Latest / Normal Men / Episode 64 - Happy Birthday to US!

Transcript

Episode 64 - Happy Birthday to US! · Normal Men

• 0:02
  Lowtax: Oh, it's coming home, isn't it?
• 0:03
  Ed: I. I did not agree to do this.
• 0:06
  Propter: So we're coming at you from Monday morning after the events of the weekend, which include America's 250th birthday and the triumph of the English in Azteca.
• 0:16
  George: For those not familiar, the Azteca is the premier soccer stadium in Mexico City. And Inglatera went in there last night and delivered a dramatic win against the Mexican soccer team. So EL3 are out of the World cup and England advances. So it's coming out.
• 0:39
  Lowtax: We all have to. We all have to eat Heinz Baked beans on toast this morning.
• 0:45
  George: Yeah, that's the wrong kind of bean. Like, I much prefer the Mexican bean.
• 0:49
  Lowtax: No, I mean, they won fair and square.
• 0:51
  George: Yeah, they did.
• 0:53
  Ed: They did.
• 0:54
  George: If you haven't seen the match and have a chance to go back and watch it on replay, it's one of the better soccer matches I can recall ever watching. So it's. It's worth it. Good stuff all around. But, yeah, it was. It was a fun Fourth of July here. What did y' all do for Fourth of July?
• 1:09
  Propter: I'm out on a lake in Montana for this Fourth of July. We watched everyone in Montana apparently shoot off fireworks.
• 1:17
  George: We also watched fireworks from the lake. And, yeah, it's. It's a fun scene because you really can't see along.
• 1:22
  Lowtax: We didn't do anything. We drug. We drugged the dog. And I scrolled through blue sky, waiting to see what sort of fiasco would unfold on the National Mall.
• 1:33
  Ed: I was kind of just waiting for an it happens post. I'll be honest. We. We. Like, I took a couple days off just because I had to burn some vacation time. But, like, I'll be honest, and I think we're talking about this later. I have not exactly felt in the festive spirit for this one. Our dogs did not require drugs, which was. It's. It's nice having dogs that are normal. About this, though, I. I am looking at my neighbors like, why did you all go to New Hampshire? Because that's the only place to buy fireworks. I mean, the answer is to buy fireworks. And I understand that, but like New
• 2:07
  Propter: Hampshire,
• 2:11
  George: this is Normal Men, a podcast from four men who are clinging desperately to normalcy in an era when that's asking a bit too much. I'm George in Charlotte.
• 2:19
  Propter: In D.C. i'm Proctor Malone in outer Florida.
• 2:21
  Lowtax: I'm low tax speedrun enjoyer.
• 2:23
  Ed: And I'm Ed in Boston.
• 2:29
  Lowtax: The good thing is our dog is not bad with it. Like, she'll bark at the fireworks. Whereas our previous dog who passed away last year was terrified of him.
• 2:41
  Ed: All right, like barking at the fireworks. I can at least get that's. That's like an attempt to be included.
• 2:46
  Lowtax: Yes.
• 2:48
  George: One of my dogs is deaf, so no issues there. The other one more like morbidly curious than anything else. But my in laws dog, we were. My in laws place on the lake. And yeah, he. He doesn't do so good. So we were on high alert to make sure nobody escaped. So. And no one did.
• 3:03
  Ed: So around here, I mostly worried about like, is the dog gonna pee? Like with. With prior dogs I have lived with less escaping. Like they're too scared to escape. But like the pee, you. You won't find that for days at times. Like they, they get under the bed, you're. No, no, no. Bad time.
• 3:21
  George: Yeah. Yeah. Then your house just smells like low taxes place for a couple days. Nothing you can do about it.
• 3:27
  Ed: Oh dear. Florida.
• 3:31
  George: It was definitely a bit of a complicated holiday. I think for anyone that would be listening to this. I don't. I. For reasons I think we don't really need to elaborate on it. It's a real bummer that the 250th birthday of the country we all live in was oversh. The person who constantly overshadows all news events and goings on these days. And I, you know, like, we're gonna talk about patriotism and what it means to care about this holiday and all that stuff. And you know, in the, in the background. I just. I'm so sick of this guy being in the middle of everything. I am absolutely sick of it. I just like, can we have one day where I don't have to see the name or hear the voice?
• 4:20
  Ed: I've done a really good job of avoiding the voice. Like you really can cut that out. But like, people won't stop talking about him for a good reason. But also just like, stop.
• 4:30
  Lowtax: I do sort of like that he's doing all of these projects around Washington D.C. that are failing.
• 4:37
  Ed: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Lowtax: They're like, you know, tormenting him.
• 4:39
  Ed: They're the worst previous owner project you've ever seen. Like you buy a house.
• 4:45
  George: Like you haven't seen my house, brother.
• 4:49
  Ed: I found all the ones in mine.
• 4:51
  George: Oh no. I'm the one creating them.
• 4:53
  Ed: Oh. I mean, like, that's. That is your. That is your God given right as a homeowner. The, the danger is when you stay there too long and suddenly you are the previous owner. Because it does happen. I've already found some things in my house where I'm like, I really should have like not half assed that like there's a door, there's a door in the back that kind of wants to like fall off its hinges now. And I have to repair it for the.
• 5:19
  Propter: We'll see what the butcher's bill winds up at for DC infrastructure. I have to say that as a resident, we're not excited about any of this stuff. On the one hand, there's a lot of resources being devoted to changing things in physically changing things in dc, not like metaphorically changing things in dc. Like literally knocking shit down and building shit in dc.
• 5:39
  Ed: Yeah, they don't know how to do metaphorical change.
• 5:41
  Lowtax: Right.
• 5:41
  Propter: Like that would be good news under other circumstances perhaps, but under these circumstances it's all shittily planned. None of it is stuff people want. They're talking about, I guess, cutting down the cherry trees on the Tidal Basin for a golf course, which.
• 5:59
  Lowtax: What, it's just a Russian nesting doll of Grover Haas? Yeah,
• 6:08
  Propter: we're talking about, you know, very, very old, kind of iconic symbols of dc. Not just the cherry trees, obviously the Kennedy center is a big deal. The frickin White House is kind of a thing that we, you know, there's two things, a different way than the rest of the country cares about because it's, it's our local thing. Like it's right in the middle of the city. You know, you, you interact with it in some ways that you wouldn't. As a photo backdrop, the construction is a pain in the ass. Rerouting everything is a pain in the ass. The National Mall being even less navigable than usual is a pain in the ass. So like, it would be nice if all of that stopped. It is gratifying that he is repeatedly failing at this stuff, I guess. Hopefully the arch isn't going to go up. Hopefully the various mall related, 250th related festivities will come to an end. Hopefully we'll still have some statues we like and not quite as many statues we don't, but it sucks to have this happen in your city.
• 7:20
  Ed: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Propter: So that's, that's a view from the District.
• 7:24
  Lowtax: It's a great thing to direct NIMBY energy towards though.
• 7:29
  Propter: Oh yeah, that's true. Yes.
• 7:32
  Ed: Yeah. But they're gonna like mutate and become like hyper NIMBY now. Like they're gonna see somebody talk about a park bench and get a gun.
• 7:44
  George: The other thing too, that I think I've said this before I visited D.C. would have been a couple years ago now and it was the first time I'd been in about close to 10 years, and I drove my truck into the city because I drove up from Charlotte, and boy, howdy, was that a mistake, because it is not a city designed for cars anymore. And you really like finding a place to park it overnight. Parking garage was just a massive lift. Like, it was really a pain to do that. I. I got it done. Like, it wasn't, you know, and it's not like it was really. I'm not saying here. Oh, like, D.C. should be easy to navigate for someone driving in from out of town. I. I don't think that at all. I just was not aware of DC's game and the number of controlled intersections and pedestrian infrastructure and bike infrastructure and the traffic calming they've done, and just the de emphasizing of vehicle tr. Absolutely rules. But, like, be warned, don't try and park in dc. Like, find a place to park outside of town. Take the Metro in. Like, it's just not worth your time because it's all super navigable without a big vehicle. And yeah, I lived in D.C. for a summer during college, and I absolutely hated it. Not because of the physical infrastructure or the people or whatever. Well, sort of the people. I hated how everything was political, but for, like, the people that live in D.C. that aren't political. I think it's, like, an amazing town to live in. There's incredible amenities of all kinds, and to see it get even a little bit of the Trump treatment from a, like, development point of view is just really depressing. And I really do hope that the Eldrick chores of nimbyism managed to drag every possible Lovecraftian legal argument out of the depths and throw it at this guy as he tries to engage in some of the most absurd vanity projects imaginable. The reflecting pool stuff is funny because, like, really, who cares? It's a little bit of vinyl. Like, like, you can. You can unwind that pretty easily. The numbers are relatively small. I mean, I'm not in a country this big. Blowing $20 million on a little renovation project is. Is really. It's funny. It is straightforwardly funny. It is not a giant scandal. It's just hilarious. That Arch man. I mean, tearing that thing down is going to take, like, three or four years. Like, we. We do not want that built. And same goes for the White House and a number of the other projects. The cherry trees on the. On the Potomac are another really good example. I just like, building a golf course like that is insane.
• 10:18
  Lowtax: Yes, it is. Although we do need to put something at that roundabout across the Potomac, where he wants to put the Arc de Trump. We need to figure out something funny to put there, though. Yeah. Extremely woke and funny.
• 10:38
  Propter: For those unfamiliar with the traffic patterns there, that's a fairly major artery into Northern. Any major construction that goes on near that bridge is gonna. It's gonna make a whole lot of lives a lot less pleasant for the duration. So obviously, we're going to spend the next four or five years doing and unwinding that. I think that the. The point about how Trump kind of infiltrates into everything is well taken that George made earlier and maybe brings us back in the World cup direction for a moment, because right now, the. The controversy on everyone's lips is the suspension or the unsuspension of Balagun, who is a foil. Baligan is a striker for the US Men's national team who got a red card in the round of 32 and therefore would normally be suspended for the round of 16. Except apparently he isn't.
• 11:43
  Lowtax: Yeah, I think it's. I'm just. I'm just going to say all of the people clutching their pearls about this, none of you would survive being fans of a Power 4 team in college football.
• 11:57
  George: That's right. I don't think you could handle, like, Missouri Valley Conference or whatever. Like. Like, yeah, no, like,
• 12:07
  Lowtax: like you'd have to go watch Division 3.
• 12:09
  George: We have the world's greatest stockpile of deeply talented and moneyed bagmen at work in the sec, and we directed that full Arsenal at FIFA, who are the most bribable organization ever known to man.
• 12:26
  Lowtax: Yes.
• 12:27
  George: And, you know, so I think it
• 12:30
  Ed: probably wasn't even that hard, let's be honest. Oh, no, no, no, no.
• 12:34
  George: It wasn't that at all.
• 12:34
  Lowtax: No.
• 12:35
  George: Of course, a little bit of background is really useful. Faller and Baligan is a really interesting character because we, as in the U.S. men's National Team, went out and recruited him. He was not playing men's soccer for the US national team as a young man. Like, as a youth player, he was in. I think he came up through Arsenal's academy. I know he played for Arsenal for a while before I was a big Arsenal fan. He then moved on and he plays his club game at Marseille in Southern France Ligue on a team that's pretty good. And so he was very much one of these characters in international soccer that gets recruited to another national team side. He was eligible. Eligible for. I know, the UK national team or, sorry, the English national team and maybe one other one.
• 13:22
  Lowtax: No, he was eligible. Eligible for three. He was eligible for the U.S. the UK and Nigeria.
• 13:28
  George: Because Nigeria.
• 13:30
  Lowtax: U.S. england and Nigeria. Yes, because his parents are Nigerian. He grew up in England, but he was born in Brooklyn because his parents had come over here for something and his mom was. His. His mom was seven months pregnant. And I guess TSA told them, no, you can't board the plane. Your pregnancy is far too advanced for this flight. When they were trying to go back. So he wound up being tsa.
• 13:59
  George: Tell them that. Or did they. Did the airline tell them that?
• 14:01
  Lowtax: I. I have no idea.
• 14:04
  George: I would. I would love to get the story on that, because if it was actually a US Government agency imposing on her having a child who was a US Citizen, that would be beautiful.
• 14:14
  Propter: Surprise.
• 14:15
  Ed: It doesn't know.
• 14:17
  Lowtax: With anticipation of, like, him becoming a super. A superstar soccer player.
• 14:23
  Ed: You get the corkboard, the red strings.
• 14:25
  George: Yeah, yeah. So at the time when. When Baligan announced that he was going to come and play his international soccer for the usmnt, the English supporters were like, no, there's no way he's going to do that. That's nuts. He wouldn't be a starter on the current English side, but he would be. He would be in the mix. He's that good. He's very talented. And the USMNT went out and recruited him, much like the way college recruiting used to work. College sports recruiting used to work. You can't swap your national side a lot. You can basically do it once. But he decided to do that. And, I mean, I don't want to get too into the weeds on the details of international soccer capping and all that stuff, but the point is, he was able to switch, and so he switched. And he has just been phenomenal for the USMNT in this. In this tournament so far. And it's such an interesting allegory for the success that America creates by attracting people, not by necessarily being the best at something, but by being a place where people who are good at stuff want to be. And, you know, there was nothing untoward about his recruitment, but it is definitely an allegory for what makes America so incredible in so many ways to begin with.
• 15:49
  Propter: And if I may stretch the allegory a little bit, it's also. It's.
• 15:54
  Ed: It.
• 15:54
  Propter: It also highlights the benefits of trade and of free choice between nations. Balagun is more valuable for the American team than he would be for the English team because the English team has Harry Kane.
• 16:07
  George: Absolutely.
• 16:08
  Propter: So, you know, there's some of. This is positioning where, you know, you've got. You've got X number of pegs And Y number of holes and you're trying to fit the pegs in the best hole. Balcon had options and this was, this was his best one. And it's resulted in better soccer as a result.
• 16:25
  Lowtax: Yeah, it's like the third string defensive end who Florida State picks up every year from Georgia. So.
• 16:33
  George: That's exactly right.
• 16:34
  Lowtax: This will be our good run. And then we'll go 2 and 10 from here on out.
• 16:40
  George: It's a little early. Let's, let's not write them off yet. They, they put. We record this obviously before the round of 16 knockout match against Belgium, which is tonight, to speak to the actual red card itself. It was what's known as a straight red. So in soccer you can receive a red card for a bunch of different reasons. If you're given a yellow card twice, that's a red. For instance. Or if you are the last player where an attacker has the ball and is in on goal and you drag down the attacker, that's what's known as denial of a goal scoring opportunity. A dog. So that's a red card. This was for violent conduct. So basically, if you're in soccer, if you're creating undue risk for other players, you will receive a red card for particularly egregious endangerment of the other team. There was an example from the England game. England, when they played Mexico last night, was down to 10 men because an English player tried, slid into a tackle, tried to get the ball instead of hitting the ball. The English players cleats were fully implanted on the shin of the Mexican defender or the Mexican attacker, I guess, because it's an English defender and he received a straight red for that. And I mean, there's a good reason for this, right? There was a Canadian player whose leg was broken earlier in this tournament from a similar tackle. The Balogan one was interesting because it was not an analogous situation. It was two players fighting over the ball. Serbian player came in, sorry, Bosnian player came in behind him, knocked him off balance, and they were both fighting for the ball. And in the process, Baligan stepped on that player's ankle. There was no call at the time for a yellow card, let alone a red card. If he had been given yellow in the moment, then you can't escalate that to a red with a video review. But because he was only given a simple foul, the video review came in and said, you need to look at this. Now there was a lot of debate over whether it was actually a red or not. You could make the argument either way. Personally, to me, it's one of those 50, 50 call things. There's also a debate about whether you should be assigning it based on freeze frames or slow motion replays after the fact as opposed to the natural speed of the game. Whatever, Nobody cares.
• 19:00
  Ed: We have baseball in this country. We understand.
• 19:02
  George: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very contentious.
• 19:04
  Lowtax: Or the targeting rule in.
• 19:08
  George: The targeting rules are really into football for a non sports ball type people. You know, you're not allowed to go and seek out a blow to the other team's head when they're a ball carrier or, you know, jumping to catch a pass or whatever, or a quarterback about to throw the ball. What that looks like in practice is a little bit of a gray area to say the least, and very hard to enforce consistently.
• 19:34
  Propter: Yeah, so you've got this very high leverage foul call. That is. George described it as 50, 50. Let's, let's take that, let's take that as our, as axiomatic here that this is, this is a close call that could have gone either way regardless of whether or not there's an additional suspension for Bell. Again, that was a huge call that MEANT that the U.S. was pulling a man down for the rest of the match. Significantly swung the odds of the US Advancing at all. It's difficult to advance a man down and then you have the additional leverage of whether or not the player is suspended for the next game. And that was the subject of a little bit of Trump corruption
• 20:20
  Ed: that.
• 20:22
  Propter: Whether or not you think that the suspension should have stood. And we'll get into some of the rules changes that have recently gone in for FIFA that basically allow them to manage these suspensions. There is reporting that Trump made somewhere between one and three phone calls to FIFA directly pleading for the American team's case, or, you know, exhorting for the American team's case, and hey, presto, the American player gets to play. So an obviously corrupt process. Whether or not the result is just definitely true.
• 21:01
  George: Although this really is important to understand. If you think this is a uniquely corrupt process because Trump is involved, you have no idea what you're talking about. This was as bog standard of FIFA doing FIFA things as you could possibly come up with. And my view would be that they probably would have done this regardless of whether Trump got involved. Like Trump gets involved. Because remember that thing I was complaining about earlier in this episode? Everything has to involve Trump. Right? Like, it's just right. It's so annoying. FIFA has no greater commercial interest in the world than maximizing the popularity of the sport of soccer. In the United States, they would also love to see India and China sending teams to the World Cup. That's not going to happen anytime soon because they're absolute basura. So we're not going to see that happen. So instead we're going to maximize rinsing the American consumer for as much money as possible, which they've done very effectively via ticket sales this World cup, by the way. So with that in mind, like, I would not have been surprised if this all plays out the exact same way with the, with Trump never having even been elected or never having mentioned Baligan to anybody. Of course he wasn't going to do that because our boy is the main character. But I think it's really important to understand that, like this level of FIFA corruption has nothing to do with Trump. It is all about all the other stuff. I'm not saying Trump calling hurt Baligan's cause or helped it. Either way, I think it didn't matter. I think what Infantino, Johnny Infantino is the guy that runs FIFA.
• 22:32
  Lowtax: He's Baby John.
• 22:34
  George: Yeah. He's the reason we're gonna have another World cup in the Persian Gulf in a couple cycles. You know, Saudi Arabia hosting, He's the reason Qatar hosted in the last cycle. The man loves getting bribes. The man loves distributing bribes. This is a bribe. This is. He's the bribes king. He's it. It's, it's just, it's how it is. And like again, if you're not a fan of international soccer, if you think money ruins everything in American sports, you have no, no frame of reference for what goes on in the international game and a high level club soccer around the world. Like, money is everything. So reinstating Baligan is probably the single highest leverage thing they could have done in terms of making money for FIFA, other than naming the US As a hosting nation for this World cup. Like, it's going to generate a huge amount of attention for the game in the U.S. and if the U.S. does advance over Belgium, I mean, you're talking about a generational event for U.S. soccer fans and one that will create a lot of very high income soccer fans going forward. And FIFA loves nothing more than a very high income soccer fan. So, like, it's not all about Trump, y'. All. It's not all about Trump. I know he wants you to think that, but it's not.
• 23:48
  Ed: I am really glad, like, really excited for that Saudi World cup where they're going to have the line, it's going to be done, they're going to be rolling in petrol. It's going to be an amazing, amazing time.
• 24:01
  George: The line has been basically canceled at this point. It was going to be a linear city across most of the Saudi Arabian peninsula. And it's basically done.
• 24:10
  Ed: And aside from the massive human rights challenges involved in that, like, we need more stupid, like futuristic things. So like, that's kind of unfortunate, but also, maybe not that stupid. Yeah, screw them. But also, like, what if. Long city.
• 24:27
  Propter: So, yeah. So as of the time of this taping, the state of play is that Balogun is eligible to play this evening, but there is a Belgian appeal that is apparently in process. I think it seems pretty unlikely it's going to bear fruit, but FIFA has invented a new appeals process for Belgium to use in the best tradition, bureaucracy. So I, I guess we'll see how that plays out. Another one for the lawyers.
• 24:56
  Lowtax: I mean, like, we, like, we have lawyers watch like this. I mean, like, we haven't watched Roger Goodell deal with arbitrary like this for years.
• 25:09
  Ed: Right. You know, Roger Goodell doesn't even have anything on these people, though. Like, come on, like. No,
• 25:18
  George: it's being very unfair to Roger Goodell to put him on Infantino's level.
• 25:26
  Lowtax: Okay? Roger Goodell is not as like, overtly corrupt as these people, but the NFL
• 25:33
  Ed: Roger Goodell is the Pawtucket Red Sox of corruption.
• 25:36
  Lowtax: The. Yeah, the Ginger Hammer does do some really arbitrary shit at times.
• 25:46
  Ed: I haven't heard that in so long. I'm surprised he still has hair.
• 25:51
  George: Peptides, man, we're always talking about that. Anyhow, so Baligan is almost definitely going to play against Belgium and I, you know, with Baligan on the field, even without Baligan on the field, I think we would have been pretty decent probability of beating the Belgians. They have a couple of really, really good players. Kevin De Bruyne is, is one who is just incredibly talented and, and a really good ball distributor, really good ball striker, but he's very much over the hill in his career. The other really talented player they have is Jeremy Doku, who is a winger that plays for Manchester City. And when he's on, he is just. He can get to the goals whenever he wants. He's just unbelievable. Very hard to stop. The US doesn't have a ton of really strong fullback type talent from a defensive perspective, but we're going to run like the US Is, I think at this point. It's hard to argue the most athletic in terms of just the amount of running we do and the aggression we play with in this tournament. We are the most athletic team in this tournament, not the best athletes in terms of soccer, but just get out there and run fast and run hard. I think pretty, pretty easy to make the case we're there. And so an aging Belgian squad who they had this sort of golden generation type thing, and they've got one really good player in Doku. And, you know, I think the US Is going to do it with Baligan on the field. I think we're going to do it without Baligan on the field. It becomes a lot harder, but still doable. And we'll see games at 8 o' clock tonight. You will be hearing this long after the game has actually played. So you can come back and make fun of me and my mentions on Blue sky if none of this proves to be the case and the US Flops around like a dead fish and gives up four goals.
• 27:39
  Propter: For what it's worth, the betting odds have stayed pretty close to pick them throughout for this game. Maybe a little bit to Belgium's advantage when it looks like Baligan was going to be suspended, and maybe a little bit to the US Advantage with him playing. So that's, that's where the money is. How that maps to actual, you know, likelihood of outcome is anybody's guess.
• 28:01
  George: It's all been a very nice, trite example of why we follow sports. Right? Sports are totally arbitrary, totally capricious, Right. Whether it's because of true randomness or because of very human factors, Right? Like, sports are something that is fundamentally constructed to be unfair, either spiritually or in practice, despite maintaining this illusion of fairness. And it allows you to project this just amazing tribal vision of the world onto whatever you're doing, whether you're watching a puck bounce around a rink like our quote unquote friend Ed does, or you are playing darts down at the bar on Friday night, right? Like, there is a level of, this is my tribe and I want my tribe to win. That is unmatched outside of sports. And it's a very human impulse, like we are to our core, tribal. Tribal animals. It's what gave us the leg up in early prehistory to become the dominant species on this planet. It's that we identify a tribe and we work really hard for that tribe and they work hard for us and we do stuff together. And sports is a really fun, very contemporary and ultimately low stakes, right? Like the survival of any given country or group of people. Well, there are some exceptions to this. We're not going to talk too much about certain regimes where survival of the players is actually relevant, but, you know, for the vast majority of sports, it's this constructed thing that we become so invested in to vent our impulses towards tribalism and us versus them thinking into. And whether it's the Baligan fiasco itself or just the fact that, you know, a bunch of countries are playing soccer together, it's been a very fun time to see that. That vented out. And, and respectfully, if you're. If you're one of these. Not a sports ball person, this is all beneath me, et cetera. No, no, it's not beneath you. It's what makes you human. Tribalism is what makes us human. And we have to control that impulse and moderate it in situations where there are real things at stake. But on the sports field. Nah, man, no, just. Just buying your tribe. Pick a tribe and buy into it. It doesn't matter which one.
• 30:55
  Propter: Yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about. About America in a minute here. And I think that's. I think that's kind of a good. A good segue into it, because one of the things, I agree with George, that the tribalism is inherent to the human condition, that this is one of the. One of the main drives that humans seem to have is to pick a team and stick with it. And we come up with all these proxies that are not life and death, but sometimes feel that way. But part of the. Part of the challenge of being. Of being a good, of being a good universal liberal in the modern age is figuring out how to expand your tribe, is figuring out how to extend the presumption of tribal membership. The notion that you are on my team, you were of my team to a wider circle. And that is, I think, part of the longtime promise of America. And our solution to that has been at sometimes valuable, at sometimes atrocious. This concept of sort of shrinking and widening kinship circles. Who you see as aligned with you, allied with you and of you, is something that, you know, we've talked about on this podcast a lot, going back to when we talked about Albion Seed early on in the podcast run, and then when we talked about Albion Seed a little later in the podcast run, and then, oh, we get to talk about Albion Seed.
• 32:24
  Ed: No, no, banned.
• 32:26
  Propter: But, you know, these tribes are not exclusively ethnic.
• 32:32
  Ed: And
• 32:34
  Propter: a lot of kind of the liberal project in this world, the liberal political project, is moving away from tribes that are based on ethnicity and tribes that are. That are based on blood ties to something that is more voluntary association, to something where people have optionality and people have agency in terms of tribal associations. And where people can see themselves and see others as moving in and out of these tribes in accordance with their actions and in accordance with their drive.
• 33:08
  Lowtax: The speed with which I ran back into the house from having a cigarette when Proctor mentioned Albion. Seed, just stop the other thing before we leave soccer. And I agree with what both Proctor and George just said. Before we leave soccer. FIFA definitely rigged this to be England versus Norway, right? Like, they saw us making fun of the Brits for their food and they said, oh, you're going to love these guys.
• 33:36
  George: I will say no, they did not, because Brazil really was that bad. Like, Norway beat the pants off Brazil on the weekend. I mean, Holland did all the scoring,
• 33:45
  Ed: but
• 33:47
  George: Norway had two thirds of the possession. I mean, Brazil just looked awful. There was no rigging necessary in that match. The other thing, too, I mean, we've talked about, I talked about a couple episodes ago, a few episodes ago now, the coming together around Arsenal in London and a global fan base as well. That, that sense of community, that was, that was really just all an outpouring of it in when Arsenal won the English Premier League. Like that is an example of that voluntary association and tribalism being fused, right? That is, there are so many people who are fans of that club who are not fans of that club because they're from North London. Lots of people in North London are fans of that club because of where they were born. And that's fine. I'm not saying that that's bad, but there is a massive, massive Arsenal fan base that has no connection whatsoever to North London. I've been to Islington, but, like, that's not why I'm an Arsenal fan. That's not why I'm an Arsenal supporter. I'm an Arsenal supporter because I opted into a group for another soccer team and some of the people in that group were Arsenal supporters. And so I adopted Arsenal. And that's pure voluntary association. That is the liberal ideal. And you can be, you can find that outlet for those sometimes very harmful tribal impulses in ways that are, if not totally constructive, then are very close to constructive and at least contained in a way that, you know, I, I, I, I. Maybe the analogy here is like pornography, right? Like, we have impulses. All, all humans have impulses that, when followed to their maximum, are quite destructive for themselves and for other people. But there are ways of expressing those impulses that are much less harmful than the alternative. And I, you know, I think whether any kind of escapism in a cultural product, and I think pornography has a valence there is an expression of that. And sports is just that. And I, I get that some people don't like watching men or women run around a green field and kick a ball. That's fine.
• 36:02
  Ed: I don't.
• 36:03
  George: I don't care. But if you don't understand the larger underlying impulses of why people care and why they're so invested and why it's such a part of the human condition, I really encourage you to reevaluate.
• 36:17
  Lowtax: I figured you were an Arsenal fan just because you empathized with Stephen Bush having to cover Keir Starmer and Kimi Badenoch every day.
• 36:25
  George: No, but I do empathize with the man on that.
• 36:28
  Propter: Yeah, well, I. I appreciate the George connected Gunners and Gooners on that last one. Oh, my God.
• 36:35
  George: Go away.
• 36:36
  Ed: Leave.
• 36:38
  Propter: I think, you know, it's. It's important that this kind of thing be low stakes to the extent that it can be. Like, you know, we've tried. We've tried voluntary tribalism on basis of religion, and that doesn't go great.
• 36:51
  George: Very bad. Very, very bad.
• 36:53
  Propter: Yeah, like, you don't want. You don't want the group to. Group conflicts there. But sports seem like they work pretty well. They're better than violence. More structured food.
• 37:04
  George: Another potential arena for tribalism that has, you know, decent potential. You can. You can get a little carried away. As we talked about on a previous episode, vis a vis Mexican food. But in general, food rivalry is probably okay, too.
• 37:17
  Propter: Food rivalry is okay. Eurovision. Eurovision is great.
• 37:20
  George: Eurovision is an excellent example. Yes. And congratulations to Canada on participating in the future. Good job, everybody.
• 37:26
  Propter: Yes. Greater Europe continues apace.
• 37:29
  George: Mark Carney, EU A session for Canada when.
• 37:36
  Propter: You know, I think that's one of the sanctions Israel would actually pay attention to.
• 37:44
  Ed: Look, they're not even Europe. Let's be honest. Like eu, NATO. Come on, there's a line.
• 37:52
  Propter: Soft power, baby. Rules everything around me. So.
• 37:58
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 37:59
  Propter: So on the occasion of America's 250th birthday, we wanted to spend a little time talking about, I think what America means. Means to us.
• 38:08
  Ed: Excuse me. There is an asterisk on that 250th birthday. That is not the act. 250th birthday of this country. Thank you. We. I will. I am prepared to litigate this.
• 38:20
  George: Explain your point, Ed.
• 38:21
  Ed: I mean, like, it's the signing of the Declaration of Independence. You're not a country till you win. Right, Right. That was like.
• 38:27
  Propter: That was. That was conception rather than birth.
• 38:29
  Ed: Yeah.
• 38:30
  Propter: Ed is unfortunately correct on the merits.
• 38:32
  Lowtax: I.
• 38:33
  Ed: Not only unfortunately, this means we get to do it correctly.
• 38:37
  Lowtax: Well, no, because now. Well, we haven't heard from the Supreme Court on that yet, though.
• 38:44
  Ed: The Supreme Court of 7000 members, you mean?
• 38:48
  Lowtax: No, no, I mean on the conception versus birth point.
• 38:51
  Ed: Oh, well, yeah, they might get. They might get there before that. No, I'm just saying, like, you can either go from America 1.0, which is 1781, or you can go America 2.0, which is 1789. Both of them. Trump should be. Well, well and truly. It happened by.
• 39:09
  George: Wait, hold on. Shouldn't it be the signing of the Treaty of Paris if you're going by when you won?
• 39:14
  Ed: I mean, I mean, Yorktown. Yorktown was 1781. I think Paris was 1782.
• 39:20
  George: 83. September 3rd. 83. So that would make Labor Day of 2033.
• 39:27
  Ed: I will accept 83 as well. Basically, the answer is not now. Right.
• 39:34
  George: Okay. I think that's fair. The flip side I will offer is that regardless of when the technicalities of the country becoming a country were established, the Declaration of Independence is the fundamental ideal and root of everything good about this country.
• 39:55
  Ed: Agreed.
• 39:56
  George: Like, if from a. Not everything good. Every. Everything good about this country's political contributions and structure and so forth, like, in the political realm. It's.
• 40:04
  Ed: I mean, there's a reason we didn't make any other countries based off the US Constitution. I agree.
• 40:08
  George: Correct. Yes. Like, we had a false start with the Constitution. Let's be real here.
• 40:14
  Ed: Yeah.
• 40:14
  Propter: We.
• 40:14
  Ed: We are on, like, beta 2.0. Like, like everyone else has done, has had a much better option than we have.
• 40:22
  George: Yeah. I mean, I like, first off, you had a full, fully, like, completely failed false start before the Bill of Rights. Bill of Rights was a good start, but obviously insufficient and had many compromises. Reconstruction fixed many of those, but since then it's been. Some improvements could have been made and have not been true. So I'd say what, beta 2.4 or that's.
• 40:45
  Ed: That's true. We've had a few patches. It's, it's, it's been, it's been a little while.
• 40:49
  George: I think we forgot it'd be beta like 3.4, because I think, I think, you know, Bill of Rights has to be 1.0 post. You know, at post bill of rights 2.0, post reconstruction 3.0.
• 41:00
  Ed: I mean, if you're, you're, you are dangerously close to sounding like a Frenchman. Stop. You're going to be on like the seventh frigging Republic in about two seconds.
• 41:15
  Propter: There is no more early American statement than you're dangerously close to Sounding like a Frenchman.
• 41:20
  Ed: It's true.
• 41:22
  Lowtax: We're up to, like, late 2020 cyberpunk patches, let's put it that way.
• 41:28
  George: Yeah.
• 41:29
  Ed: So it doesn't work.
• 41:30
  George: There are many patches still to be made in, in the Constitution. Don't. Don't get me wrong. I'm not. My argument that we' 3.0 or whatever, beta does not mean. Oh, we're. We're very. We're much improved. Like, no, no, no. We got a lot of work to do.
• 41:42
  Ed: Don't say that I haven't solved Microsoft Excel before. I fully understand what you mean.
• 41:46
  George: Okay, good.
• 41:46
  Ed: Yeah.
• 41:47
  Lowtax: Yeah, we eventually. We eventually got to the Switch 2 version of Cyberpunk, but it took a while.
• 41:55
  Ed: Yeah. Like. Like, am. Am I using this as an excuse to take things away from Donald Trump? Yes. But also. Am I right? Yes. And, and really that's the important thing here, is me being right.
• 42:07
  Propter: Right? Yeah, exactly.
• 42:10
  George: Yeah.
• 42:11
  Ed: But no, seriously, like, the, the. The AOC administration has the opportunity to, to really throw down.
• 42:20
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 42:21
  Ed: I mean, it's John Ossoff administration, but, you know, you know, you.
• 42:23
  Lowtax: Yeah, I was going to say, you've still got. You've still got four and a half years until the AOC administration from there.
• 42:31
  Ed: Okay.
• 42:32
  George: Eight.
• 42:32
  Ed: Eight.
• 42:33
  George: Eight and a half.
• 42:35
  Lowtax: No, because it would be 2033. Right.
• 42:37
  George: Oh, right, right, right.
• 42:39
  Ed: But then if we're going by Constitution rules, you're it.
• 42:43
  Lowtax: Yeah, that's true.
• 42:46
  Ed: We've got options.
• 42:49
  Propter: So I think for a lot of us, many of the. The more jingoistic festivities about America 250 have kind of left a bad taste in our mouth. Given the. Given that America is not living up to its promise in a lot of ways for a lot of people right now, for a lot of residents, for a lot of citizens, and for the rest of the world, that this is.
• 43:09
  Ed: I mean, you could have seen the fireworks near your house from where you are right now.
• 43:18
  Propter: Yeah, I mean, they sure lit a lot of them off. And, you know, we had the big UFC fight, we had the. We've got various other spectacles still yet to come that are draped in red, white and blue.
• 43:37
  Lowtax: We have new gold to the Oval Office every week.
• 43:43
  Propter: Yeah, what's with the gold? Like, that's not even going to run
• 43:46
  Lowtax: out of room, I'm telling you. He is a golf monarch with a head injury.
• 43:52
  George: It's being kind of kind to the golf monarchs.
• 43:55
  Propter: Honestly.
• 43:59
  George: I. The thing is, though, like, at what point have the ideals of the American Experiment ever been lived up to in its practice? Has there ever been A point in our history where that's been true. I. I really. I mean, I think you could make a case for a few brief flashes, but consistently, no, never true. Part of that is because the ideals. And, you know, using the Declaration of Independence as those ideals, I think is the way to view this, not the Constitution. Those ideals are so. So high. Right. Like. Like the. The ideals of this country and the promise of this country is so great that you have to really knock it out of the park to live up to them. And we never do. We never do.
• 44:42
  Lowtax: Yeah. Although with the Declaration of Independence, it, you know, was written by a guy who you could very well go, hey, this you?
• 44:50
  Propter: Yeah, you know, sure.
• 44:52
  George: I don't disagree with that at all. But it also. I mean, the. The Declaration was itself the process of forging an agreement that would have been unsinkable a decade before just because the different colonies were so different. They had. They had such different ideas.
• 45:08
  Ed: It's a.
• 45:08
  George: It's a syncretic document that speaks to a way in the world that is incredibly difficult to live up to for anyone, let alone a country as large and diverse and fraught as our own. And I. I think being unhappy with the state of affairs in the United States at any given time is completely reasonable. I think anyone should be. Anyone is on very firm ground in. In feeling so. But I also think a lot about Frederick Douglass. Right.
• 45:44
  Propter: No.
• 45:44
  George: I make no pretension to patriotism. So long as my voice can be heard on this or the other side of the Atlantic, I will hold up America to the lightning scorn of moral indignation. In doing this, I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot, for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins. It is righteousness that exalteth a nation, that while sin, is a reproach to any people. That was in 1847, and I think it's just as true today as it was back then. Right.
• 46:11
  Lowtax: It was spit.
• 46:12
  Ed: It is.
• 46:12
  George: It is patriotic to hope that America lives up to its ideals. I don't think it's actually patriotic to assume it never will because that surrenders the fight, surrenders the fight that Douglas fought. It surrenders the fight that we're all fighting. And I don't think that's patriotic at all.
• 46:30
  Ed: No, but it's easy, which is why people do it.
• 46:33
  George: Yeah. It's a love of self over a love of a greater project. Yep. American patriotism. And I don't mean America flag freedom. I don't mean that kind of patriotism. I don't mean, I don't mean vulgar patriotism. I mean actually caring about the place you live, you can call it whatever you want, you can ascribe whatever ideals to it you want, but actually caring and investing in the place you live, like that is patriotism. And Douglas was, in that respect, the ultimate patriot.
• 47:06
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 47:06
  George: And I think his ideal is one that I try and live up to, not one that assumes no such patriotism is ever worthwhile or virtuous.
• 47:21
  Propter: Yeah, I think that America, when we have come closest to living up to the promises of the Declaration of Independence, we have created a framework where people can demand the rights that were promised and where people can stand up and argue for themselves or for others that we are better than this, we can be better than this, that we can extend the franchise, we can improve access to the good things in life, that we can improve access to opportunity, and that we can rise together. And certainly there are times that the good guys have won more than other times in our nation's past. But, you know, it's been basically a run in the right direction with a few periods of stumbling back. And if we can stay on the long term historical trend line, we'll be doing well. If we can exceed the long term historical trend line, even better. We are unambiguously in a period of backsliding right now. What Trump specifically is doing, it's not just Trump, but he's the locus of a lot of the bad action,
• 48:52
  Ed: is
• 48:54
  Propter: a travesty and insult to human rights and insult to the principles of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. Even if, even with the backsliding, we, we are still in excess of where the bar was during Thomas Jefferson's time and in his own life and in his own men and in his own holdings. You know, we're, we are now, I think, materially worse on human rights than we were certainly three years ago or than we were seven years ago, or than we were 10 years ago.
• 49:30
  Ed: And
• 49:32
  Propter: it's not always going to be like that, that there are going to be opportunities for redemption, there are going to be opportunities for reparation in, in the years to come, hopefully, and we can get back to doing the things that have driven America forward that we can. You know, we've lucked into this position for all of our lifetimes where we've been the beneficiaries of significant brain drain from the rest of the world, where, you know, we have, we have taken the best and brightest and induced them to come to our country globally. And they have come and they have settled here. They have become Americans. Many of them have stayed Americans. And that has been to the overwhelming benefit everyone who lives in America, everyone who is associated with America. I worry a lot that that is broken and that it may be difficult to fix, but that doesn't mean it's unfixable. There's been a crown in the gutter for a few years now, and it doesn't appear that anybody is particularly eager to pick it up. So we may have a chance at another innings here to recapture some of those structural advantages that used to drive America and that also used to be pretty good for humanity, that. That we had this. And maybe it was always a lie that we told ourselves that these were ideals we held of equality and excellence. And that the system was in some ways designed or was at least in some ways repurposed to serve those ideals. But the nature of the lies that we tell ourselves are really important. And it was important to me at least, that this conception of America, my self conception as an American, was in service of these greater lofty goals about human advancement, about human emancipation and about the greater good, but expressed in an individual facing away, that we were moving towards a better world, not just for nation states, but for individuals. And that this would help be a rising tide that lifted all boats and that centered individual agency within that, that centered freedom within that. If that was a lie, it was a good lie. And obviously it has recently come to our attention that some of the people
• 52:30
  Ed: who
• 52:33
  Propter: were invested in that took maybe a different interpretation of some of the attributes of freedom than I did. There's been a lot of talk, particularly in the context of the World cup and in the context of all these displays of nationalism, about the appropriateness of genuflecting towards the symbology of America in an era where on so many axes right now America is clearly a bad actor. That there's a lot to be ashamed of about the way our country is comporting itself right now. We are murdering people in boats on the ocean. We are starting wars for not very good reasons. We are running concentration camps. We are murdering patriots in the streets. There's a lot on the negative side of the ledger right now. And, you know, there is certainly some rump of my countrymen who are still cheering those things. But I think it's really important that we not let that claim. The symbols of the America that was, and hopefully the symbols of the America that will be, that we are not yet past the point of no return where these symbols are irrevocably tainted. And particularly, we cannot let things that are adjacent to these symbols become fully ascendant.
• 54:06
  Ed: You know,
• 54:10
  Propter: I do believe that it's possible for a symbol to be corrupted so far that it can no longer be used, that. That there are associations that can come on a thing that make it so hurtful, so painful, and often intentionally so to others that you have to abandon it and you have to move on. I don't think we're there yet with America, that we still have a lot of credit in the back of world opinion from the past and that the past is a powerful thing to hearken back to for this kind of thing.
• 54:48
  Lowtax: Yeah, I think we can certainly mend all of this. You have to actually make people accountable, though, for what they've done the last few years. Yeah, it's not going to be pleasant, but you have to do it.
• 55:11
  Propter: Yeah, there needs to be. There needs to be at least. At least symbolically a real break and accountability such that people can look back on it and say, okay, this was imperfect, but it was directionally correct that accountability can take a lot of forms. You know, I. I think people like to look at World War II and Nazi Germany as something for which there was significant accountability. I think the accountability there is maybe a little overblown in some ways. We didn't prosecute that many Nazis. We did break Germany as a country, but that wasn't necessarily accountability so much as it was a combination of spoils for the victors and also future harm limitations.
• 56:05
  Lowtax: We did pretty good on those future harm limitations, though, so far, you know.
• 56:10
  Propter: Yeah, no, I'm Germany's. Germany's been a pretty good actor since. Since then, and may they continue to be so. It's clear that some of the tides, you know, operating under the surface there haven't fully receded. Yeah, but, you know, they're hanging on pretty good in an age of rising international reactionary politics. They've clearly got their own issues to deal with, but so far they're doing so admirably.
• 56:38
  Lowtax: Next century, we will teach them to embrace deficit spending. That is our reach goal.
• 56:45
  George: I think they've learned at this point,
• 56:51
  Propter: I agree, that there have to be at least significant prosecutions under. Under a future regime that, you know, and. And I mean, the good news is that they're making it pretty easy that there's. There's a lot of very, very obvious corruption that you can go after people for under a future. You know, inshallah, under a future Democratic administration or under international auspices, possibly that don't need to touch the third rail of, well, actually we are prosecuting you because you held politically abhorrent opinions and did politically abhorrent things. You know, they're also lining their pockets in every way that they can right now. And in theory, everybody agrees you shouldn't be able to do that. You know, we've got the laws on the books. We have enforcement here that is designed to tamp down on corruption and fraud, graft and self dealing. And I think that that's the obvious place to look for these, for these prosecutions. But that said, you know, these prosecutions will be in some ways symbolic of pushing back against larger problems. The self dealing is a significant problem with Donald Trump and his, and his coterie, but it's not the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is that he's a malignant would be dictator who wants to make the lives of everyone else. He interacts with horse, he's xenophobic, he's racist.
• 58:32
  Lowtax: He,
• 58:36
  Propter: insofar as he, as he believes in merit, he believes in a merit that is construed very differently than the merit that I believe in. And it would be great if we could just straight prosecute him for that. I don't think the hooks are there for it.
• 58:51
  Lowtax: He's anti Semitic, he's misogynistic. He is basically the worst man in his generation who somehow at the end of his life ascended to the highest office in the world.
• 59:08
  Propter: Twice.
• 59:10
  Lowtax: Twice.
• 59:11
  Ed: Yeah, pretty much.
• 59:16
  Lowtax: But you have to, I think, I think the world will embrace an idea of Trump as something unique, this unique cancerous entity and that if, if in 2029 you have a Democratic administration come in that is serious about cleaning up this mess. Yeah, I think the world will embrace that very, very happily.
• 59:48
  Propter: Yeah, I mean, certainly they have in past that this, this is not, this is not the first time recently that we've had, we've had to, that we've had to seek forgiveness from the world.
• 59:59
  Ed: Yeah, I, I honestly, I just don't think this is that hard. These people are evil. You don't have to dance around it. And I, I get it. I, I do not mean to minimize what you're, you're saying, because I think you are, I, I think you are right. But like, these are just pieces of, you can kind of stop there. You really can. Like, and, and I have a different view on this. I think in some ways because I grew up around these people and it's like they are not worth interrogating any more. Than that they are pieces of shit. Move on. I find. I find trying to, like, think about the whys and the wherefores of them repellent enough that I just don't. For example, like, I have Trump muted on blue sky. I block people who start talking about them because fudge it, I don't need that. I understand. I already understand what's going on there. Right. Like, the, the. These are antithetical to the American experiment in a very obvious way. And I don't think you have to legislate it. I don't think you have to, like, really dive that deep into it. It's just not that complicated. Some of these people are just evil. And I'm kind of done at that point. And like, there are a lot of them. And it turns out there are probably more than. Well, not more than I thought. Like I said, I did kind of grow up in Republican land, but, like, closer to levers of power than necessarily. I, I really expected, even after, you know, like, should have expected it after 2016. And then, you know, surprise, enough of them voted for him again because burger expensive. But like, I don't know. I look at it to your point earlier, like, the crown is in the gutter and no one wants it. But like, the, the world is a worse place when someone is not. Is not taking at least some stewardship of that and surprise, it has gotten worse. It's probably not going to get better until there is some concerted effort there. And I don't think Europe has the money.
• 1:02:00
  George: It's not just a money thing. It's.
• 1:02:02
  Ed: No, it's. It's a will thing as well. But, like, fundamentally, you have to be able to do it. You have to be able to do it.
• 1:02:08
  George: Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  Ed: And like, who, who, who are the choices? Right. Like, it's a real small list.
• 1:02:12
  George: And I think that, that I always come back to when talking about economic data. Like, you see the narrative that you want to see, and understanding what is narrative versus what is actual reality can get really hard. It's a genuine cognitive trap that you can fall into. I think the idea that the United States will not be an attractive place for talented people to come to in the future, four years down the road, let's say, is incredibly misguided. I think it's just straightforwardly wrong.
• 1:02:47
  Ed: We could one in about 15 minutes.
• 1:02:49
  George: Yeah. Will it be as attractive as it was for the top tier of global intellectual horsepower as it was 10 years ago? Sure. I don't know. We can have that debate. Does the margin really matter? That much? No.
• 1:03:02
  Ed: Yeah. Not at all.
• 1:03:04
  George: No, it doesn't. People want to come to this country, and there's a lot of reasons for that. You've seen it's something as vulgar as going to a buc ee's man. Like, I, you know, that's not what. No, I'm serious.
• 1:03:18
  Ed: I know.
• 1:03:19
  George: Look at, if you look at how some of these people who have never been to the United States, who are here for the World cup have reacted, it's also something as high as, you know, high in the sense of the antithesis of vulgar as, you know, an Egyptian Muslim man visiting a mosque in Seattle and being just in awe of how beautiful it is, of how the trees frame it, of how everyone is welcome, of how they cater to young people and want young people to spend time in the mosque. Right? Like, that guy wasn't happy with the United States because a consumer reason or anything like that. He was happy about the United States because people of his creed were flourishing here. And we're cultivating and investing in the next generation in the way that that comported with his beliefs. And you know, that's, that's a Muslim man here, y'.
• 1:04:12
  Ed: All.
• 1:04:12
  George: Like, that is not, that is not some evangelical visiting from Brazil.
• 1:04:17
  Ed: Right.
• 1:04:17
  George: Like, this is a Muslim man from Egypt being like, Mashallah, like, amazing. This is incredible.
• 1:04:25
  Lowtax: Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  George: You know, and, and now granted, like, if that mosque was in Birmingham, Alabama or outside of Nashville or somewhere like that, granted, maybe it wouldn't be flourishing the same way. Seattle is a pretty friendly place for that kind of faith to put down roots. But it's still American. It's still part of this country, just the same as those other places I listed. And for every flip Benham, who is a protester that I encounter in my reproductive rights work regularly, who led an effort to get a mosque in Connecticut removed around 911 for every flip Venom. There is a community in this country, guy. Yeah, we'll talk offline, but for every noxious evil person like that, that is a part of the firmament of America, there are the people that welcomed a mosque into their neighborhood in Seattle and helped create space for it to grow and flourish to the point where a co religionist could visit from the other side of the world and be in awe of what the community that community has built here.
• 1:05:43
  Lowtax: Right.
• 1:05:43
  George: So, you know, I, I, I think there is good reason to be pessimistic about the state of the world as it currently exists. And I also think it is incredibly dangerous to wishcast your pessimism about the Current moment, however justified it may be onto the future or onto other people's perceptions of our country, because they are not the same thing. They're not. When we were last in Italy, I can remember being. I was a little bit heavier back then. And we had to trudge up the hill to this really amazing restaurant that they grew all the food on the property and it was run by a small team. You know, classic Italian, like, kind of vibe, right? Like. And we get in the door and we've walked, I think probably about a mile, but it's like straight uphill from. It was either Minori or Mori, I can't remember which one it was. And we walk in the door and I am hot. And when I get hot, I get sweaty. And, you know, it's the Amalfi coast in, I think it was August and it's hot. And so after we get done, it's, you know, it's dark. And the restaurateur insists in broken English, like, I'm driving you home. I'm gonna drive you home. And so we get into his little manual, two door, four seater and start lurching down the hill. And he just won't stop talking about his memory. This guy's elderly at this point. His memory of being a little boy and meeting American troops, liberating his village from the Italian regime, from the fascist regime. And there is nothing you could say to that man about the current United States to take those memories from him or to change his perception of Americans based on his lived experience? Does that mean his lived experience is the correct or only or objective assessment of the. Of America that everyone, everywhere in the world holds, and that's what America is? No, absolutely not. But there is a lot of that floating around this world because there are a lot of Americans and we punch above our weight per capita or however else you want to phrase it in people's perceptions of the world for both good and ill. And assuming that everyone only sees the bad or only experiences the bad is just as silly, misguided, and unreasonable as assuming the opposite. That people only experience the good.
• 1:08:07
  Ed: And it tends to come out a lot just because we are on the Internet a lot and these people are loud and like, are they wrong? Are they wrong? Not entirely. Are they mostly just kind of like, letting their. Their depressive goblins at the keyboard very frequently and, like, there is a balance to be had where, like, admittedly, some of it is just my natural oppositional defiance disorder. I can write who but. But, like, yeah, I mean, look, it got me out of the Republicans. But like, it's, it does get tiring. And like, this is one of the reasons that like, I watch the news less than anyone on this, on this podcast by far. I, and by which I mean none. Like, I pretty much get most of it through like one or two, like, news drops a day, like a day or a week. And like, it is, it is pre true to. Here are the facts, right? Like, I, I have no interest in like, as much as I have delightful blue sky mutuals who write articles of, of all sorts. I don't read them because I'll just get mad, right? Like, they don't do anything other than like, in the current moment, that's just all there, right? And so like, you figure out where you are in terms of principles and that stuff, and I think you're fine. But like a lot of the, A lot of the screaming is just that people don't really have them. They're just reacting to whatever ox is being gored at the current moment. And like, I don't think that's sustainable over the long haul, right? Like, I watched lots of people melt their brains from like 2016 to 2020. And then Covid happened, right, like, and like, it is very like unashamedly a self protection measure on my part. But you start seeing, you start seeing shadows around every corner, around like these like, people, people, Americans moving to Canada calling like the American flag a hate symbol. Okay, okay, right. Like, this is, this is a thing that we run into a lot, I think. And I think that's kind of more of like a hazard for us because, like, people yell at us a lot. We're very popular on the Internet, gentlemen. But like, it's figuring out that perspective. And like, what George is saying, like, that's very, you know, I've had similar experiences in Italy, as it happens. It turned it. Maybe it's just a theme, but like, it is very easy to either listen to a bunch of yelling people on the Internet or watch the dreaded short form video and come away with like an opinion that is just absolutely cracked. And I think a lot of people have completely lost the plot on that, right? Like, they've just, they have bought into. They, They've picked their narratives and they will not let go of them. And probably not real.
• 1:10:59
  Lowtax: It's also just main character syndrome. True, it's American exceptionalism, but dour and shitty. You take the good with the bad, right?
• 1:11:10
  Ed: As an actual American exceptionalist, I do kind of take some, some umbrage with this. Yes.
• 1:11:16
  Lowtax: Yeah, you Take the good with the bad about America, on the one hand we don't use the metric system. On the other hand, we do know soccer is bullshit.
• 1:11:29
  Ed: Well, at least low tax. And I can agree on something.
• 1:11:34
  Lowtax: Yeah, George looks very mad at that.
• 1:11:37
  Ed: I mean, you got a twofer. You got the metric system and soccer.
• 1:11:41
  George: Yeah, I'm, I'm just not going to start any fights.
• 1:11:45
  Ed: He's turning over a new leaf.
• 1:11:48
  Propter: Yeah, I, I get, I, I guess there are two points there that I kind of want to restate and synthesize. One, about extending the longer tribe tribe, whether that's to our Egyptian mosque goer in Seattle that, you know, the World cup has been a great example, I think, of hospitality. And that is a pretty fundamental concept in tribalism that, you know, when you bring someone into your, into your home, into your area, into your tribe, they are, if only temporarily, a member of your tribe. They have guest rights that make them equivalent to one of you. They are no longer the foreigner, no longer the sojourner. They are equal to you in some way. And you can put various temporary restrictions on that. And we do. But that's I think fundamental to the concept of hospitality. And that's an important thing that we've done a pretty good job of at various times and in the context of the World cup, have done. I think that the people of America have done a pretty good job of that and the government of America has done a pretty terrible job of that. I'm heartened by the example of the people and dismayed by the example of the government. The second thing that George and I both touched on, that I want, that I kind of want to revisit is overcorrecting in response to temporary news that there are still a lot of people in the world. There are still a lot of people in the rising parts of the world, in Africa, in India, in China, in South America, who are not glued to the day to day news of America. That their conceptions about what America is were set years ago and if they move, move slowly from there, maybe they were set years before their birth. You know that, that, that there are still places where we are coasting on the myth of America, that there was where the significant soft power that we wielded in years past, where the ideals that we tried to promulgate are still going to carry forward and to a large extent it's not going to matter what we do right now for those shots that have been in the air for years, that it's not even just, it's not Even a propaganda war, it's that we told the story so loud for so long that the story is true.
• 1:14:49
  Ed: And.
• 1:14:55
  Propter: Whatever America is today, whatever America is in five years, whether we write the ship or whether we don't, it matters what people believe America was, if they think that's good, because that's still a set of ideals and goals that they will strive for. We'll find out, I guess, in a couple of years, whether or not
• 1:15:26
  George: the
• 1:15:26
  Propter: myths that made America still resonate for Americans, whether or not we can get people away from the levers of power. It seems pretty clear at this point that the American populace is not super interested in what Donald Trump's Republicans are selling. But, you know, they're. They're still in control of the government there. There's significant, actual, functional, titular power that comes along with that. So, you know, we sort of need to let the. The popular mandate, I guess, for a less corrupt, more free, more exalted America take those levers of power back over. But I think that we sowed the seeds pretty well internationally that, that people have a strong idea now of what America should be, even if they're not Americans, and that that is going to inform the course of lots of places that, you know, if you, if you try to do. You know, George said earlier that we never really lived up to the Declaration of Independence. And that's totally true. We never really did, but we tried at times in a way that, you know, resulted in some of the aims of the Declaration coming through. Even if, Even if the framers of the Declaration didn't live up to it, even if they're just. Even if their children didn't live up to it, that we got home on some of those generations later holding those up as ideals rather than as direct blueprints that directionally we were moving in towards all men are created equal. Even if we didn't wholly get there, that was valuable. And I think that there is still significant momentum on some very, very heavy inertia bearing things that is going towards these admirable goals, and that will be difficult to arrest.
• 1:17:43
  Lowtax: So you say that, you say that the public is not really interested in what Trump and the Republicans are selling right now. But I don't know, man. I, you know, giving a big WET speech on July 4th about Communists in 2026, I think. Very inspiring. He's right around. He's right there turning the ship around,
• 1:18:05
  George: you know, Is that what his speech was about? I didn't catch any of it.
• 1:18:10
  Lowtax: So it wasn't. There was a lot of stuff about flags. I, I didn't watch it, but I kind of followed it on Blue Sky. It, it was incoherent.
• 1:18:20
  Ed: I read the attempts at a transcript and like saying it is about anything is a bit of a stretch.
• 1:18:27
  Lowtax: They said we're the hottest country on earth. I can tell you folks. And, and George Washington, if he were here today, would say, washed up psycho Bette Midler could never have done it, sir. And you're really hearing it more and more.
• 1:18:43
  George: Oh my God.
• 1:18:44
  Ed: But I mean like, like there, there is a lot of hedging for obvious reasons, but like, look at these fucking piss cowards. They, they just, every time they fucking talk on tv, you can see that these people know that they are done. They like, yes, they have, they have, as Proctor says, titular power for a certain length of time. They should be looking at how to evac to Argentina. Like Peter Thiel already is.
• 1:19:10
  George: Yeah, I assure you some of them are.
• 1:19:12
  Ed: Yeah. Like these, these people are going to be, be creating like suspicious children with poorly texture mapped heads in there in the next like 15 years. Right. Like in, in the depths of Argentina. Like the.
• 1:19:26
  Lowtax: They.
• 1:19:26
  Ed: They know they are washed every time you see J.D. vance talk. I mean like, he looks even more scared than he used to when a camera's pointed at him.
• 1:19:33
  Lowtax: What is the, what is the modern equivalent of like having an ancestral sauerkraut recipe in Buenos Aires?
• 1:19:45
  George: Owning a lot of crypto in Buenos Aires?
• 1:19:48
  Lowtax: Oh yeah, yeah, something like that.
• 1:19:50
  Ed: But like it, it's is frustrating I think for a lot of people, myself very much included that like, it would be nice to like not watch these failing pieces of shit continue to fail and lose and screw up everything that they have ever tried to do. Because really, like, I can't think of a more unbroken litany of failure other than lucking into actually winning. Like Trump won. Yes. And then everything after that has been this cavalcade of incompetent bullshit. Like, can they point to one thing they have done that has worked like one unambiguous success? I can't think of one because they suck at life. And like they know it. They're all constantly in a state of flop sweat. And so it's like if anything, like, I'm kind of just looking for a fast forward button. Right? Like, and so are lots of people, but they won't put their phones down. So, so it's. It. It kind of gets real bad. But like they're not, they, they are not making an indelible mark. That is not just Sharpie mustaches This is all fixable.
• 1:21:01
  Lowtax: They've got Stephen Miller crying about cruise ships coming into American waters where like a whole boat of soon to be moms give birth.
• 1:21:15
  Ed: Yeah, Tom Clancy would have found that unrealistic. Yeah, yeah, Like. And like, you just look at these, these, these assholes and it's just, they don't own this. They never did. And like the, I shouldn't say they never did. They had a strong argument towards it in the 1840s, but like, I, I actually find very frequently just find myself getting frustrated because I look at them like, who cares what they say? And yes, they obviously have power. They are obviously still able to project power. But like they, they are just flailing and they're.
• 1:21:54
  Lowtax: This was always going to happen though. Yeah, right. Like they're Trump, Trump getting, getting elected, reelected in 24 was always going to result in these guys doing a whole bunch of horrible and stupid shit and the public going, oh, right, these guys, these guys suck. Like, that was always gonna happen.
• 1:22:22
  Ed: And like, yes, tremendous own goal, but also like, we've done this before. They're obviously populations being absolutely targeted. I am not in, in the slightest referring to, you know, like, keep your head on a swivel if you, if you have personal reason to. But dear God, so many of these people, like, they are allowing themselves to be terrorized in a way that like, we kind of need to not. And like, it's going to just be, it's going to be, it's going to feel worse and worse as the ability of the executive to enact the shit they want to enact goes away. Because I, I don't read the news, but I've seen polls. This is going to be very bad for them. They are going to be living in the Senate chambers for the next two years. The House is going to be like camping inside of their assholes. Like, they're just going to be fucking dealing with these like very angry Democrats for the next two years. What are the. When are they going to have time to like, press the be evil button? And so it's just like, just. You can take a longer view. It sucks. But you have to because like, yes, we, we've been in bad spots before. It 10. It, it tends to work.
• 1:23:49
  Lowtax: We muddle through and we go two steps forward and one step back pretty much.
• 1:23:57
  Propter: I've been on my summer vacation the last couple weeks. I've been out in New Mexico and out in Montana, which are rural western states, that they're not the reddest places out there, but they're not true blue by any. By any means. And the parts of the state that I've been in are not. Are not particularly blue centers. I haven't seen a single MAGA insignia the entire time I've been out here. I haven't seen a single MAGA hat. I've seen some Republican stuff, but I haven't seen any Trump stuff. And I think that that's hopefully a leading indicator of where things are going that hasn't been true in the past years when I made this trip. There's been some amount of that.
• 1:24:45
  Ed: Yeah, I, I live in a particularly colorful area of, Of Massachusetts where you can typically see like, that one old guy driving around with a Trump flag bolted to the back of his, like, 1993 Ford Escort. No, not anymore. Right. Like I was joking. The guy down the street not only took down his. His Trump signs, he took down his supporter, the troop sign. We are, we are at critical levels of. Of like. We are at critical levels of juicelessness around here. They're.
• 1:25:21
  Lowtax: They're uphill, but still a 1993 Ford Escort with a big Trump flag. That is.
• 1:25:28
  Ed: I'm not joking about any part of that sentence.
• 1:25:31
  Lowtax: Wow, England really is different.
• 1:25:34
  Ed: Yeah, it is. There was the guy who almost ran me over the other day, whose car was covered in. In Jesus loves you magnetics, you know, magnetic bumper stickers and a Trump sign on the back. So, like, there's still a threat. Like what? Watch out in the crosswalks. But like.
• 1:25:54
  George: Well, that mix of optimism and pessimism and just dose of reality was our show for this week, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the World Cup. I will be putting on my Western McKinney jersey, Weston McKinney Pride jersey, I should say to wear around for the rest of the day today as soon as I end this recording. And I hope y' all take whatever solace you can from the battle on the pitch in the World cup and the battle for our hearts in the discourse with that for normal men. In Charlotte, I'm George.
• 1:26:26
  Propter: In Montana, I'm Proctor.
• 1:26:29
  Lowtax: In outer Florida, I'm low tech speed running dryer.
• 1:26:32
  Ed: And in Boston, the mid.
• 1:26:33
  George: Stay normal, y'.
• 1:26:34
  Lowtax: All.