that have committed crimes? And they have those people are
• 18:41
  being those were those were the first to go.
• 18:47
  I mean, there's all kinds of stories of people that are just
• 18:50
  minding their own business and they're getting plucked out of
• 18:53
  there. You know what I mean?
• 18:54
  Like, I think that's probably true about what you believe
• 18:59
  about the border. And I'm not trying to accuse you
• 19:02
  of something nefarious, but I think that there's people that
• 19:07
  it I there people that have published and said the, the
• 19:14
  whole they're worried about the white people becoming a
• 19:18
  minority. This is not you.
• 19:20
  And I'm not trying to to blur those lines, but my God.
• 19:26
  Well, I don't think it's. About.
• 19:28
  I don't think it's. About white, brown or black, but
• 19:32
  it's not the the replacement theory you're talking about it.
• 19:38
  I see, unless it's a racial thing, but more as a there are
• 19:43
  absolutely. I I mean, what other motivation
• 19:48
  did Joe Biden have to throw open the doors other than a political
• 19:52
  motivation? Like what?
• 19:55
  What handedly, I don't no, I don't think that I don't think I
• 19:58
  I think that what he was doing was that it had become so
• 20:04
  politicized and so identified with the Trump administration
• 20:08
  that he was afraid you you've pointed out that Obama did a lot
• 20:12
  of deportations and and. I think that Biden was afraid of
• 20:19
  anything that would even look like look bad on TV like we
• 20:25
  were. I don't know, I think it was a
• 20:27
  mistake. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not
• 20:29
  supporting open borders, not in the least.
• 20:33
  I, I think it's totally fair and fine and appropriate to enforce
• 20:37
  the laws as they are. I think that if you're trying to
• 20:41
  create laws that are going to deport, I don't know, make up
• 20:45
  the astronomical number that people use, 10 million people in
• 20:50
  this country that we're going to March out of here.
• 20:53
  I don't know, can our economy handle that?
• 20:56
  How's that going to go? How's that going to go?
• 21:00
  You know, like, I, I don't know, I, I'm probably not making a lot
• 21:04
  of sense. I freely admit that what I see
• 21:09
  as the as if Trump meant, I'll give him the benefit of the
• 21:13
  doubt if what he meant was out of those 10 million people, the
• 21:18
  same or even slightly larger percentage of them are rapists
• 21:22
  and murders as we have in our own country.
• 21:25
  And those were the only people that I was really singling out.
• 21:30
  Man, it sure sounds like I'm just painting 10 million people
• 21:33
  with a bride. OK, but play that back like how?
• 21:38
  How would you know how many of that group, I mean, if a million
• 21:45
  people walk across the border and you have no idea who they
• 21:49
  are? I mean, some are committing
• 21:53
  crimes, but how would you have any way of knowing how much of
• 21:57
  that population is committing crimes or not?
• 22:01
  It's all a big guess. How many are arrested?
• 22:04
  I mean, criminals often get caught.
• 22:06
  Not always, but often get caught.
• 22:09
  I mean, are we catching illegal immigrants?
• 22:13
  There are high profile examples of illegal immigrants committing
• 22:18
  crimes, so I'm not trying to deny that.
• 22:21
  But I mean, didn't Trump tell us that Chicago's like the end of
• 22:27
  the world because there's a lot of crime in Chicago?
• 22:32
  And he is ostensibly not talking about the occasional Mexican
• 22:36
  immigrant that found their way to Chicago.
• 22:39
  So like, yeah, of course, if we let a million people in the
• 22:44
  border and don't pay attention to it, we're going to pick up
• 22:46
  people that that we don't want here that are are criminals.
• 22:51
  Admit it. And that's a good reason to to
• 22:53
  keep the border tight. But.
• 22:57
  How can you not think that? He's playing on a lot of other
• 23:02
  fears, economic fear. I think people are afraid of
• 23:05
  losing their jobs. I think they're afraid that
• 23:07
  they're getting out competed. I think he saw it as a good, I
• 23:11
  think he saw it as something, you know, if I, if I'm looking
• 23:16
  at it through the lens of a political calculus, I think he
• 23:21
  saw it as something that could be addressed and fixed and has
• 23:27
  never been addressed or fixed. I mean, you know, if you go back
• 23:31
  20 plus years, you can find all kinds of video of the Clintons
• 23:37
  and Biden and everybody else saying how it's broken and we
• 23:40
  got illegal immigrants and the crime and blah, blah, blah, many
• 23:45
  of the same things. But it seemed like for a good 20
• 23:50
  years the the term everybody use well, we need comprehensive
• 23:55
  immigration reform. And you hear every politician on
• 23:59
  the right and left say we need comprehensive immigration
• 24:02
  reform, which is just a big meaningless BS term that nobody
• 24:07
  could ever figure out how to solve.
• 24:10
  But here's where I go to my motivation thing in my economic
• 24:13
  determinism that I was talking about before.
• 24:16
  You know why neither the Clintons nor Bush nor Obama was
• 24:24
  able to fix this? Because the right answer to
• 24:27
  fixing this is probably things like amnesty.
• 24:31
  It's probably things like raising caps on people that come
• 24:36
  here. We, we need these people.
• 24:39
  The problem is that the illegal system has been designed.
• 24:48
  Do you know what I'm saying? Like, we need these people in
• 24:51
  our country. They're doing valuable jobs.
• 24:55
  They're not 10 million people just sitting on the welfare
• 24:58
  rings. They don't get welfare.
• 25:00
  They don't get Social Security. They're paying Social Security
• 25:02
  taxes that they will never collect.
• 25:04
  We need them in our economy. And what we need to do is to
• 25:09
  make it easier for people to immigrate.
• 25:11
  But you know why they don't do it?
• 25:14
  Because there's a segment in our country that feels that is an
• 25:18
  economic threat and would take that as a direct shot against
• 25:22
  the bow against them. Well, I think I think he saw it
• 25:30
  as an opportunity to fix something that has never been
• 25:33
  addressed. And I think a big chunk of the
• 25:35
  population saw it as a huge security issue, especially,
• 25:39
  especially in the second term as Biden, you know, just opened up
• 25:41
  the doors. Why could he?
• 25:44
  And it's something that can be. Security issue.
• 25:47
  Then why do we have to? Why do we have to?
• 25:51
  Because there's rapists and murders that could hurt people.
• 25:55
  It's a security issue. But that's not.
• 25:59
  No rapists and murders already here.
• 26:00
  Well, I, I guess I'm just saying like, how do you, you know, I
• 26:05
  don't know that there's a way to replay that that would be
• 26:08
  acceptable. To you?
• 26:10
  Well, not. Calling without vilifying
• 26:13
  somebody. Entire swaths of people.
• 26:18
  I don't know. What do you call the Somali
• 26:20
  community in Minnesota? That's the part that I just I
• 26:28
  don't understand If your position is strong, what, why do
• 26:32
  you got to go to ad hominem attacks?
• 26:34
  What why do you have to? Why do you have to try to paint
• 26:37
  people as other? Why do you have to play on?
• 26:40
  I don't know if I, I don't, I don't think Donald Trump cares
• 26:44
  about other human beings enough to be a racist about.
• 26:46
  I think but so I I'm not saying oh he's a racist, but he's sure
• 26:52
  as hell happy to make racists comfortable in his messaging
• 26:57
  and. Well, I just, I don't see how I,
• 27:02
  I, I, I can't get to the racist piece of the security element of
• 27:10
  it. I mean, it seems logical.
• 27:12
  I mean that and and. This is a security issue.
• 27:20
  This is a security issue. They are rapists and murderers.
• 27:28
  People are coming to this country unchecked and there's
• 27:32
  people that are racist and murders.
• 27:33
  I, I, I've, at some point we get to like this semantics
• 27:36
  discussion and it has to do with the person saying it.
• 27:39
  If Obama said that or Clinton said it, there wouldn't be an
• 27:43
  issue. But Trump said it.
• 27:44
  And you, I think there's no way that, you know, there's anything
• 27:49
  about that reaction. You're probably right.
• 27:51
  I, I think that he deliberately chose language that completely
• 27:57
  othered people. And I don't think that his dog
• 28:03
  whistle was directed at people that were worried about
• 28:05
  security. I believe you that you were, but
• 28:09
  I don't think that's what's going on in this conversation.
• 28:12
  I don't think that's who he's speaking to when he says they're
• 28:16
  eating the dogs. It's not you that he's playing
• 28:19
  that story for. I disagree.
• 28:22
  I think there's a lot I I would love to look at the the polling
• 28:27
  numbers of the people that saw security isn't the biggest
• 28:32
  problem with illegal immigration.
• 28:34
  But yeah, I agree. But that's what I'm saying.
• 28:38
  He's not. Do you, do you think that
• 28:41
  there's nobody that hears him say that and say, damn right,
• 28:48
  those Mexicans are coming over here, we got to stop them?
• 28:56
  Well, half the people coming across aren't even Mexican.
• 29:01
  They're from throughout Central America, South America, the
• 29:05
  Middle East, China. If if the issue that he's that
• 29:08
  he's trying to trade on is a legitimate security play, why
• 29:13
  not say that? Why?
• 29:17
  I don't understand why saying there's murderers and rapists
• 29:21
  coming is not a security issue. He states it like that's all
• 29:29
  that's coming across. That's what I'm saying.
• 29:31
  Well, I hear you say that, but I've also heard him on other
• 29:35
  broadcasts say, no, there's people coming that are looking
• 29:38
  for work and they're they're not bad, but we have to have a way
• 29:41
  to vet people, I mean. Has he raised proposals to
• 29:46
  increase the increase the number of people that we accept as
• 29:52
  legal immigrants? Don't know the answer to that,
• 29:56
  probably not. Who has I I mean?
• 30:03
  I mean, is there anybody that's promoting that?
• 30:07
  No, because it's politically unpopular, but it's the right
• 30:09
  thing to do. We we need more people in this
• 30:12
  country. We need more people paying into
• 30:14
  Social Security. We need the workforce.
• 30:19
  This is that's a totally. Separate We need more people to
• 30:21
  collect Social Security then you want them because you want free
• 30:28
  payers into Social Security. You don't want to pay them
• 30:30
  Social Security, you just want to collect from them.
• 30:32
  No, I'd be more than happy for the I'd be more than happy for
• 30:35
  them to get their Social Security.
• 30:38
  We, we come out ahead on the deal.
• 30:40
  We need more people paying in. That is a separate issue.
• 30:47
  You're right. I, I will never get over that
• 30:52
  from Trump. And for all of the things that
• 30:54
  he's done and all the things that the norms that he's tipped
• 30:58
  over, all of the schlock, schlocky shit that he's put in
• 31:01
  the in the Oval Office, all the things that I can't stand about
• 31:05
  the guy, the vilification of immigrants is the unforgivable
• 31:10
  thing that I'll never get over. So, yeah, I mean, we've gone
• 31:16
  down that path a few times. Obviously we don't.
• 31:19
  We'll agree to disagree on some of that, but.
• 31:21
  I I guess. I'm kind of talking out of both
• 31:24
  sides of my mouth back to the beginning of this because I'm
• 31:27
  saying I think it's good that we're vetting people.
• 31:31
  But now I'm like, but I don't want to vet five years of social
• 31:34
  media history because I'm afraid I'll get vetted.
• 31:36
  And you know, again, I'm not worried about my social media
• 31:39
  history, but I so I kind of want my cake and eat it too.
• 31:42
  I want security, but I don't want to screw it up for myself
• 31:46
  when I travel internationally. So is there a balance there or
• 31:51
  it's good? Can I, can I, am I, am I asking
• 31:54
  for too much for me to have a balance?
• 31:55
  Maybe for you to have a balance would be fine because you're
• 31:58
  you're you're good with the the wide path, the wide open.
• 32:05
  No, I'm good with. I think we should.
• 32:09
  I think we should vet everybody and we should follow the law.
• 32:13
  But I think the law is dumb. I think the law should let more
• 32:17
  people into this country. It should be easier to immigrate
• 32:20
  to the United States of America. We should not be.
• 32:23
  We shouldn't get by without a background check.
• 32:27
  But we should pave a road, we should pave a highway through
• 32:30
  the Darien Gap and make it easier for people to get from
• 32:33
  South America all. Actually I would prefer high
• 32:36
  speed rail through the Darien Gap.
• 32:40
  There we go. Hey, let's do a high speed rail
• 32:43
  non-stop from Buenos Aires to Saint Louis.
• 32:52
  Well, this is good. We're disagreeing a little bit.
• 32:54
  I was afraid that, you know, we started this and I was like,
• 32:56
  man, I keep bringing up these topics that we agree on.
• 32:59
  You know, people are going to be like where?
• 33:02
  Where's the fight, I think. We I think that we, we're not
• 33:05
  opposed to each other, but I think I don't think we're as
• 33:09
  close on that as it feels like I'm, I'm actually not that like
• 33:17
  I think checking, I think checking people's social media
• 33:21
  again. What are, what are they going to
• 33:23
  submit it again? You know, like you have to
• 33:26
  friend Uncle Sam and we'll check you out.
• 33:29
  Like if, if what they've got is bad, how many trillion dollars
• 33:36
  do we spend on the NSA? For cripes sake?
• 33:39
  Could they not tell us what people.
• 33:41
  Yeah. Come on, you don't.
• 33:42
  Oh no. This already.
• 33:45
  But I do think that's a fair thing to check out, right?
• 33:49
  Like I I'm not opposed to to that, but.
• 33:52
  Yeah. The mechanics of it seem a
• 33:55
  little wonky. Yeah.
• 33:58
  And I, I guess I'm just wondering like, OK, we fixed the
• 34:05
  issue at the border, but then like, is there going to, is
• 34:10
  there like mission creep And it's going to get, you know, to
• 34:14
  your point, I mean, rather than locking the place up, I would
• 34:21
  advocate for, OK, you lock down the border, nobody gets across
• 34:25
  illegally. You've got vetting, but then
• 34:28
  you've got a pathway to come visit or to come immigrate here
• 34:33
  without the, the TSA style nonsense.
• 34:38
  I mean, I, I guess I don't think those two are opposed to each
• 34:41
  other. I think those 2GO hand in hand
• 34:45
  and, you know, I applaud the efforts to shut down the border.
• 34:48
  But now it's like, to your point, like, I don't want us to
• 34:52
  turn into an isolationist country where you know, you
• 34:56
  know, our, our, our passport will be about as worthwhile is a
• 35:00
  North Korean passport, you know? Does does North Korea have one
• 35:07
  of those programs where like through investment you you can
• 35:11
  get a North Korean passport? Yeah, that is, you know, have
• 35:17
  you ever seen that, though? Like what the most valuable
• 35:21
  passport? I think it's like Singapore.
• 35:26
  Because everybody's got a treaty with them.
• 35:29
  Yeah, which, you know, and then it's like, OK, yeah #1 is
• 35:36
  Singapore now? So this is part of the problem.
• 35:41
  And this is probably why they're trying to do this.
• 35:44
  Like with the social media and stuff, Singapore, you know, they
• 35:50
  let everybody in, but nobody screws around in Singapore
• 35:54
  because they beat the crap out of you with a cane if you do
• 35:59
  something wrong. So I mean, and honestly,
• 36:02
  Singapore is basically a totalitarian state.
• 36:05
  I mean, it's a beautiful place to visit and food's great and
• 36:08
  the technology and the buildings and everything.
• 36:10
  But like you do something wrong, you're like screwed for life,
• 36:16
  you know, And it's like, I don't, you know, so I don't want
• 36:20
  to be Singapore, you know. So how do you, I honestly though
• 36:27
  it, it's kind of interesting to me that the totalitarian regime
• 36:34
  that beats the crap out of people for chewing gum or all
• 36:37
  these little, you know, infractions is an open place.
• 36:44
  People can come and go freely. Is a place like the United
• 36:50
  States where we enjoy freedoms of speech and you, we can do
• 36:53
  whatever we want. Is it impossible for us to be as
• 36:58
  open with our border policies and everything else, hence why
• 37:04
  we have these restrictions? Do you know what I mean?
• 37:05
  It's kind of like, I mean, Singapore, yeah, we'll let
• 37:09
  everybody in, but we'll kill you if you, you know, like on the
• 37:13
  landing card it says death to drug traffickers, you know?
• 37:17
  So like, OK, they don't have a drug problem.
• 37:20
  OK, Well, great, you know. I would, yeah.
• 37:26
  I would feel really strongly that that our rights, our
• 37:31
  freedom of speech, of expression, of travel, of all of
• 37:36
  those things are sacrosanct to me.
• 37:40
  And if we had to to go to extreme lengths in vetting upon
• 37:47
  entry in order to protect those freedoms, I'd be in favor of
• 37:51
  that. I mean, I think in this
• 37:53
  conversation, I get painted as this, like, I let everybody come
• 37:56
  in. I'm not saying that we should
• 37:59
  let people come in without a background check or without,
• 38:04
  because I do worry about that. I wouldn't trade our model for a
• 38:10
  Singapore model for anything in the world.
• 38:13
  I wouldn't want to live like that, right?
• 38:17
  So really the price of that is that we've got to have higher
• 38:20
  scrutiny of people coming into this country.
• 38:22
  That's fine. But that doesn't that doesn't
• 38:25
  let you opt out of the laws of economics.
• 38:29
  We've got 10 million people in this country employed.
• 38:33
  We got to figure that out. You can't just ship those people
• 38:37
  off. Those are jobs that are being
• 38:39
  done. Yeah.
• 38:43
  Well, anyway, I often thought, I don't know if we've talked about
• 38:49
  that before on the podcast, but I have a thought like the best
• 38:54
  solution for people here is if you know, you know, you got all
• 39:01
  these shopping malls around the country that are like boarded up
• 39:05
  because you can't, you know, nobody wants to go to a shopping
• 39:08
  mall because we have Amazon. It's like, why couldn't you set
• 39:11
  up all these shopping malls as like immigration centers and
• 39:15
  have like a OK, you're going to continue to get deported.
• 39:20
  But if you will show up at this facility and go through this
• 39:24
  process, you know, we'll get you a temporary like, like have a
• 39:29
  path, you know, like, and honestly, a fast track path if
• 39:35
  you do XY and Z. And honestly, having a robust
• 39:39
  deportation process at the same time would motivate people to
• 39:44
  get through the fast track. And it seems like, you know, I
• 39:48
  don't know how many people we've have been deported so far.
• 39:54
  You know, while you're looking, I could totally get behind that.
• 39:57
  I don't have a problem with deporting people.
• 40:00
  I, I don't have a problem with deporting people.
• 40:03
  But it ought to be based on something rather than good TV
• 40:12
  and and just the general hatefulness that accompanies it
• 40:19
  and. In a world where you don't have
• 40:21
  an option, like what? Why are we going to do this?
• 40:25
  We're going to take people that do job, that do vital jobs in
• 40:29
  this country and we're going to terrorize them.
• 40:36
  And then we're going to wonder who's going to do that job?
• 40:39
  But. I mean, I guess my thing is if
• 40:41
  like you said, if there's 10 million, if there's 20 million,
• 40:44
  if there's 30 million, even a really good Obama style
• 40:49
  deportation process is only going to get rid of a few
• 40:53
  million people. If you really wanted to get, you
• 40:57
  know, cycle through the rest of them, having some kind of fast
• 41:00
  track system set up seems like it would be a lot better way.
• 41:04
  You could potentially hit everybody.
• 41:06
  Now, the problem is, you know, if you did, if you were
• 41:12
  previously a murderer or a rapist, you're probably not
• 41:15
  going to go to the shopping mall and go through the process.
• 41:19
  But you know, I would think for the vast majority of people it
• 41:24
  would go pretty quick. Yeah, but that's not that's not
• 41:29
  on the table. And I guess this is, I was
• 41:31
  trying to say this before and I said it in artfully.
• 41:36
  Any economist would tell you that we ought to be thinking
• 41:39
  that way, right? But no politician is doing it,
• 41:42
  neither Republican or Democrat. And I think it's because nobody
• 41:47
  is. I think everybody's chicken to
• 41:49
  say that we don't have enough Americans to do the jobs that we
• 41:53
  need and we need outside help. Because there are people that
• 41:57
  are 10th generation Americans who don't have much of an
• 42:03
  education and don't have much of an outlook and they're grumpy
• 42:06
  about things and they don't want to hear that we don't have that,
• 42:10
  that we need people to do jobs, but we do.
• 42:13
  It's just patently obvious. They're in their whole
• 42:17
  industries that are suffering now because people aren't coming
• 42:21
  to work. They've either self deported or
• 42:23
  they're hiding out because they don't want to.
• 42:26
  You know, we, we, we see this in Iowa.
• 42:28
  You know, Iowa's full of, there are more hogs in Iowa than
• 42:33
  humans, which is an interesting, interesting factoid.
• 42:38
  But we've got pork and poultry processing plants all over the
• 42:43
  all over the state, and their workforces are highly skewed to
• 42:51
  Latin American immigrants. And everybody knows that many of
• 42:56
  those employees are undocumented and they're using fake Social
• 43:01
  Security numbers Like it's, it's like a that's what bugs me.
• 43:05
  That's the part that really bugs me.
• 43:07
  It's like everybody knows what's going on and Tyson Foods is more
• 43:11
  than happy to keep wages low because they employ people that
• 43:18
  aren't documented, They don't ask a whole lot of questions,
• 43:22
  and they are more than happy to keep those low wage people,
• 43:26
  filet and chicken in their plants.
• 43:29
  And yeah, it's like nobody wants to deal with that fact well.
• 43:36
  It's funny people, I mean, I think during we, we've even had
• 43:42
  that conversation, even when you were, you know, a freshman
• 43:47
  Democrat early on in your, in your Democrat journey, like 20
• 43:54
  years ago, Republicans were more pro illegal immigration, but in
• 44:00
  a, in a silent manner. Like they weren't like, oh, we
• 44:05
  want open borders, but it was like, because even dad, dad was
• 44:10
  always like, well, they're paying into Social Security and
• 44:12
  they're not getting Social Security.
• 44:14
  That's actually, you know, like you always thought saw it as a
• 44:16
  positive. And the Democrats were the ones
• 44:19
  that were always like, we need to do deportations.
• 44:21
  We need to get rid of the illegal folks.
• 44:23
  So now it's it's all you know. Shift.
• 44:27
  That was before Democrats turned their back on organized labor.
• 44:36
  I think you really raise an interesting conundrum.
• 44:40
  Do you? Could you have American style
• 44:45
  freedoms and Singapore style ease of access?
• 44:52
  Does that work? And see, I think personally, and
• 44:57
  I don't know if this is true, but my gut tells me the United
• 45:02
  States was always like, well, other country, we'll have
• 45:07
  stricter border enforcement, but other countries will cut a slack
• 45:10
  because we're the United States. Everybody wants to come to the
• 45:12
  United States. Well, you know, maybe not now.
• 45:16
  Somebody's going to be like, no, screw you.
• 45:18
  You're going to fill up this survey and give me your five
• 45:21
  years of social media access. I'm just thinking of the uncle
• 45:29
  under score Sam Instagram account that you're supposed to
• 45:33
  connect with you. You correctly call out my I, I
• 45:42
  can't not take the bait on immigration and I'm I'm never
• 45:48
  going to get over that piece of it and you.
• 45:53
  Know well but I I understand I understand where you're coming
• 45:56
  from there and I I don't I would not say that Donald Trump is the
• 46:03
  type of person who is good at dealing in delicate differences
• 46:11
  in language. So, you know, I, I, I, I don't,
• 46:16
  I wouldn't profess to say he's been articulate about how he's
• 46:19
  managed that conversation if he's going.
• 46:24
  To win the Nobel Prize, it won't be for subtlety.
• 46:31
  Hey, thanks for joining us on this episode of Bourbon and Rum
• 46:34
  Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it.
• 46:36
  Remember to subscribe on your favorite platform and leave us a
• 46:39
  review. Your feedback helps us keep the
• 46:42
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• 46:45
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• 46:47
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• 46:49
  To hear and until next time, cheers.