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AMERICA CAN'T LOSE HER ALPHA MALES · For The Defense With Brad Koffel

0:03
Speaker 1: I'm dedicating this show to my mother, Marsha, who passed
0:06
Speaker 1: away Saturday, August 29th, around 5 p.m. I wasn't going
0:11
Speaker 1: to do this, General, by the way. Good day to you.
0:13
Speaker 2: Good day to you as well, sir.
0:14
Speaker 1: It's been a couple weeks since we've been on air.
0:17
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to do this. It's private. It's very personal.
0:21
Speaker 1: But on my way into the studio, I decided to.
0:23
Speaker 1: And if there's one thing I've learned in 58 years
0:25
Speaker 1: and seven months, listen to your instincts. Those are words
0:30
Speaker 1: of loved ones who've passed and are advising you on
0:33
Speaker 1: what to do. Instincts are not your own thoughts. These
0:36
Speaker 1: are just my opinion, but I also think it's fact.
0:42
Speaker 1: They're passed down messages from generations to generations. And I
0:48
Speaker 1: want to give you all three stories. It's all going
0:51
Speaker 1: to be in this one segment before we hit a
0:53
Speaker 1: commercial break. And I apologize in advance for those of
0:57
Speaker 1: you that are listening on the pod. iHeartMedia jams in
1:00
Speaker 1: commercials in the middle of our show. We know that.
1:03
Speaker 1: There's nothing we can do about it. It is what
1:05
Speaker 1: it is. Someday maybe we'll move away from the whole
1:09
Speaker 1: commercial production and just do a straight private show. General,
1:13
Speaker 1: we've talked about that for a long time. But I
1:16
Speaker 1: want to share with you all because you've lost a
1:20
Speaker 1: loved one or you're worrying about losing a loved one.
1:23
Speaker 1: You've gone through grief and suffering. I want to tell
1:26
Speaker 1: you three things, amazing things that happened. Because it applies
1:30
Speaker 1: to you. My mom had been sick for about 20 months.
1:33
Speaker 1: She was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder called amyloidosis. A-M-Y-L-O-I-D-O-S-I-S. Rare.
1:42
Speaker 1: Only about 4,000 people a year get it. And without
1:48
Speaker 1: medical treatment, she was given six months to live. So
1:51
Speaker 1: imagine getting that news. You've got six months to live.
1:57
Speaker 1: But the medical treatment that the Bing Cancer Clinic did,
2:03
Speaker 1: and also dialysis at the Dialysis Center, amazing, gave us
2:08
Speaker 1: 20 months. And those were precious 20 months. That's not
2:11
Speaker 1: my point. My point is, and this dovetails into the show,
2:16
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about the rest of the show.
2:19
Speaker 1: Four couples, we decided at the beginning of the summer,
2:24
Speaker 1: then once we got our kids back to college, We
2:28
Speaker 1: were all going to meet out in big sky country,
2:30
Speaker 1: out to Montana, flying to Bozeman, rent a house in
2:35
Speaker 1: big sky up in the mountains, and spend some time there,
2:39
Speaker 1: which for me and many, many others is just God's country.
2:43
Speaker 2: And it's recharge time.
2:45
Speaker 1: It's refuel. Yeah, it's refuel time, no doubt about it. Well,
2:49
Speaker 1: on the third day, three of us decided to rent
2:53
Speaker 1: ATVs And run them up Bridger Mountain and go see
3:00
Speaker 1: the vistas and the views and the wildlife. And the
3:04
Speaker 1: machines were fueled. They were running. My two pals had
3:08
Speaker 1: their helmets on. We are ready to go. Like, I've
3:11
Speaker 1: been waiting for this. We are ready to go. But
3:14
Speaker 1: instead of getting on my machine and putting on my helmet,
3:22
Speaker 1: I walked away. from my ATV, took about 20 steps,
3:27
Speaker 1: pulled my cell phone out, and called my mom. Now,
3:31
Speaker 1: I don't talk to my mom three times a day
3:33
Speaker 1: like my daughters talk to their mom. I would talk
3:37
Speaker 1: to my mom, you know, we communicated via text, but
3:40
Speaker 1: we were not a heavy talking on the phone relationship.
3:44
Speaker 1: But I took 20 steps or so, pulled the phone out,
3:47
Speaker 1: I called her, said, Mom, how you doing? We had
3:50
Speaker 1: a nice, pleasant conversation. It was five at probably three
3:55
Speaker 1: o'clock Eastern time. She hadn't eaten for the day. Nothing
3:59
Speaker 1: sounded good. And I said, you know what? I'm going
4:02
Speaker 1: to door dash you a chocolate peanut butter milkshake. So
4:06
Speaker 1: stand by in about a half hour, a milkshake from
4:10
Speaker 1: Johnson's Dairy is going to be delivered to you. And
4:14
Speaker 1: a half hour later, I get an alert on my
4:16
Speaker 1: phone that it had been delivered. I pull my machine over.
4:19
Speaker 1: I text my mom. My buddies keep moving. They have
4:23
Speaker 1: no idea what I'm doing. They don't even notice. I
4:26
Speaker 1: text my mom. Hey, it's there. Go get it. She'd
4:30
Speaker 1: already received it. She said, sipping on it now. Yummy.
4:34
Speaker 1: Thank you. And those were the last words my mom
4:36
Speaker 1: ever said to me. And she died 90 minutes later.
4:45
Speaker 1: That's one story. Number two. Michelle and I fly back
4:52
Speaker 1: from Bozeman, Texas. The flights are delayed, of course, commercial
4:56
Speaker 1: air in America. You know, it's a flip of the
4:59
Speaker 1: coin whether or not you're going to make your connections
5:01
Speaker 1: and things run on time. We miss our connection, but
5:05
Speaker 1: we wind up spending the night in Chicago. We wind
5:08
Speaker 1: up flying into Columbus Monday, and we have a 2
5:11
Speaker 1: o'clock appointment at the funeral home, and I'm going to
5:13
Speaker 1: meet my stepdad. I'm an only child. I don't have siblings,
5:17
Speaker 1: and my stepdad is just in total anguish. He's a lawyer.
5:22
Speaker 1: Very smart man, one of the smartest people I know,
5:25
Speaker 1: but I knew he needed support. He also needed someone
5:30
Speaker 1: else to be there to help make some critical decisions.
5:35
Speaker 1: On my way, Michelle had offered to go with me
5:37
Speaker 1: to the funeral home, but on my way out, my
5:41
Speaker 1: instincts said, tell her she doesn't need to go. So
5:45
Speaker 1: I said, hey, honey, I got this. I got this.
5:48
Speaker 1: There was that little voice, that instinct again. I said,
5:51
Speaker 1: I got it. Stay home. I'll be back in a
5:53
Speaker 1: little bit. I get in my truck. I'm halfway to
5:56
Speaker 1: the funeral home, and I'm listening to my now favorite
6:00
Speaker 1: book of all time, Lonesome Dove, which we're going to
6:03
Speaker 1: be talking about on this show. I think it's extremely important.
6:07
Speaker 1: I'm towards the end of the book, and the narration
6:11
Speaker 1: by a guy named Will Patton is outstanding. He tells
6:15
Speaker 1: you the story as though you're hearing it firsthand from
6:19
Speaker 1: an old Texas ranger. It's just amazing. The show, the
6:26
Speaker 1: audio book, it gets interrupted by a song. I didn't
6:31
Speaker 1: touch anything. I didn't say anything. I didn't prompt this song.
6:35
Speaker 1: But it's a song from one of my favorite college bands,
6:38
Speaker 1: The Smiths. And it's a song I'm not familiar with.
6:44
Speaker 1: I knew it was The Smiths, very distinct sound. But
6:48
Speaker 1: the lyrics, I wasn't really paying attention to. I was
6:53
Speaker 1: more trying to figure out Where'd this song come from?
6:56
Speaker 1: Why did it just pop up? I grab my phone.
7:00
Speaker 1: I click on Spotify. That's 100% of the time where
7:03
Speaker 1: I go for my music. It's not playing on Spotify.
7:07
Speaker 1: I look on Waze because I'd plugged in the funeral
7:09
Speaker 1: home to, I mean, I use Waze to go everywhere
7:13
Speaker 1: just for traffic and police, thinking maybe Waze had linked
7:16
Speaker 1: up with a music source. Waze wasn't playing this song.
7:21
Speaker 1: I say out loud, Where is this music coming from?
7:26
Speaker 1: I then go to the search bar on my iPhone
7:28
Speaker 1: and I type in the word music. Apple Music app
7:32
Speaker 1: pops up. Red Apple button. Podcast purple. Apple Music red.
7:38
Speaker 1: I click on that. It doesn't go to the music player.
7:42
Speaker 1: It doesn't tell you the artist and song. Instead, it
7:45
Speaker 1: jumped those steps and went straight to the lyrics. And
7:50
Speaker 1: the lyrics said, I'm only... Half alive. Please remember me.
7:56
Speaker 1: Remember me. Please remember me. Remember me. And I was
8:03
Speaker 1: blown away. Song's called Well, I Wonder.
8:08
Speaker 3: Wow.
8:09
Speaker 1: So I pull up at the funeral home. My stepdad
8:11
Speaker 1: and the funeral home director is out front waiting on me.
8:15
Speaker 1: And again, John is just in anguish. I have been
8:19
Speaker 1: filled with the Spirit. This Holy Spirit. I have been
8:24
Speaker 1: filled with my mother's spirit. I've been filled with the
8:26
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. My sadness, my pain disappeared. Guys, I can't
8:31
Speaker 1: tell you any other way. It disappeared. It's not that
8:35
Speaker 1: I didn't love my mom. Of course I did. My
8:37
Speaker 1: dad died when I was nine. We went through some
8:40
Speaker 1: horrible times. It was the blizzard of 77 when dad passed.
8:44
Speaker 1: My pain was taken from me. She didn't want me
8:48
Speaker 1: to feel that pain again. It was amazing. And I
8:53
Speaker 1: then look a couple days later, I look up the song. Like,
8:59
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with the song. Tell me about the song. Well,
9:03
Speaker 1: it was released in 1985, the same year Lonesome Dove
9:07
Speaker 1: was released. But it was released as a B-side. I'm
9:15
Speaker 1: a B-side guy. If you're a regular listener to the show,
9:17
Speaker 1: I was the kid growing up that I didn't do–
9:21
Speaker 1: if someone told me to do something, I wouldn't do it.
9:23
Speaker 1: I'd do the opposite. Just a little oppositional defiant disorder.
9:27
Speaker 1: Makes you a good lawyer. Only child syndrome. But it
9:30
Speaker 1: was a B-side. It was released as a B-side on
9:33
Speaker 1: vinyl in 1985. The A-side is one of my favorite
9:38
Speaker 1: songs of all time by the Smiths, How Soon Is Now?
9:44
Speaker 1: The song that I've listened to a thousand times. My
9:49
Speaker 1: best friends, my family, my kids all know this song.
9:53
Speaker 1: And if you go on Spotify and you type in
9:55
Speaker 1: How Soon Is Now, you'll know the song. The B-side
10:01
Speaker 1: to my favorite song released in 1985 was the song
10:07
Speaker 1: that popped up in the middle of my book, Lonesome Dove,
10:11
Speaker 1: also published in 1985, that we're going to talk about
10:15
Speaker 1: with those lyrics. I'm half alive. Remember me? Remember me? Wow.
10:24
Speaker 1: Then I learned that there's a lady, a medium, a
10:31
Speaker 1: psychic medium, longer story, but she's been in my life
10:33
Speaker 1: for 25 years. Her name is Annalise. She's a beautiful soul.
10:38
Speaker 1: I called her Friday morning of the funeral, and I
10:42
Speaker 1: explained to her I'm going to deliver a eulogy, and
10:43
Speaker 1: if she had any insight, and she said, I want
10:46
Speaker 1: She said, I want you. She didn't know anything. Annalise
10:50
Speaker 1: didn't know anything. I called her cold. I hadn't talked
10:53
Speaker 1: to her in a year. And in the first 30
10:57
Speaker 1: seconds of our conversation, she said, Brad, I'm receiving a
11:01
Speaker 1: message from your mom. And it says, and the message is,
11:08
Speaker 1: tell John I didn't want to pass in front of him.
11:14
Speaker 1: My mom After she had some sips of that milkshake,
11:20
Speaker 1: got up from the couch in the living room, John
11:23
Speaker 1: was in the kitchen making dinner or preparing some soup
11:27
Speaker 1: for her. And she walked back to her bedroom, kicked
11:31
Speaker 1: off her house slippers, laid down, and passed on. Isn't
11:37
Speaker 1: that amazing? I am unsad. I am filled with the
11:42
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. I am filled with her spirit. I've never
11:46
Speaker 1: felt this way in my life, and I wanted to
11:48
Speaker 1: share this message with all of you. And if any
11:51
Speaker 1: of you have personal experiences like this, please share them.
11:54
Speaker 1: Share them with others. Understand we have five earthly senses.
12:04
Speaker 1: There are a lot more out there. Our brain currently
12:09
Speaker 1: can't understand, perceive what's truly around us. Our loved ones
12:16
Speaker 1: are with us. We just can't see them or hear
12:20
Speaker 1: them or smell them or touch them.
12:24
Speaker 2: But they are here.
12:27
Speaker 1: My first day back in the office, guys, I walked
12:29
Speaker 1: in and on my desk was a single penny. And
12:36
Speaker 1: I believe there is something about pennies from heaven. Okay,
12:44
Speaker 1: welcome back. This is Attorney Brad Koffel. You are listening
12:48
Speaker 1: to 610 WTVN, iHeartMedia, Corp, and General. Have you read
12:57
Speaker 1: the book Lonesome Dove?
12:58
Speaker 3: I've not read the book Lonesome Dove, but I've seen
13:01
Speaker 3: extensive clips from the miniseries on YouTube, enough to know
13:06
Speaker 3: that it's an impressive piece of work.
13:08
Speaker 1: Okay. If you're listening to this show, obviously you are
13:12
Speaker 1: because you're hearing— You're hearing this and you've read Lonesome Dove.
13:18
Speaker 1: I want you to email me. You have a keen
13:19
Speaker 1: grasp of the obvious. I want to email. I want
13:21
Speaker 1: to create a– I want to communicate with some people
13:24
Speaker 1: that have read this. This is a very, very important book.
13:26
Speaker 1: It was written in 1985. It won the Pulitzer in
13:29
Speaker 1: 1986 as a Western. Westerns don't win Pulitzers. In the–
13:38
Speaker 1: I did a little research on the jury that awarded
13:42
Speaker 1: the Pulitzer. to Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. And it is–
13:50
Speaker 1: it was– it's such an amazing novel, 800, 900 pages.
13:57
Speaker 1: It's about the American frontier. It's about the men and
14:00
Speaker 1: women and boys and girls, but primarily about the men
14:05
Speaker 1: that had to use violence to create the American West
14:11
Speaker 1: in the– shape and form of Texas Rangers. I've been
14:17
Speaker 1: familiar with Lonesome Dove. We knew the miniseries when it
14:21
Speaker 1: all came out and all that jazz, but there's something
14:23
Speaker 1: special about Lonesome Dove. And the 40th anniversary edition was
14:30
Speaker 1: just released last year. Taylor Sheridan wrote the foreword. Now
14:38
Speaker 1: we've danced around Taylor Sheridan on our show multiple times.
14:42
Speaker 1: There's something culturally significant about Taylor Sheridan in Yellowstone, 1883.
14:47
Speaker 1: His shows, the cinematography of Big Sky Country, the alpha male,
14:57
Speaker 1: the male-female roles, hard work, hard luck, frontier justice, kind
15:05
Speaker 1: of the American way of life. And Americans, unlike any
15:09
Speaker 1: other race in the world— That's us. Like when we
15:15
Speaker 1: go to the Olympics, it's cowboy hats and cowboy boots.
15:19
Speaker 1: When people in other parts of the world think of us,
15:21
Speaker 1: they think of us as cowboys and guns and gun
15:25
Speaker 1: belts and cowboy boots. That's American. And we need to
15:30
Speaker 1: make sure that we protect that America. And Lonesome Dove
15:36
Speaker 1: is a story about these Texas Rangers– who battle bandits,
15:45
Speaker 1: Mexicans– or banditos, Mexicans, Indians, Comanche primarily, and nature.
15:54
Speaker 4: To civilize it, to settle it so that the rest
16:01
Speaker 4: of the people can come out and establish their communities.
16:07
Speaker 1: But here's the strange part, and it's the reason we're
16:09
Speaker 1: spending the hour– on Lonesome Dove instead of the news.
16:17
Speaker 1: But a book written in 1985 about two retired Texas
16:20
Speaker 1: rangers driving a stolen herd of cattle from the Rio
16:24
Speaker 1: Grande to Montana for no particularly good reason just had
16:29
Speaker 1: its best sales year in more than three decades. Not
16:35
Speaker 1: its best year ever. Its best year since the television
16:40
Speaker 1: sequel dragged it back into living rooms in 1993. But
16:44
Speaker 1: Simon & Schuster, the publisher, said they sold 56,000 copies alone.
16:51
Speaker 1: This is an 800-page book that's 41 years old that
16:56
Speaker 1: is outselling almost everything that came out last Tuesday. And
17:01
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday, I promise you, several hundred new novels
17:05
Speaker 1: come out every Tuesday. So what is it? First, if
17:11
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar, get familiar. I'm going to encourage every listener
17:16
Speaker 1: to start this way. Go to Audible, A-U-D-I-B-L-E, get the
17:21
Speaker 1: Audible app and download Lonesome Dove, but you want the
17:27
Speaker 1: one that's narrated by Will Patton. Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome
17:32
Speaker 1: Dove in 1985. It was published that year. It won
17:36
Speaker 1: the Pulitzer for fiction the next year. Three years after that,
17:41
Speaker 1: CBS turned it into a four-night miniseries in the winter
17:45
Speaker 1: of 89. Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane,
17:51
Speaker 1: Angelica Houston.
17:54
Speaker 2: Robert Urich was in it.
17:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. That's right. And good call. And more
17:59
Speaker 1: than 40 million people watched the first night alone. Think
18:04
Speaker 1: about that. 40 million Americans watched the first episode of
18:10
Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove. and February 1989 on consecutive weeknights. That's the
18:17
Speaker 1: way– that's the America I grew up with. You gather
18:20
Speaker 1: around to watch something because there was only one thing
18:23
Speaker 1: to gather around. That's a– we don't have appointment television
18:28
Speaker 1: like that anymore. We barely have appointments.
18:30
Speaker 2: We have DVR too. Yeah.
18:33
Speaker 1: And, you know, look, we've got Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones,
18:37
Speaker 1: Danny Glover, Angelica Houston, Urich. All-in-one production, four nights in
18:43
Speaker 1: a row, no streaming, no pausing to argue with your
18:48
Speaker 1: wife whether you already watched this episode or that was
18:52
Speaker 1: a different show with a similar horse. If you missed
18:55
Speaker 1: part two on a Monday night in 1989, you were
18:59
Speaker 1: simply behind for the rest of your natural life.
19:01
Speaker 2: You're lost.
19:02
Speaker 1: Unless you– There was no fixing it. Now I want
19:07
Speaker 1: to tell you what the book is actually about because
19:09
Speaker 1: most people who have not read it think they know,
19:12
Speaker 1: and most of what they think I think is wrong.
19:15
Speaker 1: It follows two aging Texas Rangers, one of my favorite
19:19
Speaker 1: fictional characters, modeled on an actual man. The actual man
19:24
Speaker 1: is named Charles Goodnight. But the fictional character is Augustus McCrae, Gus.
19:31
Speaker 1: And Woodrow Call is his best pal. They're captains in
19:34
Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers. They've spent their whole lives doing the violent,
19:39
Speaker 1: unglamorous work of clearing the frontier so the rest of us,
19:44
Speaker 1: people who will never know their names, could move into
19:47
Speaker 1: and safely stay behind. Indians, rustlers, bandits, they handed it all.
19:53
Speaker 1: They cleared it all out, right? And for some reason,
19:57
Speaker 1: it won the Pulitzer in 1986. It mattered. It mattered
20:02
Speaker 1: to America in 1986. But I'm going to tell you
20:05
Speaker 1: right now, it matters more today and after the break.
20:09
Speaker 1: We're going to dive into what is it about Taylor Sheridan, Yellowstone,
20:15
Speaker 1: Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, the Big Sky Country, the resurgence
20:20
Speaker 1: of people wanting to get out there. What is that?
20:30
Speaker 1: We are having a cultural moment for a particular part
20:33
Speaker 1: of America and a particular set of Americans. And Taylor
20:39
Speaker 1: Sheridan is all over it, General. It's the hardworking, blue-collar,
20:44
Speaker 1: often rural, often Christian, often white population being made obsolete
20:49
Speaker 1: by something everyone else insists on calling progress, whether they
20:55
Speaker 1: ask for that progress or not. You know what I mean?
20:58
Speaker 1: I do. I do indeed. For Lonesome Dove, it was
21:03
Speaker 1: those men and women who conquered the West and Big
21:05
Speaker 1: Sky Country They carved a path to the Pacific. They
21:08
Speaker 1: built the homes and the courthouses. They imposed their moral
21:12
Speaker 1: code into their legal code. They educated their children while
21:16
Speaker 1: expecting those same children to do the hard things and
21:19
Speaker 1: build some grit because they knew the life ahead of
21:21
Speaker 1: them was going to be tough. And then they watched
21:24
Speaker 1: in kind of quiet dismay as the Easterners moved in
21:29
Speaker 1: behind them and started changing things, changing the way of life,
21:34
Speaker 1: changing the moral codes, changing the laws. changing the community.
21:41
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, isn't that what's happening in Montana today?
21:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, changing the community in a way that those people
21:47
Speaker 1: had no hand in building to begin with.
21:51
Speaker 2: Thanks, we'll take it from here. Yes.
21:55
Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove, to me, is an elegy for the men
21:59
Speaker 1: who did the violence that made civilization in America possible.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yellowstone The show is about violence protecting that life once
22:12
Speaker 1: it exists. Taylor Sheridan's other show, Lioness, awesome show. And
22:20
Speaker 1: SEAL Team 6, which is not Taylor Sheridan's show, but
22:23
Speaker 1: SEAL Team 6, another fantastic show, is about using violence
22:28
Speaker 1: overseas and across our borders against rogue elements that want
22:32
Speaker 1: to harm us at home. Three different stories. The same
22:37
Speaker 1: underlying question, who does the hard thing so the rest
22:41
Speaker 1: of us don't have to? And what happens to that
22:44
Speaker 1: person once that hard thing is finished? Remember a few
22:49
Speaker 1: good men? Oh, yes. Tom Cruise.
22:52
Speaker 2: Yes.
22:52
Speaker 1: The Wire.
22:54
Speaker 2: Yes. Who's going to stand on that wall, Lieutenant Caffey?
22:58
Speaker 1: You? Yeah. Well, in Lonesome Dove, it's Captain Augustus McCray. Gus. Yes.
23:06
Speaker 1: Gus watching the churches and the fences and the lawyers
23:10
Speaker 1: begin to arrive behind men exactly like himself and says
23:15
Speaker 1: it plainly, we'll be the end ends if we last
23:18
Speaker 1: another 20 years. Nobody in Lonesome Dove gets a hero's
23:24
Speaker 1: rest at the end. Again, I want my listeners, our listeners,
23:28
Speaker 1: pardon me, our listeners, I want you to please go
23:31
Speaker 1: to Audible or wherever you download books online. And download
23:36
Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove, narrated by Will Patton. It'll change you.
23:43
Speaker 2: For the better.
23:44
Speaker 1: For the better. Lonesome Dove is not just a story
23:47
Speaker 1: about 1876. It's not Little House on the Prairie. On
23:52
Speaker 1: a personal level, it is something every man eventually finds out.
23:56
Speaker 1: That the thing he was built for, trained for, and
24:00
Speaker 1: rightly proud of, no longer has a clear purpose in
24:04
Speaker 1: the eyes of the world around him. And that discovery, General,
24:08
Speaker 1: that's the hinge that this whole show turns on. And
24:14
Speaker 1: it's where I want our show to go next. So
24:17
Speaker 1: here's the question underneath all of it, guys. Is it right?
24:21
Speaker 1: Is it moral to do hard and sometimes violent things
24:26
Speaker 1: in defense of a people and a way of life?
24:29
Speaker 1: I think the answer is yes, but only under a
24:32
Speaker 1: specific condition. And the condition is the whole ballgame. In
24:38
Speaker 1: Lonesome Dove, Gus and Carl, his buddy, they didn't go
24:47
Speaker 1: looking for the violence they did. They didn't go looking
24:49
Speaker 1: for it. It came to them because somebody had to
24:53
Speaker 1: stand between the people trying to build something and the
24:56
Speaker 1: things trying to stop them from building it. And that's
25:00
Speaker 1: the same moral ground, don't you think? that Yellowstone stands
25:04
Speaker 1: on when John Dutton does what he does to protect
25:07
Speaker 1: that ranch, and it's the same ground Lioness stands on
25:12
Speaker 1: or SEAL Team 6, the show, stands on when it
25:16
Speaker 1: sends people across a border to stop a threat before
25:20
Speaker 1: it reaches home. What they honor is the willingness to
25:26
Speaker 1: be the one who does it carefully, without cruelty, without relish,
25:35
Speaker 1: and without asking anyone to throw them a parade afterward.
25:39
Speaker 1: The participation trophy.
25:42
Speaker 2: Ribbon. Huh?
25:43
Speaker 1: Ribbon.
25:44
Speaker 2: Thanks for participating.
25:46
Speaker 1: Somebody's got to do the part of the job nobody
25:49
Speaker 1: particularly wants to watch up close. Nobody gives you a
25:52
Speaker 1: participation trophy for it. You do it because it's your duty,
25:56
Speaker 1: not because it earns you anything. That is doing hard, unglamorous,
26:01
Speaker 1: necessary work and then watching the world move on without
26:05
Speaker 1: much interest in thanking you for it. You and I
26:09
Speaker 1: know something about this, General, that our line of work,
26:12
Speaker 1: I mean, you and I for over 30 years, we've
26:15
Speaker 1: been standing next to people, everybody else in the courtroom,
26:20
Speaker 1: the courthouse, the county had already decided we're finished. Bad guys.
26:29
Speaker 1: But we've been doing it carefully and by the rules
26:31
Speaker 1: representing These people, you know, we stand there between the
26:40
Speaker 1: mob and the individual.
26:43
Speaker 2: We're the ones saying not so fast.
26:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. No one throws defense lawyers a parade. We don't
26:48
Speaker 1: get participation trophies, but we do it one client at
26:51
Speaker 1: a time. We have to because the alternative is if
26:56
Speaker 1: there are no men and women willing to defend anyone
27:01
Speaker 1: or anything– Where does that get you?
27:06
Speaker 2: Right into jail.
27:08
Speaker 1: Worse, you know. Evil takes over. So violence or hardship
27:17
Speaker 1: taken up for its own sake, let's just say violence
27:20
Speaker 1: taken up for its own sake, for power, for cruelty,
27:25
Speaker 1: for the thrill of it, is not defensible. And neither
27:29
Speaker 1: the general nor I are defending it. violence taken up
27:34
Speaker 1: reluctantly on behalf of people who cannot protect themselves and
27:38
Speaker 1: set down again the moment it is no longer needed
27:41
Speaker 1: is a different thing entirely. That's called self-defense. And every
27:45
Speaker 1: state in the West recognizes self-defense. Well, where is self-defense
27:53
Speaker 1: for your culture? Where is self-defense for your way of life?
27:57
Speaker 1: Where is self-defense for your settlement? Where is self-defense for
28:01
Speaker 1: your community. We're a self-defense for your tribe. And that's
28:06
Speaker 1: what Gus McRae and Captain Call did on the trail
28:13
Speaker 1: in Lonesome Dove. That's what Rip and the rest of
28:17
Speaker 1: the cowboys on the Dutton Ranch on the Yellowstone, what
28:21
Speaker 1: they do. That's what people in uniform do when SEAL
28:24
Speaker 1: Team 6 or the show Lioness sends them across a
28:28
Speaker 1: line most of us will never have to cross ourselves.
28:32
Speaker 1: And that raises the obvious next question, which is, who
28:36
Speaker 1: exactly is willing to do that? And does America still
28:41
Speaker 1: know how to raise him?
28:44
Speaker 2: Very good question.
28:50
Speaker 1: Welcome back for— well, welcome back to— for The Defense of the
28:55
Speaker 1: American People. And we're in our 10th year. We have
29:00
Speaker 1: one singular sponsor. We're going to all— Always pump up
29:03
Speaker 1: the tires and let everybody know Chesrone Automotive is the–
29:10
Speaker 1: they underwrite this whole production. One family, the Gill family,
29:14
Speaker 1: one company, Chesrone. And I love them. They're just great people.
29:20
Speaker 1: And we're talking about– this show is really kind of
29:21
Speaker 1: about alpha males and the necessity of alpha males in
29:25
Speaker 1: a tribe and a pride and a– In a Congress.
29:32
Speaker 2: In a society.
29:32
Speaker 1: In a society. Ryan Gill, who runs Chesron. with his dad,
29:42
Speaker 1: alpha male.
29:43
Speaker 2: Well, they're the alpha dealership.
29:45
Speaker 1: They're the alpha dealership. Oh, so well done, General. Yeah,
29:48
Speaker 1: they are the alpha dealership.
29:50
Speaker 2: You just drive north and you see it.
29:53
Speaker 1: Ryan is– and I know he listens to this show
29:57
Speaker 1: and I'm going to goof this. I don't know martial
29:59
Speaker 1: arts very well. But I do know that Ryan is
30:02
Speaker 1: a martial arts expert. I know he's a black belt
30:04
Speaker 1: in something. And I want to say it's judo or
30:08
Speaker 1: jujitsu or mahjong.
30:12
Speaker 2: I think mahjong is a tile game.
30:15
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can tell for that. I
30:17
Speaker 1: don't think you're a black belt in mahjong. But get
30:20
Speaker 1: over to Chosron. Go up to the Alpha dealership, the
30:24
Speaker 1: American Alpha dealership here in Greater Central Ohio.
30:28
Speaker 2: If you ask Ryan, he'll toss you around on the mat,
30:31
Speaker 2: give you a good square deal.
30:32
Speaker 1: Ryan doesn't cry. It's okay to cry.
30:35
Speaker 2: Ryan doesn't cry. There's no crying in baseball.
30:36
Speaker 1: Ryan doesn't cry. All right, General, we're on a touchy subject,
30:40
Speaker 1: but daggone it, I feel like we need to say it.
30:45
Speaker 1: There is a role for the alpha male in nature
30:52
Speaker 1: and a pride of lions. It is the males who
30:54
Speaker 1: patrol the territory and who fight. And Lonesome Dove, that
30:59
Speaker 1: was Gus and Call.
31:01
Speaker 2: That's right.
31:03
Speaker 1: Sometimes they fight to death. Why? To keep rival males
31:06
Speaker 1: from killing the cubs that are not theirs. In nature,
31:12
Speaker 1: among deer and elk, the stags spend the fall fighting
31:17
Speaker 1: for the right to stand between the herd and every
31:19
Speaker 1: other male that wants in. It's nature. And primate troops,
31:24
Speaker 1: they call them troops, little monkeys. Troops across dozens of species.
31:31
Speaker 1: Researchers I know have found the same pattern again and
31:35
Speaker 1: again and again. Certain males take on a protective, physically
31:40
Speaker 1: dangerous role on behalf of the group. That includes animals
31:47
Speaker 1: they will never personally benefit from protecting. So they do
31:51
Speaker 1: it for the group. Nature didn't invent this because it's sentimental.
31:57
Speaker 1: God didn't put this alpha on Earth just to have
32:04
Speaker 1: a sport to watch on a globe. Nature, God, our creator,
32:11
Speaker 1: invented this alpha because groups that have alphas survive, and
32:18
Speaker 1: groups that don't have alphas, they get wiped out. That's
32:22
Speaker 1: not a political opinion. That is actually... I would say
32:28
Speaker 1: it's closer to an engineering fact about how social animals
32:33
Speaker 1: stay alive and human beings are. We are the most
32:36
Speaker 1: social of all the animals of God's kingdom. And I
32:40
Speaker 1: want to be precise about what I am and what
32:43
Speaker 1: I'm not claiming here. I am not saying that America
32:49
Speaker 1: should be run like a lion pride. And I'm not
32:52
Speaker 1: saying dominance for its own sake is an admirable thing.
32:55
Speaker 1: in animals or in men. I'm not saying empires and
33:00
Speaker 1: imperialism and colonialism. I am not talking about that. That's
33:05
Speaker 1: politics and nation-state building. I'm not talking about that. What
33:10
Speaker 1: I am saying is across an enormous range of social species,
33:15
Speaker 1: evolution has repeatedly produced a specific role, a protector who
33:21
Speaker 1: accepts his own personal risk on behalf of others, including strangers,
33:29
Speaker 1: who didn't ask for the protection, who cannot repay for
33:34
Speaker 1: the protection. But nature has produced that role because groups
33:41
Speaker 1: without that alpha do much worse than groups with it.
33:47
Speaker 1: And human beings, we've not escaped that pattern. We've built
33:51
Speaker 1: a civilization on top of it. That's what's made the
33:54
Speaker 1: West the West. We've built a civilization on top of
33:57
Speaker 1: this natural foundation. Now, in America, civilization's crown jewel. Our
34:07
Speaker 1: culture is presently genuinely confused about what kind of man
34:13
Speaker 1: it actually needs. I mean, there's some people that are
34:17
Speaker 1: actually confused about what a man is and isn't. But
34:24
Speaker 1: up until the last generation or so, a man's purpose
34:28
Speaker 1: in this respect was never seriously endowed. And I'm not
34:31
Speaker 1: saying every man must be an alpha.
34:34
Speaker 2: No.
34:35
Speaker 1: I'm just saying there must be an alpha male. And
34:39
Speaker 1: those of us over 50, random age, but I'm going
34:43
Speaker 1: with 50, general. Those of us over 50, Are we
34:47
Speaker 1: not quietly anxious about the future of our country without
34:50
Speaker 1: alpha men, men of strong character, men of uncompromising values,
34:58
Speaker 1: men of uncompromising morals?
35:01
Speaker 2: That's fair because— Men who have faults.
35:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:03
Speaker 1: Plenty of them, but men who train boys directly and
35:07
Speaker 1: by example to become the kind of man every community
35:12
Speaker 1: and every nation still needs? Yes.
35:15
Speaker 3: My concern is that the alphas don't have that morality sometimes.
35:19
Speaker 3: Not all, but there are some alphas out there that
35:22
Speaker 3: don't– that are just in it for themselves.
35:25
Speaker 1: In it for themselves need to be weeded out. In
35:28
Speaker 1: it for yourself need to be weeded out, which is
35:30
Speaker 1: why we are disgusted with our political system. That's what
35:34
Speaker 1: we're– we are disgusted. What we see with our two
35:36
Speaker 1: political parties are we're in it for ourselves. They're in
35:39
Speaker 1: it for themselves. I submit to you that our two
35:43
Speaker 1: political parties– in this era are literally, practically organized crime
35:53
Speaker 1: syndicates that are designed to get their members into the
36:01
Speaker 1: government coffers for the benefit– I'm going to say the
36:04
Speaker 1: Democrat Party– into the coffers to spend and enrich themselves.
36:11
Speaker 1: A lot of people go into politics to enrich themselves.
36:16
Speaker 1: And we need to pull them out roots and all.
36:21
Speaker 1: And it's going to take some alphas to do it.
36:25
Speaker 1: Men who will do that tough work. And the men
36:29
Speaker 1: who don't need or want praise for doing it. There's
36:32
Speaker 1: one thing that disgusts me. And there are a couple
36:37
Speaker 1: things that disgust me.
36:38
Speaker 2: Rotting food.
36:39
Speaker 1: That disgusts me. One thing that disgusts me is someone
36:43
Speaker 1: that just needs praise all the time. I went through
36:47
Speaker 1: a period of my life. I went through an insecure
36:50
Speaker 1: phase of my life. I will admit, I will self-disclose.
36:55
Speaker 1: In my 20s, I was horribly insecure. I made a
36:59
Speaker 1: lot of money early. I was very lucky. I was
37:02
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. And I
37:06
Speaker 1: just needed that affirmation and praise. You grow out of it.
37:12
Speaker 1: But if you're 50, 55, 60, 65, and you constantly
37:17
Speaker 1: are doing things because you need praise, you need to
37:22
Speaker 1: check yourself.
37:23
Speaker 2: Well, Ronald Reagan said you can do great things if
37:25
Speaker 2: you don't care who gets the credit.
37:27
Speaker 1: Love Ronald Reagan. Alpha. Alpha.
37:29
Speaker 2: Alpha.
37:30
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt.
37:31
Speaker 2: Alpha.
37:31
Speaker 1: Jack Kennedy. Okay? They're not perfect. We're not saying these
37:35
Speaker 1: are Jesus. We need men. Faults and all, but they
37:42
Speaker 1: are the North Stars. At my mother's funeral, I mentioned
37:46
Speaker 1: during the eulogy, boys need their uncles. Boys need their grandfathers.
37:53
Speaker 1: Two separate roles. Two very important roles. And when we're
38:00
Speaker 1: raising boys without access to good, virtuous uncles and good,
38:05
Speaker 1: virtuous uncles, grandfathers were running into trouble. And that's where
38:13
Speaker 1: we are. That's where we are. And I do believe
38:18
Speaker 1: that America will figure it out over time. We'll figure
38:22
Speaker 1: it out. We will resettle. We will repopulate parts of
38:26
Speaker 1: the South. We will repopulate parts of the West. And
38:31
Speaker 1: we will build modern settlements. And there will be communities
38:36
Speaker 1: built multi-generational. And there are going to be– community is
38:41
Speaker 1: going to be built, and this is where we're going.
38:44
Speaker 1: We're taking grandma and grandpa with us. We're taking the
38:47
Speaker 1: aunts and uncles and cousins. There's going to be a
38:50
Speaker 1: new pioneering movement. I'm just telling you. My instincts are
38:57
Speaker 1: telling me this. There's going to be a new pioneering movement.
39:00
Speaker 3: It's not necessarily going to be geographical either. It could
39:02
Speaker 3: be technological. It could be educational. It could be a
39:04
Speaker 3: lot of new movements.
39:07
Speaker 1: We need men. In addition– for protection and enforcement of
39:14
Speaker 1: the moral code and men who don't want praise for
39:18
Speaker 1: doing it. We need men who will not tolerate rudeness,
39:22
Speaker 1: especially toward women and children. We need men who will
39:26
Speaker 1: be the person who does what needs to be done
39:29
Speaker 1: when no else in the room is willing to do
39:31
Speaker 1: it alpha we need to take evil to the train
39:38
Speaker 1: station in yellowstone if you watch the show yellowstone you
39:44
Speaker 1: take evil to the train station it is the oldest
39:47
Speaker 1: job description there is I suspect most men, if you
39:50
Speaker 1: know what it is, I'm not talking about cruelty, but
39:54
Speaker 1: I want to end where I started this episode. Go
39:56
Speaker 1: hug the people who are standing next to you. Go
40:00
Speaker 1: read something longer than a headline. And if you've got
40:03
Speaker 1: a boy in your life, go teach him something true
40:06
Speaker 1: about what it means to show up.