Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 493: Principles and Preferences

Transcript

Episode 493: Principles and Preferences · Words & Numbers

0:00
Coming up next on words and numbers, the dollar.
0:03
The exclusive Citizenship Act. Bill Belichick.
0:07
And when Republicans become Democrats and Democrats become
0:11
Republicans. All this and more coming up next
0:13
on Words and Numbers, a Civil original production.
0:16
Check us out at civil.com. That's C ivl.com.
0:21
Hi, I'm James. And I'm Anthony and.
0:22
This is words and numbers. Aunt, that's not exciting in
0:30
your world this week. I ran across this bill that's
0:34
been proposed by Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio called the
0:39
Exclusive Citizenship Act. Now I'm just according to I'm
0:43
just guessing that Bernie is a Republican.
0:47
Yes, Republican, just according to ChatGPT.
0:52
This does not stand a snowball's chance of making it anywhere,
0:56
but nonetheless, it's worth talking about.
1:00
The Citizenship Act, as proposed, seeks to establish
1:06
that citizens of the United States, quote, owe sole and
1:10
exclusive allegiance to the United States.
1:14
That's going to be tough. Yeah, well, in practice, the
1:17
Bill Wood Forest U.S. Citizens who also possess
1:21
foreign citizenship to submit a written renunciation of one of
1:28
their nationalities within a year.
1:30
Yeah, that's never going to happen.
1:32
It's also ain't going to cause problems for, say, Catholics,
1:36
for Catholics. No, Catholics aren't considered
1:40
citizens of of Vatican. But they owe their allegiance to
1:46
someone outside of the country. Yeah.
1:49
But that's the, I think that's beyond what this is talking
1:52
specifically about nationalities.
1:56
What, what's as if it's not disturbing enough, there's a
2:00
later clause that says that citizens who acquire another
2:06
citizenship in the future would be deemed to have relinquished
2:11
US citizenship. So in other words, if you get,
2:13
if you are able to get dual citizenship after this thing
2:17
passes and you exercise that right and you become a dual
2:21
national, you will have been deemed under the law to have
2:24
simultaneously renounced your US citizenship.
2:28
That's crazy. Yeah, and there's all kinds of
2:31
questions here. And this, this went from, in my
2:35
head, amusing to interesting to disturbing because I realized I
2:42
actually fall under the the category here.
2:47
I had to look it up because my mother insisted that I was Auk
2:51
citizen and I said no, I'm not, I haven't done any of the
2:54
paperwork, blah blah blah. Turns out I was wrong under the
2:59
law when I was born under UK law, I was automatically upon
3:04
birth considered Auk citizen. Well, congratulations.
3:08
Although born in the US, so apparently I've been a dual
3:11
national all this time and didn't know it.
3:13
Well, here's the interesting thing.
3:15
Suppose this exclusive citizenship Act became law and I
3:20
or people like me are walking around with dual nationality,
3:24
maybe not even knowing it. And so I get picked up for
3:29
something and the government says, oh, look at this, guy's a
3:33
dual national. He's passed the one year window
3:37
of renouncing one of the other citizenship.
3:39
Therefore we deem that he has automatically given up his US
3:42
citizenship and they deport me. Well.
3:46
You know, there was somebody, and I wish I could remember who.
3:50
I want to blame all this stuff on Stephen Miller, but that's
3:53
not always true. So I'm just going to say, I
3:57
don't know which of the imbeciles it was, but somebody
4:02
in the administration was opining recently that we would
4:06
be better off if there were only 100 million Americans, 100 This
4:10
would be a This would be a nice way to get rid of a bunch of
4:13
people who think they're Americans.
4:16
Yeah. You know, what people miss is
4:19
that it's human beings that are are the the engines of the
4:24
economy. We had 100 million people once.
4:28
It was called the 1900s. And if you'd like to go back to
4:32
that standard of living, just keep on pushing in that
4:34
direction. Well, a a bunch of those fools
4:38
do want to go back to that because they're they're at heart
4:41
a pack of agrarians. They think we'd all be better
4:44
off as gentlemen farmers. I for one am not interested.
4:48
But one of one of two things is true.
4:50
Either the vast majority of Americans are just completely
4:55
wrong and and they're right that we would be better off as
4:59
farmers. Or alternatively, if they are
5:01
right, American should be flocking to the heartland to
5:06
take up farming. Now, the fact that they're not
5:08
tells me that these guys are missing something.
5:11
And if they had the courage of their convictions, they'd all
5:13
want that life for themselves. Right, right.
5:17
We wouldn't be hearing from them because they wouldn't have an
5:19
Internet connection. We're going to be talking about
5:22
the courage of 1's convictions quite a lot today, so I will.
5:26
I will say this, I have wanted a European passport for quite some
5:31
time and you know it. It just so happened that it
5:36
seemed to be the case that I could get an Italian passport
5:40
through Italian citizenship from my mother's side of the family.
5:43
They either changed the rules or I didn't qualify.
5:46
My daughter was handling all of this, of course, and it just
5:50
isn't to be. So if someone out there from the
5:52
Italian government is is listening and get me a passport,
5:56
would you? But you know, yeah.
5:58
And and that. Would be a European passport
6:01
would be far more valuable than Auk passport.
6:04
You know with Brexit now UK passport gets you into the UK
6:07
and that's it. European passport can go
6:09
wherever you want. But for people, I would like to
6:11
be able to just walk past the line with my European passport
6:15
and say I'm home everyone. Yeah.
6:18
Well, you know, when this was round about 2021 or so, my wife
6:27
and I went to Spain and at one point we're walking the Camino
6:31
and we crossed the border from Spain to Portugal.
6:35
And you could see it up there. It's, you know, there's a bridge
6:38
and you're crossing it and they have a guard stands where they
6:42
check your passports and all of that.
6:43
And the big sign that says, you know, Spain, whatever, there's
6:49
nobody in the building. You just walk across.
6:52
It's like walking from Maryland to Pennsylvania, right?
6:56
Yeah, but only for people who are concerned about this.
7:00
I did a little bit of digging and apparently the Supreme Court
7:03
has already addressed this. In a Freudian V Rusk 1967, the
7:11
Supreme Court explicitly rejected involuntary loss of
7:16
citizenship under the guise of the 14th Amendment.
7:21
The 14th amendment saying all port persons born in the US are
7:25
citizens and the Supreme Court's position was the 14th Amendment
7:29
takes the power of takes the power away from Congress to
7:33
revoke citizenship I. Think that's right?
7:36
Ultimately it it it's just horrifying that here we have a
7:41
sitting member of Congress who thinks this is a good idea,
7:44
right? I mean, these are the guys who
7:46
purportedly took an oath of office to defend the
7:49
Constitution and so forth. But but the story gets a little.
7:52
At it that most of them have not read read.
7:56
Because the the Supreme Court decision of Freudian V Rusk was
8:01
based on the 14th Amendment that Congress does not have the power
8:04
to quote involuntarily strip citizenship.
8:08
Now this exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025 could argue that
8:15
there is no involuntary stripping of citizenship because
8:20
we are saying if you're a dual national, you must.
8:26
They're going to say, quote, UN quote, voluntarily submit the
8:29
written renunciation of one of your nationality.
8:32
So nobody's stripping you of your nationality.
8:35
You're going to renunciate it. But that, to me, sounds like a
8:39
clear First Amendment violation. Yeah, I don't know.
8:42
I'd have to think that one through CAN.
8:44
Can the government, I mean, the government would be compelling
8:47
speech in this instance. Yeah, and compelled speech has
8:51
been covered time and again, and it it's a of dubious
8:55
constitutionality. Yeah, but but specific.
8:58
Not just compelling speech, but specifically compelling
9:01
political speech. Well, you find that when the
9:04
government compels speech, that's inevitably the kind that
9:07
it compels, yeah. But the the footnote to all of
9:11
this is that I have discovered that Ant plus ChatGPT equals
9:15
James. How do?
9:18
You figure so. Welcome to Numbers and Numbers
9:21
or Words and Words. I'm Anthony Davies, Co host of
9:25
Words and Numbers. James Harrigan and I are proud
9:27
to be on Civil's Network because we believe in their unifying
9:30
principle of human respect, which is the idea that our
9:33
well-being as humans is diminished when we employ
9:36
coercion and that conversely, our happiness and prosperity are
9:39
maximized when we cooperate. If you share this belief, join
9:43
us at civil.com. That's civl.com.
9:47
We are here recording this on a Wednesday and on the day
9:52
previous Tuesday, the United States dollar fell 1.3%, posting
9:59
its worst day since April and touching its lowest level since
10:03
February of 2022. All this as Donald Trump says,
10:08
the currency hasn't fallen too low and and we we have talked in
10:13
the past about the politicians desire for a weak dollar, right,
10:21
Right. And which that which sounds
10:22
counter intuitive. Weak.
10:25
Dollar, yeah, Weak dollar means that it's cheaper for foreigners
10:29
to buy US goods, so it increases our exports.
10:34
And it makes it more more expensive for us to buy goods,
10:39
right? Which decreases our imports.
10:41
Yeah, right. So unfortunately, the United
10:45
States government seems to have a policy of devaluation.
10:49
It seems to be working, and that's another form of
10:53
inflation. My dollars are just simply worth
10:55
let. My dollars are worth less today
10:58
than they were yesterday. Well, yes and no.
11:01
I mean, they're worth less relative to foreign currencies.
11:06
So it's kind of a directed inflation that the foreign
11:10
imports become more expensive. I get, yeah, I get.
11:12
OK, I get where you're coming from.
11:15
I think it sucks in our life but.
11:17
Here's the thing that that where we started off with of cheering
11:22
the weak dollar because it increases exports and decreases
11:25
imports. There's a name for that.
11:28
It's called mercantilism. An economist figured out that
11:31
mercantilism was a flawed philosophy, and they figured it
11:35
out about 250 years ago. Yeah.
11:38
That was one of them 18th century things that America
11:42
fixed, yeah. It would be like the IT would be
11:44
like the head of the CDC saying, you know, what we need is more
11:47
leeches and bloodletting. Well, I've done that.
11:50
I'm in. I'm.
11:51
In favor of those things on a targeted basis, like a big who
11:56
gets leached. That'd be great.
11:58
But you know, people don't realize this Ant but the United
12:01
States was declared independent and I would say founded in 1776
12:08
and Adam Smith published the Wealth of Nations in 1776.
12:12
It was a really, really good year for humanity.
12:16
And we keep. Unlearning.
12:18
The lessons of both of those things?
12:20
Yep, Now, so it goes. This Ant, of course, brings us
12:25
to the foolishness of the week. And the foolishness of the week
12:28
is one of my favorite things. And talking about sports,
12:33
especially football is one of my favorite things.
12:37
And it's one of my favorite things simply.
12:39
And it's one of my favorite things because it agitates you
12:42
so completely. But I know.
12:44
I'm just thinking now, how many episodes have I sat through?
12:47
Something about football. Well, add one more because Bill
12:52
Belichick, the greatest NFL coach of all time, has been
12:58
denied entrance into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
13:04
You. As a non sports person, I want
13:06
to read to you his accomplishments. 6 Super Bowl
13:11
titles as head coach with the New England Patriots.
13:15
That's more than everybody else. Two more as assistant coach for
13:21
the New York Giants. Total wins second in NFL
13:25
history. Playoff wins.
13:28
First Coach of the year, 3 times division titles, 17, which is a
13:36
record longest dynasty in my beloved New England Patriots
13:41
2001 to 2019. Six Super Bowl wins and 9
13:45
appearances. And he was omitted during his
13:50
first year of eligibility from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
13:54
If he didn't make it on the first ballot, no one should.
13:59
He was just an angry. Any reason why?
14:03
Yeah, a bunch of personal politics.
14:07
One weasel named Bill Polian. And Bill Polian, if you're out
14:10
there, up yours. One weasel campaigned against
14:15
him, got enough people to agree, and now he's got to wait till
14:19
next year. It's a it's a crime.
14:24
What has happened. It's so egregious that people
14:27
who hate him disagree with what happened.
14:31
But it's interesting when things like this happen.
14:33
I'm thinking to to the Nobel Peace Prize and they've done it
14:36
a number of times where they shun an obvious contender and in
14:41
the end it blows back because it it degrades the prize well.
14:46
This, this certainly degrades the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
14:49
It certainly does. This is a black guy that they
14:52
won't recover from anytime soon. But so it goes.
14:55
We got bigger fish to fry today than than just football, even
15:01
though football is one of the most important things in the
15:03
world, especially this time of year when the Super Bowl and the
15:08
Patriots happening pretty soon. But something else occurred to
15:14
us watching the events that unfolded in Minnesota over the
15:20
last. I guess it's been a week or so
15:22
at this point and you and I have taken a hands off approach to
15:29
hot button issues. We always want to have more
15:31
light than heat, and even today, we're going to be talking about
15:39
what happened in the wake of Alex Preti's shooting, right?
15:44
He was shot and killed by ICE agents.
15:46
We've all seen the footage by now, and it's yet another
15:49
Rorschach test. People on one side of the
15:53
political aisle watched the film and they say he was clearly
15:58
asking for it. People on the other side of the
16:02
divide watch the film and say an innocent man was gunned down.
16:08
Well, all right, we're going to leave that off to the side for
16:12
the most part, because what's interesting here for our
16:16
purposes is how the two political parties seem to have
16:22
utterly and completely switched sides on the matter of the
16:26
Second Amendment. Yeah, right.
16:29
And I think that's curious, to say the least.
16:34
I think it's more disgusting than curious because it proves
16:39
that nobody in politics has any principles at all.
16:44
And And what am I talking about? Donald Trump came out and said,
16:50
well, he shouldn't have been carrying a gun at a protest.
16:56
I don't like that. Donald Trump said, well, the
16:59
Second Amendment indicates you can carry a gun anywhere.
17:02
You couldn't God damn well please, and the government can
17:05
have no legitimate say in the matter.
17:09
And furthermore, Aunt, I know you own a gun.
17:13
I hope you don't mind that I've outed you in this respect.
17:16
I think you've done it before many times.
17:18
I also own a a handgun. When are you most likely to take
17:24
it with you? When I'm.
17:26
Going somewhere, I think I'm going to be in danger.
17:29
Yeah, right. When you're going to a place
17:32
that you're not convinced will be completely safe because in
17:37
the end you have yourself to rely on and only yourself.
17:42
I, I know you carry it with you because you and I went and got
17:45
gun licenses the first day that you bought a gun.
17:49
And I don't even like the idea of gun licenses.
17:52
That sounds like a possible infringement.
17:55
Now, where we lived in western Pennsylvania, there was a big
17:59
sign on the wall that said everybody who applies
18:02
automatically gets a license. Yeah, which which Which means
18:07
you didn't need one in the first place, which is pretty good.
18:11
Now, where I live in Arizona, we have no gun laws.
18:16
None. You want to carry a gun, Go
18:18
ahead. Concealed carry, fine.
18:21
Open carry, fine. You want to carry a rifle?
18:24
Go ahead. Do we experience more gun
18:28
violence than anybody else? No, we do not.
18:32
And you and I wrote a chapter on gun violence in our book
18:34
Cooperation and Coercion, looking for that one detail,
18:39
that one variable that would explain why some places have a
18:42
lot of gun violence and others don't.
18:44
And we couldn't find it. It doesn't exist.
18:48
Isn't that curious? And and to be.
18:49
Honest, it cuts both ways. We did not find I was hoping to
18:53
find we did not find that states with more liberal, I should say
18:59
liberal states with fewer gun restrictions do not have lower
19:05
crime rates, which is why I was hoping to find does not.
19:07
That's not the case. However, it doesn't go the other
19:09
way either. Having more restrictions doesn't
19:12
lower your crime rates. Doesn't seem to.
19:14
Help. Right there.
19:15
There any number of ideas that we both walked into with that
19:19
chapter, all of which turned out to be incorrect.
19:23
I was convinced it was going to be population density that
19:26
explained gun violence. Not even close.
19:29
So what causes gun violence? Well, I mean, you could be a, a
19:33
smart Alec about it and say guns, but that doesn't really
19:37
get to the heart of the matter. We, we honestly don't know.
19:41
And you and I have always said we go with the data, not with
19:46
our preconceived ideas. And the data here told us
19:51
nothing. Yeah.
19:52
And, you know, someone can take the take the contradictory view
19:57
and say, well, you know, maybe guns don't kill people, people
20:03
kill people. But if I take the guns away from
20:06
you, it makes it harder for you to kill people.
20:09
And it turns out that this does actually not so much but case.
20:13
Which, as you might think, yeah. We looked at the case, we did a
20:16
comparison of the US to Australia during the period when
20:21
Australia confiscated it's, I don't know whether it was all
20:26
guns or long guns, but there was a big confiscation in place
20:30
where Australia was reducing the number of guns it had.
20:33
And what happened was it's the number of murders, gun murders
20:39
actually did go down. And people start cheering,
20:41
saying, look, this is evidence that that that that gun
20:45
restriction works. Except if you care about this,
20:48
you don't care about how many people are killed by guns.
20:51
You care about how many people are killed.
20:53
And it turned out over the same period that the number of people
20:56
killed by guns went down, the number of people killed by
20:58
knives went up. Yeah, imagine that.
21:02
And you know, we get this from the UK all the time, right?
21:05
They, they disarmed their citizens long time ago.
21:08
Now you're not allowed to have a steak knife because they found
21:12
that people got all stabby when their guns were taken away.
21:17
And I mean, one of the one of the numbers I love quoting is
21:21
here in the US and you can look it up, go to Bureau of Justice
21:25
Statistics. FBI has a beautiful database
21:27
there. The number of Americans who are
21:30
killed annually by rifles. So, you know, we do this big
21:33
thing about the AR fifteens and all of that number of Americans
21:36
who are killed by rifles is less annually than number of people
21:40
who are killed by fists, kicking and kicking, punching.
21:45
It Yeah, it it's feet. And fists, feet and fists.
21:48
Sorry, too wet, less feet. And lest, lest.
21:51
Somebody get all up in the the hate mail.
21:55
But I mean, look, I everywhere I go, I carry a Swiss Army knife.
22:00
I got caught with that in Great Britain.
22:01
I I'd probably go to jail. Yeah, right.
22:05
That's mean. Also I think there's like a
22:07
three inch limit or something. And that's, you know, that's how
22:11
silly it's become. But now we've got the president
22:15
of the United States saying, well, he shouldn't have brought
22:21
the gun with him. OK, shouldn't bring a gun to a
22:25
protest. I have a couple of questions.
22:31
The 1st is what about Kyle Rittenhouse?
22:36
You might remember him. He brought an AR15 to a protest
22:42
and then killed a guy. He was the hero of the right.
22:47
He actually shot three people Kenosha, WI and he was the
22:52
darling and continues to be of the right wing I.
22:58
Don't know that she tells of that story.
22:59
Who'd who'd he kill? Protesters who were chasing him
23:04
to do him some harm. OK, All right.
23:07
Now it was somebody, it was in defense.
23:08
It was in self-defense, Yeah. He he was cleared of wrongdoing,
23:13
let's say, OK. And look, I wasn't there.
23:17
But from the details I heard, I think it it, it was a reasonable
23:23
shoot. But we've got a better example.
23:27
And there, there were these two utter clowns, and their names
23:32
were Patricia and Mark McCloskey.
23:35
Does that ring a bell at all to you?
23:37
No, let me rephrase. We had these two clowns who has
23:43
a Black Lives Matter protest came through their neighborhood.
23:47
They walked out of their house. Oh, with.
23:51
A rifle and her with a with a handgun and stood guard on the
23:56
sidewalk. Do you remember that?
23:58
Yeah, yeah, Everybody remembers that.
24:02
And did the Republicans say, well, you shouldn't have brought
24:06
guns to a protest? No, they invited them to speak
24:11
at the RNC. So we've gone from.
24:16
Turning. People who bring guns to
24:19
protests from absolute heroes, so much so that they're invited
24:24
to speak at the Republican National Convention, to now
24:28
saying whatever happened, he probably brought it on himself
24:33
'cause he brought a gun to a protest.
24:39
And who, oddly enough, was the first person from the left to
24:45
come out charging the Republicans with not caring
24:49
about the Second Amendment? Gavin Newsom, But you've got to
24:57
be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me.
25:00
He's proposed the 28th Amendment that would take your guns away.
25:05
How did we get here? All of a sudden Democrats and
25:10
their, let's just say allies in the mainstream media are all in
25:17
favor now of people exercising their Second Amendment rights
25:20
when exactly those people a year ago would have been horrified by
25:26
the very prospect. Meanwhile, all of the
25:29
Republicans, I use all, and I know it's not every single
25:34
Republican, but there is a preponderance of the Republicans
25:39
off saying you shouldn't be allowed to have a gun near law
25:44
enforcement. Why the hell?
25:47
What? Look, you're interfering with
25:50
law enforcement. No, you're standing there with
25:56
with weapon which the state allows you to have.
26:02
So all of a sudden everybody is flip-flopped on this issue.
26:07
The NRA is actually pushing back against Trump.
26:10
Cash Patel got in on the ACT and said the same stupid nonsense.
26:16
Why the director of the FBI? I I'm glad the NRA is saying
26:20
something because there was a great opportunity here that the
26:23
people on the right are just missing entirely.
26:27
They could have pulled people on the left in and said, look,
26:31
you've been asking us for decades, why does anybody need a
26:35
gun? And we keep saying it's because
26:38
of the government. And here's a perfect example,
26:41
and you're on board with it and. It's a curiosity, right?
26:44
Because the very people who are now saying that the young man in
26:49
Minnesota got what was coming to him are largely speaking the
26:54
same people who walk around saying things like don't tread
26:56
on me and we're going to have a, a civil war.
27:02
No, well, they, they don't believe that these are
27:04
cosplayers. Or maybe they believe don't
27:07
tread on me as long as you tread on somebody else.
27:10
James and I are delighted to be working with Civil.
27:12
For years, we've been pushing people to think about how we can
27:15
make the world a better place. Civil's mission of upgrading
27:18
society fits exactly with what James and I have been talking
27:21
about for years. Civil helps us by allowing us to
27:24
do what we do best, which is researching topics that are
27:28
important and communicating these to our listeners in ways
27:31
we hope they find enjoyable. To see Civil's extensive list of
27:34
content, including our podcast words and numbers, visit
27:37
civil.com. That's civl.com.
27:40
Now, you started off this discussion by saying the problem
27:46
is people. People aren't adhering to
27:50
principle. And people say this all the time
27:52
of people. Well, the problem is people
27:54
don't have principles. They don't live up to their
27:55
principles. This is more than just a saying.
27:58
A principle is a is something is a fundamental core belief.
28:02
In this instance, the fundamental core belief is that
28:05
you have a right to defend yourself, specifically a right
28:08
to carry a gun you have. A right to keep and bear arms,
28:12
and you have that right in order to defend your life.
28:15
If that is a principle, it applies across the board.
28:19
Even you can't all of a sudden say, well, he shouldn't have had
28:22
the gun because it's a protest. It's if it's a principle, it's a
28:25
principle. Well, what they're really saying
28:28
is he shouldn't have had a gun because we don't like his kind.
28:32
Right. Yes, yes.
28:35
That he's on the other team and our principles are for us.
28:41
It's an in Group phenomenon and that is exactly incorrect.
28:46
That makes them not principles, but preferences.
28:48
That's. Right.
28:49
And when you get to the Second Amendment, you just throw it
28:52
away casually. Are we going to do that with the
28:54
First Amendment too, right? Are people who say things you
28:59
don't like going to be disallowed from saying them?
29:02
And then when the presidency changes hands and we get a new
29:07
administration from the other party, are you going to be
29:10
comfortable with that party imparting the the same rules
29:15
against you that you only you were only too happy to apply to
29:20
all these other people who you didn't like?
29:23
See that the rules of the game have to be rules, regardless of
29:29
the date and regardless of who's in power, regardless of
29:34
everything, right? You either have the right to
29:38
free speech or you don't pick. You either have the right to
29:43
keep and bear arms, or you don't.
29:46
Again, pick. You can't just pick and choose
29:50
on a day-to-day basis. And the way to tell whether you
29:54
actually believe that people should have a right is to
29:58
picture someone exercising that right in a way you dislike.
30:02
And if you would look at that and say, well, the person
30:04
shouldn't be doing that, then you actually don't believe in
30:06
the right at all. That's right.
30:08
You just believe that you should get your way all the time.
30:11
Yeah, right there. I mean, there's the old saying,
30:14
right? I disagree with what you're
30:16
saying, but I defend to to my death your right to say it.
30:21
How many people actually believe that?
30:24
How many and and you, you and I, aunt we, loosely speaking,
30:29
oversee a a Facebook group with some 1700 people in it.
30:34
And there are many of them are behaving exactly this way.
30:39
Fans of this podcast are behaving in exactly the way the
30:43
politicians are. And this couldn't be further
30:47
from the pale if than it is. This is just beyond the pale.
30:54
And if if you're listening to James and you're saying to
30:58
yourself, well, yes, but and then listing all the reasons to
31:04
justify whatever it is you're saying, you you've lost the
31:07
argument already. Yeah.
31:08
That's right, principles. Principles apply across the
31:11
board. They don't come with footnotes.
31:14
And the the important thing about principles is we declare
31:18
them before there's a problem. Yes.
31:22
And then when there is a problem, we live up to them.
31:25
There's always going to be a problem.
31:27
Somebody's always going to do something you don't like.
31:30
But we have certain rights. And let me underline this a bit
31:36
because at the surface, you can look at this conversation and
31:40
say, well, these guys are arguing about principles on the
31:45
left and principles on the right, people on the left and
31:47
people on the right. And that's not it at all.
31:50
What we're arguing against is totalitarian government, because
31:55
that's the way you get a totalitarian government, that
31:59
your rights are your bulwark against it.
32:02
And to the extent that you do not support the rights of people
32:05
who are exercising the rights in the in a way you don't like,
32:09
you're inviting the government to trample on your rights as
32:13
much as you are looking to trample on others.
32:15
I mean. Look, the the easiest way to
32:18
approach this is not through the lens of the Second Amendment,
32:22
which everybody's hot about right now, but through the,
32:25
let's just say the free exercise clause of First Amendment.
32:29
You have the right to engage yourself in whatever religious
32:33
lunacy you want, and lots and lots of people do.
32:37
And I happen to think lots and lots of them are batshit crazy,
32:43
but that's none of my business because they have that, right?
32:47
So when we have the separation of church and state, that's the
32:51
Establishment Clause, we end up with very weird things
32:56
happening, right? Because all kinds of schools
32:59
want to say prayers in the morning.
33:03
People just can't help it, right?
33:04
And in predominantly Christian places, they just steamroll
33:08
everybody and they say, well, we're just going to do it.
33:11
And then in those towns, God bless them.
33:15
Here's a sentence that's never been uttered before.
33:18
God bless the Satanists because they say things like, well, you
33:23
got to have your prayer at the football game.
33:25
We want to have our prayer at the next one.
33:28
And I'm here to tell you there is no principled reason to tell
33:32
them they can't, right? There are lots and lots of
33:35
preferential reasons to tell them they can't, but no
33:39
principled one, because if we have the free exercise and we
33:43
have the the Establishment Clause, then everybody gets to
33:48
take part. Everybody has a seat at the
33:50
table. Now, most religions aren't going
33:52
to want that seat, but some will take it just to make a point.
33:57
And I love them. Well now, now let me anticipate
34:02
the argument against you. And the argument against you is
34:06
I, I am operating from principle.
34:09
And the principle is that there is a God and comes with these
34:14
attributes and I have the right to worship him.
34:18
And my tax dollars paid for this.
34:21
And this guy, the Satanist, he's simply wrong.
34:25
He should be shunned. We should repressive.
34:28
And why? Why you ask you?
34:30
And again, you say I'm not being principled.
34:31
I say absolutely, I'm being principled.
34:33
I'm principled. I believe in this God.
34:35
This is the way things should be.
34:36
And I point out, I've heard students give me this exact
34:40
argument, and they kind of blank out when I say to them, yeah,
34:45
that's exactly the argument the Taliban gives.
34:48
But what it does? It it is the.
34:51
Exact same argue and now the only response they come up with
34:54
is well, yeah, but I'm right, Yeah, but that's what they say
34:57
too. That's.
34:57
That's what they say too. And, and just to put a finer
35:00
spin on it, the Taliban decided couple days ago that no girl is
35:08
to be educated ever in Afghanistan.
35:12
Now, this causes a real problem because there's a need for
35:17
everybody to have dentistry. But in Afghanistan, a man can't
35:23
put his hands in a woman's mouth.
35:26
So you need female dentists, but no female can be educated.
35:33
How's that going to work out? Well, we'll all find out
35:36
together. Look, your argument is a
35:38
fabulously easy one to rebut, and it's just it It hinges on
35:43
the Establishment Clause. The state can show no preference
35:47
for one religion over another. None.
35:51
Even if that religion is demonstrably stupid.
35:55
You know, like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
35:58
That's a religion started tongue in cheek, just to show people
36:04
what their behavior looks like to outsiders.
36:07
Look, you can't prefer I'm in Arizona right now.
36:11
I'm in a Catholic enclave in Arizona.
36:14
The Catholic Church isn't privileged by its numbers,
36:19
right? You can't have a priest come in
36:23
and say a prayer before a high school football game because
36:26
that's showing a preference to one over the other.
36:30
Now, I guess if you wanted to allow every single religion to
36:35
come in and say a prayer before a football game sequentially,
36:39
you might be able to satisfy the requirements of the 1st
36:42
Amendment. But the easiest way to satisfy
36:45
the First Amendment is not to have the prayer at all.
36:49
If you want to pray, pray quietly in your seat.
36:54
If players want to pray, go nuts.
36:57
But the state can't privilege one religion over all the
37:02
others, and that's so easy to see that we generally don't have
37:08
fights about it. Every few years something pops
37:10
up, but it's not like the Second Amendment, which apparently is
37:15
on the table and parties are flip flopping all around it on
37:19
the regular. And yet it was that way once at
37:25
the. Founding the Bill of Rights did
37:27
not apply to the state governments.
37:30
It only applied to the federal governments.
37:32
And so you get, like our neighbor here, Maryland was an
37:35
explicitly Catholic state. States had religions Once Upon a
37:40
time. The Bill of Rights was
37:42
incorporated to the states. I don't speak of the wisdom of
37:46
that here. I just say that that's the law,
37:49
so here we are. You want to unincorporate it?
37:52
Fine. And then we'll talk about what
37:54
the law means then. But as incorporated, the Bill of
37:58
Rights applies to States and even localities.
38:00
This is why you can't have religious displays on the town
38:04
green, not legally, not without opening it up to all the other
38:08
religions. And the people who are most
38:11
interested in having a nativity scene on the town green, for
38:15
example, are also oddly the least interested in allowing
38:20
Muslims to do things on the public in the public space.
38:24
You know, And you know, look again, we're right back to
38:30
preference over principle. Because if your principal is
38:34
freedom of religion and no state shall privilege a religion,
38:40
well, those two things work together quite nicely.
38:42
You can coexist. You can live easily.
38:47
But some people just can't. They just can't let it go.
38:51
And they're the same people that think the First Amendment
38:54
applies only to speech they agree with, and they think the
38:57
Second Amendment applies only to people they like in places they
39:03
deem appropriate. Well, we've gotten to a point
39:07
where I'm, I'm happy to say I don't believe principle matters
39:11
at all anymore. And it doesn't matter at all,
39:15
most to the ruling class, but it also doesn't matter all that
39:20
much, if at all, to the hyper partisans on either side of our
39:24
partisan divide. And if you don't think this is a
39:28
problem, I've got very bad news for you.
39:32
I don't have to tell you what it is.
39:33
You'll see it soon enough. But you know who in my
39:37
experience does seem to care about principle is rural
39:44
America. That that more so, not to say
39:47
that's the only place, but more so than other places I've been.
39:51
That's where I encounter people who will maybe shake their heads
39:55
at somebody's lifestyle, but they'll say, hey, it's their
39:58
life, let them live it it. It's my experience.
40:02
As long as they aren't hurting anybody else.
40:04
That's right. Rural America is better at
40:07
living and let living. They're not great at it, but
40:12
they're better at it. This and, and and here we do
40:15
have a population density problem, right?
40:18
Because when people are forced to look at things they don't
40:22
like all the time, they turn into idiots.
40:28
They they turn into unprincipled political actors.
40:33
And that is the absolute worst kind.
40:35
And it will be the end of this country.
40:37
I predicted, and when Charlie Kirk was murdered, that we were
40:44
going to see more political violence.
40:47
And we're seeing it. It's just happening at the hands
40:51
of the state. Political.
40:54
Violence is political violence. And you know, people say things
40:59
like, well, what about this nurse who was killed by an
41:02
illegal immigrant? Yep, that's terrible.
41:04
Was she killed by her own government?
41:07
Because some somehow that's much, much worse.
41:12
Not for the person who's dead, not for their families, but for
41:15
the rest of us who live here. We are looking away from a
41:22
government that kills its own people.
41:26
Well, it's only one or two right now.
41:29
And Donald Trump has taken a giant backward step, which seems
41:33
to be befuddling the MAGA people.
41:36
He actually took a call with Tim Walz.
41:39
He talked to the governor of many, the mayor of Minneapolis.
41:42
And he the the agents involved in the shooting are now on
41:47
administrative leave after being spirited away from the the site.
41:54
So it does seem that some sort of due process might be in
41:57
place. That didn't seem to be the case
42:00
a week, a week ago or whenever the day was that this actually
42:03
happened. So I take heart knowing that
42:09
Trump looked around and said, oh, this has gotten out of hand.
42:12
Why didn't Christy Noem say that director of Homeland Security?
42:17
Why didn't Cash Patel say that director of the FBI?
42:21
They're working off a script, that, boy, you'd have to be a
42:26
psychopath to have written it. I do hereby predict that Christy
42:30
Noem will be out of a job before long.
42:33
I think Patel hangs on for now. But there's there's going to be
42:37
a comeuppance for this kind of nonsense.
42:39
And militarizing national law enforcement is not a good idea.
42:44
There's a reason why they don't wear uniforms, right?
42:47
That there's a reason why they don't wear face coverings.
42:51
There's a reason why they're identified by the name or a
42:55
badge. And we've just walked away from
42:58
all that now, and that's going to prove to be a problem.
43:01
But again, dealing with principles and preferences, and
43:06
as long as people cling to their preferences more than they care
43:09
about principle, lousy things will continue to happen.
43:13
Civil is on a mission to host ideas that will lead humanity to
43:16
an abundant future. Civil is a streaming platform
43:19
with apps on TV and mobile. Watch shows, films and debates,
43:23
and be part of an emerging community of people who believe
43:26
we can innovate beyond our legacy systems built on coercion
43:29
and 0 sum politics. Join Civil and let's build a new
43:33
era of prosperity together. Learn more at civil.com.
43:36
That's civl.com.