Paul Knudtson
Paul Knudtson is an Army veteran and a friend of Carl Kmiec, Jr. since kindergarten. They have worked together with American Legion Paul Revere Post 623, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other service groups. The conversation includes how a long friendship holds up when two people do not see everything the same way.
This is episode 3 of Flipside Frolic. The episode is titled February 3, 2024, and it was published October 16, 2024. It runs about 3 hours and 21 minutes.
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Transcript
This transcript was generated from the episode audio. The YouTube caption file was not available. Obvious name errors were corrected. The conversation was not rewritten.
Hey there, thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic, where we learn to understand each other's perspectives by flipping the script and having some fun. Here we go. All right, we're up. Paul Knudtson, what's going on? nothing, man. I'm I'm all played out. I want, we're gonna start with like the 80s, start in the 80s, right? I'm all cried out. 80s, 90s, a little bit of patience, a little Guns N' Roses, a little maybe a little Anthrax, maybe some, oh, some Elder Barge. Nice. We can do a little Elder Barge. To the beat of the rhythm of the night. How's your dancing game this day? I'm ready. How's your dancing, dancing game? Not anywhere near what yours is. I was doing the Pennsylvania Polka last night. My wife thought we were playing Just Dance. Nice. Yeah, it came on. For some reason, I Shazam that song, and it came up on my Spotify.
But what was interesting is, what was yesterday? It was February 2nd. It was, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day, yeah, and like Spotify knew, man. Nice. Pennsylvania polka, and I grabbed Nathan, and it was after a game of Chicagoopoly, which, by the way, I never really realized, like, how like, you know, the themed Monopoly games would be of value, right? Like, I was like, it's Monopoly, man. You know, like, I got money, I buy houses, I, I get my ass kicked, I spend all night, and I get pissed off because we spent 6 h and didn't really accomplish anything. But what was interesting, like, we got Chicagoopoly for Christmas, and we busted it out last night, broke the wrapper open, you know.
Nathan and Yesenia my son and his girlfriend, they bought it for us for Christmas and figure when you buy a Christmas gift of a game and, like, you know, people never play it and everything, but you really, you're not really buying the game for them as much as you're buying the opportunity to spend some time and hang out, right? Like in If you buy that Christmas present and then you never hang out, like... What's the point? What's the point, you know? So, that was fun. That's cool. The, the the different brands of games, I, I don't know how I feel, how felt about that either, but again, whatever keeps them interested. What was your favorite game in the eighties when you were like, you know... In the eighties? Yeah, like Transformers were out, you know? what was your favorite game? Was it Trouble?
You push the button, you know, and then pops and go around, or was it like... Chutes and Ladders? Yeah, I guess, I, I, I can't even really remember. What was in your house, the Candyland? We had the Candyland, we had the, we had the Pop the Trouble, we had all the board games going. Yeah, we had Clue, we used to play Clue and Stratego. Oh man, we used to play the crap out of Stratego. I think it's all those games, like those, you kind of graduate to Risk, eventually you find yourself in Axis and Allies, and next thing you know, you think you're going to be a general. Nice. So it's like I think I should join the army. Is that why you joined the army? I joined the army not to go to jail. Well, it's, it's not true, but it's partially true. It was a jail of the mind. I needed to break loose.
Well, it, it, well, sometimes, sometimes we see the path we're on, and it's not a great one, and we're surrounding ourselves with people that maybe we shouldn't be, so maybe a change would be a good thing. Was there a sound effect for that poignant moment? Which one you want, Mike? I know. No, that was very serious. Take us serious, folks. Take us, take us serious. Great point, Carl. Yeah, so, I mean, that was part, you know, I just you know, one of the points of the pod, podcast is just to connect with old buddies and just catch up and see what's going on, what's new, what's happening. Oh my gosh. we ran into each other at a VFW event for for the football game with the Super Bowl coming up. Championship weekend, man. It's the exact opposite outcome that we were hoping for. Yeah, I was bouncing around.
I was bouncing around a little bit and, and running from, from one place to another, but it was cool to connect. We had some good conversations. Yeah, Cody, he's 13 already. It's crazy. And those were, those were those moments where, you, you know, I remember specifically with my dad that, you know, that sometimes we think we always got to do things as a family, got to do things as a family, and most of the time the family things are like you're pulling your hair out and screaming at each other and everything else. But every, but every once in a while, that one-on-one time, I, I remember going with my dad to, to his friend's machine shop, and he was this big German guy, and, and he had like, might, might have had like a snap on calendar with naked girls on it, and he'd be swearing, and we're not supposed to hear those words.
Yeah, it was just, it was so wild, cause, you know, most of the time You know, you're doing something a little different and one-on-one time with dad, and it was, it was pretty wild. So those, those moments you try to duplicate just cause you know that those are the ones they're going to remember. Yeah, I, I, I've thought about that a lot. Like I talk to my kids about things like this, right? And I don't remember where I heard it. I'm sure I didn't think of it, but maybe I did. I don't know. I didn't, I've heard this, but like you know, that, that quality time comes from quantity time, right?
And so like, it's, it's difficult to manufacture moments, but those moments are manifested in the times when you're just being intentional about being together, not necessarily being intentional about trying to create a moment, cause that's usually when it falls apart, right? Like you're, you're trying too hard. Yeah, cause you're trying it all, but it's, it's the moments really happen when it's like, hey, I'm, you know, just Taking my son to the garage, my, my buddy's house and everything, and we're just going to hang out, or we're going to the post, and we're just going to, you know, see what happens. And then one day, you know, ten years later, like, dude, I remember they were like 23 or something, you know, my kids are now 23. So it'll happen to you too when, when ten years from now. Someday.
I, I, I had a little bit of a later start than, than you, that's for sure. Yeah, no, definitely. I mean yeah, we were teenagers, so but we had a plan, right? Like, we figured we'll have kids early, we'll screw them up, and then we'll all heal together as we grow older. Well, that's the funny thing is, I don't, you know, I don't know what your experience is, but you, you got a pretty good crop of kids there. You're, you're on the, on the top of the Population curve with the one, with the 2.1 that everybody wants to talk about. So you're helping the cause by whether you're on the population decline side or if you're on the there's too many people on the world side. I mean, we've all seen idiocracy, right? So I'm just trying to make sure that I'm doing my part to prevent that from happening. Oh, to prevent that. Okay, just clarify that one.
Yeah, I'm like, I'm one of the, you know, some slightly educated folks that decided not to have 1.3 kids. Yeah, for sure. And then they're like, I can't understand why the world's going to hell in a handbasket because you're not making enough of the smart people to... It's so funny you say idiocracy, too, because that, that 1st point, that just the 1st intro to the movie. I tried to, I tried to grow my garden in the backyard with electrolytes and it just wasn't working, and now, now I know why. No, that's that's what it's about, man. Water. And at the end of the day you know, I don't I don't, man, I don't, I don't know what your experience is, is with, with having older kids now and some, you know, they all have their own personalities and they all have these different things.
And so at the beginning, it's just like, I have no idea what actually matters. Cause you read these early childhood development books and you try these different plans and then you're doing baby signing with the 1st one and played Mozart and the music and all that kind of stuff. When I have kids as teenagers, you're not thinking about that stuff. Well, yeah, maybe because I was a little older in life, so I tried to prepare. I tried to do my due diligence. And so you learn all these things, all these parenting techniques, all these different things. And at the end of the day... They just want to be loved, man. That's it, man. Like at the end of the day, they just want to be heard and they just want to be held and they, they want to be loved and they want to they want to please, right? And, you know, we're just so hard to please.
Yeah, and, and, well, and then on top of that, we don't know, you know, our expectation of what we considered pleased is not necessarily right either. So it's, it's strange, but like, like, like I was saying, at the end of the day, if you just give that, and you were even saying that, that, that attention is not the kind of sidetracked, kind of working together while you're doing six other things attention. It's that one-on-one directed attention that is so much more valuable. Let's go to, let's go to the cafe. Let's go to a cafe. Let's just get some, let's have some lunch and, you know, see what happens. And then sometimes, you know, you do that in Billy Corgan's playing piano in the back of his cafe, because I mean, that happens, right?
Or sometimes you're just, you know, Shooting pool and you learn a new game and you have that moment, like just going, or going bowling and somebody gets like a triple, you know, and a turkey and it's like, what's a turkey? It's like, wait, get one more and you get dressing on it, right? Like, and then that's the moment, right? Like whatever that, or when, you know what I'm saying? Like, you, you can't have the moment when someone, one of the kids you know, makes an awesome shot for the 1st time, like, and is competitive with their sibs or whatnot, you know? You can't have that if you're not going bowling all the time. So quan, the, the, you know what I'm saying? Like, the quality, right, moment, you know, it comes from it comes from quantity, right?
And so Yeah, yeah, you're playing the numbers in a sense that the more you do, the more a chance of that moment happening while you're present is, is, is gonna, gonna be there instead of that. I feel like I missed it cause your wife tells you they said their 1st words or they got their 1st hit in baseball or whatever, and it's like, you miss, you miss stuff. Yeah, they're, they're important. I miss a lot of stuff. So You, it's, you can't make up for those things, that time lost, you know, whether, however that time gets lost, right? And sometimes it happens, you know, for work or stuff, and sometimes it happens for like you know, other things, and sometimes, you know, you just get an opportunity to, to make time happen along life when in other times, the time is dominating you, you know?
And so I just remember thinking, you know, in all the years that I didn't, that I was away during that period whenever that was, you know, for deployments and things, like you make, in those instances, and there's, there's lots of parents out there who have spent so much time away from their children particularly service members, right? Like, and, and you, you, you've somewhat like, Might feel guilty for having been away, and so that guilt forces you to try to do things, you know, to force things to happen, you know, kind of going back to that moment. But again, even whether it happens before the, the being time away or after the time away, the point is like being present when you're with them and really like caring, like being interested to know, like, what are they thinking?
And, and I found that, you know, as kids get older if you've done a good job, they will be good humans, and if you're a good human, you know what a good human looks like, and that's like, that's really the, the joy, right? Like that's, joy should come from that, right? Like that we know that, you know, they might not be like rocket, rocket scientists, or maybe they will, right? or they might not be like, you know Joffrey ballet dancers, or maybe they will. Right? but in either of those instances, whatever the case may be, if, if they're good humans and they're good to humans you know, then we're doing our job, right? Yeah, no doubt. I, I always like use my little tagline that I truly believe with everything in my heart that there, every infant is born a genius and we make them dumber every day.
You know, so at the end of the day, we just, we do the best we can and, and like you said, you know, you make some good men or whatever. And, you know, a couple of years ago, it was the last time we, we had a discussion, some of that time away part and, and, and with, you know, we, for those that don't know Paul was in the army, I, I was in the navy, we're both veterans, we're involved in the VFW and the American Legion together. We do a few different things together and stuff, but For a long time. One time, yeah. So we went to kindergarten through 8th grade together. so we've, we've known each other a lot of years. And interestingly enough, I, I was just getting out of the Navy and he was thinking about going into the, or I was on, maybe I was on leave and he was talking about going to the, to the army. I was in my, I was 21.
And I was like, bro, no way, man. Why don't you go like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, and, and then he was like, his, his heart, your heart was set. So it was like, the only thing I can do is say, anybody out there that's considering it. Make sure you take advantage of every opportunity you can when it comes to college level club tests and all, there's so much stuff that you could never know about unless you try to seek it out and find it. but one of the interesting things that happened one time is, is you had a, you had a wine tasting thing and then he, he was, he was working and then he just threw it out there at a couple of generals like, hey, I got this wine tasting thing I'm doing, if you want just stop by. And they're like, oh yeah, maybe we'll think about it.
And you're like, just try to be polite to some general on base and, and next thing you know, the guy shows up. And it, it was like, how cool was that? Yeah. No, I, I mean, look, we're all human, right? Like in rank and, and position and, and things of that nature, right? Like they have, they're, they're important, but again, it goes back to the human centricity of all of this, right? Like we're all humans and people want to be treated like humans. You know, that was the interesting thing about being in the you know, working, having the, the privilege to work in the special operations community, right?
Like the way that, that organization and the, the culture within that organization, you know, is much more it's, it's much less you know, bureaucratically structured than it is focused on figuring out ways to unlock the creativity of the, of the, the men and women within the organization in order to solve complex problems. And there's certainly a time and a place for like, you know, yes sir, no sir, right? and, you know, colonels and, and general officers are still colonel and general officer, you know, but below that level, like at the, you know oh five level and below certainly the oh four level and below and all, all enlisted except ob, you know, again, sergeant major and, you know the senior. Mission officers, right? Like, it's, it's very informal.
And, and I think what was interesting about that, right, is that you learn, like, how to capitalize on the skills that are associated with you know, or I'm sorry, that, that belong to the, the team members, right? And you learn about, you know, the significance of operating in a skills-based environment, right? and then ultimately as leaders, right, like our, our role in that is to maximize the full potential of the, of our people, right, and, and enable them and empower them and equip them to be able to achieve success. And so, I, you know, when, when that, when everybody is kind of committed to that same mindset, right, it's easy to be like, Hey, I've got this thing going on, why don't you come around, like, you know, we're working together, and it would be, it would be great if you can come be a part of that, right?
And, and vice versa, right? Like, that invitation goes to, you know, the, the, the hard worker who's crushing it, like, making things happen, you know, and so that person is a, a sergeant, right? Or, you know, a lieutenant or a corporal or whatever. The fact of the matter is that person is, has tremendous value and is adding value to whatever the problems, you know, the, the problems that that you're trying to you know, to solve. and so again, like, I, I think our relations with people are tied back to kind of how we view each other, right, as humans. Yeah, and, and if you Once you get to know somebody to the point that you know they're just not fake and inviting you just for the heck of it, then, you know, you actually have some respect for them, so you, you would truly appreciate it if they came back.
And that, that was the wildest thing, cause, you know, we all chalk ourselves up with all these self-limiting beliefs and all these ideas, like we don't deserve certain things and different things, and whether we're, you know, all, all these other top topics out there with white privilege and all this other stuff, but everybody's got their own demons to deal with. And, and just to be sitting there, it was just a moment, because we were talking about one of the most interesting things, we were talking about now I remember Time frame was Operation Desert Storm, basically. So it was like we were at a place where I got out right, right towards the end of, the beginning of that. This is well before the wine story, for the record, you know. Well, this was the wine, I think this was the wine story. No, that was after.
Because I remember that, I remember that when we were talking about, we were talking a lot about PTSD, and we were talking about now that it's past four years. Maybe Iraqi freedom, I mean, Desert Storm was 91, that was when you got out, so definitely early, early two, early 2000s. Oh, it could have been Iraq, Afghanistan, yeah. So, so once that, once that whole deal escalated, then Once they passed the four-year mark on this ten-year war or whatever everybody that was enlisted was kind of signing up for that, whereas most people when I was in, when I joined prior to Desert Storm, there was nobody that thought there was any chance of any kind of skirmish, whether even, even though you're, you know, most of the people that were in the Navy with me were looking for money for college.
They ran out of money for college, so they joined the Navy. We had a seventeen-year-old human being That was like 6'1", probably only 155, 160 pounds, skinny, tall, kind of nerdy kid that could not lay on the ground and push himself up for one push-up. It's tough. And push-ups are hard. And he was able to, he was able to do ten, like when we left, and here, here I was going in with kind of the intention to be a Navy SEAL or something, and, and, and, and here this is the guy that's watching my back, you know, but, but that was the time, and, and people were just looking for some cash and, but, so anyway, that you did. And Top Gun made everybody want to be like, you know, Tom Cruise. I thought that's what the military looked like, right? Like, I thought everybody in the military, like, that was what he exemplified.
Yeah, or Charlotte Navy SEAL. Like you know Apocalypse Now, and I was like, whoa, wait a minute, that's not quite That's a little weird. Yeah. Does that happen? Did that happen? That can't be real. Is that real? Is that, that's just CGI. Are there people that do that stuff? Maybe there are. Well, Navy Seals was an interesting one, what Charlie Sheen way back when. That was kind of a little blast too of some of the, some of that life. And supposedly, from what I heard from some people, that it, it was somewhat close. It wasn't too Hollywooded out, supposedly, but it's hard to say what those top guys. Seals are hardcore, man. They go through tough training and you know, they take on some of the tougher problem sets that are out there.
Sadly, we just lost two seals You know, off the coast of Djibouti out there, right, you know, doing some anti-piracy things and, or perhaps anti, you know, weapons smuggling things, or, you know they were definitely doing their duty. And yeah, I mean I, I think there's a lot of, you know good young Americans, you know, that are still motivated by you know, serving their country. I think, I think we have an, an obligation to ensure that we maintain the moral high ground so that, that which, what they signed up to fight for, especially, you know, to the point that you were alluding to, right, like we joined you know, you joined in 91, right, out of high school, right? And I joined in 95, four years after, right? So I was a little bit older. But even still, right, like Clinton's army, you know was a generally peacetime.
Bosnia, Herzegovina, right, like Kosovo, that was real stuff, right? There's definitely you know things going up, yeah. you know, Desert Storm happened later, happened before, and then obviously, you know, 09:11 and global war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq and, and all of those other parts of the world there where you know, the fight against what arguably is, you know you know, some sort of evil, right? Like that exists, you know, that needed to be, you know, stood against, right? And so Again, that goes back to the point like maintaining the moral high ground. We start to, after 20 years, you kind of lose sight a little bit, perhaps, you know, of like, why are we doing what we're doing? Is it still important?
And, and, and for the record, right, like, I think we're seeing now, you know, that, that, that the threat continues to be real you know, and it's persistent. And, and frankly, if you go back to like looking at what we knew and what we studied at the outset of the, the global war on terror you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of literature and, and academic studies that talk about how this is the long war, right? And this is an ideological war. And, and so, you know, when you Think about you know, those humans and, and what we're, what we're, what we're doing now, like, what are we, how old are you? I'm 50? You're 50? You're 50? Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's definitely handing it off to the next generation, right, of future war fighters.
but at the same time you know, we now are moving into a place, I think, in our in our day and age when you know, we have to take on a different type of role within that domain, whether it's in the information sphere, right, like doing podcasts and, and having intelligent conversations, right, and influencing from that standpoint, or if it's, you know, looking for the next opportunity to shape policy and figuring out a way to you know, be a part of that discussion, or maybe it's just, you know, living in the world where you're continuing to ensure that we maintain a competitive edge. and yeah, so there's different places for the next 30 years that we're going to go as we think about like where we were for the last 30 now.
Yeah, that, that, I mean, that could trigger seven different branches off the tree and, and we're bringing that discussion. I don't know, man, whether you want to talk, we're going to flip it up, and it's the Flipside of this conversation. Well, the, well, Flipside Frolic, the, the whole, I, I, I never really explained too much, I'll have an intro, intro video put up, but the concept is we're going to talk about normal global and current events or whatever, and then sometime most people disagree on something. Hence the idea that we can't talk about religion or politics at the dinner table at Thanksgiving, because it always ends up in an argument. And I think that that's mostly because people take their sides and they want to win, and nothing about this podcast is about changing people's minds.
It's about hearing their perspectives on a certain topic, and it's certain ideal. And if we disagree with something, That's cool. And then one of the fun things we're going to try to do is maybe ring a bell or, or do a buzzer or something on my, my little sound effect, on my little sound effect board. Rimshot can't, can't do it, but the, the concept is we're going to flip sides and try to debate it from the other side, and I think that the world is kind of missing some of that. Debate class in a college, if you're going to be an attorney or anything else, you're assigned the topic and the position. You don't get to just talk about what you feel. You have to do some research, and you have to try to come up with a strong argument towards your cause or your side, even if you don't agree with it. Yeah.
So for the record, we didn't have any assigned topics. Nothing. We've done no research. Nothing. Which means we're shooting from the hip, and we may not know what we're talking about. We do have the we do have the computer available if we choose to. We have to fact-check. Have to fact-check something, we can play that game. Yeah. I'm down with the fact-checking, right? I think, I think an essential skill in today's day and age is the Ability to discern fact from fiction. So we got, we got that ability here. Chrome's fired up and ready to go, or maybe we should be using like... Maybe it depends on what search engine you use. Yeah, exactly. But we could also play with that. And we could, we can look at Bing and see what Microsoft tells us, and then we can look at, you know, Google and see what Google tells us.
Yeah, should different information be coming up. So we have this illusion of all the information in the world at our fingertips. And then we could throw that question out to WhatsApp and see what the Russians think. Well, that's cool. It's all their fault. We know that. But, you know, so part of, part of the idea here, and, and part of one of the, one of the tree branches, and then I just threw Paul, I got a piece of paper, I got a piece of paper. Oh, that's cool. But, I mean, the main thing was like if something really just triggers in your mind and you want to jot down something you want to say or something, then, then some, I, I got a great memory, it's just real short, so.
but one of the things I remember, like when you're talking about all these different wars, and we don't have to get into like the war machine and how much money's being made and, and the privatization of all this stuff, which is a good topic as well, but I remember specifically, and correct me if I'm wrong, cause again, our memories are just our perception of what happened a time ago. It doesn't necessarily mean that's what happened. It's not written down, it didn't happen. But when you came originally back on leave from Afghanistan, and, and you were in some pretty hot areas with certain, I mean, obviously you could tell a little bit about what you did in Afghanistan as far as mountain passes and the strategic structure of how to, how to try to at least guard from resupply and all the other, you know, strategies of war or whatnot.
But when you came back, it was one thing that, that I think was said that really jumped out at me. And being from Chicago, I grew up near Cicero and Diversity in Chicago, which was kind of a predominantly white neighborhood, as we both grew up and very near to each other. And, but to the east of the tracks was more Latino neighborhood, and then about a mile and a half or 2 mi south of us was predominantly black. And, and so There was a various amount of gangs in different areas that kind of had their neighborhoods and had their turf.
And in our area, we were kind of white, had band, heavy metal or dance crew guys, so there was some, you know, there was mostly gaylords and jousters and something like that, and then to the east there was cobras, but then it got crazy with all the different Latinos, with Puerto Ricans and Mexicans don't like this, don't like that, so there's all these different gangs of LBs and pachucos and deuces, and so it was kind of chaotic over there because the turfs weren't quite set.
But in most of the areas where people are growing up in some of these gang-ridden neighborhoods, if it's predominantly the same gang, sometimes life's not that bad because you learn to get along with the people, maybe you're not involved with them per se, and I tried to stay out of the gangs my childhood and was encouraged to do so, and, and, and And so, but when you came, when you came back from Afghanistan, that was one of the way you were trying to, you kind of explained to me that these are just gangbangers, but they got, they got heavy artillery, and they got their turfs, and then other people want to change the lines on the map, and then it just pisses everybody off, and, and, and so that was a pretty basic explanation of some of the things that were going on, but I think that some, the, just the Not to get sidetracked, but just to cap one story.
Life's too short as a bar off the river, and back in the day, I was part, I was, I was part out there partying, having a good time, and all this other stuff, and this really pretty girl, shout out if you're still out there, but this really pretty girl comes up to me and asks for a light for a cigarette. I wasn't normally approached by nines and tens like that, so I was a little on the defensive. Well, it's, it's a little something. Did you see that picture of yourself over there? What are you talking about? That's a good-looking fellow there. You guys want to see the No, that's, yeah. As you can see, the studio is kind of a disaster. It's a little bit of a mess. We're, we're, we're working on some stuff. Yeah, but look at this guy. Here, here, there's the, let's see if they're...
Like, what, what nine or ten would want to get with that sailor? The little squid. So anyway, just a little, a little self-deprecation's okay, and, and, and so I was on a little bit of the defense, and I was drinking, and I was a little buzzed, so I was like, if I go home with this girl, I'm going to end up with like no Kidneys on a bed of ice or something, because she had a foreign accent. So I was a little, a little on the defense, like, what's going on here? And I said, oh, I hear your accent. Where are you from? She said, oh, I'm from Czechoslovakia. And I was like, Czechoslovakia? Is that even a country then? Well, that's what I said. I said, I don't even think that's still a country. No, and she, and so then people would laugh at me. They'd be like, oh, you're going to insult the homeland of this girl you're trying to get with.
And I'm like, no, you know I'm like, I did a, I, I actually in like 7th grade grammar school did a project on Czechoslovakia. I could, I could almost draw the outline of what the country was cause I did it on a folder with glitter and glomfling them with brilliance. Yeah, so, and, and, and what she said really jumped out at me because she just looked at me and she, she just was like, they redraw the lines all the time. Everybody lives in the same towns. Everybody works at the same factories. Nobody cares. And, and that was huge. Now, right, they're trying to redraw the lines in Eastern Europe again, man, and there's definitely some, some, some folks who don't necessarily agree with that, I would, I would, I would say. And you talk about lobbying, you know, gangs with, but they're lobbying bombs and stuff.
I mean, I know we were talking about Afghanistan and certainly what's going on in Ukraine today is, is. distinctly different, right? We talk about global current events, right? But but yeah, no, I, I do remember exactly what you're talking about, like, and, and, and I think most of that was me trying to make sense of what was going on over there, right? Like, ultimately, I came back, and when I, when I came back from Afghanistan, I went back to Northwestern for the 2nd time and spent three years, like, working in my pursuit of my degree in it was comparative politics, but I was really focused on, like, bringing in what I had learned while I was forwardly deployed into that academic environment and thinking about it in those terms, in terms of, like, violence and in terms of political violence and in terms of tribalism, right?
Identity politics and how those things work, right? And so, yeah, there, there was definitely some, some Allegories, some comparisons. I mean, there's, there's scholarly writings that are out there with folks that have embedded within the gangs, like stuff that's come out of the University of Chicago, and the author's name is escaping me. We can look it up and fill it in. But like, like very well-known, well researched pieces looking at how gangs operate and the identity of that. And certainly, you know, when you think about tribalism particularly in Afghanistan, particularly within like the Pashtun you know ethnic group and the other ethnic groups, you know, in that area, whether it's the Hazaras or Sulaimankals or, you know, you can go on, Uzbeks and, and whatnot.
there's it's an interesting way of thinking about like how to, how, how to accomplish the objectives that we were trying to accomplish while we were there, right? and on the one hand, you know, you're, you're doing counterterrorism that's happening with the tip of the spear out there, unbeknownst, again, this is 2011, right? And, and then the other side of the house, you've got, you know, like what I was doing, like working in a provincial reconstruction team and, and working, you know, civil affairs work versus you know COIN, right, which was at the time, right, counterinsurgency, while also counterterrorism was happening.
So all three of these things are happening simultaneously in the same space, in the same non-contiguous, nonlinear battlefield where you're living in and amongst the people, and all of those entities, right, the counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and civil affairs work is happening simultaneously, while at the same time you've got all of the, you know, The business of trying to build a state and make something into our own image, like, you know, like we ascribe to our, you know, our God, like we're made in God's image, right? And now here the United States is over there trying to make Afghanistan into our image as if we could do that, which, you know, clearly that didn't work, right? Like, I mean, let's be honest, you know.
but while it was happening, while we were on there, there was a lot of good things that were happening, and understanding how those dynamics, you know, play out certainly went a long way to accomplishing what might be considered small goals, but when all of those small goals come together, like large things were accomplished, even if it just meant, you know, helping a group of people become independent of the influencers around them so that they can self-govern make decisions as a Shura, get access to resources, and, and You know, help the humans around them, right? They go right back to the humans, you know, and, and you think about like what was happening at the tribal level in the sticks down in Zabul, you know?
a, a lot of times it was really just about like, how do I, how do I Farm this quarter acre of land that I have that has no water, but I'm stuck and in debt, and I can't borrow money because there's no real banking system, and I have adjudication issues that need to be resolved, and there's no legal court here to resolve them for me, and how do I get these things done?
And the answer is, I'm supposed to go to my shura, but if my shura has been devastated and all that's left is the Taliban to come in and make decisions and lay the law down, then I'm looking for that, and then that builds up, and the next thing you know, you know, you have global terrorist actors taking advantage of a situation where they could then use that as a base of operation from with which to achieve their global aspirations, because believe me, the Taliban has no global aspirations, right? They just wanted to take, you know, they're just salty because Lieutenant Duran drew a line between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and right down the middle of the Pashtuns, where Eighty 5 million were on the Afghan side, and 40 million were on the Pakistan side, and now they've been dealing with that for a hundred years. Well, you know, even on a...
How do you go on that? Even on a local level, and Flipside, you know, Paul is definitely a lot more versed in world strategy, so if you've got any questions, throw a comment down or whatever, and we'll get it... We'll try to have him on again and answer some of those more specific questions if you're more into that, but either way, it's almost like, you know, some of the politics and some of the lobbying and the money and all the other problems with those sorts of situations, because right here in Chicago, we have a grassroots alderman that wasn't the guy with Nick Sposato, shout out to Nick, and they drew the new ward map down the center line of the residential street that he lived on, so his neighbors across the street could not vote for him. It's like, yeah, that was just based on demographics or businesses or any other model.
Yeah, right. So some of that stuff happens too, of course. And, and, you know, it's interesting that you say that because, you know, I, I've been involved in a lot of different things in, in, in, in my short tenure on this earth, I guess. And one of them was saltwater aquarium industry. And so I was breeding fish. I was doing all kinds of stuff, but we had got a great, a shout out there to the, the Detroit folks and the MIB, Marine Breeders Initiative. What a great organization. And they've, they got a great speaker that comes a yearly event that they have with speakers and all this stuff with fish breeding. And, and one of the guys was just a phenomenal, awesome story of, of, of a taxidermist that would do, like, identify different species of fish. Sounds like a way off the side tangent, but in, in reality, it's really not.
And so he would go out and do these studies in these colder temperature, deeper, deeper dives where nobody does studies because it's too dangerous to dive down that. Once you pass 90 ft, a hundred and 20 ft, 250 ft to 500 ft, like nobody goes there. Because then if you need a submarine, then you're going to rent a little submarine for, with some college grant, and then you're going to go to 3000 ft. You're not going to hang around at 05:50, you know? And so it was really interesting, all the work that he did. But again, these people go into Papua New Guinea and they go into these nations where the US governments could be involved, and they used to be bombing target ranges in these islands that these people have no hope whatsoever of ever getting out of that situation. They don't even know what hope is just because that doesn't even exist.
And sometimes in the marine or ornamental trade, you'd get a lot of activists out there, which we see in this day and age, sometimes people are passionate about the cause, and sometimes it's about educating yourself a little more, because you might be fighting your own cause, because you really don't understand the inner workings and how all this stuff works. And just like you had said, that your position about Afghanistan from 15 years ago very well may have changed as you acquired a degree from Northwestern University and, and did some further officer work in different things, in different areas, in different things. So our, sometimes our minds change, and sometimes we, you could be presented with new information, and we change our mind. It doesn't make us a flip-flop politician.
Yeah, as long as we're basing our opinions on facts and as, as they you know, are brought to light, right? Like, I think there's a lot of issues and still, you know, the, the remnants of the damage That fake news did to our confidence in our information systems, right? And again, I mean, that's why I said earlier, like, no issues going back and doing fact-checking, right? Like, if there's a question, we should definitely be basing things on fact. And, and then, and then you can have opinion about it, right? So you talk about, like you said earlier, you know you know, having a no religion or politics at the dinner table, right? And so easy for that to be a tough subject because Because because a lot of it is based on, you know, on the religion side, faith, right? Or on the politics side your politics, right?
Your, your political views, right? And those views are, are are generally opinions, but at the same time, right, there is fact, right? There is objective truth and, you know, our challenge today is to continue to aggressively remain in pursuit of truth. Yeah, I, I agree a hundred percent, and, and, and that's almost like I know that, you know, they try to divide. They divide and conquer whoever they are, right? Because a, a divided people is easier to control and, and, and whatever. Well, I think it was Jesus who said that a house divided cannot stand. Yeah, that could be, and that other book, we got that other, that book around, but. The, you know, and, and that's exactly what it is. And a lot of times the, the most division comes from a topic that's kind of morally objectable. So you can have your moral opinions on one side or another.
It doesn't necessarily make either side right or wrong, because the truth is nobody knows. you know, only God can, you know, decide that when we all die, and then we'll figure it out. so sometimes the, my idea is to pretty much like, let's not dwell on those topics. And I'm not saying that You know, topics like abortion isn't an important issue because obviously it's an important issue in the mainstream media right now. but at the end of the day, it's up to the states, and that's what the Supreme Court ruled, so let the states make those decisions. So it's one of those things where it was one thing that maybe the federal government doesn't really have a right to say one way or another, let the states deal with it, all states are autonomous.
And that's the whole thing that we always go back to that, and then that's where, you know, the political divide on some of these foreign skirmishes. We were kind of talking about even podcasting or, or social media and all these other things. I driving down 294 the other day, and I see a billboard that had to do with Hamas. And I can't even remember, somebody, I, I said, I, I mentioned that to somebody else, and I think it was like, you know, Hamas is not just such and such or whatever. But it's like, why am I looking at advertising in the United States in regards to a foreign skirmish that doesn't quite affect us? It's only because they need the support of the American people in order to get money and funds and all that other kind of stuff. But it, it's like some of that stuff is complicated, obviously, but...
I mean, I, I would disagree that it doesn't affect us, right? Like, I mean, the whole, like, malign Iranian influence is not something that just happened over, like, yesterday because Hamas attacked Israel, right? And so, like, the, the broader, again, this is kind of, you know, thinking, you have to think about it at multiple levels, right? Like, there's the, there's the human level and the loss of life that is occurring on a daily basis in the Gaza Strip. you know, being applied by a very, very emotionally distraught nation, right? and, and you know what? Like it's, we fought a war for 20 years because somebody bloodied our nose, right? And, and you think about what occurred from, you know, October of 2001 until August of 2021, right? You know? and and compare that to, you know, this, look, terrorist attack, right?
It killed 1500 people, did horrible things, right? Like, what What that group of armed terrorists did to civilian people was terrible, right? Period. and, you know, the response has been one in which the decision was made, has been made that the only solution here is to completely eradicate the threat of Hamas from from Israel. And, and that is not something that is very different than what we've said when we've said we need to eradicate ISIS. From the face of the earth, right? That has to go away. I think the one thing that's really... By the way, we said the same thing about Nazism, right? Like, that has to go away, like that thought. So, so, and I want to make this clear, right? Like and Israel's at risk right now, right?
Because, like, when I'm talking about, like, we need to maintain the moral high ground when it comes to things like this. If we lose the moral high ground at any time, no matter what our argument is for standing in the face of, of, you know, call it evil, right? I'll say Nazism, evil, right? the what ISIS stands for, right, is, is not what Ninety percent of global, maybe, maybe less than 90%, but the vast majority of global Muslim, global Islam does not ascribe to that. Well, right. And so, so obviously we could talk about state sovereignty with, with regards to Ukraine and all those other stuff. And that's why it's like when you look at all these... It's a problem set than what's happening in Israel. Absolutely. Connected in multiple ways because of the great powers that are fueling that, right?
But, but distinctly different problem set than the one that's not happening in Israel. My point was when it comes to the Palestinian people or even the Israeli people that they don't have some sort of right to state sovereignty, which they should. I mean, they should be able to have a place that they can call home. The Palestinians. Well, the Palestinians and the Israelis. Sure. You know, that, and, but how... It's a two-state solution. I mean, like... Well, and I mean, just to simplify things, because I'm not, trust me, I'm, I'm not a very smart person, but... So what, what position are Taking on this, cause I'm, I'm, I'm waiting for the Flipside to happen. So what's your position? You got to take a position and we can flip. Okay.
I, I, I, I would say that one thing is certain is that the Palestinian people and what Hamas is doing is not necessarily the same thing. And a lot of people want to throw them kind of in the same ballpark. Of course. In a sense. And so that's the same thing. There's a terrorist organization, like you were saying, that was, that has the resources and, and are running the show. So you have to play nice with those people if you want to survive in that, in that regime. I think it's important to draw some, a bit more clear lines, right? Like Hamas is, is the military, military, military arm, right, of you know of a Shiite-led resistance Of the Palestinian people, supported by Iran, right?
The PLA, right the government, the formal government, which sits in, you know, the West Bank, has struggled to get, you know, the political alignment with the folks, the Palestinians in Gaza. The Israelis haven't made it easy, right? I mean, you know, let's just, you want, I could take the flip side of this argument right now and just say like, hey, you know, when they did prisoner swaps and, and the Israelis were releasing Palestinians from jail in exchange for hostages, many of the prisoners that were being released by the Israelis were fourteen-year-old kids. Like, so then one has to ask themselves, hey, Israel, You know, I know you live in a tough neighborhood, right? I get it, right?
Like, I know it's hard but when you, if, if, if, if your solution is to put hundreds, perhaps thousands of teenagers in jail you know, one has to ask, what are the consequences of that, right? Like, how, what is, what is our people supposed to do at, at, you know, and like the, the settle, the settlements issue and all these other things, right? Like, we can continue to go on and on and on. And, and again, that is not to say, like, you know, the, the, the question of Israeli sovereignty is not a salient one or an important one. It's not to question that. It's How do, how can we, how might we live in a world or in a, in a part of the world where we're putting the human interest 1st? Well, that's where I always try to go to, what do the people want?
And unfortunately, the people are controlled by the leaders most of the time in a lot of different, especially in a, in a regime-style government or whatnot. So even, even in the Ukraine scenario, and if Putin has done some bad things, and I think most world leaders have done some bad things and, and, and, in a lot of different ways, and I'm not supporting Putin, but the idea initially for me was just more anti-war. Like, I don't want My friends and family to die in war, and that seems to be a pretty reasonable position. So as Russia was getting provoked and UN was encroaching into, into Ukraine and there's bio-weapon facilities that are hap, that are there that nobody wants to talk about. So, so we were poking the bear and, and, and that was part of the plan. So, but the reality is, is if... Whose plan? Good question, really.
I mean, I'm, I'm saying the plan of, the, the plan of, of Ukraine sovereignty was partial. If you look at the map... How long has Ukraine been a sovereign nation? If you look at the 1991, if you look at the 1991 election map, the river was pretty much the dividing line between the pro, the pro the people that wanted to be independent from Russia and the people that were considering themselves Russia. So if they redrew the line down the river, if, if, if Putin wa, you know, rolled his tanks through Kiev and nobody helped the Ukrainians because they didn't have the ability to stand up for themselves and revolt like the United States did revolt against England or whatever, of course, it's a little different scenario. But the, the, the point is, is, if nobody, they didn't have the ability to defend themselves.
And if nobody got involved, there wouldn't have been a fight. And Putin would have rolled through, if Putin would have started chopping off pe, if the soldiers would have started killing innocent civilians and stuff, then obviously, then that we can all agree is wrong. But if they just redrew the map and worked out a treaty and worked out a negotiation, and you get to keep Kiev, but we're drawing the line at the river nob, not too, nobody would have died. And so that's my position on that. And all, so all of a sudden I'm a pro-Putin supporter, which I'm not.
But the problem is, is you get involved in a war over some territorial boundaries that may or may not have strategic advantages for Putin, and he has his state sovereignty, supposedly, and we got two mountain passes inside Ukraine to where armies from Europe would be able to come and invade Russia. If you don't have that mountain, then you don't, you can't just defend those two passes. If you want to move the border back to the east a thousand miles, then it's impossible to, to, to, to defend a, a, a 7000 mi border because the troops could go in any direction after they get through those mountain passes. That's just one video I saw, which is this one tidbit of some of the reasons why, as a matter of national defense, Putin wants that mountain range.
As a matter, it, it, beca, and then people are like, oh, like, Europe's just gonna attack Russia. And it's like, well, Russia hasn't really encroached on other nations either. They just want their original lines back or whatever. But I mean, the, so much to unpack there, man. so. But the main, the main thing with, with, when it comes to now, then the, with the whole world works together to go against Russia, you do all these sanctions, and the problem is, is the Russian ballet is there. You look at the, you, you look at the c, the architecture and the art and, you know, all the history and the people, there's a lot of good people in Russia that don't necessarily have to agree with everything Putin says either.
But with all the sanctions and all the, you, you know, all the, all the pressure that's put on the government in, in not allowing surveil, you know, Supplies to get in. It's the civilians that are really getting hurt more than the military. So now you have all these starving babies in a country with people that can care less about what the hell's going on. They're just trying to live their lives. And all the people in the towns and in the villages that aren't necessarily, you know, how do you try to facilitate not punishing those people for the actions of the top few military executives or whatnot? again, man, so much to unpack there, right? So like, I, I, I I think the, the statement about provoking Russia you know, certainly one could argue like the placement of strategic defense you know capabilities in Eastern Europe.
Or the talk of joining the UN or whatever. again, like not joining the UN, joining the EU, right? But that's about, that's, that's monetary policy, right? Like that's trade and, and, and also security, right? Like there's multiple facets along that, right? And EU versus NATO, two very different you know global, you know governing structures, right? geopolitical governing structures, very different. Yeah, I mean, one could say, yes provoke, but the flip side of that is one Sees the intent of a potential aggressor and has to do things in order to de- prepare to defend against that belligerence. And so there's, there's no question here that Russia is the belligerent, right? like, I, I don't think that's debated, right? they are the ones who declare they are conducting special military operations, right? You're the belligerent, right?
and then, and then you, you know, proceed to, and, and it's not even that. I mean, they were the belligerent in 2014 when they annexed Crimea illegally. Right? And it's always been about how do they get access to a warm water port, man. Or deep water port. It's, it's, it's warm, yeah, warm water port, man. They need to get access to, to the Med, right? And like, and, and they're not, they were trying to do that through Afghanistan to get to Karachi, to, to get down to, you know, to the bottom back in Afghanistan. That's what that was about, right? Yeah, yeah, that says, like, like west, west of the river in the ocean is where the deep water ports are. To the east of the river is more shallow ports, so you can't get deep barges and whatever. It's always about resources. It's about that, man.
So it's not about Russian people speaking Russian language and stuff. It's about global trade, man, and having, having those access, because if you lose those accesses and you have to pay for it, then you are not the sovereign, right? And you don't have the ability to, to conduct the types of, you know, global trade that he's going to want to. It's the reason why The, the, the actions in the Red Sea and through the, the canal, right, through the the Suez Canal are geopolitical strategic. Well, there's a lot of, a lot of control. Obviously, he who controls the movement of freight... What's the real impact, though, right? Like, I mean, there's an answer to this question, right? If you can't move goods through the Suez Canal, what's the impact? Everybody pays more. Why? What's the impact?
There's additional fuel costs, additional time in transportation, you have to go around the south. You gotta go around Africa, right? You gotta sail whatever, 12,000 miles or some ridiculous... And it's dangerous seas, and the waters are rough. It takes, you know, X number of weeks longer to get there, right? So like, so, I mean, that's, that's what's at risk, right, strategically, and it's the reason why, you know, it's a, it's a, a choke point in the global supply chain that has an impact on, you know, on global trade, right? Multiple countries on both sides of the canal, for sure. Everyone, right? If the, where are those goods coming from? And again, though, if those... Where are those goods coming from that are typically being Through the Suez Canal to Europe, where... From China and from Europe. So, so again, I mean, it...
The global trade issue is an issue. I mean, it ha- that we need global trade, but it needs to be done in an organized manner. Okay. I want to go back to this, you know, the point about Putin's intent, right? Like, why, why invade? Why do what he's doing, right? you know, some argument is you know, restore the glory of you know, the, the, the Russian Empire, right? The Soviet Union, the glory of the Soviet Union. Now, I mean, that's, that is a very legitimate, that's a very legitimate reason. That's right. Like, if the United States broke up, And Texas, you know, seceded, decided that it was going to, or whatever, like different parts, different regions of the United States, yeah, whatever the case may be, right?
Like, one would think that the United States government would have a an interest in, in unite, I mean, that's what Abraham Lincoln had to do, right? Like, hey, these dudes decided they wanted to go about and do their own thing, and we're like, hold the phone, man, like, that's not, that's not cool. So, you know, if you don't agree with what, what we're doing from in terms of living in a, a, a land of laws, right? then maybe we need to fight it out, and they did fight it out, right? But the key thing there was that, you know, living under the rule of law, and, and so, like, when When dealing with international disputes, right?
it's those those you know, geopolitical entities, right, like the UN or the EU or NATO or, you know the International Criminal Court or you know, organizations of the like who are, you know, in, who are put in place following sets of travesties of the world ripping itself apart at the seams in order to, to, to prevent that from happening. And so instead of being a part of that system and working through that system, Russia decided that it was going to, in my opinion, make a, a, a strategic error, right? Because their threat was the threat, like, hey, I still have a nuclear weapon, but are they really going to use it? Is it really worth that, right? And that was the gamble.
Even if it was just tactical nukes that could be fired at, like, Ramstein Air Base, right, and wipe out, you know, an air wing or something like that, right, like they still have that capability. That's what's keeping this thing leveled, but at the same time, you know, no one, no one wants to see Russia, except for Russia, maybe Belarus, maybe China wants to see it, right, because China has its own, you know aspirations of expansion.
they've taken a really unique approach to it by creating islands, right, and extending their international boundaries by doing it, right, and You know, I think there's, we just did the same thing when we redef, redefined where the continental shelf is, and we just grew our landmass by, you know, millions and million, tens of millions of, of square square miles just the other day which again is all about like positioning and posturing within a global world. Russia decided that, you know, and Putin decided, you know, he's willing to risk going to war and knowing that there was going to be support, but knowing that there wasn't going to be boots on the ground from any other nations, it was just going to be material support.
And the truth is, is, you know, Ukraine, which is a country of what, like 40 million people or something like that with a GDP that's significantly lower than what Russia's is, and only with just being given the tools to fight, their people have been taken care of business, man, and the Russians are getting their butts handed to them all across that, that territory, man. Well, again, and that's, that's like at the end of the day, you know, if that's what the people want, then then they're you know, they have their right. If they didn't, if they didn't want it, they would be rebelling within the country. Like if the people in Ukraine didn't want the war to, for their sovereignty to continue to be fought, they would have, they would have stopped. Or they would have fled to Poland and they're just refugees.
That left the country because they don't want to be involved. But they didn't. Right. That's the point, right? They, they did it. And they're not, and no one's holding a gun to their head saying, go to the front line, right? Like they're trying to figure out how to get trained in order to maintain their national sovereignty. So the national sovereignty story is where we kind of spun in from even the Middle East skirmishes with Israel and with Palestine and all these other things that everybody has a right to exist. So my, it's one of those things you heard it here 1st, folks, is that there's maybe the two-state solution is not the answer. Who said that? I didn't say that. I just said that. Okay. And, and, and I'll say it directly, and it's probably not the one-state solution either. How about we just do a three-state solution?
I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? Let me explain it to you. What are the three states? So the three states are going to be, we're going to draw a line for Palestinian, they get their own, for Palestine, they get their own country. We're going to draw a line for Israel, they get their own country, but none of those lines are going to have anything to do with the Holy Land based on Catholic, Jewish, or Muslim faiths. All the Holy Land is going to be separated off completely and be almost internationally owned to where no private ownership could be done to any of those Holy Lands. Now Israel and their army seems to be pretty good at security, so maybe they would be in charge of securing those regions to keep, to keep the peace, or would you need, what, some UN soldiers there or something? That might get a little scary.
I don't know how much... I haven't worked out all the details of this plan, folks. There's better, smarter people than me that can figure it out. But to make like a Vatican City or something to stop the fighting over who owns the Holy Land and allow free access to all people there in a safe manner. kinda like, that's the one thing where I'm tossed on, because I can see videos that maybe have some, you know, everybody's looking to get their angle or whatever, show their point. But the reality is, is if you're Jewish and, and, and you go into a Palestinian authority area, more than likely you're going to die. And if you're a Palestinian that wants to go pray into an Israel-controlled area, you go through a metal detector, you go through airport security, they don't want any unit bombers or any kind of weapons or whatever, and you go pray.
You should go there. Oh, I mean, I, I... You should just go. I went with, I, I was looking at our local church to go about three years ago and, and was gonna go with the church to there. But the, with, as far as the... Seeing how it works, right, and like seeing firsthand, like it, when, when you put your feet on the ground there, right, like I, I stood at Like in Mount Nebo. You know where Mount Nebo is? No. Mount Nebo is the place where Moses made it to because remember, he was not, he never set foot in the Promised Land, right? Like, that's sort of... This was in a service, or you went with your family or your wife, or what was the scenario of your trip? I was I, I was there on like military assignment, like, and I had the opportunity to do some traveling around. Okay, that sounds like a Navy guy.
I, you know, we were stationed in Naples, but I could take a tour to Rome, and I did, so... No, I was, I was stationed in Jordan. If I was close, I'd go, there's no problem. I was stationed in Jordan, I, I went around Jordan, and so, like, Mount Nebo, Nebo's in Jordan, right? It's on the other side of the Jordan River, on the east side of the Jordan River. And anyway, the point is, is like, you get up there and you can look over the whole, you could see everything. You could see the Sea of Galilee, you can see, you know the Jordan River, you can see, You can see to the Med, right? Like, it's, it's very small. and when you go up north and you're looking, you know, in, in the, the hills in Jordan and the northern sections there, you can see the Golan Heights, and you can see the actual land, you can see all of it, right?
You can see from Galilee to Bethlehem, right? Yeah, you can see it. and, and, I mean, dude, when you're flying in, Over in that area, like you can, you can see, cause I mean, any one of us, we grew up in, in Catholic church, right? Like, and you have the, like maps, we love maps. And so like in the Bible, you remember the old big thick Bibles, they have a bunch of maps and they'd be looking at it and you study the maps. I mean, we know all those areas, right? And because we grew up in the church and we knew kind of like scripturally, like what the land was and we liked maps. Well, just, just for full disclosure, I, I didn't pay attention that much back then.
And so I don't, I was just speaking about that the other day cause I was Googling and looking some maps because I didn't know what the strategic reason with some of the borders were other than just holy lands, which, which ones had some resources, which ones were not just desert and rock or what was the scenario on where the mountain path, where the mountains lied and all of that kind of stuff. So that's, that's my point, right? My, my point is, is, you know, it's a very small piece of land. it's, it's right there on the Mediterranean Ocean, you know, I mean, excuse me, the Mediterranean Sea.
and, and there's, you know, millions of people packed into these areas and they've all been there in some form or fashion, although obviously the state of Israel, right coming about in the forties, slightly different, but nevertheless, right, like those communities, right, the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities have been in that area for, you know, hundreds, thousands of years, right? and two-state solution, three-state solution, right, one state, no state, whatever the case may be, like, at the end of the day, I'm gonna, like, like, this is, I didn't come with this being the theme, but the theme is, like, humans, man. They're all humans. Kids are getting killed. kids are being put in jail. Like you know, kids are having to fight, right? Like, all of these things are happening in real time, and none of it's good, man.
None of it's good. I, I don't have any solutions, right? I definitely I don't spend a lot of time, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it. It's not an area, I've spent a lot more time thinking about the, the Ukraine problem set than I have the, you know, Israeli, Hamas, Hezbollah, although I have spent a ton of time thinking about the Iranian threat network problem set, right? And ultimately, you know, I am convinced that the Reason that a two-state solution won't work is because Iran doesn't want it. And so like, so don't like, we, it's really easy to look at the Israelis and look at the Palestinians and say, hey, why can't you guys figure this out? When at the same time, you know, there's a, there's a, a, a malign threat network that is actively pursuing the failure of that, right? Yes. That's their stated goal.
Well, of course. And so, you know, it, it seems like... We can't dismiss that. Well, which, which sides or both sides? One, does one want to, you know... What's the, what do you mean? What does Iran want out of this, right? No, I'm, I'm, I'm saying more in that region. So, so the, like one, the, the one argument that I hear that makes some sense is if you were a Muslim and you, you happen to live in the Palestine area or Gaza, and you just wanted to leave What are your options as a non-extremist Muslim of faith to go? You can go to Jordan, you can go to England, you can go to, you can go to lots of places. Now, if you happen to be a Jewish person that is in Israel and you just want to move, the only, where are you going to go? Anywhere. The United States? Sure. Europe, what, I don't, what would be stopping them from going?
As long as they had the means to do it, right? Like if you've got the means to, to move, what's preventing, I don't, I don't. Well, you can't move one or two countries over is the point for the most part. And so do they, they have a right to their own country, right? you would imagine they should have some chunk of land somewhere. The Palestinians? The, the Israelis. I mean, again, like that problem set, you know, If we want to... I don't know where. We could, you know, like, but that's why I said to fight over the Holy Land. But that was the answer, right? Like, that's the whole impetus of the problem, is, you know, why the egoism... We deserve this, or this was given to us, or whatever the case may be. The answer was they didn't have... There wasn't a state, right? And, you know, 6 million, you know, Jews were killed, right?
And I'm not saying, like, that can be... It was interesting. I was... The case that was brought forth to the International Criminal Courts by South Africa claimed, you know, About genocide, yeah. And they didn't, they never accused, right? But they basically said they need to do everything in order to prevent that from happening. One of the interesting points that came up in something I was listening to very recently this past week was talking about how, like, it's, you can't do like a relativism type of like, hey, you know, we're the Jews, man, and we had like 6 million of us killed, and so, you know, we're allowed a little bit of latitude in how we defend ourselves. So we're only at 40,000 now, so it's okay. We, we, we can, we can you know, it's not genocide, right? Like, we, we, we deserve some latitude.
And, and the point was is that, that that's a, that's not an argument that's acceptable, right? And so they do have a responsibility in order to To take care not to violate Geneva Convention, right? Like they have to, they, they need to do more to prevent civilian deaths. I mean, can you imagine like if we took that type of hand in what we did in Afghanistan or Iraq, and granted, you know, the Iraq situation is, you know, not the same as the Afghan situation over the years. And, and we definitely had instances where civilian casualties were, were had and, and tragically, right? but the rules of engagement that we put in place were so tight, like soldiers complained that they couldn't, we were, we were at risk, right? Our soldiers were at risk because the rules of engagement were so tight.
That's the difference of what we're talking about, right? Well, sure, and that was exactly the same in Vietnam. So those, those not knowing who the insurgents are and who the bad people are, because they all look the same nationality or whatever the case may be, you can't, you can't, I mean, you can't identify, I'm just saying the North Koreans and South Koreans or the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese, whether they had different uniforms or whatever the case may be, it was hard to tell who the insurgents were. Well, that's the nature of insurgency. Well, right. And so obviously, Gaza is not an insurgency. Gaza, the situation there is that a terrorist organization launched a terror attack and killed 1500 innocent people. Well, yes, and that should be Widely condoned as absolutely condemned as absolutely wrong.
And so that was one of the biggest things that... So take the other side of that argument. Well... What's the flip side? I could, I could take it. I could try and say... Defend Hamas's actions. God, I mean, you know, it's almost the same story you hear about this whole oppress and oppressed, oppressor and oppressed, and this colonialism and people, this right to take. Unfortunately, it's like from the movie Thunderheart. Do you remember that with Val Kilmer? Sure, yeah, personally. And where he's like, these are, these are proud people, that's wonderful, but they're also a conquered people, and the people that were conquered are ruled by those that conquered them. That's the way it's always been throughout history, right, wrong, or indifferent. So there's some to that. But even in this scariness of...
You're saying that the, the Palestinians are a conquered people? Well, I... Because I'm not sure that's an accurate representation of... Where's their country? Where's their border? There, there's not a Palestinian country. I, I am not saying... Palestine is not a country right now, although they have a flag. well, they, they do, like, like, the, the West, so again, like, there is a political entity and they have governance, right? The West Bank is governed by the PLA. Which is the Palestinian Authority. Yes. Okay. And, and so, so there is, there's not a state, like, as recognized by the UN, and that's part of the solution that's, we're, we're, as the United States our policy is the two-state solution, right? It always has been.
And again, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm agreeing with you like that, that pro- that situation needs to be resolved, and, but my, what I'm saying is that the reason that it's not... It's from outside interests, right? It's from, it's from outside interests, they need to be guaranteed, right? And, and, but the, the point is, is that if we're going to talk about sovereign nations, then they should have that choice, not all those outside in- influences or whatever. Who, who should have that choice? The state that wants to be sovereign. That's exactly right, but the problem is, is that they need money, right? And they're being supported by you know, a, a regional hegemon, or an, a, a, a, a, a, a, an aspiring regional hegemon, because Russia is not, I mean, excuse me, Iran is not the regional hegemon that it wants to be.
It has competitors in Saudi Arabia. It has a whole Shiite-Sunni dynamic that is as complicated as any other, you know sectarian divide, right? you know, you've got Hezbollah in the north and Lebanon, you've got Hamas in the south, you've got several other Shiite, and even Sunni you know, sponsored organizations that are a part of this malign threat network, right? That is is an impediment to peace. Period. So, so, so with that, I, and, and to, you know, to try to take... They would argue the same thing about us. They would say the same thing about us, like, hey, we're the ones going in there and we're funding and we're, we're giving, you know, weapons and training and soft operations and we're in there monkeying around your business and we've been doing it since Again, like we'll go back to the British, thanks a lot, right?
They draw, drew a bunch of lines in the sand after World War I and said, nations, countries. Well, and most of it's, again, it doesn't have anything to do with the people on the ground. It has to do with the resources. So, so to try to take the side of, I could take the side of the Palestinian people, in a sense, more so than Hamas themselves. If I'm, I'm not going to take the side, I, I understand that you can be fought against for a thousand years and you can have thousands of your kids killed, just like in any insurgency situation. Was Goliath a Palestinian? I don't know. My, my, my biblical history is not all that great. How are we supposed to argue about politics and religion if you don't have your biblical history down?
The point being is, is, is if, if, if one side goes in and kills women, children, and babies, And although even through a bomb or through all these other things, your children was killed and, you know, every kid you killed, you just created another terrorist and all the other stuff that makes all this very complicated because you're creating the next generation of terrorists. But the one, one video that really struck me out, regardless of how oppressed you are, if they are justified at the fact that you kill an innocent baby, then, you know, it's very difficult to take that side in any way, shape, or form. And how do you fix that? You don't fix that by just giving them land and money, because obviously Hamas has gotten quite a bit of money.
That Gaza Strip could have been Dubai, basically, with how much money they have had, but that's not... But who's giving Hamas the money? From all around the world? I mean, it's the Iranians, right? Like, let's be very clear, right? Like, the state sponsor of Hamas... And how much money are we guessing? Should we look that one up? I mean, sure. I'm sure that the State Department has... So if you want to look briefly, well, like the one video that really jumped out at me that I never seen any news media or anybody cover, but we all saw the jeep with the woman in the white pants that was all bloodied from being raped and maybe dead, maybe not dead, we don't know. She's in the back of a jeep driving through the town.
And the thing that jumped out the most at me, whether they're Palestinian civilians and not Hamas militant people, but they were driving through the streets and there was the crowds that were cheering. And I saw a boy that was probably not more than somewhere between eleven and 13 years old that spit on the woman's body as the jeep drove by. And, and that really hit me pretty hard because it's like, regardless of all the scenarios here, how, how do you even psychologically fix people that think that that's okay, that this innocent woman was killed, raped, and beaten, and tortured, and all this other stuff just because of your history or whatnot?
So it's, it's kind of propaganda, or you're stuck in this, you're stuck in this belief system or whatever the case may be, but, you know, I don't necessarily wanna The United States gets in enough trouble assuming that we know better than other people and we can create an environment that's better to, to feed them and house them and all these other things, but imposing our will on other people is not the way to necessarily go about it, even if we know, if we believe in our heart that that's what's best for them.
So even to close the loop on the fish story from back a few minutes ago, some of these friends and doctors that get grants and they do studies in Papua New Guinea and all these places with no hope and no economy, and all these kids that are diving 90 ft down free diving to get corals and fish so they could sell them so they can feed their families to the US market and the global market for ornamental fish trade and whatnot. And sometimes it's a matter like there's a, there's one region that they went in and they had all these potholes and, and they had these tidal zones. From, it was basically bombing practice for whatever governments, more than some the US or whatever. So there were all these potholes in this region of this reef. We're like, man, this is a perfect opportunity to farm some corals.
So go, so a little education, you teach these, the, the, the people there how to take these certain types of coral that are very sought after in the United States and propagate them and farm them in these different areas so that instead of harvesting the wild reef, you can, you can farm them and create a resource to support the whole island. And so through education, yes, you can create an economy for people that they don't even know exist. And some of the people that would go there like diving, it's so weird because, you know another little side loop, but I was on a field camp when I was in college in, in the Appalachian Mountains. And I, we got Got nine credits for camping for ten days in the Appalachian Mountains, so I was, I was all over it. And Bob Easton, shout out to Bob Easton, great.
Yeah, well, my degree was geography and environmental studies with a concentration in resource conservation and management. So I know something, I know something about the environment. How do they fit all that onto a diploma? And then I had a minor in music with a concentration in jazz performance. That's, that's, that makes perfect sense. We know what that is. Liberal arts education. So in the back of these mountains, we're coming all the way across the country to go to these people's backyard that were very poor. And this is just my backyard. This is just normal to me, and we're in awe at the beauty of their backyard. It's just the backyard. What are you talking about? They don't even understand. So in some aspects, those, those coral reefs in different areas are the same thing.
They don't even know what to pick because like, so you'll go diving with them, and they're like, oh man, you see this one? They're pointing it, look at this one. Get the, you know, get this fish. Because even sometimes in the ornamental trade business, what's very expensive in the local fish stores is not because it's very rare in the world. There's just nobody knows to pick that fish when they're swimming. You know, so that's another area where it seems that private outreach and education and you know, university studies might be a little more effective than war. That's... I mean, sure, like, absolutely, right? Like, you can...
Make a similar you know, logical argument about how do you address migration in, in, you know in terms of like You know, do you want to build a wall or do you want to address the underlying source of instability in the places where, you know, people, humans, again, are leaving because they believe they can get a better life somewhere else, right? And whatever. And, and don't get me wrong, right? Like, certainly we know that threat actors are going to take advantage of that, and we need to make sure that we're maintaining strong security you know, from a national security perspective. But from a human perspective, again, right?
Like, the problem the instability that exists in, in the, in, as a result of mass migrations of, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people moving from South regions of the world to north regions of the world. All right, so obviously... So the question then there is, again, so to your point, right, just to kind of close the, like, like maybe investing in, you know education or other programs or whatever the case may be, like, I don't, you know, we can, we have to peel the onion back individually on each one of those problem sets, right? but addressing those underlying sources of instability at those locations in the, at the source is, you know just probably wise, right? Because what do they say, like An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? Like, is that not, is this not an instance of that?
Sure, so, so, okay, when we, when we look at a global economy, there's, there, it's complex, okay? So, but going in and bringing the CIA in, you know, and going down my crazy rabbit hole, which I love doing sometimes too, but when it's always about a resource, that is a problem, because then the resource ends up getting privatized, it ends up not going to the people. But that's, but when I can remember, I, so at the risk of going down, of, of, of going down that, to avoid going down that rabbit hole, the point that I'm making is, is that the, the, if we take a human-centric approach 1st, right, put humans 1st, then we can work to solve the problem. So I'm not saying what you're saying is, is doesn't happen.
What I'm saying is, is that What I'm suggesting is that we take a human-centric approach to understanding what is causing that to occur. So, so two points on that. One, it's an example of like the rainforest in Brazil. Now every tree is an environmental authority. I don't know about that, but as somebody that I'm, I, I, that's what my degree is in. So when people want to have like this argument from authority, because I can't be, I can't talk about that subject because I don't have a degree in immunology or whatever, even though maybe since I got my degree in 1993 or whatever it was, or four and since then I've read more than a few books. And in school, I didn't choose to read too many books. Because we were not an avid reader when we were kids. My, I didn't even remember, I remembered how to read. Did you ever read The Hobbit?
I read The Ghost of Windy Hill in 6th grade. Okay, I remember that. So the 3rd, the 3rd floor library. Then when I was at sea in the Navy, I did read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the whole trilogy. I whipped out a let's not go, get lost too far from the subject, but like, I, I whipped out a box of choose your own adventure books, and I've got stacks of them. Remember those, like little pamphlet type books and... Yeah, yeah, you pick it up, go to page 62. And, and so like I, I got one out, it was like something like the Rainbow Dragons or something like that. It was cute, like a guy, a little boy, and then he's got an owl friend and a fox friend, and then they have to go find the rainbow dragon.
Anyway, a few months ago, I found, I took this book out, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to work my way through this book, and I'm going to think like... I gotta, I'm gonna evaluate every option, and I'm gonna choose a Posture, and I'm going to select the answer that is most aligned with that posture each time. And, and I went through this and all, every time I came to a choose your, you know, which option you wanted to go, I always said, which, which one has the tone of building relationships and trusting the other and, and leveraging what the character is good at, right? The owl had this skill, the fox had that skill and everything, and knowing kind of where the author is thinking about, like, and I'm an adult, I'm not a kid reading this, right? and I, I'm, I, I, I'm not making this up.
I made it through the entire book to the end without ever Being, being, going in the wrong path and getting, you know, saying, oh, you died or whatever. Like, so, you know, whatever those books are. So no matter what your choice, you couldn't die, or you just chose the right path? I chose the right path for that storyline without ever having to go back in, in a section and reorient. Like, like as if I was in a maze and I was drawing my, in a maze. I never got to a dead end. I made it all the way through this book and got out the other way. So you, did you start from the back and work your way forward? No, I started from the front and I didn't cheat. I went through it and I went very slowly and I made deliberate decisions.
But what I learned in that, right, is that in those choose your own adventure books, right, like the morals of the story there, right, like of building trust and, and Taking, you know, capitalizing on the skills and the, and the abilities of each of the team members at the appropriate time. Like, that's what that story was, was teaching when we were reading them so many years ago. And, and, and realistically, like, that's the same approach that I've been trying to figure out ways to implement in my everyday, in my not-so-everyday, right? Like, things that I do and, and, and, and apply that to how I do problem solving. I think that's a solid point, and I think that, you know, obviously readers, leaders are readers, and, and I'm a leader now. I wasn't a leader back then. I remember another funny story. I remember...
That's because you weren't reading. Well, yeah, so I, I waited to the last minute on everything, and then I crunched and got it done. So those are skills learned by being able to Produce in crunch time as well. So, you know, what the goods and the bads and everything is, is, you know, at the end of the day, what's horrible and sometimes tragic things happen to people and that inspires them to greatness. So I sure am not God. I know that. and, and I can't wish that bad things, I can't wish that bad things never happen because the bad things have created so much good in a lot of ways. So it's very complicated. But so, so for one instance, I, I, I, I was scouring the world looking for the cliff notes on this book cause I had this assignment due Monday. And I went to multiple bookstores.
They, remember, they used to have those things like Borders and Walden, but, you know, there was multiple choices, Barnes and Noble. Now it's like it's barely, it's hard to even find a bookstore. There's a nice Barnes and Noble up at Central and, no, no, Oakbrook. Oh, well, you gotta, yeah, that's, you gotta go to those nice neighborhoods. Old Orchard Mall, right on the north side. So anyway, I couldn't find the cliff notes of this book, so I was pissed, and then I ended up slopping through it and maybe getting a passing grade, I don't remember what. But I ended up saving a lot of these books that I was supposed to read, like with the notion that one day I'll read them. So I, I opened up this box one time and I pulled some of these books out, and I swear to God, this book...
This is where you need the sound effect of like a, a case, a, a crate being, yeah, a crate being over. We got to add that, add it to the sound box. We'll, we'll work on that. And the but that book, even without being a very good reader, I would have finished it in a half an afternoon, maybe. Like, no wonder there was no cliff notes. That one, that one I don't, I, I can't, I can't go there. I don't, I don't know specifically, but but anyway, so even going back to the global economy and the environment, so you got Brazil that has a resource. The United States clear cut, most people don't know this, but every tree on North America has been cut at least twice, with the exception of the redwood forest in Northern California, and there's a northern portion in the Appalachian Mountains that's an actual virgin forest where it's huge.
They do grow back, but they don't grow back to the, the, there's a picture in the Appalachian Mountains with the big tree that, it's so wide, it's, you know probably 30 ft diameter. I mean, it's just huge. And so we Raped and pillaged and, and all the resources in this country multiple times to industrialize, and then we now learn that maybe trees might give us some oxygen and we might need these things around, and there's some possible medicinal benefits of the, you know, the, the Brazilian rainforest being there, so maybe we shouldn't just cut them down. So now we're gonna tell you, don't cut those trees down. Well, screw you. It's our only resource. You guys all did it. So if you don't want me to cut these trees down, then you pay me the money that I would get if I cut these trees down.
So the world says, okay, we agree that that resource is something that should be preserved for the sake of all of mankind. So all of us are going to pitch in, and we're going to pay Brazil to not cut the trees down. Is that true? That is absolutely true. And so that's a good thing, right? That's going to prevent people... Can I fact check that? I would love it if you did. Hey, Google. Everything that comes out of my mouth by definition is a fact. So what's the question? The question, hold on. The question is... Is Brazil paid to not cut down their... Cut down their trees. Their rainforest. So, you know, that's one aspect of global, the globe, the globe working together to try to facilitate all of us being able to live on this planet. You know, it's partial, it's part of, of the process.
But yeah, my, so anyway, af, even after all of that, I feel... A Brazilian environmental group is offering him a yearly cash payout to leave his forest standing up, so... It sounds like independent. Yeah. There is a pretty big there's a pretty big agricu there's a lot of cattle down there now, and they're, they are cutting down a lot of, they're looking for a lot of raising land. That's I mean, when I was, again, that was a class I took, I remember at, when I was at Northwestern, and I took a class called the politics of the environment, and it wasn't about environmental politics, it was about the politics of the environment, right? And which is... Play on words. It is kind of, but like... Similar but different. But like... One of the...
Interestingly, like the Field Museum here in Chicago has an incredible collection and research department that's focused on the Amazon rainforest and, and biodiversity, and I was able to meet with the... some of the leadership team there when I was doing some research on, on this. And anyway, one of the things I learned was, like China is actually wanting to build a railroad, like you know, across South America in order to cut off the... We're back to the same thing about the Suez Canal, right? So they cut the sea lane down to be able to take the beef that... Because they're buying their beef from there, right? and, and, you know, as the Chinese continuously increase their You know, disposable income, right, as their GDP per capita continues to grow, they're going to want more of those types of foods.
And so, you know, you talk about, on the one hand, you know, we're supposedly paying the Brazilians not to cut their forests down. In the meantime, the Chinese want them to cut them down so that they can run railroads through there to ship the beef to the other side, to ship it out from Peru and, you know, get it across the Pacific. That's a long boat ride across the Pacific. It's a long boat ride. I, I, I have a, a, a friend that I was on the board of International Fish Breeding Association one time. It's like that was some of the craziness of my life story because some of the places I've been and, and then to turn into be, I'm a board of director member. Like, how did this happen, you know, on an international nonprofit organization?
But but one of the board members was his family was a pretty large cheese exporter from way down south in South America, which was pretty wild. So, so those, all those aspects are, are, are huge, and you talk about the canal, it's kind of funny because do you, are you aware of the progress of the new canal by the Suez Canal in the Middle East by the Red Sea? No. And that's... Is there a new canal? It's baffling to, it's, it's kind of baffling to me that maybe we're letting the cat out of the bag here. Is there a new canal being built near the Suez Canal? So once we... The new Suez Canal is expected to expand trade along the fastest shipping route between Europe and Asia. The new canal allows ships to sail in both directions at the same time. Yeah, so it's the same canal, but they're opening it up.
It's not, not, not true if you want to take a look at a map of that. So the initial, going through the Suez Canal with a naval ship and, and with a aircraft carrier, there is sure as hell is, not only is there not room for two-way traffic, but the, the, the top... Not, not the whole canal, no way. The top of the ship actually goes over the land for like a lot of ways. Oh, no, for sure. I just, I actually just watched an interesting documentary about that one ship that ended up getting stuck in the canal. Do you, did you remember that? It wasn't that long ago. It was a couple of years ago and everything. Oh, look at that water. Nice. Thank you. And and as a result of like that incident occurring they, some of what we're talking about here, like reshaping this was was put into play.
I can't remember, but it was really cool to see what they had to do, like the engineering that they had to do in order to dislodge this this ship. But the, the ships that go through the Suez Canal are so big, man. They're enormous. I know what an aircraft carrier looks like and some of these car, these cargo ships. So, so interestingly enough, not to cut you off, but there, I was at a political education seminar in, in DC with our actual local... Sounds like an oxymoron. Well, it's, it was it's almost like military intelligence. Oh. So, so That was with the International Association of Machinists Local 126. Shout out to the union guys out there. but we... One of the big issues was the deep water canals and some... And, and so there's dredging that needs to happen in order to...
In, in order to get all the sediment out so that the containers could come in deep, deep. And if you hold up the money for the dredging, then the containers can't come in full. So now you're almost paying double because the, the container ships can only come in halfway full. And so that could be, you know, a way of stifling raw materials to get into the Great Lakes and hence into, into Lake Michigan and could help... That could be a way of hurting industrialization and union jobs and stuff and with steel making and all these different things in the Buffalo area. For sure. Somebody just, there was just an article I read because when they were talking, there was, it was you know, it was about the border security issue and issues with the Panama Canal and who wants to control that.
And they even said, they're like, interesting that whenever there's trouble at one canal, there's trouble at the other canals. And it was just kind of funny that that kind of triggered in my head because the Panama Canal is having some trouble, which is part of the Suez Canal, which is part of the Gaza Middle East kind of scenario. I don't know how we connect the dots there. And then, and then that, but that next... How do we connect the dots between the area, the, the Suez, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal in, in So where is the, where on the map is the new canal being drawn? It's, it's actually going around the other side. It's very, it's not right next to it. It's still in the same general region. I mean, it's, it's not, it's cutting between Egypt and the Red Sea and Mediterranean through Egypt there, man.
Yeah, so you, I, I'll, I'll pull up a map just to take a look, but but I, I kind of cut you off. What were, what were you saying? No, no, no. I, I was asking how do we connect the dots between the, the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal? Well, I mean, it's global shipping and... Yeah, and, and obviously most of the same players are going to be, the big money's going to be in, in all those regions because they're trying to con-control the exports all around. Did you ever want to be like a, a maritime tycoon? not really. No? Did you ever want to, like, own, like, shipping lanes and shipping You were a sailor, man. Like, what do you dream about when you're in a cargo boat? Well, it's one of those things where... The USS Concorde. What do you dream...
What does young Carl dream about becoming when he grows up, when he's sitting on the, on the, you know, his bunk in the... All right, so, so to kind of, to kind of bring this story back to the E-5 and under ranks of a military operation, whether it's, whether it's the army or whether it's the navy or any other mil, armed forces, one of the things, one, I guess it could close the loop a little bit on my lack of reading early in my life. Kids get, you know, and cause You get to the fleet. I, so we had a recruiter that was kind of a friend of a friend. Everybody thinks their recruiter's their friend, but kids, you know, he's pretending to be your friend to get, you know, fill some quotas and steer you in certain directions. That Czechoslovakian nine that was pretending to like you because she wanted your kidney?
Maybe, very well likely, because my, I'm, I'm grateful I still have two kidneys, so that's good for me. but anyway in the Navy, I got, I, I, another life lesson for the youth out there, just a, a little realization in my only 50 years on this earth, I was a straight D student. Solid, solid straight D student, and that's why I ended up joining the military, because I applied to three colleges and got denied at all of them. I, I got, I was one person below the 50 percentile on my graduating class. I got a 19 on my ASVAB, because I'm pretty sure I was hungover, and, and and, and, and I, and, and I got like a, a, a 1.9 GPA, right? I missed the two point oh by one, one, one, you know, one 10th of a point. So I applied to Southern Illinois University for partying.
Paul, actually, Paul managed to, you know, go, get in there and get out of there with, with, with a degree, right? Or partial, or a couple of years. How long did you make it, how long were you there? One year. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was asked not to come back. So either way, that was an experience that probably it was a rite of passage that should have been you know. I mean, it was pretty, it was actually, yeah, it was great. I mean, you know I think I left there with like a 1.4 GPA. I left there with a court case. I left there with a lot of great memories. you know, hanging out on Cherry Street. the bagel dude, man, the bagel guy. Shout out to the southern Carbondale bagel guy.
No, seriously, man, like the bagel guy, that was the greatest thing about Southern Illinois University was, you know, you go to Gatsby's on Tuesday nights and you get 45 cent pitchers of natural light, which is basically like drinking water with like beer flavor. And and, you know, at $0.45, you can drink enough of natural light to actually get a buzz but mostly you're just peeing all the time. In any case, you're super hungry after that, and you go outside, and dude's out there, right, like on the strip with his push cart, and charcoal on the push cart, and he's grilling, like, bagels. Like, their bagels are made, and they're cut in half, and bagels sandwiches? Bagel sandwiches, yeah, man. Like, he's grilling the bagels, and you can order a bagel. He's got all the condiments out there, right?
So he's got, like, you know, cream cheese, he's got, like, sunflower seeds and raisins and tomatoes and cucumbers and all different things that you can pick, and you can pick and choose, like, what do you want on your bagel, and he'll then cut the bagel, toast it, get it nice and toasty on his grill that he's sitting out there, and then Make the sandwich, and they were fat sandwiches, man. They were, and they probably were like three and a, three and a quarter or something like that. And yeah, I, I will tell you, like, the bagel guy was probably, you know, That might be the best thing I take away from Southern Illinois. All right, folks, so we're going to have to fact-check that to all the New York bagel shops out there that you might have some competition down in Carbondale. I love the bagels in New York, too, but the bagel guy there.
But yeah, I love... I don't know, does anything good come out of SIUC? I mean, I'm sure they've got good stuff. Okay, so here's the thing. I love the solution. Here's the thing. If I'm the human resource person at a company, major Fortune 500 company, and I see that you went to school and somehow managed to pull a degree out of there, that kind of says something about your ability to navigate a few landmines when it comes to the partying and the partying. I've got something. Yeah, I know. I'm with you here. So I've got something to do. So like, so ultimately, I ended up graduating from Northwestern, summa cum laude, right? So like, that was in like 2013, so like 20 days short of my 40th birthday. So technically, I graduated. In my thirties, right after doing all of my military career and whatnot.
And so, but, but like riddle me this, like if I graduated from Northwestern with School, and I was like three point whatever nine. But I left Southern Illinois with a 1.4 GPA. Does that mean that SIU is actually a harder school than Northwestern? A harder school to graduate from, probably. You know? Right? Like, I mean, how, how is it possible that I could have done so well at Northwestern, but not done so well at Southern? Let's, let's, as an eighteen-year-old going to college versus a thirty-some-year-old going to college. Well, I think that rolls right into my little story I was telling about, like the willingness to try, or maybe applying yourself, because, you know, shout out to Sister Jean from grammar school at Saint Genevieve's.
But for, for how many times I heard teachers, for how many times I heard teachers tell me, you have so much potential if you would just apply yourself, and for some reason I just never wanted to apply myself. I mean, you gotta, it's, dude, man. You know, I, I have five kids, right? And if I look at, they're all very smart, right? Like God has, we are very, you know, thankful for the blessings that he's bestowed upon our family, right? Like on multiple levels, right? Including genetics. and, and they're all very smart, but like they have varying degrees of success in school.
And I think that's one of the things I've learned is like, you know, there, there's a right time and a right place and there's a right way and People learn differently, and, and some systems don't work well for others, and so sometimes it's not necessarily fair, I don't think, for, like, some teacher to go to a ten-year-old and say, "Hey, why don't you apply yourself?" Right? Like, what does the ten-year-old know? You know? Maybe it, we, if we did a better job of creating, you know, educational opportunities that met the, the kids where they're at, right? Well, for sure. I mean, the teachers out there, they, they don't have, they don't get paid enough. It's the most important job in the world that one good teacher can change a child's complete life forever.
And, and we all know that one or two good teacher, we all remember the one or two bad teachers, or hopefully forget them as much as possible. But the, the, the, the main thing was that Getting a straight D average. If I was in the failure mark, I would go to the teacher and I'd try to work, because I know I'd get my butt kicked at home if I got an F, so I had to get a D. So then I'd go manipulate the teacher and I'd go meet with her, can I do an extra credit assignment, is there anything I could do, so I'd, I'd do so much work. You really believed you were, you were manipulating the teacher? Well, I would, I would just, you know, leverage just where I could. Allowing you to think that you were actually having the upper hand there for a while.
Yeah, I guess maybe it's the wrong choice of word, but either way, I was just trying to find a way to pass, so if I did a, got an extra credit assignment, do whatever, and I got my D. So to this day, with everything in my heart, I know 100% that it was harder for me to get straight Ds than it would have been to just get straight As. If I would have just did the work, it's so much easier. Not that too many kids are going to maybe listen to the show, but... We're right back to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yeah, there's a... Right, like if you do a problem that you address right now is on a scale of one, and if you let it go for a while, that problem grows until it's ten times as big. If you let it go again, now it's a hundred times bigger. All of a sudden, you're like, why do I have this huge problem I'm dealing with?
And it's like, well, because you didn't address it when it was, you know, a little... Scratch, right, or a little hole in the wall. Now it's a giant crack and everybody's run. You didn't fix immigration when you had a chance 50 years ago and everything, and so now it's just a giant sieve and everybody's running through the border, like, you know. Yeah, it's, it's terrible. Go fix the problem. Yeah, I mean, it's not good, man. Our, our borders are one down there, they're looking for the root causes, so. They look great. Well, the root cause of the border problem or the root cause of why the immigrants, I mean, the root cause, there's a river there, right? Like, I don't know.
So, but anyways, with, with, with education side, that was kind of the thing, and, and so I did as little as I could to get by, and hence, I didn't have the opportunities that some other people may have had, so I joined the Navy. Then I get to the fleet. Oh, we had that, wait, I got. Dreams of Carl on the Concorde, that's where we're at. What did you want to be? That was the question. Right, so I'm closing the loop on that. So, so there was the, there was the There was the idea of having this friend that was a recruiter, so he, he ended up, we ended up going in on the buddy system, so I ended up going in with a friend. And they're like, don't tell anybody you're on the buddy system, because back then it was, it was even prior to don't ask, don't tell, so you couldn't have a buddy that you went in with. And what's it called?
So we ended up going in and, and he, our, our recruiter was basically like our recruiter was basically like, don't get involved. Don't get involved with anybody. Don't or don't do extra stuff in boot camp. Don't volunteer for nothing. Don't take the heat for some other kid that's getting in trouble because you're the section leader of your boot camp company. So it's just like, just get through it. Yeah, just get, well, kind of. It was like, get through it, and then once you get to the fleet, then the real world starts, you know? So, so I ended up, went in with a buddy that was actually in band with me in school, and I played the saxophone, so, and he played the drums. So it was like, the 1st question, we're all sitting in a room after trying, like, you know, being grilled about not volunteering.
So sit on your hands, and they're like, anybody play a musical instrument? And we're like, looking at each other like, are we supposed to say something or not? So we raised our hands, and we ended up in the 900 companies. So what they do is... You would never have been there if you didn't volunteer, man. Well... Like, I didn't know what he was talking about. Well, the 900 comp... If you, if you're a musician and you go in the Navy and you get in the 900 companies, you practice your instruments because... Cause you, there's, every three weeks there's a new band created, and then you perform@graduation.cool.
So I performed at three different graduations, and we already knew how to march cause we're a marching band and all that, so everybody else is out drilling in the heat and we're in there practicing our instruments to play anchors away@graduations.it was pretty a sweet deal. So you get to the fleet and then it's the real world. And, and, and now you're in the real world, and it's just a job. I happen to work in a 20 degree below zero freezer in, in, on a supply ship with refrigeration, so we're humping 60 pound cases of broccoli spears and, and, and palletizing stuff to get, you know, we hit the USS America as an aircraft carrier and we would transfer five, 5500 skids of material in like two and a half hours at sea, which was quite an amazing operation. That sounds amazing.
and so we were busting our butt, and it was like, now here's this high school kid that's in the real world, you know, realizing like, maybe I don't want to work my ass off for the rest of my life, so this is crazy, so. It's a lot of work, man. And then that was like, like, like you had mentioned earlier, Paul, that Was when Bill Clinton was making all his military cutbacks, so he actually offered early out programs. So I ended up getting out early.
So, you know, for folks that don't know, you know, in the American Legion and everything else, I always would, like, pick on people because they'd be like, oh, I'm not a real veteran, I didn't serve that much time, and that pisses off most veterans because we all could have been in a certain place, we all could have done certain things, but at the end of the day, what I mean is I was, I got a technical war rivered because Desert Storm started while I was in, but I wasn't in a forward area. If I get benefits when I get home, we can talk about that all veterans deserve benefits when they get home, but the same benefits as somebody that did that four tours in a front area is I don't want, I don't need anything, and that person should get everything.
That should, that person should have a house waiting for him on a government loan with zero interest. He should have a job waiting for him, and, and Paul's been pivotal in some of the trying to organize some ideas on adjunct strategies from getting out and, and trying to work our skills and what we can do to get, be a, a good job and, and, and fill out a good resume with the skills that you've learned and all that stuff. So it's been interesting. Yeah, no, it's good. It's well, I mean, we're all, we're all entitled, right? Like if you serve, you don't know just because your time didn't come you don't know that when you join, but you're right, that's the nature of the blank check, right?
and, and so ultimately, you know, I think anyone, everyone who you know, signs Up and, and serves their country is entitled equally to the to the benefits that they earned by virtue of their service. And, you know, it's funny, like, you, you, you say, like, oh, I didn't do this or I didn't do that, right? Like, but if you're, if you're not doing what you're doing... The mission can't happen. The mission can't happen, right? For sure. How does the aircraft carrier feed its soldiers so it can keep sending, you know, F-18s out into the, into the wild blue yonder if they don't have their Doesn't broccoli spares. No, there's no doubt. Every, every, every cog matters. There's no question. Yeah, absolutely. Although, I mean, there's a little bit of fraud, waste, and abuse out there. I mean, let's... There's a little bit, yeah.
There's a little bit out there. I've seen a little bit. Our supply our supply, our sergeant or whatever we call him in the Navy, the petty officer, was Chief. He was really into, like, trying to prevent waste and, you know, when he'd see those $800 toilet seats that everybody talks about, you know, he would, he would send up the request and say maybe we should be... You don't pay $8,000 for a toilet seat, do you? Well, welcome to you know, unless government might be a little bit better. Yeah. Judge Hirsch. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't even want... Let's, let's just say I can care less about the $8,000 toilet seats right now if you could just get the Pentagon to pass an audit. And not, not know where $10 billion, $10 billion, we just don't know where it's at. Jump change. No, I don't think it's like that, man.
We have pretty good accounting practices. Sometimes we just don't want to tell people. Oh, so we did, I did pull up a map of the, the canal there, so. Okay. So it seems that that, the new canal is absolutely involved in this whole scenario. So you heard it here, folks. That, that the control of the, the flow of freight may be part of the issue. Israel Canal Plan. I read, I see that, but what's the source, Paul? Business Insider. Come on, man, what's the source? Business Insider. The US had a plan. No, that's who the report is. What's the source of them, like, saying, like, who's saying, like, that Israel wants to build In the 1960 to blast an alternate canal through the US nuclear... Okay, maybe I got the wrong map here. Let's see. Yeah, it's possible. Okay. I don't know. I saw... They're, they're doing, they're doing some digging.
I don't know, man. Look, I, I think at the end of the day, what the point of all of this is that, that, see that map there? This one? Yeah, that was one I seen in yeah, here, bingo. New Suez Canal. Yeah. Project of Jecton. I don't know what those bodies of water, cause that's written in Arabic, and I don't read Arabic, so I can't figure out what that is. Well, this one's in English. Yeah, but that's, doesn't tell you the, what's on the bodies of water on the left. Yeah, we gotta zoom out a little bit. I tried that, but I, that's like when... Really awesome. Yeah, see, it's impossible to find the information, folks. I mean, just go to the Suez Canal itself, right? There you go. Port Said, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what. You know what we should do? Let's go on a field trip. Let's go to the Suez Canal. That would be fun.
Let's, let's go to the Suez Canal. We're going to go there, then we're going to go to the, to, to Jordan, and we're going to stand on Mount Nebo, and we're going to look over at the Dead Sea. We're going to talk about the three-state solution that was proposed on this Flipside Frolic. Yeah, no, well, you know, I was actually baptized in the Jordan River. That's impressive. it was super cool. Oh, oh, as part of this trip, you just got, got, got to. And that same, that same mission site, like I did a bunch of cool things, and we did a a trip with the chaplain who was there. There was a bunch of us that went, and we went to kind of like the area where John the Baptist kind of hung out there on the east side of the river there. You know, a little cave up in the hills, they say.
And and then we went down and there's a, a, a water access area in the Jordan River, and like, it's very close, like you can practically swim across the river and get into Israel there, right? Like, it's very, very close. And there were, there were Christians on the other side of the river who were doing the same thing on the Israel side, and there was groups of Christians on the Jordanian side going in and, and, you know, we had a nice little riverside service there. Chaplain was super cool, and, and anyone who just wanted to, you know, go through you know, baptism there was, did it.
We didn't have cups, and so the chaplain, you know, he's a soldier, he's field expedient, he had a, a Like a wa- plastic water bottle, and he was filling up the water bottle for people who didn't want to get dunked, and he would just pour the water over their heads as he was baptizing. And they were choosing to be baptized, right, making that public declaration. And I was like, no, no, no. I was like, I was like, I'm going on, you got to dunk me, man. Like, I mean, and so so he did do that. I want the traditional way. I got to go to the old school. And then he pushed me back, and then one of my flip-flops comes off, and I'm like, it's going down the river. I was like, how long I got to get this? So I, I get both of my flip-flops out of there.
But yeah listen, it was it was a, it was very, to me, like having had that opportunity, I had been baptized I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic church. I was baptized in at the church, in my church now in like 2000, oh, shoot, man, it was not too long ago, like maybe 2015 or 16, I can't remember exactly when. And then this was, this trip was 2017, late 2017 when I was there. and, you know, I, I just, I'll say this, right, to make a point about all this, like, you know, I think we can be baptized, we should be baptized every time we feel that we are making a choice to publicly declare our, you know, faith and trust in, in Jesus, right? And, and so, like, I had that opportunity to do that, to make a public declaration amongst some of my fellow soldiers and others that were there, right?
and, and so ev- each time that that's happened, you know, I feel like I've drawn closer to God and, and continue to grow in that because I do think this is You know, true. We need, we spend a lot of time focusing on our physical health. These days we spend some time on our mental health, our emotional health, but we can't neglect our spiritual health, and you have to be strong in all four of those areas to have a truly well-adjusted life. and I think that we, just like we can be really spiritually strong, but we can let our bodies go to, you know, to waste, right? And I don't think that was the intent either. Like, we need to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Yeah, your body's a temple.
I mean, that, that was always the kind of thing, and I think that there's definitely an active push, and it, it's so funny because even from the, you know, I'd run in the scientific community people and everybody that thinks they know, you know, there's some, some of those basic truths that are hard to Kind of justifying the closer they come to trying to disprove the existence of God, it seems like the closer they are to actually proving that something exists. No, listen, I firmly believe that science is the pursuit of understanding the mind of God. Well, obviously, there's always going to be God when there's unanswered questions. I mean, the Native Americans would worship the sun, or the Egyptians would worship the sun, because it's not known what it is, and it's a great thing we learn.
It brings us vegetables and, you know, light and all these warmth and all these other things. Well, we can come to know everything that doesn't disprove the existence of God. Well, right. Even if there were aliens, who made them? You know, I mean, there's some almighty creator that's made everything anyway. But the point being is, like, instead of having this force to try to take... Obviously, I believe in separation of church and state, that's fine. But when it comes to school, I, I, I don't think there should be no God in school. I think... What did the founders mean when they said separation of church and state? I don't even know. There's an actual answer to this, right? Like... Do you know it? Well, I, I... Of course, of course. I wouldn't have brought it up. I'd love to hear it.
I mean, no, so like, so each of the states had their own religious order, right? Massachusetts, each of the colonies had its own, their, each of their own religion. They were all Christian, right? So, but you had the Presbyterians over here, you had the Quakers in, in Pennsylvania, you had the Baptists down south, although they weren't really Baptists yet, maybe per se, but like, you know, there were each denomination each, each colony really had its own denomination. That was part of the structure. And so when they were making the constitution, What they were saying was is that the federal government wasn't going to impose one of those denominations on another state. Okay. That makes sense.
Well, that's, and it's important that, like, that's the actual, like, if you go back and you read, like, you know the Federalist Papers, you know, and you, and you read the writings of the founders and you, and, and, I mean, this is one of the reasons why I'm, I'm, I've always been a, a, a fan of Justice Scalia, right, despite our politics not necessarily being You know congruent the approach, you know, that he championed in, in terms of understanding the the, the, the constitution is, it, it certainly is originalism, right? Like he's one of the authors of originalism and, and, and certainly one of the greater proponents of it from the, from the bench.
But the point of that is that you have to understand the context and the times from within which that document was written and what the real, what the framers actually meant, not necessarily what we think they might have been intending for a future world that was 200 years down the road that they weren't even really thinking about, right? Like, You know, and, and so like ch- separation of church and state, like where church you know, w-w-where faith belongs in schools, in the public setting, any public setting for that matter, right, courts and whatnot. I, I'm, I'm, I'm very well, like, sure that the framer, the co- did not mean for, you know, for no God in, no God in the, in our country. Yeah, that is not what they meant at all, right? Where the, actually it's the opposite. We're One nation under God, right? We, in that, we trust, right?
And then they say that that came, that came later on the bill or the sixties and all this other kind of stuff, but there's truth to that. But at the end of the day, right, it's on the great, the great seal speaks of it, right? Like, and, and, and the framers speak of it in the federalist papers, and you can't change that, right? So like, I think we would be, this goes back to what we were saying at the very beginning, right? Like we can have, everyone can have an opinion. We can have an opinion on that, but the fact of the matter is what, what the framers were trying to do was to make sure that all of the colonies would come together under that by assuring them that a federal government was going to tell the Quakers that they had to become Presbyterians and that the Presbyterians had to become Baptists, right?
Like, that was what they were really getting at. Yeah, and, and, and, and just along those lines with the separation can be fine because like, should a Chicago public school be teaching my kids to be a Democrat or a Republican? Absolutely not. They shouldn't, they should be teaching math in a rip them Reading and all the different skills. But, and, and when it comes to religion, no, they shouldn't be pushing a single doctrine that they should be Christian or they should be Muslim or they should be Jewish or anything else. And if they were just, you know, if we were just a part of kind of pushing that all world religions are taught, it's amazing that you can get a five-year-old that says, gee, mom, it seems like all these religions are kind of teaching the same thing. Like, why are we going to war over the things we don't agree on? Yeah.
Because they're all based in love, they're all based in treat your neighbor well, most, for the most part. And, and, and, you know, I think that if we had a better understanding of, there's a good story that my aunt just told. When my aunt passed away, I was at a wake, and this other aunt was talking about the old school Catholic days where the nuns were walking them from school, from the church to the school or whatever, and they had to cross The Presbyterian church or the Lutheran church or whatever, and they would actually cross the busy street and go on the other side of the street as to not walk in front of that church. And it's just like, that's just crazy. Like, you're going to get... Well, they're very personal. I mean, look at what happened in Northern Ireland and like the Protestants and the Catholics fighting, right?
Like, I mean, yeah, it's always, it's always sensitive. But like, the Constitution doesn't actually say like there's a separation of church and state, right? Like, the actual words are, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So, interestingly, right, like if, if one wanted to, if one wanted to make the argument, like, like there has been, right, like you know, public school prayer during football games down south, right? Like, there's always a big stink about that, you know, it hits the news every time football season kicks off, you know, and, and, and The, there's, Congress shall make no law preventing the free exercise thereof. So I, I actually think like we got it backwards, right?
We should not be telling the, the, the coach that he can't do prayer because the Congress can't pass a law that prevents the extra, the free exercise of it, right? I, I just, I get, I get frustrated so often by our lack of like communal understanding of words. Well, here, here, here's a pretty, here's a pretty good, here's a pretty good thing that like from another program that I'm in that talks about not imposing our will on other people. So the reality is It's almost like here, in, in, in being a constitutionalist, we make... No one's telling those kids that they have to go and take a knee and pray. They, they're being offered the opportunity by the coach, and so that, is that, is, is that imposing?
Well, the problem lies is that a big thing that you have said often to me and makes a ton of sense is we think globally, but we act locally. And those decisions should be made at a local level. That's almost the same sovereignty of state, that states have their, you know, their own autonomy in some, in some areas. And if the local people don't have a problem with it, then somebody six states over and four states, four states north, just because it offends... I don't understand what you, so like, what are you suggesting? Like if somebody locally, locally... You don't have a right to be offended for what's going on on another side of the country. It doesn't affect you. Let the people drum this thing out. You know what I mean? If, if the pressure's coming from...
I guess what I'm getting at is that the, the, the point of the way that the Constitution is written allows for either one to exist simultaneously. And the problem is, is one side of the argum, of, of those on the debate want only the way that they interpret it, their opinion, to count, and the flip side, the other side of the argument, only wants the way they see it, the way they interpret it, to count. But the tr, it's, there's two parts. There's the establishment clause and there's the free exercise clause, right? And the establishment clause says that the government will not say everyone has to be religious. The flip side of it is the government cannot say you don't have the right to say what you want, to, to exercise your faith. Right. Okay, so those are the two, that's the point that I'm making here, right?
Like, I hear what you're saying and what you're arguing, and I'm going to say, I don't think that's the right way to look at the problem. What we really should be looking at is saying, hey, the government can't tell me what to do, and it can't tell me what to not to do, which means if I'm in a public school, the public school can't tell me that I can't pray. Or wear rosary or anything along those lines. Nor can it tell me that I have to pray. So if I choose to do so, or if I'm, if I'm, if I'm a student leader and I decide I want to have a, a, a Monday morning prayer group, there should be nothing stopping me from doing that. Well, if it... And nor should I, nor should anyone be forced to go to it. Well, if, if it was going to happen during class time and take away from actual classroom time, then maybe, but if you...
I mean, but that's different. That would be like saying, I'm going to go, it's, it's time to go smoke in the boys' room. Right. Right, like if I want to have a smoke in the boys' room coffee clutch. That's fine as long as you identify as a cigarette. It's like, no, I'm not going to do it during class time, right? I'm going to do it beforehand, right? Like, I mean, even at my job, right, I work in a, I work for a, a company that's got 730,000 plus employees worldwide, right? It's, it's the, it's 240 plus billion dollar market cap company. It's huge. And even in there, right, like the Christian ERG groups live and breathe and thrive next to Muslim ERG groups and LGBTQ ERG, ERG employee resource groups, right? Like at, you know, internal advocate groups.
And, and we have the, the freedom to set up a prayer, a group Monday and Fridays, and, and how, what a blessing it is that I work for a company that neither establishes nor prevents the free exercise of my, of my faith or anyone else's faith for that matter. That's the beauty of the American experiment, man, is that all can come together and live according to the way that they want to live without fear of somebody else's beliefs being impressed upon me. Where it gets tricky is when people then have, you know, policy positions that are, are predicated on, on their, how their faith in it interprets Their reality, right? Like it contributes to the interpretation of their reality, their understanding thereof, right?
So, so the question of abortion then becomes that controversy or controversial, can, can, I can speak because there's a, there's a moral question, right? There's a, there's a life question. When does life begin? Is this morally correct, right? And so in that, that's where we get hung up. But even in that issue, like I think one can be, can, can be both pro-life and pro-mother. Well, I think, I think most people are, in, in, in most cases. I think, I think most of them are as well, right? Like I have three daughters. I have, you know, if any one of them were to become pregnant, I would strongly encourage them to choose life, right?
I would strongly encourage them to choose life, but if they decided they were going to live their life that, you know, with that decision, I would want to make sure that they can have that taken care of in the safest, most healthy, and humane way. Well, for sure. Right, for sure, right? Like, we shouldn't be preventing them from, from being able to make decisions about what's going to happen with their body and creating more of a risk. And that's where the, you know, years ago when I was pre-COVID and I was, had this severe work accident, I was home for a couple of years trying to recover and going through shoulder surgeries and all this kind of stuff, but that's where it was like, I, I realized that most of the time when you just talk to real people, obviously text messaging and, and sucks.
You know, a little sn, a little smile, a little sneer, a little chuckle makes, goes a long way in having conversations with human beings. And sometimes, you know, even everybody's so busy and they're working two jobs and they're this and they're that, so nobody gets to talk and sit down and talk. That's why to go back to the Thanksgiving dinner with religion and politics, it's like, who else am I supposed to talk to? You are my friends and family. We should be working together to vote in a cohesive manner so that we're, our voice really is heard. And, and sometimes they, that these kind of topics keep us divided. And, and those are the, the things that they want to focus on.
I would just happen to say that, well, I do agree that, you know, abortion is a serious topic that should be discussed, but there is a lot of other topics that should be discussed. But until we have campaign finance reform and conflict of interest in government straightened out, then I don't think any solution to most problems are even going to be a fair one because there's so much outside influence from money and lobby and all these other kind of problems. I think it's a lot. It's, it's, it's much more comp... It's actually simpler than that, right? Like we, we need truth. Truth is good. We need truth in, in our political system, 1st and foremost, not alternative facts.
Well, you know, and, and to bring in a, bring in a topic that we were talking about at the VFW hall the one time when we talk about free speech, and, and obviously if you're an originalist and you're a constitutionalist and you, you, you fight... That's the conundrum of me, right, by the way, right? Like... You fight for free speech, and, and so in this day and age right now, and we, and then we talked a little bit about, you know, that I mentioned, I, that's, that's what it was. Are you concerned that free speech is being, is, is being taken away, like that we're losing that, and do you think that's something that we should be concerned about, that our, our... Our rights in accordance with the Bill of Rights are being eroded simply because we don't even really understand what they are in the 1st place.
Well, there could be some of that, but more... I mean, I just explained one of those issues where we don't really understand that separation of church and state isn't actually in the Constitution. Well, for sure. And, and, and, and another aspect is that we have this search engine thing called Google or whatever, and we have this illusion that we all carry these cell phones around, and we have the, the, the vast amount of information at our fingertips, and maybe soon to be a neural link imprinted in your head where you can instantaneously access this information. But if you're not getting a free and balanced and all sides and all angled argument, and, and, and if what I say is being censored, if what I, my search results are being skewed for a specific narrative, then that's not open and honest.
I mean, but how is that any different than a, a school board getting to choose what school books end up in the classroom? Well, they don't get to choose that. Yes, they do. The school board actually chooses. The parents are a part of that process. No, no, that's not kind of how it works. Like the school board decides, parents don't have any influence over what Chicago public school systems are choosing to put in their schools. That's actually not true. It's a hundred percent true. How do they have influence over that? So the parental advisory board... I mean, I've had, I've been on the, the local school councils and I've, I've put five kids through public education. So we, so a mutual friend of ours is Alberto Zerzoga, right?
And, and he was very pivotal in going to a lot of these school board meetings and educating people on what their power actually is. And the one interesting thing, even though I would not say that the Illinois school system, public school system is the best in the country, because the numbers show that it pretty much isn't. However, the actual structured system is actually one of the best in the country. The problem is, is that the parental advisory boards that usually get underf- that, that aren't promoted so that, and then everybody's so busy that they're not a part of that. No, but an advisory board doesn't, it advises- They have the power to remove the principal, they have the power to dictate- That's not, that's not the advisory board, that's the local school council, and I've been on that, but they don't choose the curriculum.
They can fire, they can, the local school council hires and fires the principal on all of the local school councils within Chicago public schools, that's how the system works, right? But curriculum is determined by the school board and the, and the, the network, right? So, okay, so, so explain to me who dictates the curriculum then? It's, it's the CPS administrators. From where? Downtown. Chicago? Yeah. So you're talking about Chicago public schools or the Illinois public education system? Illinois, the Illinois Board of Educa- So, so there are, there are state boards that have So I am, I was talking more in the state structure, not the CPS. So again, but the, but the states, the The state can set laws and through the Department of Education that determines what curriculum requirements need to be met, right?
And then that is implemented by each of the school districts and the school boards, and they then have to meet, they, they have to build curriculum that falls within the guidelines that are set by the state. And the state education boards determine that policy. Parents don't have any direct input into the curriculum, which is why, like, the debates about what Florida is putting in their, their curriculum versus what New York is putting in their curriculum, I mean, this is the same argument about what was being taught in, I mean, it's, it's similar, like pre-Civil War, right? Like, hey, these states have a worldview, and this is how we want that worldview to be articulated to our children, and these states have a different worldview, generally speaking, and they want that.
But the Parents don't have a say in either one of those situations except, except at the ballot box. Well, right, except at the ballot box, and that's when you... I definitely don't, I definitely don't have enough information on this subject to really talk too much nuance on it, but... Oh, I hope that was helpful. I hope, I hope I've shared a little bit of, I hope what I've said is factual. Right, well, we could leave a comment and let us know. If I don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to correct me and provide your sources. Yeah, for sure. No, that, that'd be good. And, but, but obviously that, that is kind of part of this whole idea with free speech that, you know, censoring what I, what what somebody says is a problem.
And, and, and, you know, even talking back here is a local situation where up in, you know, up in the northern suburbs where the, you know, advocacy groups were fighting for the right for the Klan to have a, a, a parade or whatever. And, and so they have a right to say it. I don't have to agree with it. Then we had a little conversation talking to about I said, I said it's not give, God-given right to, to have an opinion. And you kind of disagreed with me on that, on that point. And I said, okay, well, you have a right to express your opinion, but whether or not you ha, you're an authority or you have some sort of con, factual basis for that opinion or not. So, so that's where the trickiness comes in. But we, there is legislation that has, that, that determines What cannot be, so like hate speech. Okay, fair enough. Right?
You can't, you threaten somebody. Hate speech is not the same as threatening somebody, right? Like, yeah, different. So what's hate speech then? Well, let's, let's just, that's an easy one. It's, it's defin- it's definitional, right? It's, it's not, it's not a business. It's a legal, it's a legal term. Okay, so let's say you set a law in, in Congress or with the, with the Supreme Court based on a definition, and then 30 years later they change the definition. Does that change the law? No, the law is still on the books. You actually change the law because you change the definition. So if anybody's changing definitions of words out there, that should be something that maybe we should maybe frown upon a little bit. Yeah, totally. I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I don't understand any of that. Like, I see it and I'm just like, well, that's dumb.
Hate speech is abusive or threatening speech or writing. Okay, threatening. Abusive, here, here are the whole definition. Abusive or threatening speech or writing that expressly, that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds, right? So it's specifically, it, that's the point, is it's tied, hate speech is abusive or threatening speech that is tied directly back to the prejudices associated that tie to, you know, on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. So, so once again, the interpretation of a definition when you start talking about a court of law is that says, or it's threatening, what did it say, did it say threatening? Is, is hate speech protected? No, well...
The First Amendment protects hate speech from government interference, but if hateful speech happens to fit into an unprotected category of speech, it may be punishable by law. Private people and organizations such as social media companies can also make their own decisions about what speech is allowed in their spaces. Like, this is, this is, this is a quintessential question of our day, right? Because like, you know oftentimes people are then going to use, like, the, the moniker of hate speech to, to, to prevent somebody from saying something that maybe isn't hate speech, but they just don't agree with that opinion, right? And that's, that's not the same thing as saying, hey, I'm the Ku Klux Klan, and we know what they're about, right? And that spe, that type of speech is prohibited, it's, it's explicitly prohibited by law.
Well, I can say that I hate blondes. It's not hate speech. Well, how can it not be hate speech? I hate blacks. And I don't, I don't hate blacks. but this is an example. That's not what hate speech, that's based on a prejudice, right, of, and, and again, like, it's, that type of, that type of what do they call it oh, darn it, I can't remember. It's an absurdist argument, right? It's absurd, it, it's, it is, it's a techni, it's, it's a, it's Posing the absurd and to try to, to try to make an argument, right? Like, we know what it, we're talking about, right? Ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation. So you could say you hate blondes, right? And now, if, if your hate of blondes was because you think that the Aryans need to all be schwacked instead of the opposite, that's a different thing. Of course we can't. That would be hate speech, right?
Well, we can't dive into all the unknowns to try to figure it out. It's not an unknown. I mean, these are based on prejudices, right, that exist. Well, I would argue that a silly argument like this is a better way to bring about some of the silliness of some of the arguments that are posed on a more serious nature. This is why comedy is such a good thing, in a sense that you're poking, if you can't, you know, and, and, and Rogan talks about it, a bunch of people different, and they have talked about Like Native American cultures actually had a comedian sense of a person that would make fun of everybody, even the chief and even the warriors and everybody else. And if you're a badass warrior and you can't handle somebody just poking fun at you, then maybe there's something wrong with you.
And so, so comedy and just poking fun at things or sarcasm and like, I don't know if you've ever seen J.P. Sears' videos, he's, he's kind of a interesting story with, with the way he's, I'll have to, I'll have to shoot some to you, but he, he is like the epitome of like sarcasm and, and poking fun on the extreme. So like his one video that was a claim to fame was if meat eaters acted like vegans. So then he'd be like, how dare you eat that grass? That, don't you realize that's my, my food's food? Why would you do that? You know, and then he'd slap it out of their hands or something. So he, but the idea is to take a Take a silly argument in a sense. So, so of course, if I say I hate blondes, I'm perfectly legal to, with free speech to say that I hate blondes.
If I say all blondes should be wiped off the face of the earth, now we're talking about something else. Now we're talking about, you know, expunging a whole group of people for one specific thing that has nothing to do with anything other than their, their blonde hair. I feel like in this, in this day and age, we've done more harm by, by taking the absurdist approach to these arguments than by being being serious, right, and having serious conversations. All right, give me another example other than the one that I just posed. What do you mean? An example of Somebody using a, or some topic that you found people who using a non-serious approach to a serious topic. So like a non, I mean, we see it all the time, right? Where gosh, I don't, I don't follow, I don't follow, and I'm not trying to stop you.
I didn't, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but we, that's one of those things where. It's how, it's how people face the arguments, right? Like meaning like, oh, well, you know what if, in, in, in the debates over you can use gay rights. Right? If you go back several years, right, decades, and you look at, you know, the movements that were put forth in in advocating for the rights of these humans, right? Some folks used to make the argument, well, if you, if you let, you know, one of the gays in, well, everyone's going to be gay, right? You can't have that. I was funny, I was watching, like, The Office and it was the episode where where Michael outs outs oh, shoot, what's the character's name? he's the guy who's on Saturday Night Live.
Anyway it, it's funny because, like, it's the Michael what's his last name in, in The Office Steve Carell's character the, the boss. Anyway, it's the Michael approach to, to, to argue, to facing serious problems. Like, he always ends up taking the absurd. Yes. Right? For sure. He always takes the absurd, but that's, the, the show has a moral, right? Like, in this case, the absurd was, he goes, I'm going to prove that I'm okay with your gayness. And then he, he's like, what are you doing? And he goes in and he gives him a big kiss, right? Like, that's the absurd argument for, for this. And, and what I'm saying is, is like, I think there's absolutely a place for comedy and, and, you know, ways to approach some of the more sensitive subjects of our of our, of our day.
The, the, I think oftentimes non-serious people Make non-serious arguments about those situations, which end up misinforming people who follow those influencers. Well, of course, that's... And push them further away from from a deeper understanding of the complexities of it and closer to a very dangerous place, which is, you know, echo chamber thinking, right, where their algorithms have now pushed them into the corner of social media where they can't see or hear any other points of view. So that would be a form of censorship, which you would be against. It's not, it's not censorship. It's, it's not, it's not censorship. It's It's worse than censorship. I agree. It's not censorship, though. I, I still can get that, that information is still out there.
I'm just not able to, I, I'm not seeing it because I've been either either intentionally or unintentionally moved into a place where algorithms point me in the direction of the information that I'm more inclined to secure. Not because they're trying to Convince me to go there, but because they know they can sell me more shit if I'm hanging out in this, in this space, and my marketing dollars are going to go further because I know that ads that are going to... That's part of it. There's, that's a big part of it. It's undisputed. But the, the, the fact... But it's very dangerous, man. The fact is, is, is regardless of whatever you're trying to do, one fact is, is you don't know what you don't know.
So sometimes when you want to do a task, and you don't even know how to search for it, it's sometimes difficult to find a simple solution to your problem because you don't even know the keyword to put in. Yeah, but again, that's, if I'm trying to figure out how to, you know, fix my chair, right, I'm going to be able to very, very rapidly find information that's going to tell me what I need to do in order to fix my chair. Well, that's for a simple task. If I'm going to try to figure out what the answer is to abortion rights, Right? It's not the same, it's not the same thing. Yeah, you'd need AI for that, I guess. No, but what I'm saying... Ask ChatGPT to tell us what the answer is to solving the Yeah, well, we could. I, I have it on my phone. Yeah, do it. What is, what is ChatG, how does ChatGPT solve the question of abortion in America?
Well, the, the, again, when, when we're looking at more complex issues that are... Probably going to be able to solve it up to 2022 because that's, it doesn't have access to 2023 data yet. Well, that's true. So, so when you talk about censorship and then you start talking about private companies and it's their right and then whether or not government influence is involved in that censorship, obviously that's where the problem lies. And it seems that there's been some private government influence in, in stifling the voices of certain people. And, you know, that could go into a whole different things, but we were kind of talking initially about this idea that you don't have a God-given right to an opinion, which I believe in some ways that I could possibly have framed that a little bit better, but not necessarily.
I could maybe debate both sides of that on a Flipside Frolic kind of thing. So, like, you know... Everybody has a right to an opinion, but not everybody's opinion is right. Well, that's for damn sure. And even if there's some hate speech made by somebody online or my neighbor, there's a situation not far from my house where I heard the N-word being used when my 11-year-old daughter was riding with her friend from school that happened to be of dark complexion. So... In the old days, maybe I might have said something or whatever, but if you real- that's that same kind of mentality that you think one gay person moving in the neighborhood's gonna turn everybody gay. It's just silly.
That one, you know, higher class family that's in the area is gonna ruin it for the whole neighborhood or whatever, that's 100% racism still is existing in certain people. And do they have a right to think that way? Sure, they could think however they want, but I don't have to go out of my way to hang out with them. I don't have to allow my kids to go do a sleepover at their house or something. He just ousted himself, and I'm not gonna choose to be a friend with that person. I don't have to shut him and call his employer and do everything I can to destroy his life because he thinks differently than me, even though I completely disagree with that, but that's just kind of one little example.
But we were talking more about, you know, the, the Rene Descartes talked about, the philosopher talked a lot about the, a good answer that most people should say in a lot of times, in a lot of cases. Is I don't have enough information to have an opinion on that subject. Let me do some more research and I'll get, I'll, I'll, I'll get back to you with an answer on what my opinion is. Reading a headline is not enough information to kind of merit opinion, particularly if you actually read the article and you see that that headline is 100% clickbait. It's not even what the article is about. People, you, you people, you people have to understand, I'd like an example of that. I don't know.
but, but it's like people have to understand that, that, you know, I was doing the hashtag I will not, I will not click just because I don't even want to read the article because I, the last 15 I read was the same thing. You don't, you don't believe what? I think you click on all those things, man. it depends on which ones they are. So, so that, but again, that kind of, that kind of goes back to, you know, you have a right to an expressive opinion, but other people don't necessarily need to have the right to listen to your voice. And, and we have to understand that so many of these... Nobody has to listen to their voice, but they have the requirement. Nobody has, I don't have to listen to you, but I can choose not to. So this is, this is, let me give you a better ex the, a better, let me give you another example, right?
Like recently there's these, been these spats of like liberal leaning schools preventing conservative speakers from speaking on their campuses. Okay. Right? That's supposedly happening, right? No, it's definitely happening. Okay. It's definitely happening. It, it has definitely happened. Okay. I wouldn't say it's happening, right? It has definitely happened. And my point is like, hey, I, just because I don't agree with that person doesn't mean that that person doesn't have a right to present their views, right? Unless their views are explicitly illegal. Target hate speech or... Unless they are, that's right, like I can't, like the Ku Klux Klan can't come up on campus and be like, hey guys, we're thinking about a cross burning tonight, who's down? Come on, right? Like that's illegal. You can't do that, right? Well, well, I... It's illegal.
You can't do that. You can't burn a cross? You cannot, the Ku Kl... So this is what I'm talking about, because you know exactly what I mean. No, no, I'm saying... I'm, I'm being dead serious. You know exactly what I mean, but taking that absurdist argument, it, it, it, it discredits the, the legitimate Legal prohibit-- prohibition that the, what I'm talking about is, is it, it's, the absurdist argument takes away from the seriousness of the, what we know is true, right? If the Ku Klux Klan goes and stands up and starts talking about a cross burning, we know what that means. What, what, what does that mean? The burning of a cross is a symbol of hate, right, that has been, that has been, you know, done by the Ku Klux Klan for hundreds of years, right? That they burn those as a, as a fear tactic, right, for oppressing people of color. Right.
So, so I, I mean, we understand what, what the organization's main aim is about hate and violence. So, but, but is that not true that they fought for the right for them to have a parade in Glenview, or was it Glenview or, or Winneka here in the United States that the, the, the, all the, all the racial leaders fought for their right to have their stupid event? Because they have a right to have their parade. I don't know what you're referring to, man. God, I'm going to have to, I'll have to look back on that. But, but the point is that if... You're bringing up something like, like... I don't support anything with the KKK, by all means, obviously. It's hard to tell. And, and I'm not, I'm not trying to play the argument for their side. I'm trying to play the argument for the right to, for free speech.
So free speech is only free if it's not intentionally harmful. Right, or, or implicitly harmful towards another person. So I can't, I can't go into a, I can't go into a theater and yell bomb, right? Because I'm, I'm risking creating a, a situation that's against the law. I don't have the right to do that, right? I don't. I don't have the right to do that because it can, it can create harm. So the same thing, like if I, if I create speech that inspires people to go out and commit violence, that's not free speech. That we're not, of course that's illegal to, I, your choice of words is interesting because you used inspire. Yeah. So are you directing or are you inspiring? If I inspire that action, that is against the law. What is, how do you define inspire? I said something and it caused somebody else to go do something.
Okay, so, so, so you're, you're, you're, you're kind of crossing into a very strange place by saying inspire. I'm not crossing into any strange place. If, if, if Adolf Hitler Went forth and said, hey, we're going to go kill all the Jews, and Adolf Hitler never shot or gassed a single Jew himself. Is he guilty of that? Of course. Okay. He is directly stating a directness to kill people. To happen. Now, if, so the inspired word is throwing me off a little bit, that's all. Oh, okay. So, so you can, if, if, if. Let's look it up, right? I, I'm, again, this is the seriousness of this argument. Well, that's, that's where it has to be a direct, actual, factual statement of some harm or to direct people to do wrong. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So, so if you inspire somebody, I can inspire somebody, you know, and not to go super.
You're doing it again, man. But go ahead. No. Don't give me an absurd argument. Give me a real, a regular, a real argument. I'll give you the January 6th argument that Trump saying his words were to go to the Capitol and peacefully protest and let your voices be heard. That was definitely inspiring. What he said was you have to go fight like hell. That was inspiring people to go. How many different members of Congress said we have to fight like hell to change this issue that we have in our country? He wa- they're, they're, they're not talking to an actual group of assembled people telling them to go to the Capitol and go fight like hell. So again, it, did he inspire pe- people to do that, or did he direct people to do that? both, but he inspired them to do it, yes. And he said, go march up to the Capitol. So yes, both. Yeah.
So obviously that's the- The Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court, you know, seems to think that he, you know, is guilty of inciting an, an insurrection. Okay. So I mean, I'm just saying, that's a, that's a legitimate court, which interestingly, right, like Colorado is actually pretty conservative except for the I-25 corridor. I mean, you live, you have property out there. Would you say it's a, you know, how would you define the politics of Colorado? I would say, obviously, in the central business, business district in the populated city is definitely more blue. Out in the further rural areas, in the, in the ranching areas are definitely more red. What about its purple and its, and its, its, its leadership, right?
Yeah, I don't, I don't really have enough information to answer that, but I know the people in the mountains were definitely more predominantly purple and libertarian in most guides, but seem to be transferring a little more to the blue side of, of in the last ten years or so, I would say. Yeah it's inspiring, violence, illegal. Let's see. It is a felony under federal law to intentionally solicit, command, induce, or otherwise endeavor to persuade another person to engage in a crime of violence against a person or property. That sounds different than inspire, but... I mean, I... solicit, command, induce, or otherwise endeavor to persuade. Yeah, so if I'm trying to persuade somebody to do something, I'm inspiring them to do it. If, if I'm, well, unless I'm an FBI agent inspiring somebody to plant a bomb somewhere or something.
There you go again. I, I, no, I mean, that's, that, that's... What does that even mean? What are you implying? So, so if, if you're inspired... You just said specifically something. I'm asking what you're implying by the statement that you just made. If you're in the, in the midst of an, if you're in the midst of an investigation and you are an FBI agent, you're an FBI group trying to solve a crime or to find terrorists in this country, and you find some idiot loner that doesn't know anything or do anything, and in the midst of your working to try to find criminals, terrorists, or people willing to do bad things in this country, and you provoke a borderline person on multiple different ways and different occasions to commit a crime, is that entrapment or is that an investigation?
Who is, who is starting Who is fostering the ideas of the crimes being committed? Are you searching for somebody willing to do the crime if properly motivated, or are you searching for somebody that is planning the crime? That would be the right way. Okay. All right, man. I, I just wasn't sure exactly where you're going with what I'm saying. Like, the law is very clear. We live in a land under the rule of law. Those are facts, right? So determining whether or not somebody is in, you know, violation of what the law is, is what courts are for, right? For sure. And it's, it's the reason why Sixty federal plus federal courts never found one, you know, situation where there was widespread fraud or any fraud in, in, in the election, right? 60 plus courts. It's like, come on, man.
Like, I, I can go on and on, and, and, and I'm just like, I have very little patience for anyone who thinks like that the legal questions, right? The legal questions that have been brought forth to the courts, and the courts have decided based on the preponderance of evidence that that is false. I agree. Very little patience. Therefore, right? Therefore, if you continue, if you look at the body of evidence, right, in all of these situations, it's very clear. It's very clear. It, I'm, I'm, I'm absolutely like beside myself. Like, look, if, if if Donald Trump wants to run for president, As long as he's not convicted of a felony, or if the courts don't decide that he's guilty of, of insurrection, although, like, I'm, I'm not exactly sure about how that process is working, right? Like, I haven't looked into it far enough.
But if, if he, if, if hi, if the party puts him forth and that's their candidate, and like, and, and the Republican Party feels that that candidate is the best candidate to represent what their values are today, then, man, like, that's problematic, right? Like, that's pro, that's problematic for this country, right? Now, whether or not a felon can run or not is kind of not even really questionable as far as legally, I believe they can run. It's not questionable. If you're a felon, you can't vote. If you can't vote, you can't hold public office. Like, there's, there's laws on what you can and can't do. You can certainly, you can certainly be a, you can be a felon. Right? No, that's a good question. I think you can be a felon and you can run for office. I'm pretty sure you can. Yeah, but you can't though.
You more than likely wouldn't get elected if that was out there. Oh, that's not necessarily true. There was a guy out in fricking Colorado, the 4th congressional district, 3rd 5th congressional district who was a felon who did get elected, but then he went on to defraud the government and like, and eventually it came back around and like the party took care of business, just like they did with this Yahoo out in fricking Long Island, New York, right? Like George, George, George Santos, yeah. Like, dude, seriously, get, you guys need to get their, their proverbial poop together, right? The fact that they chased people away like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and my friend Pete Meyer and others, the fact that that party chased them away because they voted their, their conscience. Right. Is, is antithetical to what America is all about, man.
So, so, so that's part of the problem, right? It is part of the problem. Because obviously there's corruption, all right? And, and let's, you know, that's one of those things where we were talking more... I feel more corruption around a little bit too flippantly these days. It's another thing I think, right? Like this is corruption, that's corruption, everything's corruption, right? Maybe there's just, maybe there's just a, a glut of, of moral decay. Okay. Maybe we're losing our moral high ground. I would, would not disagree with that because if there's blatant corrupt, corruption in all forms of government when it comes to kickbacks and payoffs and, and side deals and all the other stuff that, if that's just... Again, there's laws that...
But if, if we're gonna sit back, if we're gonna sit back and say that that's just the way business is done, then that's eroding some moral high ground, of, of course, cause that's not the way it's supposed to be done. That's the way it's always been done. That's not good enough. I've been operating in the federal system for a really long time, you know, and like, blatant corruption in, in America, blatant corruption is few and, the, the cases are few and far between, right? Like, like some person who is like grafting, you know, running a crime organization of some sort off of the backs of, of, you know US government stuff, like those instances, they happen, right? But they are not rampant in by any stretch of the imagination.
There's definitely Issues of, there's ethical issues, right, the questions, things of that nature that happen, you know, where, where people make bad choices that, you know, they should know better, right? And so, and, and then there's, and then there's, it's mostly like fraud, it's less fraud, more waste and abuse, right? When you say fraud, waste, and abuse. Corruption is fraud, waste, and abuse. Corruption is fraud, waste, and abuse, and it's definitely much more on the waste and abuse side of the house than it is on the straight fraud. There's no question about that. No question about it. So I think that's an important part of really like making sure that, you know what I'm saying? For sure. So, so again, now, we rule in a country, so even Jesus said, who's, give Caesars what Caesars, right? Should we follow all laws?
Or, you know, so there's church law, there's God's law, there's laws of nature, there's laws of the court, there's, there's laws that man made. I don't think any of, of God's natural laws are in conflict with Some of the laws of the land. Perhaps the abortion, you know, one is, is a, but, but that's not actually a law. And that's kind of the point, right? Like, so I actually agree with, in, in some regard, right? Like, I agree with how the court is handling the situation. I don't necessarily agree with the decision when it comes to Roe v. Wade and, and dismantling that, right? But basically what they're saying is, is like, hey, look, this was a court decision that resulted in influencing how the government makes decisions. The way it should really happen is either the states decide or Congress passes a law. Right. Exactly right.
Okay, so this is easy. That's pretty simple. This is, it's very simple, right? If And, and, and again, that's what the Democratic Party is really rallying around this year, and you're going to hear that. Oh, I hear it already. I mean, that's what the, that's what the argument's going to be. And if they want to, if, if Americans can, if, if, if this election season is about one issue, right the s, the, the people have already multiple times rejected, in red states, rejected referendums at the state level. I think, you know, or, or red tilting in purple states, right, like Ohio is an example, right? Like the referendums in Ohio on abortion that were put forth in order to, like, double down on turning Roe v. Wade away failed miserably there. Well, well, so even after it, and then they started doing referendums at the ballot box for local.
And they're, and they're not winning. And so, like, if they want, it's going to be dangerous, right? The whole point is that For them to say, see, we were right. And it's like, just because you ruled for or against abortion and you, you think you're right or wrong, the whole point is that that's what the process is supposed to be doing is handling at the state. No, no, no, we're, we're in a violent arena. It's not necessarily, it's either or, right? Like the states can, the states now can, can make those decisions, right? Until the until the federal government, until Congress passes a law. Like this was, this was the same issue with like you know, civil rights, right? And, and, and we talk, you know, civil war through civil rights, right? Like the until a law was passed, right?
Or, or amendments to the constitution, 13, 14, 15th amendments to the constitution, right? Change how the coun, how the country operates is dependent upon the laws with which we pass. And, and so like, listen, if Again, forget necessarily the, the, the moral argument with abortion. If you just look at it from a legal point of view, right? If you just look at it from the legal, then either a law needs to be passed by Congress, right? And in the absence of that, the states are going to determine the way it happens. I'm, I'm fine with that, because you know what? If, if the people really believe that this is the way that it should be in this land, then they'll vote. If, if the Democrats can actually, like, coalesce around an issue and, like... I know the problem is, is I don't think that that's the number one issue in the country.
I don't think a lot of Americans think that's the number one issue in the country, and I, and I think that... It doesn't matter, because... You're gonna die on that hill because there's too many details about what, where the guidelines are for what is and isn't life and a heartbeat and a this and after birth and before birth. All of that's relevant, except in the context of an election. It's, I get that, because I can say I'm going to do it, and if you vote for me to do it and then I never do it, that's exactly what's going to happen, just like veteran rights and all these other things. Eventually they have to get the votes, right? Like that's what it comes down to, you know?
And if they don't get the votes, then the Supreme Court the decision that the Supreme Court did to to cause this to happen is not a surprise when it comes to an originalism point of view on the Constitution and how the court is going to move. So bring it back to free speech in a sense that, that, because, you know, I don't, the, the abortion issue, like I said, I would be perfectly fine. Unfortunately, people kind of have issues currently, and they would like to know, but And because it's such a complex issue with different times and different dates, and everybody wants to spin their side of the argument to the extremes of, of if a mother's life's in jeopardy, and they use those 1% scenarios to try to make it up. Like, would I, you know, would I be willing in, in, in life-threatening situations? Almost all American, almost so many are.
There's such a small percentage that are truly absolutist with that issue. And then it's just a matter of trying to define, is it twelve weeks? Is it six weeks? Is it 16 weeks? Is it all this? And, and, and, oh, you know, then you get this woman that just drops the baby out of her belly in the alley and never knew she was pregnant. Like, does people believe that? It's like, I, you, you know, yes, people believe that. And if she was so grossly overweight, overweight that she didn't even know she was pregnant, all right, that's pretty bizarre. Right, and most, I think that most women that were pregnant would know, whatever. So, so they use these extreme stories just to try to sway, you know, the different ideals of where these lines should be drawn on what's appropriate, what's not.
Would anybody out there say that using, using abortion as a form of birth control is a, is a, is a wrong thing? And that maybe the government shouldn't pay for that abortion, even if it's, or, or if it's Medicare or if it's even your own health insurance? Maybe it should be like a treatment program, that once you admit that you have a drug or alcohol addiction problem with your coworker, then they, they do cover treatment, but after the 3rd offense, we're no longer going to cover treatment for you. I sure could. What, comparing, comparing you're, you're talking about who's going to pay for it, or what's, what's... No, the, the, the shaking my head in derision, that was my best Sheldon Cooper. Oh, okay. no, that's pretty good.
His I guess what I'm, I'm, I'm the, the last points you were making about, like, how to look at it from the point of view of, like... my, my own, my, my point that I was getting to was that if somebody has had more than three or four or five abortions, then, then, and, then that is all of wrong. Do, is there anybody that thinks that that's perfectly fine, that you just have six or eight or ten or twelve abortions? Who cares? My body, my choice? Sure, yeah. I mean, ultimately, right, like, they're the ones that have to live with that, right? I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm saying they are the, they are the ones that have to live with that. No, no, what I'm asking you... I'm, I'm telling you what my opinion is. I'm asking you if you think that's wrong.
That was the question, not whether or not they should have a right to do that. if what I think what is wrong. In a matter of ten years, you had 18 abortions. Do I think that's wrong? I don't, I, I don't know that that question has a right or wrong application to it. Well, that's, I mean, that's why this is such a complex issue. Yeah, again, like... Because if they're using an abortion as a form of birth control, when there's other safe and... But do I approve of that? No. But again, like, I, I, I wouldn't recommend, I wouldn't recommend that as a, as an option. Well, let's chuck, let's chuck that down. Why do you disapprove of it? Why, why do I disapprove of it? Yeah, you said you don't because I don't approve of it. Yeah, I don't, it's not something that I would go to my daughter and be like, here's a good idea. Okay.
Would you, would you coach your daughter to do that? So that's, that's exactly what I mean by that. Well, why wouldn't you tell her to do that if it's her right to do that? It's your body, your choice. Because there are other options that they can choose, right? But again, like, if she chooses to do that, do I think that there's a, that, so right and wrong, legal versus moral, right? Like, these are different questions, right? Well, no doubt. Is it legal? Sure. So is it wrong? Maybe. Well, it's legal in some states, right? Again, it's, that's right. It's, so, so you're asking me to apply the right or wrong And I'm telling you, like, from a legal standpoint, it's not wrong. Well, if I was asking, is it against the law or not? That's a different question, of course. Well, now it depends on what state you're in.
So now we, we kind of, I don't know how we kind of spun back onto that one. It was part of partial, you know, that was all me. but in, in the matter of free speech, it's kind of like, no, no, oh, I remember now. Now, so I went into, I went into kind of like all, you, you are an adamant person that believes that the United States is a country of laws and that we follow laws. Now, The rule of law. The rule of law is important, and I 100% agree. It's, it's, it's essential. It's, we could, yes, it's essential, and there has to be a human contract. In or- in order for a large percentage of the population needs to choose to follow those laws or we don't have a society. So yes, it's pivotal. Okay, and, and so... Yeah, we do. So at what point is it okay to break the law? You know what I'm saying? So, so, so, so, so that's where it kind of...
When the law is immoral. When the law is immoral. So, so then you can, you, you can complicate this a little further and say, when is it okay to disobey a direct order as a military personnel? And do you do the order anyway and then contest that through the chain of command, or you refuse to do the order and just stand court-martial and hopefully be found not guilty? Wasn't there something about, like, fuel being delivered that may have been known to be rank, and then there was a platoon that chose not to deliver it, and then they were brought to court-martial, but of course we never heard the outcome of the court-martial, they were probably like, really? That was an Iraq thing, I think. Pretty sure it had to do with helicopter fuel. Yeah, like, if, if, if you, if I'm given an unlawful order, right, I have an obligation not to follow it.
Okay. Okay? If my company, if I'm in the movie platoon and my com, my, my platoon leader tells me to go in and burn the village down, and I do it, I just committed a war crime. If I don't do it, I'm not obligated to follow that illegal order. And yeah, so, so, so if you, if you shot a weapon and mistakenly killed a civilian, that's the cost of war. If you purposely shot one, that's murder. There's no question about it, right? I mean, We're in violent agreement. So fine. So now take that to the next level, that if you know, if you are aware that the government or an agency or an agent of the government is breaking the law, how is your position on whistleblowers or people that expose the law being broken? Yeah, I mean, we have an obligation to do so. So like a Snowden scenario.
We have an obligation to prevent Criminal activity from happening within our government. Okay. No, that's great. Don't... I mean, these are softballs. I mean, like, these are softballs is what I'm getting at, right? Like, so... Look, look. What if you... Well, that's, that's, that's again, again, okay. So in order to prove that this corruption is going on at this agency, you might violate a top secret clearance or a regulation or a law by sneaking out documents in order to expose that corruption. You don't have to do that. I don't, I don't, you don't have to do that in order to prove the corruption. And obviously, not in all cases, I don't know, in all, in any case. If you go to the inspector general, like there are pathways for that, right? There's absolutely pathways. Like, I mean, look, what, what Snowden did, right?
I mean, again, we're using like the most prolific of, of examples, right? Just, just cause it's still current and then, you know, there's talks of extradition. Is it really current? I mean, dude lives in Russia and everything, right? And that was 15 years ago. No, there's something within the month that's talking about a rule of possible extradition or whatever. Sure, I mean, he, look, he broke the law. It's been going on for years. He broke the law. He's a criminal and a traitor. Next question. Like, that's, that's easy for me, right? Did, did, did he think he, what he was doing was, was right? Sure. He probably did think that what he was doing was right. I read the Wired article that he interviewed, right? I don't know if you've read.
His article, the, his interview article in Wired magazine from like, I don't know, maybe two years, maybe three years ago or something like that at this point. It's been a few years, right? very detailed, strongly, if you, if anyone's interested in, you know, exploring the mind of Andrew, Andrew Snowden, right? Is that Andrew? No. What's his 1st name? Not sure. Edward Snowden. Edward Snowden, yeah. So if if, I didn't have to look that one up, but, but again, if you want to know more, like, that's a good article to read, but the point is, is like, whether he was right or wrong in doing what he did, the way that he went about doing it was blatantly against the law and treasonous. And there may have been better ways to do that. There's a thousand better ways to do that than the way that he did it.
And what if What if you explored those what if, what if you explored 999 of those options and was shut down and covered or some crap, and then you're just stuck? I mean, I don't know, he's got a, that's a complete... If he thinks, if he thinks he's a patriot, then you're willing, then, then you should be willing to die for, you know, the cause. Take the, take the repercussions. If he thinks he's a patriot, but I, I don't, I don't know that I think that he thinks he was a patriot, maybe he does, I don't know. I don't know what's in his mind, right? Like, only he knows, and him and God. Nice. You know? All right, well that's I don't know. It's pretty good. I don't know. I just, we're three, we're three and, 3 h and 15 min in. but we gotta pee. The water's, the drinks, the, you know, we can, we can get the mini bar going. but here we are.
Now that I have an empty plastic tube here, I have something I can pee in. Well, here we are with episode, episode three, so we're, we're learning every episode, but I don't know if anybody learned anything. Certain, certain guests to the podcast get a personalized challenge coming with the actual episode number. Is this the 3rd episode? So. This is the technical 3rd episode that will be... And this is number, look at it, it's got a number on the back, number zero three. That does open if you want. And then you're, there's also, we have... Does that say zero nine or zero... We have some other merch as we get set up. We got some, like, refrigerator magnets. We got large stickers. We're going to have to edit this down from three and a half hours to get the best content out of here, because I don't know anybody...
We could always cut that up into splits. Are people going to listen to this for three and a half hours? probably. And, and we could do a hat if you want to go. Obviously, the Flipside Frolic hats are, are a must. I just love, you know, you just feel closer to people, you, you just reconnect with people, you hear real world con- conversations about these issues with people that matter instead of falling for some of the propaganda. Yeah, I'll go back to like where I started, right? Like, we have to keep, we have to put humans 1st, man, and we have to really be focusing, like all of these questions that we're talking about, like, I, I don't feel like we were really talking about the issue themselves as much as we were talking about like the process of around it, right?
Like, but at the end of the day, like when we're thinking about like these policy decisions and we're thinking about how we educate our children and we're thinking about how we view you know, migrants moving from all parts of the world and how we think about, you know, young ladies making very, very difficult decisions about how the rest of their life is going to, to be, right, and, and their ability to, to, to have self-determination, right? we just need to continue to put the human 1st in all of those things, you know? So, so the next time, you know, you see somebody and you'll always be like, hey, how you doing? And what, if I say, most common answer, doing good. Yeah. And then you go about their day and then, but what would happen if after we said, hey, how you doing?
And you said, I'm doing good, the next question was, how you really doing? That works. How, how are you really doing? Would you open up, I mean, ask Elmo. Right? The, the Tickle Me Elmo? Yeah, Elmo, man, like Elmo posted on Twitter the other day, hey, everybody, how you doing? And like people, thousands, tens of thousands of people responded, like giving their most intimate, like real, you could not bot stuff. Like people were like, hey, Elmo, like this is going on, like my mom's sick or, you know, like I've got cancer or I've got, like all of these things. And then Elmo, Elmo was like, I'm going to have to say that I'm pretty sure that our algorithms are selecting different things because I didn't see the Elmo post, but I will, I will check it out.
But again, Elmo did what he needed to do to put the humans 1st and he said, hey, how, how you really doing? People told him. Thank God Elon allowed it on, on X. Oh no. Because maybe that would have been censored on some other platform, I don't know. It's Elmo's birthday. Elmo. I'm going to look this one up, I'll give it to you later. All right. Well, let's go pee. Oh, yeah, let's do that. Let's enjoy. thanks a lot, and we'll, we'll see you next time. We'll, we'll, we got plenty other subjects we can call, we'll have you back, it's going to be a blast. I had a blast. Yeah. And we'll go from there. All right, brother. See you, man. Later. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a little something about other people's perspectives.
Don't forget to subscribe, share, and throw us a like on the video. Comment if you have any questions, and we'll see you on the next episode.
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