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The Constitution is Amazing (and Ridiculous), Part Two: The Game of Amendments · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
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Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams, Ben Bullen.
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Speaker 1: Noel Brown is part two, very special series for us.
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Speaker 2: Noel, it's right we are joined once again, already in
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Speaker 2: progress with aj Bahamas Jacobs, the author of the Year
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Speaker 2: of Living. Constitutionally, I think we should just jump right in.
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Speaker 1: So this vagary we're talking about cruel and unusual punished
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Speaker 1: is an excellent example. It leads us to the current
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Speaker 1: ongoing debate about things like the death penalty, things like
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Speaker 1: mandatory sentencing. But it also I think you're talking about
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Speaker 1: these vague qualifications of things. Like you said, these are
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Speaker 1: big pages, but they are four big pages. They are
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Speaker 1: not eight thousand pages listed in depth. The stuff these
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Speaker 1: guys were trying to go for. They purposely made the
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Speaker 1: amendment process really difficult. And you also found another unsung
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Speaker 1: hero for amendments. And I think you know, I don't
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Speaker 1: know about everybody listening here, but usually if you're most Americans,
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Speaker 1: when you think of amendments, you just think of the
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Speaker 1: Bill of Rights. You're like yeah, the they made the
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Speaker 1: first document and then they fixed it exactly.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, the first ten are definitely the stars, although in
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Speaker 3: my book I get into the fascinating history of those
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Speaker 3: that we might not even have time to talk about.
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Speaker 3: But they were very differently conceived back then. But here's
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Speaker 3: what's interesting is when Madison was the one who came
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Speaker 3: up with that list of ten.
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Speaker 1: Basically, so he's like, Madison is our Moses.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think so. I mean, he's often called
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Speaker 3: the father of the Constitution. But originally there was twelve,
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Speaker 3: so there were twelve instead of ten, but two didn't
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Speaker 3: get through. One of the two was actually quite interesting.
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Speaker 3: It was that there should be more congress people or
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Speaker 3: at the time, congressmen. So if that one had passed,
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Speaker 3: it would be a different mathematical formula and we would
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Speaker 3: have six thousand people in Congress, like we'd have to
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Speaker 3: hold it in Madison Square, So that would be interest
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Speaker 3: So that would never pass. But then there was another
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Speaker 3: one that never passed because it didn't get enough states.
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Speaker 3: You need three quarters of the states to say yes,
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Speaker 3: and they only got like there were thirteen states and
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Speaker 3: they only got like six of them. I guess seven maybe,
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Speaker 3: So they needed a couple more, and that one was
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Speaker 3: it was relatively tame. It wasn't that controversial. It said,
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Speaker 3: Congress cannot give itself a raise immediately. I can't say, oh,
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Speaker 3: we should be paid five million dollars a year starting now.
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Speaker 3: It had to be you could pay get a raise
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Speaker 3: for the next Congress. So that was a little less corrupt.
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Speaker 2: The idea being that you would not necessarily be re elected,
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Speaker 2: or that you'd be like benefiting by somebody else and
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Speaker 2: not yourself immediately directly right.
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Speaker 3: Exactly, so that never back in seventeen nineties, it was
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Speaker 3: not passed, but it never died fully. It was sort
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Speaker 3: of a zombie amendment. And there was this young man
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Speaker 3: who is a University of Texas student in nineteen eighty
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Speaker 3: two who wrote a paper for his policy class saying,
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Speaker 3: you know what, this is still alive. If we get
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Speaker 3: three quarters of the current states to vote for this
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Speaker 3: could be the next amendment, the twenty seventh Amendment. His
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Speaker 3: teacher said, you're an idiot and gave him a wow.
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Speaker 3: I can't remember a C or an F, but she
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Speaker 3: was like, terrible idea. So out of spite he said,
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Speaker 3: as soon as he got that grade he said, I
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Speaker 3: am going to make this an amendment to the US Constitution.
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Speaker 3: And he went on a ten year journey. He wrote
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Speaker 3: hundreds of letters to state congress people, and he finally
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Speaker 3: got he got mained the state of Maine to pass it,
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Speaker 3: and then he got enough that was whatever it was,
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Speaker 3: thirty seven other states and it became the twenty seventh Amendment.
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Speaker 1: To the Constitution.
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Speaker 3: So he, out of spite did something wonderful. And Greg
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Speaker 3: Greg Watson, I talked to him, and he's a great character.
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Speaker 3: By the way. He reminded me several times he is
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Speaker 3: looking for a job. So if you want someone with tenacity, yeah.
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Speaker 4: Boy, yeah, he will researcher.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway, I loved that story, but he himself
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Speaker 3: is worried that his will be the last amendment for
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Speaker 3: a long, long long time.
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Speaker 2: How did that that, you know, him being able to
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Speaker 2: make that happen. How did that not lead to like
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Speaker 2: a book deal or like some bigger, higher profile situation
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Speaker 2: for this Greg fellow.
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Speaker 3: Great point, maybe that's his job.
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Speaker 4: I just wonder.
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Speaker 2: I'm surprised I haven't heard of him or it wasn't
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Speaker 2: a bigger news story.
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Speaker 4: That's that's kind of a big deal.
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Speaker 3: You know what, that is a perfect like Netflix like
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Speaker 3: sort of like unfrosted or whatever the Jerry sin will want.
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Speaker 3: Oh my god, you're right right, So.
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Speaker 1: Let's do it twenty we just call it twenty seven.
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Speaker 2: Can he gets a meeting with this Greg, let's let's
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Speaker 2: the three of us option this question.
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Speaker 4: I'm not I'm kind of not joking, you know, people,
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Speaker 4: I'm not either.
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Speaker 2: Maybe we cut this part out so we.
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Speaker 1: Got to keep it in. This great idea and good hustle, Greg,
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Speaker 1: especially considering what you told us earlier, ajuh that the
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Speaker 1: attrition rate for let's call the amendment pitches he is
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Speaker 1: so high. And Noel, I think you're right on the
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Speaker 1: idea here of following Greg's story. And all I ask is,
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Speaker 1: I'll say fifteen percent. Okay, twelve, we'll call it thirteen.
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Speaker 1: How about you got twenty All right, terrible, let me go, I.
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Speaker 3: Say we all have twenty seven percent combined.
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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yeah, okay, no one sweat the math
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Speaker 1: if you're writing this down, stop So so there there
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Speaker 1: is a great deal. I think of real world contemporaneous context.
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Speaker 1: When we look at any document, we must realize the
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Speaker 1: time in which that document was written. My favorite dumb
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Speaker 1: joke about the founding Fathers is, of course, the right
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Speaker 1: to bear arms. There were many more bears at the time.
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Speaker 1: We don't know the fashion of the day.
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Speaker 4: It was coming. It was never it was inevitable that
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Speaker 4: it was holy. But a goodie, thank you.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, be careful with that joke. It's an antique.
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Speaker 2: I just it conjures such a delightful image, the right
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Speaker 2: to bear arms. You know, it's like I'm gonna wear
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Speaker 2: these bare sleeve arms part of the costume, but only
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Speaker 2: the arms, and then menace people are you know?
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Speaker 1: You can't tell me. So America being a very a
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Speaker 1: very strange and ambitious experiment which continues today, very young country.
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Speaker 1: In the Grand Scheme, it also granted rights that would
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Speaker 1: technically be considered crimes.
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Speaker 3: Well, yes, we all know the right to free speech,
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Speaker 3: the right to bear arms, as you said, but there
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Speaker 3: are other rights in the constitution that are surprising because,
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Speaker 3: as you say, they were very contemporarying, they were very
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Speaker 3: of their time.
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Speaker 2: They and their loves, which the right to bear arms
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Speaker 2: is too. I love to get a little bit more
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Speaker 2: into that in a minute, but just continue.
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Speaker 3: And yeah, so some of the languages is almost eternal
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Speaker 3: like equality and equal protection liberty. But then you get
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Speaker 3: to a part like section in Article one, Section eight,
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Speaker 3: Congress can give private citizens they right to be a pirate,
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Speaker 3: basically illegally government sanctioned pirate.
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Speaker 2: Yes, it gives it an air of legitimacy. Right, I'm
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Speaker 2: not a pirate, I'm a privateer.
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Speaker 3: Right, and the privateers would would object to be calling
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Speaker 3: being called a pirate. But it's a very similar idea.
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Speaker 3: It's basically, if you have a fishing boat, government, the
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Speaker 3: government could say, all right, you can put a bunch
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Speaker 3: of muskets on your fishing boat, go out and confront
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Speaker 3: enemy ships, capture them, seize their booty whatever that was.
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Speaker 3: That could be guns, it could be sherry.
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Speaker 4: They had a lot of little pinch just give a
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Speaker 4: little pants good one.
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Speaker 1: Next, can I get a can I get a little
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Speaker 1: like quiet storm moment here? Because I picture Ben Franklin
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Speaker 1: coming in and saying, let him get the booty.
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Speaker 2: You know, he was a booty snatcher, was a naughty
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Speaker 2: dirgy dog, Miss liberty. But but aj this is a
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Speaker 2: product of a wartime, right, right, I mean they were
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Speaker 2: they were basically allowing themselves to create a seafaring militia.
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Speaker 4: Right, that's it.
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Speaker 3: And yes, I think that they are unsung heroes of
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Speaker 3: our country because they were huge. The privateers were huge
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Speaker 3: in the revolution. We did not have much of a navy.
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Speaker 3: America had a very meager navy, so they outsourced it.
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Speaker 3: So they said, here, you fisher people and whalers, you
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Speaker 3: go out and capture the British ships. And they did.
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Speaker 3: They caught almost two thousand British ships and without that
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Speaker 3: we probably would not have won the war. And what
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Speaker 3: is fascinating to me is you don't hear a lot
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Speaker 3: about them. You know, they're not a lot of statues
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Speaker 3: of privateers and.
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Speaker 2: The famous one like who were some big names. They
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Speaker 2: were basically the blackwater of the day.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 1: They were a mercenary army, exactly mercenary navy.
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Speaker 3: And they had well that's the thing. They had a
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Speaker 3: mixed motive, so they were patriots, but they also had
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Speaker 3: the profit motive. But but people are complicated, so I
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Speaker 3: think even though they were also out for themselves, we
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Speaker 3: still should be thankful, or else we might not have
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Speaker 3: a country. And there is another I talked to a
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Speaker 3: good the expert, Eric J. Dolan, a great historian on privateers.
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Speaker 3: He told me a lot about them. But yeah, so
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Speaker 3: there are I say, let's put up some statues of privateers.
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Speaker 1: Why not. Yeah to the earlier question, are there statues?
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Speaker 3: You know, it's a good question. I don't know of
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Speaker 3: any personally. Maybe there are a couple of random ones,
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Speaker 3: but they're certainly not. There's not like a memorial like
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Speaker 3: Jefferson or Lincoln memoirs.
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Speaker 1: There's there's no like Tomb of the Unknown Pirate. Oh geez.
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Speaker 2: So that language is still in though, right, Well, how
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Speaker 2: does that translate to the modern day?
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Speaker 3: Well, as part of my book. So my book was
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Speaker 3: sort of a few things. It was a crash course
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Speaker 3: in the Constitution, which I needed and I hopefully can
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Speaker 3: make entertaining for readers. But also I tried to express
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Speaker 3: my rights, like I said, carrying a musket, and I
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Speaker 3: was like, this isn't the constitution. Uh, there hasn't been
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Speaker 3: a privateer licensed since eighteen fifteen, but it's still in there.
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Speaker 1: So I be the change.
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Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I went.
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Speaker 3: I met with a congressman wrote Conna from California, and
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Speaker 3: I presented him with my application for a letter of
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Speaker 3: marked and reprisal as it's called and at first he
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Speaker 3: was like, great, let's make this happen, and then he
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Speaker 3: was then he was like wait, wait, what is this again?
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Speaker 4: Sorry? Oh jeez, he.
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Speaker 3: Didn't really realize what he was agreeing to.
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Speaker 4: And then he's got tell us about our law makers.
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Speaker 4: Oh gosh.
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Speaker 1: She went back and he went back and.
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Speaker 4: He did read it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, a little article one section.
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Speaker 2: He just stopped at this point or what like he
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Speaker 2: goes to you gave you the slow fade or was
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Speaker 2: there like an actual moment of denied.
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Speaker 3: No, it's still in it. It's still open, according to
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Speaker 3: I mean he is. I actually am a big fan
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Speaker 3: because he hooks.
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Speaker 1: If you are listening now, please we're gonna have AJ
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Speaker 1: say the name of this congress person again. Please write
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Speaker 1: to this congress person join our petition. Yes, demand uh,
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Speaker 1: demand uh the respect for Article one section eight of
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Speaker 1: the Constitution such that we can get a letter of
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Speaker 1: mark and reprisal for AJ Bahamas Jacobs Congress again.
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Speaker 3: Roe Conna from Silicon Valley, California. Lovely man, and I
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Speaker 3: think he he could have kicked me out. I met
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Speaker 3: him at a hotel restaurant and he but but he
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Speaker 3: did lot. I explained the concept of my book and
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Speaker 3: he's a constitutional fan, so he thought it was interesting
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Speaker 3: and he said he would bring it up with Congress,
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Speaker 3: and he said he's having trouble getting traction. I'd say
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Speaker 3: that my most my biggest success is his assistant emails
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Speaker 3: me as Captain Jacobs. So I have been promoted, right,
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Speaker 3: that's something right?
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Speaker 1: Okay, So we're we're added to the legend and we
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Speaker 1: are cooking live. This is this is actual stuff that
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Speaker 1: could happen.
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Speaker 3: We're gonna make it happen.
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Speaker 1: Question, and this may be to tangential if one were
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Speaker 1: to secure a letter of mark and reprisal, does this
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Speaker 1: also grant impunity to the crew? Like if if I
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Speaker 1: join you, if if Max and Noel, if we all
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Speaker 1: go jolly Roger and I guess do we get a pas?
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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, please join join me. I have I borrow
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Speaker 3: my friend who has a waterski boat said he would
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Speaker 3: lend it to me and we can go wherever we want,
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Speaker 3: Taiwan straight you name it, and yes you would be. Uh.
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Speaker 3: It's granted to the entire ship, So whoever is on
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Speaker 3: the ship is considered a patriot as well. So yeah,
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Speaker 3: I'm in like signed up.
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Speaker 1: This so like a great idea. I see absolutely no
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Speaker 1: problem with any of this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, potential international incidents are brewing whatsoever.
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Speaker 3: I don't see it either.
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Speaker 1: I also do in ridiculous history cinematic universe. I'm now
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Speaker 1: picturing a thing where we operate as a pirate crew
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Speaker 1: at the Taiwan like in Taiwan in the Pacific Theater,
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Speaker 1: and we think the whole thing is about potato chips,
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Speaker 1: and so I'm in visioning this sort of dude wears
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Speaker 1: my car.
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Speaker 4: Situation.
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Speaker 1: I see you're on board.
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Speaker 2: H I love it speaking of a dude wears my
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Speaker 2: car situation. You know, the founding fathers were quite fond
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Speaker 2: of vices, were they not. They loved their smoke, their drink,
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Speaker 2: you know, their cavorting. In fact, I believe a party
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Speaker 2: thrown for George Washington in Philadelphia in the last few
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Speaker 2: weeks of the Constitutional Convention. You procured a bar tab,
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Speaker 2: an official document, a historical bar tab for this event,
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Speaker 2: and it was quite the to do.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, this was impressive. And they were not teetotalers.
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Speaker 3: They were day drinkers, night drinkers, morning drinks. And yes,
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Speaker 3: you mentioned this bar tab, which is like fourteen frat
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Speaker 3: parties combined. So this is for fifty five people. George
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Speaker 3: Washington was the was the guest of honor, and they
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Speaker 3: drank fifty four bottles of Madeira, which is their favorite.
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Speaker 2: Booze fortified wine from so basically like Mad Dog twenty
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Speaker 2: or whatever that is, hobo.
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Speaker 3: Wine, hobo. But that was just the start. Sixty bottles
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Speaker 3: of claret, eight bottles of whiskey, twenty two bottles of porter,
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Speaker 3: eight bottles of hard tider, twelve bottles of beer only
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Speaker 3: twelve beer, and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.
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Speaker 4: So that's the kicker there.
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Speaker 2: See, at first I was like there, yeah, honestly a
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Speaker 2: little bit light for fifty five, but then you get
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Speaker 2: to that seven the bowls of alcoholic punch, which contained
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Speaker 2: all the booze.
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Speaker 4: They didn't even give you the tab for the booze
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Speaker 4: that went into the punch. That's just to catch all
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Speaker 4: of it.
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Speaker 2: And we know that George Washington's recipe for egg nog
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Speaker 2: is just booze in a little egg, yolk and cream.
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Speaker 2: It's like ten different kinds. Do you have a sense
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Speaker 2: of what might have gone into the alcoholic punch? A
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Speaker 2: lot of rum probably, I don't know if that's also remember.
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Speaker 1: Also going back to the idea of vague language. How
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Speaker 1: big are those bottles?
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Speaker 3: Great point, great point.
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Speaker 1: Yeah they could be cute back room champagne bottles or whatever.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well they We do have Martha Washington's rum punch
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Speaker 3: recipe which I made. I made and I handed out
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Speaker 3: on election day because that was part of election day
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Speaker 3: at the time. It was very festive, a lot of
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Speaker 3: rum punch and a lot of cake. So I tried
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Speaker 3: to bring back the cake more than the rum punch.
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Speaker 3: I feel we need cake. And so yes, it has
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Speaker 3: orange and lemons, juice and rum, dark and light rum,
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Speaker 3: and I can't remember what else, but yeah, it's it's hefty.
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Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
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Speaker 2: A couple of historical punches. There's a famous one from
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Speaker 2: around our neck of the woods called the chat Them
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Speaker 2: Artillery punch out of Savannah, Georgia, which was a very
19:04
Speaker 2: important obviously port city.
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Speaker 4: So that's the.
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Speaker 2: Drink that you can get there in Savannah, which has
19:11
Speaker 2: been around the colonial era southern cocktail staple, and it
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Speaker 2: was let's see, the Chatham Artillery, which was formed in
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Speaker 2: Georgia in seventeen eighty six. So that's you know, roughly
19:23
Speaker 2: in the same universe. But then you've got a recipe
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Speaker 2: for George Washington's punch, which is one quart strong brewed
19:29
Speaker 2: English breakfast tea sweetened, one gallon good quality bourbon gallon
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Speaker 2: one gallon sherry, one quarte sweet vermouth, one pint best
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Speaker 2: quality Jamaican rum, one pint yellow or green chartreuse, four
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Speaker 2: bottles of champagne or more to taste, twelve lemons, each
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Speaker 2: cut into four wedges. One quart Marischino cherries without stems
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Speaker 2: but with their juice.
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Speaker 4: Combine the first six ingredients.
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Speaker 2: When it is time to serve the punch, add the
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Speaker 2: champagne as much as you wish, Add lemon, wedges and
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Speaker 2: cherries to the punch, and serve. The punch is much
20:03
Speaker 2: improved if allowed to stand for at least one week
20:07
Speaker 2: before serving, so the fruit really gets soaked up. And
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Speaker 2: this is from something called the Academy of Domestic Pursuits website,
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Speaker 2: which appears to be historical recipes and things.
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Speaker 1: I love the idea of trial and error in that recipe,
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Speaker 1: in all these recipes right that. I love the idea
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Speaker 1: that someone put the stems in with the cherries such
20:33
Speaker 1: that it has to be specified, and someone like drank
20:36
Speaker 1: this and said.
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Speaker 4: What's with all these stems?
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Speaker 1: The you know, like you go into we see the
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Speaker 1: I would say, we see the constitution or the attempt
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Speaker 1: to embark upon experiments like rule of law. We see
20:52
Speaker 1: that in microcosm. If you go to, for instance, public
20:56
Speaker 1: business and there's an oddly specific so you know, we
21:01
Speaker 1: were used to no shirt, no shoes, no service, things
21:05
Speaker 1: like that. But you walk in and you see something
21:07
Speaker 1: that says no inebriated lamas, and you know something happened.
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Speaker 3: Something happened. Fascinating. Well, I was just gonna say I
21:19
Speaker 3: love that. I mean, I think the fact that you
21:23
Speaker 3: made a bigger figured out a bigger point about America
21:26
Speaker 3: from this crazy Maraschino cherry, I think is brilliant and true.
21:31
Speaker 3: They were very into experimenting, and not just in like Booze.
21:37
Speaker 3: They the American government was considered an experiment. This was
21:42
Speaker 3: the American experiment. Ben Franklin. He loved experiment and they
21:46
Speaker 3: loved changing their minds. So that is one thing. They
21:50
Speaker 3: had a lot of flaws, as we know, but one
21:53
Speaker 3: virtue that I do love is that they were willing
21:57
Speaker 3: to change their mind. Ben Franklin said, the older he
22:01
Speaker 3: gets the less certain he is of his own opinions.
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Speaker 3: I thought that was nice. He said that I feel
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Speaker 3: that way me too, I really do.
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Speaker 2: Some people think it's the opposite, and we certainly know
22:11
Speaker 2: people that the older they get, the more obstinate they get.
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Speaker 2: But I find the older that I get, the more
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Speaker 2: I'm willing to broaden my thinking great and to know
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Speaker 2: the things that I don't know and be very aware
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Speaker 2: of that.
22:24
Speaker 4: I always say this, and I'll say it again.
22:26
Speaker 2: Self awareness, I think is one of the most important
22:28
Speaker 2: qualities of any human person, you know, because once you
22:31
Speaker 2: lose that objectivity, I just don't have any time for you.
22:35
Speaker 2: It's just you're no fun to talk to. And I
22:38
Speaker 2: really just I kind of feel like, why bother?
22:41
Speaker 3: You are very Franklin esque. I love well, he said.
22:45
Speaker 3: Right after he said that, he told a little joke.
22:47
Speaker 3: He liked the jests, so he told a little like
22:49
Speaker 3: parable and he said, this was at the convention, and
22:53
Speaker 3: he said, there's this French lady who said to her sister,
22:57
Speaker 3: it's so strange, why is it that I'm the only
23:01
Speaker 3: person I've ever met who is correct on every single issue?
23:06
Speaker 3: And that this is Yeah, it's a good one, and
23:08
Speaker 3: it's that whole thing.
23:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that whole thing about like it must be
23:11
Speaker 2: everybody else's problem.
23:13
Speaker 4: I can't be, you know, And that's that's great. I
23:16
Speaker 4: love that.
23:16
Speaker 1: One thing I think also, one thing I think would
23:21
Speaker 1: be incredibly informative to people is that, look, the most
23:26
Speaker 1: boring folks to talk to are people who only talk
23:29
Speaker 1: about themselves, right, And the problem is that most people's
23:33
Speaker 1: favorite subject is themselves. In any language, the favorite word
23:39
Speaker 1: is whatever equates to me. And the founding fathers were
23:44
Speaker 1: despite their gross imperfections, they were trying to think of
23:49
Speaker 1: or to imagine other people and building consensus. And I
23:54
Speaker 1: was fascinated with the year of living constitutionally a j
23:59
Speaker 1: I genuinely did not know the idea of coup presidency.
24:04
Speaker 1: I had no idea that might have been a think.
24:07
Speaker 3: I loved learning that too, and what it came about
24:11
Speaker 3: because they were very nervous about having another tyrant or
24:17
Speaker 3: a king. So during the start of the Constitutional Convention,
24:22
Speaker 3: everyone agreed, maybe we should have these three branches, the judicial, legislation, executive,
24:27
Speaker 3: but how do we set them up? So this guy,
24:30
Speaker 3: James Wilson stands up from Pennsylvania. He says, I think
24:34
Speaker 3: we should have a single president. We should have one
24:37
Speaker 3: guy at the top. And several of the delegates said,
24:42
Speaker 3: are you jesting. That's insane, that's a terrible idea. We
24:47
Speaker 3: just fought a war to get rid of a monarch,
24:50
Speaker 3: and now you want to install what they call the
24:52
Speaker 3: fetus of monarchy. One president, They said, is the fetus
24:56
Speaker 3: of monarchy.
24:57
Speaker 4: The fetus of monarchy.
24:58
Speaker 3: Oh, it's going to just grow, go and grow into
25:00
Speaker 3: a little baby and be born and then turn into
25:03
Speaker 3: a teenager. And and so they.
25:05
Speaker 2: Said, no, we need we're talking back to you.
25:09
Speaker 3: So we need more than one president. We need three,
25:12
Speaker 3: a group of three presidents so that they can consult
25:17
Speaker 3: and make a decision. Ben Franklin mentioned twelve presidents. What
25:20
Speaker 3: about twelve presidents? And it was actually a debate for weeks,
25:24
Speaker 3: and in the end the single president won because they
25:27
Speaker 3: they convinced the other side it would be too much infighting.
25:31
Speaker 1: But it was not.
25:32
Speaker 3: It was seven states said single president, three states said no.
25:37
Speaker 3: Three or more presidents so two. If two states had
25:40
Speaker 3: voted differently, if like whatever, it's ten people had voted
25:44
Speaker 3: a different way, we might have Biden Trump rfks Junior
25:50
Speaker 3: like hanging out in the oval office, which I don't
25:53
Speaker 3: think is a great idea, so that would be quite
25:56
Speaker 3: a sitcom. But I do like their basic idea of
26:01
Speaker 3: constraining the presidency because they saw that this might become
26:05
Speaker 3: a problem. And I would say the fetus, the fetus
26:09
Speaker 3: is a toddler at least, and I'm not talking about
26:12
Speaker 3: I'm talking about both Democrat and Republican presidents. Absolutely so
26:17
Speaker 3: much more powerful then. And just to give you one statistic,
26:21
Speaker 3: George Washington issued eight executive orders. Obama and Trump both
26:28
Speaker 3: issued over two hundred and fifty executive orders, so they
26:32
Speaker 3: both It is so much more powerful this one person
26:36
Speaker 3: than it was meant to be by the founding fathers.
26:39
Speaker 2: But again, just a matter of decorum. It's just a
26:42
Speaker 2: matter of like flexing that power or choosing to be restrained,
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, as maybe the founding fathers would have would
26:50
Speaker 2: have hoped, you know that the folks in that position
26:52
Speaker 2: would have would have done right, exercise a little self control,
26:55
Speaker 2: exactly exactly, so true.
26:58
Speaker 1: And it's weird too because the Constitution is pretty anti
27:04
Speaker 1: aristocracy in its founding right. So the idea, I love
27:11
Speaker 1: this concept of authoritarian power growing the fetus as you said,
27:18
Speaker 1: growing to a teenager and then becoming a dictatorship, right,
27:23
Speaker 1: removing the rights of the people of the concept of democracy.
27:28
Speaker 1: Can tell us a little bit about why you think
27:32
Speaker 1: the Constitution has a bad vibe against monarchs. That's a
27:36
Speaker 1: very softball question under sort of lob and that when underhanded.
27:41
Speaker 3: Well they did though they hated they did them nobility,
27:44
Speaker 3: they hated royalty. I mean, they had just fought a
27:47
Speaker 3: war to get rid of them. And so there is
27:52
Speaker 3: a clause in the Constitution that says government cannot bestow
27:56
Speaker 3: titles of nobility. There will never be a Duke of
28:00
Speaker 3: New Jersey or an Earl of Arkansas.
28:04
Speaker 1: And more than dang it, we're gonna have to We're
28:08
Speaker 1: gonna have to keep doing this show. If Earl of
28:10
Speaker 1: Arkansas is.
28:11
Speaker 3: Out, I'm sorry to ruin your career aspirations. So, yeah,
28:16
Speaker 3: that was And what I love too is they purged
28:20
Speaker 3: the language. They tried to purge the English language of
28:24
Speaker 3: this aristocratic and monarchical tinge. So they had King's College,
28:31
Speaker 3: they changed it to Columbia College, So that's why it's
28:33
Speaker 3: called Columbia King's. There was a King Street in many cities.
28:37
Speaker 3: They changed it to Congress Street King's The King's Minuet
28:42
Speaker 3: Dance was now called the Congress Minuet Dance, and I
28:46
Speaker 3: love that, and I think we've backslid a little. I
28:48
Speaker 3: think it's so weird. And I love my wife. I
28:51
Speaker 3: love her to pieces, but she's obsessed with the British
28:56
Speaker 3: monarchy and buys the people magazines about you know what is.
29:00
Speaker 2: Well, it's a soap opera playing out, you know, in
29:02
Speaker 2: the public eye.
29:03
Speaker 4: I think it's a I kind of get it.
29:05
Speaker 2: I it's also sure it's so toothless though too right,
29:08
Speaker 2: like I mean, well, I will say that I do
29:10
Speaker 2: think it's very odd that they're just this landed gentry
29:14
Speaker 2: that forever are living off of the backs of like
29:17
Speaker 2: the taxpayers over there, and they just the amount of
29:19
Speaker 2: property that is owned under the British crown, the manners
29:23
Speaker 2: and all of this ostentatious living is beyond absurd.
29:27
Speaker 4: But I get it as sort of like.
29:28
Speaker 2: A real life reality show, kind of like you know
29:32
Speaker 2: that level of right, You're right it is.
29:35
Speaker 4: I think what the obsession is, you know.
29:37
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and but what about this fact? What about I
29:41
Speaker 3: during my year, I said, we got to capture some
29:45
Speaker 3: of that early American anti monarchy fever, because look around
29:51
Speaker 3: our pop culture, like Disney with all their princes and
29:55
Speaker 3: princesses kings. Let's make it the Disney instead of the
29:59
Speaker 3: Disney king them the Disney Republic. Let's bring back. Yeah,
30:06
Speaker 3: they did not respond to my brilliant idea when I
30:09
Speaker 3: sent them a letter.
30:09
Speaker 4: You filled out that comment card at Disney World.
30:11
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, they haven't responded yet, Thank you, Ben. I
30:16
Speaker 3: love the optimism, a very good American characteristic.
30:19
Speaker 1: Of course, America is a very much as we said,
30:22
Speaker 1: hold my Beer country, I mean, just the voting we did.
30:26
Speaker 1: We did a couple of episodes a while back about
30:30
Speaker 1: the practice of cooping, which was, you know, essentially press.
30:35
Speaker 2: Gangging people, rounding people up and forcibly intoxicating them and
30:40
Speaker 2: then essentially holding them hostage and forcing them to the
30:44
Speaker 2: polls to vote for whomever you know you want.
30:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Yeah, we don't want to
30:51
Speaker 3: go back to nineteenth and eighteenth century voting because, yeah,
30:54
Speaker 3: you had cooping, you also had voting by voice, so
30:58
Speaker 3: you would they didn't do the secret.
31:01
Speaker 4: That was what you just waled.
31:03
Speaker 1: You just walked into a room and said, yeah.
31:06
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, and as actually I tried to do
31:09
Speaker 3: that for my book. I said, I walked in last
31:13
Speaker 3: November and I said, I want to vote for Kathy
31:16
Speaker 3: Hochel for governor. And they freaked out, the election workers.
31:20
Speaker 4: Like, sh you can't say that.
31:21
Speaker 3: You can't, I said, but this is the way they
31:23
Speaker 3: did it in the seventeen hundred. Well that was a
31:26
Speaker 3: while ago, so I wasn't able to do that, but
31:30
Speaker 3: as I did mention, there's one part of eighteenth century
31:34
Speaker 3: voting that I do love, and that is the idea
31:37
Speaker 3: of it as this festival, this all inspiring rite that
31:42
Speaker 3: they had never had. So they were really at least
31:46
Speaker 3: the privileged few, the white males who could vote. So
31:50
Speaker 3: huge asterisk there, but it was election day was like
31:55
Speaker 3: a festival, and so I did try to as part
31:59
Speaker 3: of my book, I brought back this election cake and
32:03
Speaker 3: I had people all over the country. I went on Facebook,
32:07
Speaker 3: which I know is not eighteenth century, but it is
32:10
Speaker 3: one of the older platforms. That was so I felt,
32:14
Speaker 3: you know, maybe, and I got people, one hundreds of
32:17
Speaker 3: people in all fifty states to bake these election cakes
32:20
Speaker 3: and bring them to the polls to remind people that
32:23
Speaker 3: democracy is sweep that was our catchphrase, no pun left
32:27
Speaker 3: and behind.
32:28
Speaker 2: Like you say, I have one of those pins on
32:31
Speaker 2: my back exactly.
32:40
Speaker 1: And so we are reaching the beginning. I won't see
32:46
Speaker 1: the end. That's an American. We're reaching the beginning of
32:50
Speaker 1: our exploration of the history and how this country got
32:55
Speaker 1: to hear. One of the questions that everybody's going to
32:59
Speaker 1: want to know, we were talking about this off air
33:01
Speaker 1: AJ the Electoral College. It's confusing to explain to people
33:07
Speaker 1: who are not in the United States, and you know,
33:09
Speaker 1: full disclosure, it's kind of confusing to be an American
33:14
Speaker 1: attempting to understand this.
33:15
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, it is a It is a bizarre system.
33:19
Speaker 3: And just to back up, part of the reason why
33:21
Speaker 3: it came about is because the founders had a very
33:26
Speaker 3: They were very mixed about this idea of democracy, so
33:31
Speaker 3: that they on the one hand, the Constitution was like this,
33:35
Speaker 3: as one professor says, the big bang of democracy. It
33:39
Speaker 3: was the first time in thousands of years people could
33:42
Speaker 3: elect their own leader. On the other hand, the founders
33:46
Speaker 3: were very skeptical of the rabble of the hoyploy of
33:50
Speaker 3: the mobs. One of the most famous toasts of the
33:54
Speaker 3: era was freedom from kings as well as mobs, and
33:59
Speaker 3: not the mafia mobs. They weren't talking about them. Yeah,
34:03
Speaker 3: they were talking about sort of the uneducated masses, and
34:07
Speaker 3: they were elitists. They did not like that. So in
34:12
Speaker 3: addition to having some democracy and people voting, they also
34:17
Speaker 3: built in these mechanisms that were anti democratic, that were
34:22
Speaker 3: anti that were anti counter majoritarian is the fancy word.
34:27
Speaker 1: Counter but geor ary. Yeah, that's my first time hearing
34:31
Speaker 1: this word.
34:31
Speaker 3: I love that it makes me sound smarter than I am.
34:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, So the Senate is an example of that
34:38
Speaker 3: because there are only two senators per state, which meant
34:43
Speaker 3: that the small states have more power so that the
34:47
Speaker 3: majority cannot just take over. And the other another big
34:51
Speaker 3: one was the electoral college. And part of the reason
34:54
Speaker 3: there are several reasons that they wanted it, but part
34:57
Speaker 3: of it was the electoral college. Were these actual men,
35:01
Speaker 3: they were electors, So they were these educated men from
35:06
Speaker 3: each state who would actually do the voting. They would
35:09
Speaker 3: take what the people said, consider it, and then they
35:12
Speaker 3: were the ones who voted. And part of the reason
35:16
Speaker 3: they wanted that was because they were afraid that the
35:20
Speaker 3: uneducated masses might vote for a demagogue, might vote for
35:26
Speaker 3: someone who just flattered them and said, I'm going to
35:30
Speaker 3: give you whatever you want.
35:31
Speaker 4: Jeez, that sounds.
35:35
Speaker 3: And well, that's what's interesting is that they built this
35:40
Speaker 3: to stop a demagogue. Because the idea was, say the
35:45
Speaker 3: uneducated masses voted for this demagogue. These electors, these sophisticated
35:51
Speaker 3: gentlemen would come in and say, Okay, no, no, we
35:54
Speaker 3: don't want that. We really want this guy who's not
35:57
Speaker 3: going to become a tyrant, and they would overturn the
36:01
Speaker 3: popular election and they would elect the proper person. But
36:09
Speaker 3: what has happened now is the electors cannot just choose
36:13
Speaker 3: to vote, and I mean there has been controversy where
36:16
Speaker 3: they've tried to vote their own and even the most
36:20
Speaker 3: radical people are saying, no, no, you've got to vote
36:23
Speaker 3: whatever the state says. But what this means is that
36:29
Speaker 3: we've had people who've lost the popular vote but who
36:34
Speaker 3: won the electoral vote. And so instead of doing what
36:37
Speaker 3: it was meant to do, which was stop this demogogue,
36:42
Speaker 3: it's actually enabled demagogues. So it is something that I
36:48
Speaker 3: would love to see changed. And it's very hard, as
36:52
Speaker 3: we talked about, so hard to change the constitution. But
36:55
Speaker 3: one interesting idea is this, there's a lot that's not
37:00
Speaker 3: in the constitution that we assume is in the constitution,
37:04
Speaker 3: and we assume that if a president wins Pennsylvania, he
37:10
Speaker 3: gets all of the electoral votes. That's not in the constitution.
37:15
Speaker 3: The states are allowed to divide the electoral votes however
37:18
Speaker 3: they want. Two states have a different system. Nebraska and
37:23
Speaker 3: Maine split the electoral vote. So if a candidate wins
37:28
Speaker 3: some part of the state and the other candidate wins
37:31
Speaker 3: the other, they split. So say they have eight votes,
37:34
Speaker 3: I can't remember what it is, they can give five
37:36
Speaker 3: to one candidate and three to another. So if all
37:39
Speaker 3: fifty states did something similar, wow, that would be a
37:43
Speaker 3: way to circumvent the electoral college. And I am a
37:48
Speaker 3: fan of that. I think that is it's time because
37:51
Speaker 3: this idea of the purpose that it was created for,
37:56
Speaker 3: it is not serving that purpose at all.
37:58
Speaker 2: Here here hazah, And what is it the thing about
38:02
Speaker 2: mobs as well as kings, Yeah, kings, kings as well
38:08
Speaker 2: as mobs.
38:09
Speaker 4: Well, that's super.
38:10
Speaker 2: Educational on my end because I've always struggled with even
38:13
Speaker 2: like how the electoral college came about and what function
38:18
Speaker 2: does it serve? You know, in our modern day, and
38:20
Speaker 2: I answered that I think perfectly it doesn't serve much
38:24
Speaker 2: of one.
38:25
Speaker 1: And also again going back to the idea of this
38:31
Speaker 1: these United States, as they used to say, going back
38:35
Speaker 1: to the idea of this ambitious, imperfect experiment we continues today.
38:42
Speaker 1: We call it ridiculous history. But indeed, as we are
38:46
Speaker 1: learning with the electoral College here, it might be ridiculous present.
38:51
Speaker 1: You know what I mean at this point, because history
38:54
Speaker 1: is always closer than it appears in.
38:56
Speaker 4: The rear view mirror.
38:59
Speaker 1: A j one last question, as we wrap up our
39:03
Speaker 1: time together, what do you think would have most surprised
39:10
Speaker 1: the founding fathers? Like, what thing that we don't not policy,
39:15
Speaker 1: but right, what thing, regular day to day twenty twenty
39:20
Speaker 1: four life thing. What do you think would have just
39:22
Speaker 1: baffled them the most?
39:24
Speaker 3: Well, there's so much, I mean just I mean the Internet.
39:29
Speaker 3: I think Ben Franklin would have loved the Internet.
39:31
Speaker 2: He would have had a ball.
39:33
Speaker 3: And yeah, aside from other things like you know, people
39:36
Speaker 3: walking around with literal bare arms, which would have shocked them,
39:40
Speaker 3: and bare legs and bare midriffs. I don't think they
39:43
Speaker 3: would have been.
39:44
Speaker 4: Pleased with that.
39:45
Speaker 3: But on is more serious now, I do think that
39:49
Speaker 3: they had this very serious idea of virtue, and as
39:55
Speaker 3: we've talked about with the asterisk, they had a lot
39:57
Speaker 3: of flaws and were hypocrites in many ways, but they
40:01
Speaker 3: also tried to think about the greater good. The general
40:05
Speaker 3: welfare is the phrase in the Constitution. So you have
40:09
Speaker 3: this list of rights, but you also had an implied
40:12
Speaker 3: list of responsibilities. They just never wrote them down. But
40:16
Speaker 3: I think if they had known that we would be
40:19
Speaker 3: so obsessed with our own individual rights, they probably would
40:23
Speaker 3: have done a bill of responsibilities or bill of obligations.
40:26
Speaker 3: It was just implied that you were part of the community.
40:29
Speaker 3: So whether that's the bucket brigade, so if you there's
40:32
Speaker 3: a fire, everyone gets out there and does the buckets,
40:36
Speaker 3: or every male of a certain age was in the militia.
40:41
Speaker 3: And I don't want the militia to come back necessarily,
40:44
Speaker 3: but the idea is you would sacrifice your time. Every
40:47
Speaker 3: three months, you would go and train to protect your
40:50
Speaker 3: state and country. I think they would be in favor
40:54
Speaker 3: of something like, you know, maybe it's a month doing
40:57
Speaker 3: teaching in America or whatever. So that to me, I
41:01
Speaker 3: think they would be shocked by the lack of focus
41:06
Speaker 3: on the greater good and self sacrifice, and and so
41:11
Speaker 3: I love that. I will say one of my favorite
41:16
Speaker 3: I read Ben Franklin's autobiography, which I love, and it
41:20
Speaker 3: has his day. He goes through his day and he
41:24
Speaker 3: starts his day.
41:25
Speaker 4: Yeah.
41:25
Speaker 3: I mean he doesn't mention the like, you know, the
41:28
Speaker 3: flirting with married ladies.
41:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he talks about the air bath.
41:33
Speaker 3: He does he is a fan of which is basically
41:36
Speaker 3: just standing naked around and he went there. Yeah he
41:40
Speaker 3: thought that was fair. But all right, so I don't
41:43
Speaker 3: I'm not a big air bath fan, but I would
41:47
Speaker 3: say he says, you should start every day by asking
41:51
Speaker 3: yourself what good shall I do today? And then at
41:55
Speaker 3: the end of the day, what good have I tried
41:58
Speaker 3: to do today? And I love that so much. I
42:00
Speaker 3: wrote it with my little quill pen and put it
42:03
Speaker 3: over my desk because it is so grounding. And I
42:07
Speaker 3: don't not even from like a you know, holier than
42:10
Speaker 3: thou Saint Lee point of view. Is just for my
42:13
Speaker 3: own happiness, because I'll put something on Instagram and it
42:17
Speaker 3: gets two likes, and I'll start to get angry. What
42:21
Speaker 3: is the matter with people? Why are they such idiots
42:23
Speaker 3: that they don't see the brilliance of this. And then
42:26
Speaker 3: I'll look at my little singing and I'll say, all right, well,
42:29
Speaker 3: is that really what I should be spending my time
42:32
Speaker 3: obsessing about? No, Like, how can I make the world
42:36
Speaker 3: just a tiny bit better? And that's better for my
42:39
Speaker 3: psychological health? And so I am a fan of Ben
42:45
Speaker 3: Franklin's point of view, and I think, yeah, the at
42:48
Speaker 3: their best, the Founders have that all of them have
42:52
Speaker 3: that same idea, how can we help others?
42:55
Speaker 2: Well, I can't think of a better way to wrap
42:57
Speaker 2: this two part episode with you, age.
43:00
Speaker 4: I think that was just really poigning and sums up
43:02
Speaker 4: kind of.
43:03
Speaker 2: A lot of the exploration that you had in your
43:05
Speaker 2: book and questions that we had and the nature of
43:08
Speaker 2: this crazy experiment that is the United States, sometimes for better,
43:11
Speaker 2: sometimes for worse.
43:13
Speaker 4: But at the end of the.
43:13
Speaker 2: Day, we all still have to live here together and
43:16
Speaker 2: try to do a little good and not be so
43:18
Speaker 2: you know, up our own backsides, you know, in the
43:21
Speaker 2: social media muck and meyer of it all. So I
43:24
Speaker 2: think I'm gonna maybe not with my quill, but I'll
43:27
Speaker 2: write that on a next card perhaps and stick it
43:29
Speaker 2: over my desk too, because I think that's really great.
43:32
Speaker 2: Can you tell folks where to find all of your
43:34
Speaker 2: various literary pursuits on the Internet and elsewhere.
43:39
Speaker 3: Of course, And by the way, I thank you you
43:42
Speaker 3: both and Max make good every day you are making
43:47
Speaker 3: the world better. So thank you for your delightful podcast
43:51
Speaker 3: and work. As for me, the book is called The
43:54
Speaker 3: Year of Living. Constitutionally, I also have a podcast here
44:00
Speaker 3: on the iHeart network called The Puzzler, And if you listen,
44:04
Speaker 3: first go to Ben and Knowle's episodes because they are
44:08
Speaker 3: by far the.
44:08
Speaker 4: Best, Oh my gosh.
44:11
Speaker 3: And then it was a lot of fun. And I'm
44:14
Speaker 3: also because I am trying to keep like the founders,
44:18
Speaker 3: trying to keep up with the times, I'm starting a
44:21
Speaker 3: substack called experimental living. Experimental living, so that's a very
44:27
Speaker 3: American idea as well.
44:29
Speaker 4: Well.
44:29
Speaker 1: Aj, we can't thank you enough. We're going to do
44:33
Speaker 1: some attempts. As you know, we shot you out in
44:37
Speaker 1: the show. You do have several hoterrifics. Don't tell the constitution,
44:43
Speaker 1: but we do call you the Puzzler, we do call
44:46
Speaker 1: you Bahamas. We are not going to explain the latter.
44:50
Speaker 1: We are so excited to learn more about experimental living
44:56
Speaker 1: and folks, if you are listening to Ridiculous History, if
45:00
Speaker 1: you have any passing interest in the concept of America
45:05
Speaker 1: and the Constitution hashtag no hyperbole there, please do check
45:11
Speaker 1: out the book. It's one of the it's one of
45:13
Speaker 1: the best, I would say, meditations upon where we are
45:19
Speaker 1: as a country, how we got there, and where we
45:22
Speaker 1: may go in the future. Big, big thanks, of course
45:25
Speaker 1: to our super producer mister Max Williams Alex Williams, who
45:29
Speaker 1: composed this bang in track that we're hearing right now,
45:33
Speaker 1: and who else, who else?
45:34
Speaker 4: Who else?
45:35
Speaker 2: Ah geez that Eve's Jeff Coots and christopherrasciotis.
45:38
Speaker 4: Here in spirit.
45:39
Speaker 2: We already thanked you, Aj, but we thank you at
45:40
Speaker 2: the end of every single episode.
45:42
Speaker 4: AJ Bahamas Jacob's the Puzzler.
45:45
Speaker 2: And his soon to perhaps have a face off Archie
45:50
Speaker 2: Nemesis so that.
45:51
Speaker 4: You're unaware of.
45:52
Speaker 2: But as far as our law is concerned, Jonathan Strickland,
45:55
Speaker 2: the quiz still.
45:58
Speaker 4: Quiz a quiz and puzzle off.
46:00
Speaker 2: Between you two, and it's gonna be a doozy. But yeah,
46:03
Speaker 2: I just you know, thank you again, AG for hanging
46:06
Speaker 2: with us. It's been a delight.
46:07
Speaker 3: Oh well, huzzah for history, and huzza for democracy and
46:10
Speaker 3: thank you.
46:12
Speaker 4: We'll see you next time, folks.
46:20
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
46:24
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.