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What Have We Learned? · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

0:09
From the On Air Across America NEWSROOM, I'm Alex Ross and this
0:13
is your Morning News update. the United States is marking 25
0:16
years since the September 11th terrorist attacks.
0:19
Ceremonies are underway at the World Trade Center site, the
0:22
Pentagon and near Shanksville, PA.
0:25
The attacks killed 2977 people. A divided federal appeals court
0:30
has rejected the Trump administration's policy of
0:32
detaining certain immigrants without an opportunity to seek
0:35
release on bond. 9 Federal appeals courts have now rejected
0:39
the policy, while two have upheld it.
0:41
Yemeni government sources say Houthi forces have captured
0:44
Parham Island near the Bob El Mandeb Strait.
0:47
Saudi aircraft have struck the Houthi held airport at Moca.
0:50
No casualties from those strikes were immediately reported.
0:53
Consumer prices increased 4/10 of 1% in August and 3.4% over
0:58
the past year, according to the Labor Department.
1:00
In baseball, Julio Rodriguez hit a three run Homer as the
1:03
Mariners rallied past Texas 4 to 3.
1:06
Seattle won two of three in the series.
1:08
For the On Air Across America network.
1:10
I'm Alex Ross. Well, good morning, good
1:56
evening, or good afternoon, wherever you are, whatever you
1:58
do. A lot of things are happening in
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the world today. Most of them are far beyond our
2:02
control, you might say. So perhaps it's time we took a
2:06
pause and thought about life, thought about the laws of
2:12
teaching, history, jury rooms and other things that happened
2:19
on September 11th. Don't touch that dial.
2:21
Just try to hear me out for a little while.
2:25
It is that day, September 11th, has come yet again.
2:34
This time, of course, one of those cardinal dates, the 25th
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anniversary of it. It's hard to imagine that it was
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that long ago. It seems both farther in time
2:48
ago and yet at the same time, not that long ago.
2:53
My life has changed in so many ways since then.
2:57
Yours probably has too. Not the same person I was 25
3:02
years ago, are you? It's not going to join the show
3:08
today. Text machine is open 209565 Dave
3:11
209-565-3283. Now there's the text machine.
3:16
e-mail Dave at the Dave bowmanshow.com a Loqui Conitio
3:20
Stand up. Tell those who oppose liberty.
3:22
Don't tread on me. So what have we learned 25 years
3:32
on? I don't watch the, the memorial
3:37
services. I, I, I, I don't like funerals,
3:41
to be honest with you. I don't, I, I, I avoid funerals
3:44
as best I can. I certainly don't like memorial
3:49
services. Again, if it's appropriate and
3:54
necessary, I will go. But I I don't like them.
3:59
I don't like them because I'm not sure what they're focusing
4:04
on. And this is one of those cases
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where what we're watching happening, it, it, it isn't that
4:12
we shouldn't remember. That's not what I'm saying at
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all. What I'm saying is, what have we
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learned when someone comes to these memorial services?
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What do they walk away with? A funeral is designed to be a
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salve to the people who are tending to the loved ones, and
4:33
you leave with a positive feeling, hopefully about the
4:36
person who passed away. What does a memorial service
4:39
give you? It's a reminder, I'll grant you,
4:43
that we remember, but it's like pink ribbons on football
4:48
players. Is there anybody who's not aware
4:51
of breast cancer or is anybody today not aware of 911 questions
4:58
that I have? Let me, let me channel for a
5:01
moment my inner Candace Owens, if you will, questions that I
5:05
have. How should September 11th be
5:09
taught to people that have no personal memory of it?
5:13
My son has no personal memory of 911.
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He was born nine years after the fact.
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One of the things I love about my son is that he asks a lot of
5:24
questions sometimes. Sometimes they're they're,
5:31
they're just a lot of questions and sometimes they're probing
5:36
and sometimes they're confused. And his favorite question is
5:40
what did you think about and fill in the blank.
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Now, he doesn't ask as many questions now as he used to, but
5:49
it's hard to get him out of his room.
5:53
But I'm sure at some point today that question will come up.
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Dad, how did what did you think on 9/11?
5:59
How did it? What did you think was
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happening? What?
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And I'll tell him the story again of what I thought was
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going on and how it made me feel at the time and what I thought
6:08
about it. But how do we teach this to
6:12
people who were not there? You know, interestingly enough,
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Hassan Piker was 10 years old, 9 or 10 years old.
6:21
He wasn't very old. Does he have a real conscious
6:24
memory of it? Probably not.
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And if he does, what does he remember about it?
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How do you teach what happened on 9/11, Not just what happened,
6:37
why it happened to people that have no connection to it at all,
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no memory of it? It's harder than you think.
6:47
I can teach you about December 7th, 1941.
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I can give you all the technical details.
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I can tell you the ships that were involved.
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I can tell you the aircraft that were involved.
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I can tell you the personalities and the names that were
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involved. I can't make you feel that I
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wasn't there either. I wasn't born until 22 years
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later. I can talk to people who were
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there, and I have talked to people who were there, and I
7:13
find myself asking them the same questions my son asks me.
7:16
What did you think? What did you feel?
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But how do we communicate that? And if you think about this in a
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broader context, 25 years is 1/4 of a century.
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The average lifespan is what, 7275 years?
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Meaning that if a person was older than 25 years the day 9/11
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happened, they have 25 years left on average to communicate
7:48
that experience, and in another 50 years there won't be anybody
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left that was there. I won't.
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I'm not expecting to be here. I'd kind of like to be, but I'm
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not expecting to be. How do we communicate this?
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How do we teach these people who have no connection to this, no
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experience to this, and who have been subjected to 25 years of
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literally revisionist history? How do we make sure that they
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get the correct story about 911 when it comes to the post 9/11
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war world Sire World War? I guess in a way our government
8:32
took advantage of that to put into a lot of a lot of security
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powers. And the problem of course, with
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government seizing powers is that once it has them, it does
8:44
not like to give them back. It does not like to restore
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liberties that happened beforehand.
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The argument becomes one of safety over safety and security
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over liberty. We're seeing the same exact
8:59
argument with Flock cameras. Oh, but Dave, Flock cameras do
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so much good. At what cost?
9:07
Because once government has the power to do something, they're
9:11
not going to give it back and they're not going to go, yes, we
9:16
will limit ourselves to just this.
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And you can tell me all you want about how it's done some good,
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but at what cost to liberty? And when the government post
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9/11 began putting in security measures and we all went, yeah,
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that's common sense. That makes sense.
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But do we ever ask that question at what cost?
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And moreover, 25 years later, are those security measures
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still necessary? Do we ever ask that question?
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How do we get those powers back? How do we get that liberty back
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from the government that took it?
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And doesn't matter what party, some of those emergency powers,
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let's face it, became permanent without sufficient
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reconsideration, without any, any ability for us, for we the
10:14
people to say, wait a minute, let's not do that anymore.
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Let's not go that direction. We, we just said here, give us
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security and we never stop to think about the cost to liberty.
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I guess a bigger question and maybe one that bothers me more
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than anything. And that's what I come back to
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with memorials for today. I not watching it because it's
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not because I don't care. It's not because I'm not a
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feeling person. It's that was that was there on
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9/11. I mean, it was here, well in
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California that was watching it live happening.
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It was a surreal experience that can't really be put into words.
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But a memorial service 25 years later is less about
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memorializing and more about the controversy that can be
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generated by the people who are attending or not attending.
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Is Mandami going to go or is he not going to go?
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What is he going to say that we're going to glom onto and be
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be offended by? It's it's become less about
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memorializing and less about remembering and more about, look
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at me, I'm mad about something that happened.
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Moreover, we have to ask ourselves the question, can the
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victims of this attack be honored when the government's
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subsequent decisions aren't necessarily being examined
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critically? It's easy to say, well, I'm a
11:54
Republican and so I support these things, or I'm a Democrat,
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so I support those things. Neither of those things or these
12:04
things are necessarily what the Founding Fathers would have been
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all about. None of them are about what this
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country should be about, preserving and protecting
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liberty. And yet here we are, finding
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ourselves questioning still, 25 years later, not memorializing,
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but turning it into yet another political thing.
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You can watch the memorials if you want.
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I'm not telling you not to, and I'm not saying you shouldn't.
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What I'm saying is, what have we learned in 25 years?
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What have we learned? Because I'm not necessarily
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convinced that we've learned anything at all.
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And that's my biggest concern about the whole thing.
13:24
Welcome back. It's me, Dave.
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I'll tell you what we have lost since 9:11.
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I'll. I'll tell you what the real
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danger to our country is. The real danger to our country
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isn't that 19 Islamic terrorists are going to load themselves
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into loaded airplanes and fly them into buildings.
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The real danger to our country is a lack of civility, lack of
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civic understanding of what we're supposed to be as
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citizens. We have watched over the last
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week, two weeks, whatever you want to call it, this trial.
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And again, I get it, we're we're all sick and tired of the trial.
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I get it. But the more that comes out
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about this trial, the more that you just sit back and you go, it
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isn't just that one guy was our hero or 11 people were our
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heroes and they were thwarted by this guy.
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Or wasn't the fact that some idiot went on Oprah, was it
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Oprah or I don't know what show it was talking about?
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We need to, we need to support all women who murdered their
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children. All of that is concerning, but
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all of that is societal. All of that is cultural.
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All of those are things that can be addressed in in ways that,
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you know, involve teaching and, and inculcating values of a
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society. The bigger problem to me is
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we've lost the we've lost the bubble, as we say in the
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submarine force about what it is we're supposed to do.
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What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States in
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the state of, in this case, Massachusetts or Washington or
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Florida or Iowa, hell, even Rhode Island?
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If we don't act as citizens first and foremost, what's going
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to happen to our country? You're not going to need 19
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Islamic terrorists to knock down a building to cause problems.
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We're doing it ourselves. One of the things that's come
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out this week is the other jurors, the other 11 jurors,
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some of them have begun speaking to the press.
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This is because, and I'm just going to say it, they're
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attention whores in this country.
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We talk too much, we share too much.
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Whether it's social media or 15 minutes of fame or whoever.
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You never heard of any of these 11 people before 2 weeks ago,
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you still don't really know anything about them.
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You've seen 32nd clips because they want to be famous.
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I guarantee you some book publisher somewhere is chasing
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them down, going, can we ghost write a book with you about what
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happened in that jury room? News organizations are lining
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up. Some of them are offering money.
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I don't know that for a fact. Nobody's, nobody said that
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distinctly, but I guarantee you they are because that's what
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they do. We have a new interview, a new
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interview, a new hashtag, new interview with one of the
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jurors, somebody named Nick. Dargy is a Dargy or Dargy, I
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don't know who called the lone male juror that was holding out
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quote, disgusting. Because that's what you do.
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You go on, you go on the media and you immediately attack your
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fellow citizens. They're disgusting because they
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disagreed with me. This juror described how he took
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he the the lone juror took one of the exercise bands and tied
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it around the water bottle to, quote, mimic the way Lindsey
17:08
Clancy killed her kids. Would I have done that?
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No. But I get his point.
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The move prompted the critics, of course, to praise the lone
17:24
juror who acted in this way. We were praising him even more,
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many calling him a hero. And this, this juror is
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disgusted by that. I'm disgusted by that.
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We're talking about what happened in a jury room.
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Do you understand what the problem is here?
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We talked on the other day about the First Amendment and the free
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speech and the chilling effect of free speech in the way that
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free speech has to be free. And you've got to be able to
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feel that you're not going to be attacked.
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You can be criticized, you can be disagreed with, but not
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attacked over what you honestly feel and say.
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And the one place you should be able to say it more than
18:06
anything is the jury room. If you can't, what's the point
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of having a jury if the jury is just going to say, well, if you
18:16
disagree with us, we're going to go into the media and ruin your
18:20
life. What's the next jurors put in a
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situation like this? Going to think, what's the
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what's you're going to sit there and go?
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Maybe not. I learned some things about this
18:34
trial. I learned some things about
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juries duty. I assumed and yes, I know what
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the word means that if I have specialized knowledge, I should
18:42
be able to use that in the in the jury room.
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Turns out if it wasn't admitted as evidence, you can't.
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I didn't know that because I've sat on juries where I had
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specialized information, specialized knowledge,
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particularly related to my submarine service.
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And in fairness, the jury was a civil trial.
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It wasn't a criminal trial. So maybe it didn't matter.
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I don't know. Maybe 40 years on, it doesn't
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really matter anyway. But who knows?
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But we've gotten to the point now where people are going to
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sit in jury rooms and think, OK, if I say what I really think,
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are these other jurors going to go out to the media after this
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and talk about me, call me disgusting.
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And then this juror said this, Nick Dargy.
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Dargy said this. And this is a quote.
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I need you to listen to this. I need you to hear this.
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This person is talking about what went on in the jury room.
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Forget the case. Forget all that stuff.
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Forget all of that stuff. Think about what this means,
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quote. There was times he wouldn't
19:55
engage, like he'd be scrolling on his phone while people were
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talking to him. You know, things like that.
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UN quote. He was scrolling on his phone in
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the jury room. It's disgusting, this juror
20:35
said. Because we're not here to play
20:38
detective. It's not a game of clue.
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Like this is serious. I asked him why was why, Why are
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you doing that, not playing on your phone?
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Why are you doing that? Another quote from another
20:50
juror. The prosecution didn't have a
20:52
figuratively smoking gun. There was not a single moment
20:55
through the presentation to that case where you could say, Yep,
20:57
I'm 100% certain that she did it or that she didn't do it.
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There was too much Gray area. We have reached the point where
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the lesson we haven't learned from 911 is that, good Lord,
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people, the jury room A is supposed to be sacrosanct.
21:18
You should be able to say anything you want in there
21:21
without the rest of the juries running out, jurors running out
21:24
to the the media going, oh, this person's disgusting.
21:27
But we have a bigger problem here, don't we?
21:30
And that bigger problem is they were scroll.
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You think he was the only one doing it?
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Come on, they were scrolling on their phones.
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The implication here is that this jury was not isolated at
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all. And if that's not a problem, I
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don't know what is. I just, I, I don't even know
21:59
where to begin on that one. If that's not a problem in the
22:03
jury room. We haven't learned anything
22:05
since 9:11. We haven't learned anything
22:06
about being citizens. We haven't learned anything
22:08
about how we're supposed to function as a society.
22:12
And more importantly, we just talk way too much.
22:17
Stay with me. Be right back.
22:44
Text machine remains 209565 Dave e-mail Dave at the Dave
22:48
bowmanshow.com. And I guess one of the things I,
22:54
I don't like about the day is I think it takes away from things.
22:59
I have a nephew that was born on September 11th and I feel like
23:03
in some ways it kind of takes away from his, his day.
23:06
You know, it's kind of the way I feel about it and maybe maybe it
23:10
does, maybe it doesn't, I don't know.
23:12
But this is also the day it's a, it's a very important day to me
23:14
because this was the day that USS Michigan was commissioned in
23:18
1982. USS Michigan became my home.
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It became a place that I still love.
23:29
It's it, it the Michigan to me is, well, she represents
23:36
everything that to me was America that I grew up in.
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And I, I am kind of dedicated to preserving her story for a lot
23:48
of reasons. And she's not decommissioned
23:50
yet. That's The thing is she's still
23:51
out there. She's still patrolling the
23:53
oceans. And I love that a year before I
24:00
reported to her, she was commissioned.
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I actually met her on the pier when she pulled in off Patrol 1.
24:06
And it, it has become in many ways, the defining part of my
24:12
life. I mean it, it really has.
24:14
I, I spent less time on the Michigan that I've spent, you
24:20
know, in some other places. I used to, I used to joke
24:22
growing up because we used to move a lot.
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I used to joke that the longest I ever lived anywhere was bunk
24:28
room 1 rack 3 of USS Michigan, but it moved around.
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That was my joke for a long time.
24:34
And, and I did, I lived there longer than I lived in any place
24:38
growing up until I got, you know, married and moved on.
24:42
And now I've been in my my homes for significantly longer.
24:46
So it, but it's, it's weird. It's it's so weird to me to
24:49
think that that was four years of my life out of 62 and almost
24:56
63 and the percentage wise, but, but it has such an effect on me,
25:02
such a meaning to me, such impact.
25:07
And I would, I, I, I would share with you today just some notes.
25:11
In 2018, we had a reunion of the what was called the pre Com and
25:15
the gold crew of the 1980s. And my role during my four years
25:20
as chairman of the Morale Welfare Committee, halfway night
25:25
committees, that sort of things. I, I, I know this will be
25:28
surprising to you, but I was something of an entertainer,
25:31
something of a microphone person back then too.
25:37
Maybe that's where I got it. I don't know.
25:39
There are videos out there that I will not confirm or deny might
25:42
exist of me hosting halfway night shows, some of which are
25:46
actually printable, some are not.
25:49
But in 2018, we held a reunion here in Silverdale and I was
25:52
asked to deliver some brief remarks.
25:55
And I want to share those remarks with you as you would
25:57
think today about everything that September 11th has come to
26:00
mean. But to me, it's really the
26:04
birthday of my ship. This is for those of you who
26:08
never sailed aboard USS Michigan.
26:10
I hope that you understand what I'm saying.
26:12
It's hard sometimes to put into mere words what I'm trying to
26:16
say to you about your spouses, your father's, your brothers,
26:19
your friends. If you look around this room,
26:23
you will see men who Once Upon a time were so very young.
26:29
Even the chief of the boat was younger, and what they, what we
26:36
accomplished was to change the world.
26:38
We built upon the legacy of FBM sailors that began in 1960,
26:42
fleet ballistic missile sailors that began in 1960, and we
26:45
carried it through to the conclusion of its first and
26:48
foremost purpose. We kept the peace.
26:53
More than that, these men were friends, They were brothers, and
26:56
in some cases they were fathers. They were leaders.
27:00
They were technicians, they were experts, and every time the
27:07
Hatch is closed and we went down into the deep, my life depended
27:09
on every single one of them and their lives depended on me.
27:14
For years I have told various audiences around the country
27:17
that being 23 years old and having the responsibility of
27:20
targeting and launching, if necessary, Trident missiles was
27:23
a very high level thing. I mean, imagine that you're 23
27:28
years old and you're responsible for this.
27:31
Not just that, but the the captain of the ship is looking
27:35
at you. But the truth is that while that
27:39
was a high level thing to me, not wanting to let any of those
27:44
men in that room or the others who weren't there that night
27:48
down, that was much more important to me.
27:51
We had our dreams, we had our goals, we had our likes, we had
27:57
our moments of joy, and even one very bad Halloween night we had
28:04
a frightening moment. In this ensuing years, I've had
28:08
the opportunity to meet a few of the crew members who are
28:11
currently aboard the ship, including two of the women who
28:14
have now qualified aboard USS Michigan.
28:16
And where the submarine dolphins like us, the men and now women
28:21
who sail Michigan into the annals of history have their
28:24
hopes and their dreams. They sleep in our old bunks,
28:28
they use our old facilities, they eat at our tables, they
28:31
shoot the breeze in the same old corners and hideouts we once did
28:37
as well. They are younger than we can
28:42
ever remember ourselves being, and they're every bit as good as
28:48
we once were. Rest easy tonight, USS Michigan.
28:55
Our boat is still patrolling the deep.
29:24
It may be politics, it may be history.
29:27
It may begin with either one and somehow end with submarines.
29:31
This is plausibly live with Dave Bowman.
29:35
Dad, don't say I didn't warn you.
29:38
Text machine 505 Dave 5053283 So today, tonight is also Rosh
29:47
Hashanah begins, so I will definitely not be here tomorrow
29:51
no last week I said I'm not going to be here on Saturday but
29:53
that I was definitely not going to be tomorrow.
29:59
Rosh Hashanah is more than just the Jewish New Year literally
30:02
means head of the year. And a head does more than just
30:07
begin the body. It directs everything that
30:09
follows. It's easy then, to understand
30:13
Rosh Hashanah as the spiritual head of the coming year.
30:18
It's in our view and our way of looking at things.
30:22
It is also the the day we mark the creation of Adam and Eve,
30:29
right? Look, I grew up in a faith where
30:32
there was this assumption that Adam and Eve were in the Garden
30:35
of Eden for years. Jewish teaching teaches much
30:38
differently. It was literally a day.
30:41
Literally a day, if that. It's the day that Adam and Eve
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were created, not just the beginning of the physical
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universe. Course, I was on day 6.
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As you know, the central concern of Harsh Hashanah is our our
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relationship with the Creator. And the question is not merely
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what happened to me in the past year.
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It is what did I do with the life, the freedom, and the
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responsibilities which Hashem, God has entrusted to me.
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And on 9/11, I can't think of a better question to ask ourselves
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as Americans, what have we done in the past year with the life,
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the freedom, and the responsibilities that that we've
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been entrusted with? And if the answer isn't we have
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done our utmost to make America better, to improve liberty, to
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secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,
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to make a more perfect union, then you have to wonder, have we
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failed? And as we celebrate Rosh
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Hashanah tonight, I think the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, I
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think we should ask ourselves that question as well.
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It's not just about that. It's about what have we done?
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What are we going to do? How are we going to use that
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going forward, How are we going to make it better tomorrow?
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Not just as believers in whatever deity you choose, but
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as Americans as well. And hopefully the answer to that
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will be obvious. Take the time right now, tell
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the people that matter in your life you love them very much.
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You'd miss them if they weren't there.
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So don't pass up those opportunities.
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You don't want to have that regret plausibly live.
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I'm Dave Bowman. We'll see you next time.