Latest / Armstrong & Getty One More Thing / Bunk Or  Fascinating?

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Bunk Or  Fascinating? · Armstrong & Getty One More Thing

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  Speaker 1: The sixteen nineteen project was bunk, the eighteen seventy two
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  Speaker 1: project fascinating. It's one more thing.
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  Speaker 2: I'm strong and getty, one more thing. I can't imagine
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  Speaker 2: what you're talking about. I will explain.
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  Speaker 1: So I came across this sub stack fellow by the
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  Speaker 1: name of Derek Thompson, who's a really an interesting guy
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  Speaker 1: and thinker, and recent column of his was the twenty
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  Speaker 1: five most interesting ideas I've found in twenty twenty five
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  Speaker 1: so far, and it really varies widely, and it's all
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  Speaker 1: really interesting. It includes some stuff we've talked about on
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  Speaker 1: the show, like that marriage is rapidly becoming a high quality,
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  Speaker 1: luxury good. Only the affluent are continuing to get married,
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  Speaker 1: just statistically speaking.
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  Speaker 2: And he talks about.
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  Speaker 1: Alleged religious revivals, talks about the fact that half of
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  Speaker 1: Americans don't get their news from the news. They get
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  Speaker 1: their news from social media, yeah, which means they follow
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  Speaker 1: influencers or let the news feed wash over them or both.
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  Speaker 2: That revival thing is interesting. I've seen a lot of
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  Speaker 2: info on that that they're just tons. That had thing
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  Speaker 2: on CBS News the other day about tons of young
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  Speaker 2: people getting baptized, like bigger numbers than they've had in decades.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, this kind disputes some of it, but I didn't
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  Speaker 1: find his reasoning compelling. But here's the part I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to get to, and it's funny. I'd not really been
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  Speaker 1: aware of this as a fan of history. On his
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  Speaker 1: list of the twenty five most interesting ideas he came across,
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  Speaker 1: number seven was was eighteen seventy two the most important
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  Speaker 1: year for political freedom in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, let me think for just a second. What happened
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  Speaker 2: in eighteen seventy two, something around reconstruction.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, kind of sort of certainly eighteen seventy
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  Speaker 1: two that are come with both fists flying if it
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  Speaker 1: wants to take on seventeen seventy six. But in the
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  Speaker 1: essay Freedom, the author David Bell points out that for
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  Speaker 1: most of democracy's history, voting was a performative and communal act,
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  Speaker 1: with public decorations and even open parades.
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  Speaker 2: The secret ballot.
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  Speaker 1: That most Americans associate with the ballot box is a
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  Speaker 1: relatively recent invention, at least in modern Western history. It
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  Speaker 1: was in eighteen seventy two the town of punctra Fact
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  Speaker 1: in West Yorkshire, Britain, held an election for Parliament that
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  Speaker 1: they decided should take place by secret ballot. Others deemed
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  Speaker 1: the experiment of success, and within decades most of the
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  Speaker 1: Western world adopted this method of voting.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, so I did not know this? How did it
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  Speaker 2: work beforehand?
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  Speaker 1: You would like to fill it out in front of everybody?
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  Speaker 1: Or the powers that be would say, Oh, there's Joe
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  Speaker 1: Getty voting for the Republicans again. Interesting, Wow, there's no secrecy.
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  Speaker 1: Previous elections in the West had largely involved public meetings,
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  Speaker 1: often highly raucous ones, in which everyone could see how
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  Speaker 1: everyone else voted. Such settings made it difficult to conceive
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  Speaker 1: of the act as anything other than an expression of
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  Speaker 1: communal as opposed to individual preference. But once voting became secret,
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  Speaker 1: it became far easier to imagine it as an expression
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  Speaker 1: of purely personal choice in accordance with an individual's deep
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  Speaker 1: beliefs and values. Another change encouraged the shift, the development
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  Speaker 1: of voting booths, in which closed voters could, before marking
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  Speaker 1: their ballots, commune solemnly with their consciences. US began to
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  Speaker 1: adopt the secret ballot a decade yet later. By World
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  Speaker 1: War One, the secret ballot was nearly universal in Western democracies.
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  Speaker 2: Hmmm, I thought I knew most stuff. I did not
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  Speaker 2: know that. I did not know that stuff.
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  Speaker 1: No, I didn't either.
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  Speaker 2: Stuff most thanks.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Then he writes, imagine what people would say if
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  Speaker 1: the White House said it was banning secret ballots and
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  Speaker 1: forcing all voting to be public, and this thus open
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  Speaker 1: a state coersion. Imagine that and you get a sense
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  Speaker 1: of why eighteen seventy two you can plausibly be considered
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  Speaker 1: a formative moment in political freedom.
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  Speaker 2: That's a pretty good one. Yeah, so too.
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  Speaker 3: The first time I went to vote, I grew up
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  Speaker 3: obviously in a very liberal area, and I walked up
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  Speaker 3: and they had a whole stack of you know, ballots
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  Speaker 3: right there, and I set up and I handed on
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  Speaker 3: my little thing that you had to turn in, and
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  Speaker 3: they said.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, we don't have any of those.
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  Speaker 3: Could we get a Republican ballot please? And everybody you like,
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  Speaker 3: turned and looked at me.
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  Speaker 2: I was like eighteen. I was like, okay, Wow, it
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  Speaker 2: was very it was bizarre.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that ain't supposed to happen. I know it's
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  Speaker 2: not now, I know, Yeah, you know it's not suppose
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  Speaker 2: to happen. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The whole primary thing where you have to like say
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  Speaker 1: out loud which way you swing. I've always felt uncomfortable
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  Speaker 1: because since I was aware of voting at all, I
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  Speaker 1: just always assumed, of course, it's a secret ballot. I
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  Speaker 1: don't have to declare what I am to you, right,
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  Speaker 1: A pole worker or activist or whatever. It's none of
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  Speaker 1: your damn business.
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  Speaker 2: You're young. What was your first presidential election? Katie Obama?
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  Speaker 2: Obama want to vote in?
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  Speaker 3: And I also was chuckled at for handing her my ID,
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  Speaker 3: thinking we needed an.
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  Speaker 2: ID to vote. Yeah, I know, I've had that experience
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  Speaker 2: several times. Or I get up my driver's you don't
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  Speaker 2: need that, I don't. I find this troubling that I
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  Speaker 2: do not need my ID for this.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, I need it for everything, everything I do all
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  Speaker 1: day long, but not this. Oh no, that would be oppressive.
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  Speaker 2: Nice. I'm old. I voted harding my first presidential vote,
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  Speaker 2: and you regret it, don't you? And I regret it
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  Speaker 2: looking back about Jack l for the hype, I was
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  Speaker 2: trying to keep the women's from voting, and well, right,
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  Speaker 2: and rode that way as long as I can. Well,
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  Speaker 2: I guess that's it.