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Across the Aisle, Across Generations · Bourbon & Rum

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The Communist Party doesn't have a whole lot of financial and
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political clout. Did you read the convertible and
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drive Dealey Plaza with them in it?
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That's a good idea. We didn't do that yet.
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It's a hoax, Kent. Yeah, I think they, I think they
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pay like $25 a day while they're in session.
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Welcome to Bourbon and Rum, the podcast dedicated to civil
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conversation. I'm Kent.
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I like rum and I'm from the left side of the aisle.
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And I'm Kyle. I like bourbon, tend to be a
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little more conservative brothers talking politics for
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bourbon and rum. What are you drinking?
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I am drinking 100 proof pecan wood finish bourbon from Land
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Run Distillery in Oklahoma. That sounds tasty.
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It's OK. I'm not the biggest fan of Texas
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and Oklahoma bourbons because, and I was reading about this,
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the the higher heat in the aging process tends to manipulate the
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flavor in a very different profile.
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There's some like bitter elements.
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I, I can't explain it technically, but there's a,
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there is a characteristic if you drink any of the Texas or
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Oklahoma bourbons, they kind of have a similar after taste and
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flavor. What I'm told is that's because
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it's sucking this flavor out of the barrel much faster because
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it's so hot, versus up in Kentucky, it's a little bit
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cooler. Of course, if they wouldn't age
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it in Mesquite, maybe it would. There you go.
1:40
Well, it wouldn't be bourbon. It has to be oak.
1:42
White Oak. I have a Bolivar a year that's a
1:50
Venezuelan rum. Nice.
1:52
I don't know what they did to it is so sugary sweet.
1:57
It's just loaded with sugar and so much so that not today, but
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when I've had it before, you can add a little bit of lemon or
2:05
lime juice to it without any syrup and get kind of a decent
2:10
like a rum sour flavor out of it.
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So. It's coming from Venezuela.
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Just be glad it doesn't have any fentanyl in it.
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Kent. It may have interesting things
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dissolved, who knows? Well topic, you know, we've
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talked amongst ourselves about really how much the world has
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changed and where party allegiances and alignments have
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changed. But I think you raised a really
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interesting question. What's that like?
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How does that play out across generations?
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For all intents and purposes, you've still got a few of the
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Silent Generation around, but in general, your oldest tranche of
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voters are your Baby Boomers, then Gen.
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Xers, then Millennials, and then we've got plenty of Gen.
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Z voters. And how how are political
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alignments and political discussion in general?
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How's that playing out in different different generation
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groups? Yeah, and it it played out for
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us a little bit for me a little bit this weekend because we had
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our mom, who pretty much has always supported Republicans.
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That's what her parents always did.
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And even though the Republican Party has changed significantly,
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I think she's pretty loyal to the party and whoever they're
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putting up. Also had our late father's
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sister and her aunt is she's kind of one of the folks.
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Well, she's always voted Democrat because her father
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always voted Democrat. But I also see in her a little
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different in that she's a little bit of a anti establishment.
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You know, I think no matter who's in charge she has
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complaints with, but typically more the complaints on the
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Republican side just because that's what she grew up with.
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But what I think is fascinating about both of them is they both
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have allegiance to the party today that is probably 180° from
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the party that they had allegiance to 50 years ago.
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But they're both pretty staunch defenders of that party.
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I guess where I'm going is, I think in some generations it's,
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I would think in the youngest generations, they don't care
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what party they're in. It's all about who they are or
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what they're bringing to the table.
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It seems like you're the older you get, it's more about what
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party that that links to impressions and views of each
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party that they've had over the years, which may or may not
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really be reflective of who's empowered it.
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I think spot on. I think the the change rate in
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parties is not a is neither static nor random.
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In other words, that it's not just like like some things are
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under kind of constant evolution and you get accustomed to that
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change. We we're coming off of a period
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where party alliances, traditional constituencies.
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We talked about a little bit about this last week that, you
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know, the relationship of Labor unions to Democrat Party and
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candidates, right? Like those were those were
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pretty established ground for at least 50 years up until the last
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12 years or so. So it's not like it's changing
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all the time. So people our mother's age have
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lived through a period where it was pretty consistent.
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But the last decade or so has been just free fall of evolution
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and change within these two parties.
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Well, and my, our aunt, on the other hand, you know, I remember
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as a kid, she would, you know, Reagan was in power and she
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would always, you know, kind of make fun of him.
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And like this guy, you know, and she's always, always struck me
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somebody, whoever the Republican is in charge, is kind of like
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the establishment that she needs to rebel against and that that
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being the Democrat is kind of being the rebel in the family.
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And partly because her brothers were both very staunchly
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Republican. And so just voting for the
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Democrat was was rebellion enough.
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And then it's like whoever it is, well, they're a clown or,
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you know, there's always this those monikers that she has.
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But I also think that, you know, if she'd a, if she was more
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based on the views and really dug into it, you know, if you
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stacked up Donald Trump versus Ronald Reagan, it's a very
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different, you know, very different approach.
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Yeah, completely. I think that I think you're
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right that it's kind of age-related and I think that
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it's the further expression of trends that have been at work in
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our country for, for longer than the 12 years that I that I
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mentioned for at least 20 years. When did that book come out?
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I probably mentioned this on here before Bowling Alone.
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Are you familiar with that book? I've heard of that Robert
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Putnam, Bowling Alone. The subtitle is The Collapse and
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Revival of American Community, and it talks about a long trend
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of disengaging from community stuff.
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And it used to be that if you wanted to bowl in this go
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bowling in this country, like you had to belong to a league
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because the bowling alleys were, you know, like Tuesday night is
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this league and Wednesday night is this league.
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And you couldn't just show up at a bowling alley and rent a lane
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and bowl. And now that's all people do,
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right? Like, you might sit around with
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friends and be like, hey, let's go bowling.
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And you might do it as a one off, but how many people that
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you know are in a league you know?
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Well, I was laughing about the other thing we were talking
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about with our mom and aunt this weekend.
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I don't know. We got on this subject.
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Well, it's kind of related, I think to the extent that and I
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didn't needle them on it. But if you did, if you did want
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to give them a hard time and you dug into the issues, you know,
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both of them are probably supporting crap today in the
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current administration that they were opposing something in the
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current administration that 50 years ago they'd either be
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opposing or for. And I said it was kind of like,
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you know, my contention, we got to talk about vaccines.
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And my contention is that if Trump had won instead of Biden,
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all the anti vaxxers would be on the left because then it'd be
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Trump pushing the the vaccine and they all be all.
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Well, it's horrible. It's Trump saying to do it,
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don't do it. But because Biden was saying to
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do it, it, you know, all the Democrats for it and the public,
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you know, it's like these predictable patterns.
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And we got to talking about RFK Junior, you know, and like, when
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he was a Democrat, I mean, everybody was for his crazy
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ideas. But now he's a Republican while
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he's an idiot, you know, and. Kennedy is an enigma to me.
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I read before the election, I read and saw him on some things
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and he gave the vibe to me at that time of like, yeah, he's
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he's crazy, but kind of interesting crazy and brings up
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some points. Like I think the general anti
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vax thing is just nuts. I, I mean, I really do.
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But he had some other angles that I thought were like, oh,
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well, that would be interesting to, you know, to think through.
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But yeah, I, I, I, I don't see that working out very well for
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anybody. Well, I think a lot of his
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stuff, you know, he's brought up some, he's brought up some stuff
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for that people don't think about.
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Like that whole thing with the dyes, the food dyes, that was
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really interesting to me is, you know, like every other country,
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you know, I'm probably screwing this out.
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But like the Doritos, you know, like, what kind of potential
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harm are we willing to endure to make sure our Doritos look the
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right color? You know, or Fruit Loops or
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whatever. I do think, I do think that
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generational question is interesting.
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I think how people look at things is different.
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I see a lot more general cynicism among younger people.
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I, I saw just sent some commentary yesterday, you know,
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or over the last few days in the aftermath of the election, that
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the Democrats did arguably pretty well in the the
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conversation was about double haters and how this is really
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hard for the pollsters. There's all kinds of people that
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are like, yeah, I hate both parties.
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I can't stand either of them. But I might vote, and I might
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vote in a kind of a capricious way.
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And I mean, that makes it really hard for the pollsters to keep
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track. It makes hard for the campaigns
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to know where to spend money. And again, we all know this.
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But it was interesting to hear somebody kind of say it out
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loud. Like, there's almost nobody in
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elections that gets, like, hardcore Republicans or
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Democrats that get changed to the other side.
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Simply doesn't happen. And in fact, there really aren't
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that many people in the middle. The whole game is who shows up
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at the polls and doesn't like it.
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It's not about changing people's minds, it's about whose people
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are voting. Yeah, well, and I, and although
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I say like this is a a quality of the older generation that
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they've stuck with their party. I mean, I've always voted
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Republican. You've been voting Democrat for
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what? Since Obama?
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Yeah, 2020 years. And you could probably make the
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case just within those 20 years, the party demographic and
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message has shifted considerably.
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Yeah, I thought. We're in the same.
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I guess my point is we're kind of in the same boat as the older
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generation to a degree. Neither one of us are are like
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recent bandwagon jumpers either way.
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No, that's true. But I don't think, I don't think
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I would. Maybe I'm kidding myself.
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I don't think I would hold out that long if if the party got
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too far field of where I think they ought to be.
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I think that the the success of Mamdani is a little worrisome.
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I don't want people now that said, I mean, I was, I was ready
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to pull the lever for Bernie Sanders.
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So certainly a a more liberal approach to the party.
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I don't think, though, that for me, it's not even about the
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definition of the the conservative or liberal.
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You've said this before. It it's it's been useful for me
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to hear you say this. And it understands the degree to
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which Trump at least portrays himself as plain spoken and not
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of the swamp. And that how how powerful that
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was for people. I think that's a part of what
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the power of Bernie Sanders is. Now, again, he's been in
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Washington for a long time, but he definitely has the.
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Yeah, I'd, I'd agree with that outsider approach.
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Well, I like, you know, like I said, I listen to that.
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I listen to more Bernie Sanders than ever had in my life.
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I listen to that Brogan interview.
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But I mean, yeah, he seemed pretty genuine and even somebody
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calls him on his thing. He's not, you know, he sees,
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he's introspective enough to consider an opposing viewpoint.
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I to me that's a big test. Like, you know, if, if you can
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see why somebody would argue with you and why there's an
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alternative, I think that's, I think that's important.
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But I mean, I don't know. I don't know if we're that much
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different than our, our older generation to that regard.
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Well, and I, and I don't mean to keep talking, but you are kind
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of like our aunt. I mean, you're kind of in the
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especially while dad was still alive and hardcore Republican.
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You're, you kind of went down the rebellion path of I'm going
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to vote for a Democrat. I'm not saying that's the only
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reason you did. I think you were very more, you
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were much more thoughtful. But when you come from a larger
14:43
Republican family and you're the lone wolf Democrat you are, you
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know, there is A and I think, you know, I don't put words in
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your mouth, but when you turned or you know, that sounds
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negative. When you changed your mind,
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wounded by the enemy. When you changed, though, it was
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a degree to rebel against the status quo and the crap that
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you've experienced there in in Utah, right.
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I mean, yeah, I. I can't say that wasn't part of
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it, but I would say that kind of more than that changed my mind.
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That put me in a position where I was thinking critically about
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maybe that's a maybe I'm stretching that, but do you see
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the difference between those two?
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It's not like it changed my mind, but it called into
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question the orthodoxy of Republican thinking that I've
15:40
been pretty embedded in. I was like, wait a minute.
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And again, right or wrong, I, I, I maintain that my schism with
15:48
the Republicans was over the Iraq War.
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And I thought that George Bush and Dick Cheney and company were
15:58
way too ready to go to war for something that didn't really
16:02
stand to scrutiny in the end. And I, you know, I, I,
16:07
interestingly, I would say of all the things that I like, that
16:10
was enough to push me out of the party.
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But now looking back on that, it's hard for me to say that I
16:19
wouldn't have taken a pretty hard if I'd have been the
16:22
president of the United States on 9/11 and had been down there
16:27
with the bullhorn, I think I probably would have taken a
16:30
pretty maximalist approach to our response.
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So I mean, I'm not making excuses for Bush, but I find
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that less it's interesting that that was enough to push me out
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of the party. And now I'm kind of like, well,
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Lord, if all we had is a diff agreement was that, you know, he
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wanted to go to war with the wrong country, like.
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Well, what's funny is that isn't like the one thing that drove
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you away from the Republicans is one thing.
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Now the Republicans espoused that that was a mistake in Trump
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so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I don't know. I, I also can't divorce from
17:07
this conversation my dream that a, I mean, a third party isn't
17:14
going to work because you see the flexing of the muscles of
17:18
power on Capitol Hill, right? Like, I don't care if 99.79% of
17:25
the population of the US desperately wanted a third
17:27
party. Never going to happen because
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the people who control the the levers of things aren't going to
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risk losing that grip. But boy, it seems like such a
17:38
good time for a third party, certainly positionally.
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I guess maybe that's the difference.
17:44
Like could you get rid of parties all together?
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What if you made what, you know, there's some elected offices
17:49
that are nonpartisan. What if, what if you made the
17:52
presidency A nonpartisan elected official?
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What would be the impact of that?
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Could be a whole podcast right there.
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But that that's a. What would that mean?
18:01
Well, I mean, who's the the going in price is a billion
18:06
dollars to run a campaign. So it's sort of if you did a non
18:12
partisan thing, it sort of takes out a whole lot of people from
18:16
contention. Where you just wonder with the,
18:20
with social media and technology, could you get to a
18:24
place where you don't declare a party, you just have a platform?
18:29
And what would that then look like?
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If Trump and Biden are running each other and they're not a
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Republican and a Democrat, who are they?
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Yeah. And, and I don't know, that
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could almost be more perplexing for the candidate to some
18:42
degree, because I would think it's a bit of an easy button to
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say, well, I'm a Democrat and I'm going to fight for all the
18:47
Democrat stuff because then you don't have to explain yourself
18:49
in every position. Right.
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Well, I would say that Mandani, to some degree, I mean,
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technically he ran as a Democrat, but he made no bones
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about his very significantly more liberal stance than the
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Democratic Party. You know, he was a Democrat in
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name only In in some ways, I guess he's saying I'm saying
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he's he's, he did what you're suggesting you might do.
19:15
Well, that's part of the problem.
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The the Communist Party doesn't have a whole lot of financial
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and political clout. Would the would the Communist
19:26
Party even get a money for an election?
19:28
I I guess you know. So, you know, I, I'm not a huge
19:34
fan, but let's, let's be accurate here.
19:37
He's a socialist, not a communist.
19:39
Those are not the same thing. Well, I think a lot of people
19:43
view that as a slippery slope. Communist, you know, communist
19:48
is, you know, there's no private enterprise.
19:51
The government owns everything. They're in complete control.
19:54
Socialist is, you know, a bunch of stuff is owned and run by the
19:59
government, but other stuff is. Is private, but I think, I think
20:04
the general feeling is that if somebody's a socialist in the,
20:08
if they could be a communist, they would be that it's a, a, a
20:12
goal of somebody that goes down that path, that the ultimate
20:16
control would be all with the government.
20:19
So I'm not going to guess about population because I, I, I was
20:24
pretty far off with Iran last week.
20:27
But you know, the United Kingdom is a socialist government, more
20:33
or less. I mean.
20:35
That's a good example maybe of what I'm talking about.
20:37
I feel like, and I guess my, this is my own view and I don't
20:42
know if this is supported by everybody else, but I think the
20:44
view of a socialist government is, yeah, you're in Denmark, you
20:51
know, like it's pretty free, but you know, they're, they're going
20:54
to run healthcare and, and schools and stuff.
20:58
But communist, it's not just a socio economic or an economic
21:03
system, but it also speaks to more of a totalitarian mindset
21:09
of full government control. And I, I don't, you know, I
21:13
think in, in reality what, what a lot of people fear when they
21:16
say communist, it's not a collectivism.
21:21
It's not, you know what Linen's ideal society, it's linen.
21:26
It's. Like, you know, like there's no.
21:28
Communist leader that. Oh, it's all going to be great
21:31
for everybody. Yeah, that's in practice, but in
21:33
reality, the communist leader's a totalitarian asshole that.
21:37
Kills everybody right? And I agree with that.
21:39
I just I. Don't know where I'm going with
21:41
that. Can I guess where I'm going is
21:43
when you see things like the UK, OK, UK, it's a, it's just
21:50
socialistic, but then you start looking at some of their
21:53
practices. I was reading the stat they
21:56
arrested 15,000 people last year.
22:00
And I'll have to Fact Check that.
22:02
But I, I thought for sure it was 15,000 that they've arrested for
22:06
posting on social media. Like they didn't like the post
22:09
that somebody put on social media, you know, and, and UK
22:13
does not have freedom of speech is not a thing in the UK.
22:17
So and then, you know, it's like you see some of these and
22:20
forgive me if I got that number wrong, but I don't think, I
22:22
think even if you did the research, there's a, a lot of
22:26
people like their laws around you say something on social
22:29
media, they can come pick you, the police can come pick you up.
22:32
I mean, they, you can't do that here, you know what I mean?
22:34
And so I think there's a, there's a fear that where is
22:38
that? Like it's a slippery slope once
22:41
you go down that socialist path and you're not far from
22:43
totalitarianism. Is it?
22:45
For what it's worth, they've arrested people on campus at
22:51
Columbia University for what they said.
22:54
Well, they deported. People for what they said yeah,
22:58
I I don't know, I guess he wants to cut the bus fares to zero.
23:04
That is that is not quite the same thing as like starting up
23:08
the gulag machine. I, I just, it, it just doesn't
23:13
seem that outrageous to me. He's more liberal than I am.
23:17
I, I tend to be more fiscally conservative on stuff.
23:20
But, you know, like, oh, this guy's a communist.
23:24
I mean, rent control's been a conversation in New York for a
23:28
long time. Yeah, it's 12,000 for social
23:31
media posting in the UK. Arrest.
23:35
Well, and I mean, honestly, how many people are actually paying
23:38
their paying their bus fare to begin with?
23:41
I don't know. It's funny in in Germany, I
23:44
don't know if it's like this everywhere in Germany, but we're
23:46
in Munich and like it's all in the honor system to pay for the
23:53
bus fare. I mean, that's the that's the
23:55
difference in in cultures, right?
23:57
And in Germany you say, well, it's on the honor system.
23:59
Well, everybody pays. If you said New York City, it's
24:02
on the honor system. How many people are paying the
24:05
bus fare, you know? Well, I wish we could get a
24:10
third party. I wish we could get something
24:12
that would destabilize a little bit, but it's been a long time
24:16
since we've had meaningful change like that in this
24:18
country. Yeah, and again, it's it's you.
24:22
You alluded to it. There's just too much money and
24:25
power at stake. I mean, if you took away the
24:28
party system, look at all these jerks that have all the money
24:32
that can, you know who's going to shell out 10s of millions of
24:37
dollars for a candidate? There could be 50 people running
24:40
against them. Yeah, well, I certainly think
24:42
the parties have done neither side a whole lot of good.
24:46
I. Well, and again, I don't
24:48
understand why in this day of technology you couldn't get to
24:52
where there's a government app that you can be.
24:56
I mean we can do sophisticated multi factor authentication with
25:02
anybody. Why couldn't we all vote on an
25:04
app with multi factor authentication?
25:07
I mean, surely you could do that better than these funky voting
25:13
machines that you go, do you know what I mean?
25:15
Surely you could do that in a way that would be fair for
25:17
everybody. Then have maybe you've get some
25:19
automated system for somebody that can't do the multi factor
25:22
on their phone. But, but if you could do that
25:25
and everybody is on an app, you know, could you get to a place
25:29
where you take out all of the party stuff and hey, you want to
25:34
run, you got to Duke out your ideas in some public forum?
25:37
I don't know. I don't know if that's possible.
25:39
I like the idea. I think that in theory it would
25:42
work great. But I'd point out that eight
25:46
years ago, the election got so politicized by choice, by the
25:52
loser of that election and the party that that didn't sanction
25:59
that, that we've undercut faith in the election so much that, I
26:04
mean, who's going to bring that proposal forward?
26:07
And half the country's going to say it's a it's a scam.
26:13
Yeah, well, now I would submit to you that that that fear of
26:18
the elections being broken predate Trump for sure.
26:23
I mean, hanging chat the day of the hanging, Chad is an example.
26:27
I mean, there's been a, I think a, a lot of, you know, Trump won
26:34
the first time and Hillary Clinton was saying he was
26:35
illegitimate and wasn't truly elected.
26:37
You know, I mean, I, I, I feel like both sides use that
26:41
depending on the situation. Interesting that it got so much
26:45
better between 2020 and 2024. No, I, I think it just continues
26:50
to get worse. I think it will continue to get,
26:52
I mean. You know, but I mean, Trump like
26:54
Trump's like, no, it was a, you know, I, they said I lost.
26:57
So it was clearly, it was clearly made-up and it was.
27:01
Clearly a. Scam.
27:02
But when I won, like, oh, no, it was exactly it was it was
27:06
planned. Like that's what I'm talking
27:09
about. I'm I'm hating Trump.
27:11
I'm I'm doing that right now. But like it it just yeah.
27:15
So we're it's harder to get to some sort of a bipartisan
27:19
solution than it's ever been. Yeah, yeah.
27:22
Well, it's back to that whole line of we have a dysfunctional
27:26
government. Good.
27:29
I'm glad. Well, and that was the other
27:31
thing we talked about with mom and our aunt.
27:35
I mean, you know, it's kind of that conversation about the
27:38
vaccines. I mean, every stinking aspect of
27:41
our life is politicized. You know, we're talking about
27:44
getting to a place where we have a nonpartisan running for
27:48
president. Well, the, the, the supersonic
27:52
train is headed in the opposite direction.
27:53
It's going to where everything, I mean, bourbon and rum, I'm
27:59
sure, I guarantee you if you dug into the the depths of X
28:05
conversations, there's people that are hating on bourbon and
28:08
rum for various reasons from both sides, both parties.
28:12
You know, I'm sure there's in some environmental harm that
28:14
it's doing or, you know, exploiting people.
28:18
I mean, there's some crap you could find that somebody doesn't
28:21
like somebody else about what they drink based on politics.
28:25
Yeah, well, and likewise, you know, talk about offices.
28:30
You know, I bet there's 100,000 spent on some municipalities
28:34
running for dog catcher. Yeah.
28:37
Oh, I knew. I knew a guy running for the
28:42
Texas to be a state representative and I think he
28:48
told, and this was 10 years ago, I think he told me the going
28:53
rate to run for State House representative in Texas is like
28:58
50 grand. Like what are you getting out of
29:03
that? I mean, I mean, honestly, you
29:07
think about the amount of money getting spent across all these
29:11
elections. I mean, the whole thing is a big
29:14
scam. It's a hoax, Kent.
29:16
Yeah, I think they, I think they pay like $25 a day while they're
29:21
in session for the legislature in Iowa.
29:24
You're you, you, you got to be in there a long time to recoup
29:28
your 50 grand. OK.
29:30
What? If all right, how about this,
29:32
Kent? What if our political system
29:34
would scrap the whole thing and make it like jury duty and
29:38
people get randomly selected for leadership posts?
29:42
How much worse would it be? It wouldn't be worse.
29:45
I mean it. It would be horrible.
29:47
I mean, it would be really bad. You would have terrible ideas.
29:51
It would not be worse. You know, think about that.
29:59
I mean, I don't know, you know, I, I'm a little judicious about
30:02
what I talk about, but I will talk about politics with people
30:05
that I don't know, you know what I mean?
30:07
Like I'll throw stuff out there just to kind of see where we're
30:11
at or, you know, in a good light hearted way.
30:15
And maybe people are just making nice to me, but I've never heard
30:20
just a random stranger saying things about me and people who
30:26
think about things the way that I do.
30:29
Like, you know, if you run the run the real of what you hear
30:34
from people, the acrimony, the ad hominem attacks that like
30:40
people don't do, like normal people don't do that, right?
30:44
The people that do that, that are the ones that have spent
30:46
$1,000,000 to win the seat and they're desperate to like, if
30:50
everybody had to go, I think you'd have to drop it to less
30:52
than two years, but it could be like a six month deal.
30:56
Yeah, I drew the number. I got to go to Washington.
31:01
People would gripe about it. They would be like, oh great, I
31:04
got picked for the House of Representatives.
31:08
Well, you say, you know, it wouldn't be off and it wouldn't
31:11
be any worse, and I would submit to you, yeah, I think it would
31:15
work because it's all because of the swamp.
31:19
It's the same. And you call whatever you want
31:22
to call the infrastructure, the swamp, pick them, pick the
31:25
characterization. But like, if they just pulled in
31:29
John Smith and all of a sudden President John Smith is in
31:32
charge from Podunk, you know, Eastern Kentucky.
31:38
There's a people. All right, Sir.
31:39
Right. This way.
31:39
Mr. Smith, you're going to come here.
31:41
This is your office. Pick from this furniture which
31:45
you want, the Resolute Desk. OK, here you go.
31:48
And like, like there's a system in place.
31:51
They can just follow by the numbers, you know?
31:55
Well, it's not like they got to go invent it all themselves.
31:58
Well, I heard even on how I got on it, like a description of how
32:01
the nuclear football works. And, you know, perish the
32:06
thought. When the day comes they crack
32:08
that thing open, they've already got it worked out.
32:10
There's there's like, do you want the option AB or C?
32:15
There's no discussion about what are we going to do and where's
32:18
the. You know.
32:19
Well, because it has to make a decision really quick.
32:22
So you don't think that the military could could give you 3
32:26
options? I mean, I know how to do this in
32:29
a business meeting for God's sakes, right?
32:32
I mean, there's teams in the military that are wargaming
32:36
every possible option, and they've got a list of
32:39
alternatives. Anything happens in the world.
32:42
Some general shows up in the situation Room and he's got
32:44
three options that they've talked about for the last 20
32:47
years. I mean, it's not.
32:47
Like, right, But what I'm saying is that, but even the selection
32:52
of the three options, like they're in control of it is what
32:57
I'm saying. Yeah, no president is making any
33:00
kind of real rational decision because you don't even really
33:03
have 3 equal options in front of you.
33:06
Again, that's what I'm saying. When you when you give somebody
33:09
three options, you give them the two that you don't want them to
33:11
pick, you make so painful like what 1 is we kill everybody on
33:16
the on the face of the earth. And the other is that we ask the
33:20
the Russians to stop. But the third alternative is
33:23
this, this, this, and this. You're going to get #3.
33:28
Well, and then and then day one, they're going to be like, OK,
33:31
This is why you can't release the Epstein files.
33:33
This is why you can't release the JFK files.
33:35
And that's why you can't release the UFOs files.
33:37
And and the guy John Smith from Eastern Kentucky is going to be
33:43
like, shit, Yeah, I guess you're right.
33:45
OK, Approved. Yeah, Well, you know, on that
33:49
note, and I won't go down the Epstein path, but we'll get on
33:52
the JFK path. We, our mom and our aunt are
33:56
huge JFK buffs. They've been to Dallas multiple
33:58
times. We've done every possible JFK
34:02
thing. I mean, we've been to the 6th
34:03
floor museum. We've been to Oswald's grave.
34:05
They've been to his apt. I mean.
34:07
Did you rent a convertible and drive Dealey Plaza with them in
34:11
it? That's a good idea.
34:13
We didn't do that yet. We did go to the Texas Theatre
34:16
where Oswald was caught this week.
34:17
We couldn't get in. But one of the places we went,
34:20
which was I'd never heard about. Have you ever heard of Ruth
34:23
Payne Kent? No, We went to the Ruth Payne
34:28
home, which is now a museum. Ruth Payne had and her husband
34:33
had, had, had befriended Marina Oswald and her kid, her kids, I
34:39
guess, and, and Lee. And somehow they become friends
34:44
and help them during a period of time.
34:46
And Marina wound up living with them.
34:49
And Oswald spent the night at the house the day before Kennedy
34:55
was shot and he stored the rifle in her garage.
35:00
And so we went, we went to the house.
35:03
They the city of Irving bought the house back in the early
35:05
2000s. And then they've pretty cool
35:07
that they renovated it with Ruth Payne, helped them and they got
35:11
it to look exactly alike and they matched everything.
35:14
It's all like inside, it's all replica of everything.
35:16
And they've got some exhibits, they've got a little bit, some
35:18
of the furniture is off is from Ruth Payne.
35:22
So it's a wide variety of stuff. But they, you know, they give it
35:28
to her and they talk through the history.
35:30
But, you know, we were talking about this and this pain house
35:33
and everything and driving to the theater and talking about
35:37
all these details. You know, what would it be that
35:41
would be so bad? Well, if if the CIA killed
35:43
Kennedy, which a lot of people think they did, I don't think
35:46
anybody would be shocked. Everybody would be like, OK, I
35:49
can. I mean, it's objectionable and
35:50
it's bad. But what if, what if Lyndon
35:53
Johnson did it? What if Lyndon Lyndon Johnson
35:55
was in on it? If a president And back to our
35:58
whole discussion about feelings about presidents, if a president
36:03
actually flipped and got him assassinated, I think that is a,
36:09
a fact everybody would agree never to release because then it
36:13
would if you're the president, because if the president's
36:16
making the decision and then you would know that everybody the,
36:21
the level of confidence would be eroded in the presidency itself
36:25
would be so great. It could be catastrophic.
36:28
Yeah, you're right. I just, I just, I don't know why
36:32
I can't go with that. I I, I, I mean, I, I think
36:35
you're right. I think it makes sense.
36:37
But again, could you keep a secret if there was like black
36:42
and white proof? Post it note signed.
36:44
Lyndon Johnson, you know, get him while he's in Dallas.
36:48
You know, I promise a pardon for you.
36:52
You're going to be fine. Just handle this for me.
36:55
Somebody with after all that's going on that nobody mentions.
37:00
Hey, you ought to check the post, it notes.
37:03
Yeah, I, I just, and I just don't know that people could
37:08
keep that secret. Yeah, that's that's that doesn't
37:11
make it possible. But I'm upstanding now the same
37:14
thing, you know, that somebody knows what's there.
37:18
I thought so. I've mentioned before Tara
37:22
Palmeri, she was with the really the victims had that kind of
37:26
like a day on Capitol Hill a couple months ago.
37:30
And one of the women said something like, well, you know,
37:33
maybe we ought to compile our own list.
37:35
If they're not going to release it, we ought to put out our own
37:37
list of who we dealt with. She was the only one that said
37:42
that. And it was pointed out
37:43
afterwards that the others looked at her when she said
37:46
that. Like, Oh my gosh, shut up.
37:50
I mean, for legitimate fear for their lives.
37:53
If you, if you, if people thought you were a threat to do
37:56
that. Yeah, but I mean, I guess to tie
37:59
it back to our original subject about the generational piece,
38:06
you know, JFK assassination is is like the Epstein.
38:10
I don't that may be a stretch to compare the two of them.
38:14
Although I'm I'm researching this Ruth Payne stuff on YouTube
38:19
and something came up with Ruth Payne and the Epstein.
38:22
I'm like, Oh my gosh, OK, how do they link those two together?
38:25
But but you know, I don't know. It certainly not like, do you
38:31
remember where you were when you found out about Jeffrey Epstein?
38:34
I mean, there's nothing like that.
38:35
But. But I think I put that
38:39
conspiracy piece in a similar place where, like, you know,
38:45
that has obsessed people, that generation.
38:49
Yeah, for the last 60 years. It's like they'll take that
38:55
conspiracy to their grave, and I'm hopeful that the Epstein
39:01
thing doesn't last that long. Hopefully somebody spills their
39:04
beans and the things over with, but I tend to think it probably
39:08
will also be something that people will obsess about to
39:11
their graves. Well, at this point, with all of
39:15
the BS that's gone with it, I don't know.
39:19
I mean, I'd feel a whole lot better out of it if somebody
39:22
would send out something that listed what we all know was
39:27
going on. You know, I have somewhat more
39:29
confidence in that case. But I got to admit, I'm not sure
39:33
that, you know, if you emailed me the Excel file right now and
39:39
it had his fingerprints on it, I'm not sure.
39:42
I like they've had some time to scrub the Excel files at this
39:46
point. You know, like the hiding's
39:48
going on a long enough. I don't know that anybody's ever
39:52
going to fully accept it when people are willing to go to this
39:55
level to obfuscate. Would you ever trust what they
39:58
told you? Yeah, that's true.
40:00
Yeah, it, well, it's back to our whole conversation about like,
40:06
how do you determine what truth is?
40:09
You know, everything's, if everything's a hoax and
40:11
everything's fake news, well, what the hell is true?
40:14
Who do you count on to tell you what's true?
40:17
And to your point, no matter what they tell us about JFK or
40:21
like any of these, nobody's going to believe it because it's
40:24
all tainted. You know, I tried to.
40:27
Comfort mom, when dad died at some point early on, I was like,
40:30
well, you know, mom, at least he knows right now who killed JFK,
40:34
who killed Jonbenet. I don't know if I don't know if
40:37
Epstein made the the conversation point at that.
40:40
But you know, I mean, those are some of the first things I'm
40:43
going to want to know that the Ramsey thing is another one that
40:47
is it's not on the level of those two, but well, OK.
40:52
But do you think, let's think about the generational
40:55
differences. Are folks of our moms and aunts
41:00
age group, are they more? I think they're less likely to
41:05
believe in conspiracies than we are Because, you know, I mean,
41:08
there's a lot of people that were OK with the Warren.
41:11
If the Warren Commission happened today, everybody would
41:13
think it was nonsense. Well, I don't, I haven't looked
41:16
into it at all, but I'm sure that there are, that there are
41:20
conspiracies about Charlie Kirk, right?
41:24
Well, there are. Oh, well, you haven't seen it.
41:26
Well, the big one is that the the wife having something to do
41:30
with it, so you know. You know, if I was thinking up
41:35
nonsense to throw at you for this podcast, I I wouldn't go to
41:40
that. You know, and I hope, I hope our
41:43
listener base knows that we explore a lot of topics and you
41:48
know, I don't want him to think we're extreme whack jobs.
41:53
And I, I hope people listen. It's like I was thinking about
41:55
last week, you know, we talked about the whole thing about
41:59
anti-Semitism and what qualifies for anti-Semitism, what doesn't.
42:02
And sometimes I fear, like even just bringing up some of these
42:05
subjects, some percentage might listen to it and be like, Oh,
42:09
you guys are are bad for talking about this stuff.
42:12
But hopefully people who listen to us know that, you know, we
42:15
explore all sides of this stuff, even if it sounds wacko.
42:18
So before I say something, it could sound wacko, I like to at
42:21
least preface it that, you know, we're not like Kent and I are
42:25
sitting here showing the cue symbols to each other or
42:28
something. You know, we're, I think we're
42:30
pretty open about, you know, exploring things.
42:33
But the, the, some of the conspiracy around the Charlie
42:37
Kirk thing is, I don't know if you've seen this wife.
42:41
I mean, some of her behaviour is a little bit odd, you know, some
42:45
of how she's interacted with people and you know, there's a
42:49
level of, you know, some folks think she's a little phony
42:53
acting and you know, like maybe she's she's, you know, you'd
42:58
hate to say something that would, you don't know, people
43:00
grieve. Like it may be all in the up and
43:03
up and people grieve and are just different when they grieve.
43:06
But you do see some of these things that are a little almost
43:10
odd or off putting. I don't want to be insensitive,
43:12
you know what I mean? Like I don't want to upset
43:14
somebody needlessly. And you know, some of this stuff
43:18
you talk about, I feel like we can talk about anything.
43:22
You're not going to worry about hurting my feelings.
43:24
I'm not going to worry about hurting your feelings.
43:25
I think we have that relationship.
43:27
But if somebody else is listening to it and we're
43:29
laughing about something somebody might find incredibly
43:32
hurtful, I, you know, I don't want that.
43:34
But I don't think people necessarily think that.
43:37
But no. I agree.
43:39
I think it's, you know, we're, we're, we're late in the game to
43:43
be switching up the topics here. But I, you know, we talked a
43:47
little bit last week about the role that political correctness
43:51
or kind of cultural unity within parties, you know, the, the
43:57
orthodoxy that like you, you all got to go along with it.
44:01
I think that I think that that's toxic, honestly, for, for, for
44:06
groups of, of both sides that there's a, an orthodoxy that you
44:10
got to buy into. And clearly, I mean, I think
44:14
there's no way around it, especially Trump second
44:20
election. But the first to a degree, it is
44:24
absolute that there was in part A reaction to cancel culture,
44:30
right? We've, we've admitted that And,
44:33
and I, I think that that's fair, But you know, we ought to dial
44:38
back cancel culture, but we also ought to dial back just being an
44:44
ass for being an ass sake. And you know, in some ways if
44:48
people would be more, maybe it's too much to ask, but civility
44:53
kind of actually has a when you inflamed for the sake of
44:58
inflammation. It's bad I guess is what I'm
45:00
trying to say. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that.
45:03
And in general terms, I think the frustration is though there
45:09
have been, you know, and I think about this from the right, there
45:13
have been Republican leaders that have played that civility
45:20
approach. And then they, you know, there's
45:23
ridicule that comes with that. And there's a feeling of, you
45:27
know, you just got to you, you got to take that as criticism.
45:32
I think what inspired a lot of people with Trump is he was with
45:35
somebody who's willing to fight back to it and somebody
45:37
criticized you. You go 100% the other way.
45:39
Now, that's flies in the face of conventions, but I think they
45:45
were sick of the vitriol that was often experienced on the
45:49
other side even when somebody was civil.
45:51
And so the thought is, OK, if you're going to get shouted down
45:56
even being civil, then screw it. I'm going to go all in the other
45:59
way, you know? And I think that's what people
46:01
liked. But then it becomes like both
46:04
sides are shouting at each other.
46:06
And to your point, is that good? I don't know that it is.
46:09
Well, I will say that I think one of the things that's really
46:13
toxic, that probably doesn't get the label of uncivil nearly as
46:18
much as it should. I think that belittling,
46:22
mocking, making fun of and laughing at people's issues is,
46:28
you know, like, look, I, I don't, I don't have everybody's
46:33
issues and I, I don't pretend, you know, I, I want to be
46:35
sensitive to, I, I want to be what you just described, right?
46:38
Like be like not a jerk to people about things.
46:44
And and I know that there's stuff that I don't understand
46:48
very well, but I, I don't want to just I don't, I don't want to
46:52
make, make light of people. I don't, I don't think we're, I
46:56
mean, after I've spent the whole what, an hour making light of
46:59
the assassination of a president or wait or whatever, but I just
47:04
like, like, why, why we got to be obnoxious to each other.
47:07
I don't understand the yeah, but it looks small to me.
47:11
When someone's doing that, it looks small.
47:15
I know what you mean about Trump and the fight back, but it looks
47:18
small to me. It looks like you it it looks
47:23
like people realize that the culture is changing out from
47:25
underneath them and they don't like it, so they're going to
47:28
really stick it to the libs. And I just like, gosh, get over
47:32
yourself. Well, but I don't know.
47:34
I do argue with the the sense that, you know, the place was
47:40
super civil before Trump got involved.
47:43
I don't think it was. I mean, I think a lot of people
47:45
said a lot of ugly things about whoever was running.
47:48
Yeah, I'm not different because now the guy at the tops jumped
47:51
in the mix. Yeah, I'm not particularly
47:53
hanging this on Trump. Yeah, I I think Trump's in part
47:57
of an outgrowth of a trend in that direction.
48:00
But no, it's not. That's not his fault by any
48:03
means. But I, I don't know, you know, I
48:06
think it's funny what people compare it to because, you know,
48:10
I think with Trump, a lot of people see him as brash and, and
48:15
uncouth. And then they're like, well, why
48:17
doesn't he have somebody more like a reserve statesman like
48:22
George W Bush? But when George W Bush opened
48:25
his mouth, it was like, well, he's an idiot, you know, And
48:27
then, you know, and then we all talk about how great Reagan
48:30
sounded. But at the time Reagan was
48:32
talking, well, he's a dumb actor and he don't know anything, you
48:33
know. So it's like there is a, a
48:36
seeming level of relativism. I think with Trump, it's just,
48:40
you get this, you know, I'm going to, I, I don't care.
48:44
I'm just going to fly in the face of all the, the
48:46
conventions. And I don't think people know
48:49
how to handle it. Hey, thanks for joining us on
48:57
this episode of Bourbon and Rum Podcast.
49:00
We hope you enjoyed it. Remember to subscribe on your
49:02
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49:05
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49:08
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49:13
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49:14
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