In this episode Phil and I talk about Federalist Papers 11 and 42 the ICC and relevant cases. Text 724-562-3523 to contact me, or email [email protected] Leave a review on any of your favorite podcast apps and we'll read it on the show; good or bad.
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Chase and Sanborn
In this episode of Good Morning, Vietnam, we dive into the complexities of government overreach and the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, particularly focusing on the Commerce Clause. We discuss the historical context and implications of the Wickard v. Filburn case, where the federal government extended its power to regulate wheat production on private farms, setting a precedent for federal involvement in local economic activities. This leads to a broader conversation about the balance of power between state and federal governments, and the ongoing debate about individual liberties versus government control.
We also explore the philosophical underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution, referencing the Federalist Papers and the differing visions of founding figures like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The episode touches on contemporary issues such as globalism, economic policy, and the role of government in everyday life, questioning whether the original intent of the Constitution has been lost in modern governance. Join us as we navigate these complex topics with humor and critical thought, aiming to shed light on how historical decisions continue to impact our lives today.
[00:00:01]
Unknown:
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
[00:00:21] Unknown:
What about today? Is today the worst day of your life? Yeah. Wow. That's bad stuff. I'm sorry.
[00:00:31] Unknown:
Go on. Is there any way that you could We're not gonna be Sort of.
[00:00:36] Unknown:
Just so we can load us so that I don't know that I'm happy. Got choice between the political debt. That I'm asking. That I'm asking. Make our choice between economy and liberty, all confusion and sovereignty. Taking fishing all day. Wow. I place economy among the first and most important of republican purges, and public debt is the greatest of the dangers to disappear. I think it is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. We must have a central bank to secure this country's finances. If the Americans ever allow five
[00:01:37] Unknown:
overconfidentiality. Also continuing to reduce our security's power. Looking ahead, we'll take a data division advantage in determining the extent to which additional policy from a major program.
[00:02:33] Unknown:
I'm Trevor Moore. Did you know that it's illegal to say I want to kill the president of The United States Of America? It's illegal. It's a federal offense. It's one of the only sentences that you're not allowed to say. And it was okay for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it's illegal to say, I want to kill the president of The United States Of America. I'm not actually saying it. I'm just letting you know that it's illegal to say that. It's kind of like a public service. I'm letting you know so that you don't accidentally go out and say something like that. But what's interesting is that it's it's very illegal to say, I really, really think someone out there should kill the president of The United States Of America.
That's illegal. Extremely illegal. Very, very illegal. But not illegal to say with a mortar launcher because that's its own sentence. It's an incomplete sentence, but it may have nothing to do with the sentence before that. So that's perfectly fine. Yeah. Well, yeah. I also found out that it's incredibly extremely illegal to go on television and say something like the best place to fire a motor launcher at the White House would be for the roof of the Rock And Rollers Unit building because of minimal security and you'd have a clear line of sight to the president's bed. Insanely illegal.
Ridiculously, recklessly,
[00:03:56] Unknown:
insanely illegal. It can't be argued. More illegal. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel me. It's illegal.
[00:04:03] Unknown:
Ridiculously, horribly, felony, escalate. Absolutely. You will not stop. And they will lock you up. Extremely against the law. You are dead. One thing that is technically legal to say is that we have a group that meets Fridays at midnight under the Brooklyn Bridge and the password is six Semper Tyrants. Per Moore, a founder of the Whitest Kids You Know sketch comedy group, has died following an accident on Friday night according to Deadline.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
He was 41 years old. The comedian's manager issued a statement to the outlet confirming his death on behalf of Moore's family. Reading in part, quote, we are devastated by the loss of my husband, best friend, and the father of our son. He was known as a writer and comedian to millions, and yet to us, he was simply the center of our whole world. We don't know how we'll go on without him, but we're thankful for the memories we do have that will stay with us forever. The statement went on calling his death a, quote, tragic and sudden loss. Quote, we ask that you please respect our privacy during this time of grieving. War is survived by his wife, Amy Carlson.
[00:05:12] Unknown:
Good morning. Good morning, Vietnam.
[00:05:20] Unknown:
Hi. Welcome to another episode of Good Morning, Vietnam. This week, I'm joined by my good buddy Phil, where we discuss the interstate commerce clause, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Wickard versus Filburn, and government overreach. Station gamblers we go on to bullshit about a little bit of crap after that. Light as these sorry. No local news. For the coming night. Music and artwork for the episode is provided by Nick and the Gormons. If you like what we're doing or if you don't like what we're doing or you have something to say, please text us at (724) 562-3523 or send us a message at [email protected].
And consider donating at patreon dot com patreon dot com backslash Vietnam pod. That's patreon.combackslashveitnompod. Let's get started. Podcasting, it's a it's just kind of a, like, a weird medium right now. Right? Like, nobody trusts the news, but yet somebody would trust two idiots sitting in a garage. Like, that's that's kind of a weird, Certainly trust us. Sorry. Well, I would think that if you tuned in for two hours and listened to two guys talk, like, you'd at least know whether or not we were full of shit. Yeah. But here's the thing.
I'm not claiming to know anything, and we are full of shit. But at least I think later, we would at least admit we were full of shit if we were wrong. Right? Like, if if we were talking about some something and somebody called in and said, hey. I don't think what you're saying is right. Then if we looked into it, I I think we we definitely we're humble enough to say, you know what, a listener? I mean, not that there's any listeners, but you know what, listener? You are right, and I think we would admit it. I don't I don't think we're I don't think we we're that full of ourselves that we would just think we're right about everything. I mean, opinionated, yes. But those opinions are mostly just to be funny. Right? Well, I agree. We're not saying shit.
Seriously, we're saying shit to be funny and controversial.
[00:07:44] Unknown:
That and, I mean, our whole theory, you know, like, our fundamental belief that we both share is subjective, right, in some way. Like, let's say we don't like big government. Well, no one can point to a communist society that hasn't ended in complete catastrophe. Right?
[00:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. True. There's no popular governmental sponsored communist or social society socialist society that has
[00:08:18] Unknown:
ended in anything other than disaster. Right. And then to not get us confused, we don't like the American system as it has worked out. No. There's plenty of good arguments that it was never gonna work out good anyways. Right? Oh. I mean, it's it's it's been perverted. This is my problem. Like, I've always believed in the constitution and the American experiment, but it just went south almost immediately.
[00:08:50] Unknown:
Right? I would think that right out of the gate, we started losing what it meant to be individual and free, which the constitution was definitely designed to keep regular people from having to know what what way I see it is it's almost like a document that was designed to keep common people from having to know the law extensively other than just what was laid out. Like, it was a common person document. It's not it's not meant for scholars. It's meant for a common person. Yeah. Well, the one
[00:09:35] Unknown:
I think the distinction lost the language to interpret it. Right. But the distinction that everyone forgets or maybe never talks about is the constitution wasn't meant to secure or define your freedoms. It was a grant it was an agreed to grant of authority to to a government. That's all it was supposed to be. And all these individual liberties that we bitch about losing, like, that was supposed to be assumed. But, unfortunately, social contract, whatever you wanna call the constitution, it's been litigated since day one in favor of the government. I mean, that's that's just a way that it It has. Yeah. I mean but that's what everyone should mention that. Like like, when you start talking about the constitution, it was a grant of very specific authorities
[00:10:35] Unknown:
to the government. It it was never meant to be you have these rights. Right. It was you are a person of this earth or this country, and you're allowing you're allowing a, a group of people who are your delegated, I'm sorry, your delegates.
[00:11:01] Unknown:
Well, they must be your your representatives.
[00:11:04] Unknown:
Right? Your interests. Right. That's it. There's no there's nothing other like, those are not rights granted to you by the government at all. These are rights that you have as a human who has born in in the universe, and you possess those rights whether there's anybody lording over you or not. You possess them. To to me, that's the way I view the constitution is, like, even without borders, a country, a government, you were born with these rights, and these men
[00:11:37] Unknown:
vocalize that. Right. So the whole Western political philosophy is kind of centered on the the idea that you have well, as they term it, unalienable rights, which I believe is is true.
[00:11:53] Unknown:
I mean, they would say, like, god given this type of shit, which I'm not religious. But You don't have to bring god into it. No. You If you think of it more of in a hippie or Wiccan sort of way is you were born on this planet, and you were automatically, as a human, granted all these rights.
[00:12:10] Unknown:
Right. No one can take them from And then I mean, you could go so many different directions with this conversation, but I I I don't get how there could be any person who is of the opinion that they will turn to a government or defer to the government anything. I mean, why do you need the government to make
[00:12:39] Unknown:
Imagine waking up and being scared of everything that's out there. Can you imagine that? I know it's hard for somebody like you or me to imagine. But imagine when you wake up in the morning, you're absolutely terrified of the outside world, and you just want somebody to tell you what what to do.
[00:13:01] Unknown:
Right. And then my question in return to that would be, what what is there really to be afraid of? I mean, of all the worst things you could point to, the government is always behind it. Right? I mean, even like, let's talk about racism, for instance. What about when The United States threw Japanese Americans in internment camps? I mean, have you ever heard any any liberal talk about this ever? No. No. And why? I mean, it's one of the worst things that's ever happened in this country. Doesn't support their narrative of
[00:13:39] Unknown:
of Roosevelt being one of the greatest presidents that there ever was. Exactly. So they never mentioned it.
[00:13:48] Unknown:
And that's because and these people are too fucking stupid to realize they've been had, but he was a big government man, and that hurts everyone. It just it always does. I mean, I don't know what what government program can you point to that's that's actually helped helped anyone? I mean, there's been some good things. Like, I don't know. Like, the TVA, for instance. Like, that's not bad. Right? Like, they brought power to the South, advanced everyone.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
Well So that's not bad. Wasn't that that's what the government is for. You know, things like the TDA Right. Infrastructure. CCC, at the time when they put people to work all around the country during a time when nobody had any jobs. Like, you took young men in and you said, hey. Come come work for us. We'll give you a paycheck, and you build all these trails, parks, boy scout camps, everything. Like, that is what the government is for. The government is not for, dictating the way you're gonna live your day daily life.
[00:15:03] Unknown:
Right. So, I mean and this is what Trump should be for. Like, his whole, let's bring manufacturing back. Like, no one actually believes that's gonna happen. Right? Like No. Like, the tariffs aren't gonna spur manufacturing in this country. But, I mean, it's just a shame that we just don't bring it back. I mean, we could just make everything here. Everyone have a good job again. It's like that John Mellencamp song. What's that song? Like, vacation in the Gulf Of Mexico. Yeah. That's a big house outside. Yeah. That kinda pokes fun at the whole idea. Yeah. But it is true. I mean, if everyone's doing well enough that they can work a good job, raise a family, then go on vacation for a week, you're like, that's not a bad situation.
[00:15:50] Unknown:
No. Yeah. If you keep people prosperous, you have no other problems.
[00:15:56] Unknown:
Yeah. And then and it just goes to prove that There's no reason for us to have ever
[00:16:01] Unknown:
joined. Now I know some people don't like it when you say that, but there's no reason for us to have ever joined into this globalism thing because glow globalism only meant that United States got poorer. And at the time, nobody nobody nobody said anything about that. Or or whoever did, you know, was demonized and saying, well, you don't want prosper for the rest of the world. You know, pro you don't want prosperity for the rest of the world. You know? Or they they sold us this lie about a service economy. Well, it's like, well, okay. You don't need to make anything. You just need to have a service economy. But that's not true. Like, we if we kept it all here, we would have remained prosperous long after the rest of the world, sort of fell into their globalism and and, free trade. You know, we were sold down the river by George Bush and Bill Clinton on this lie that everything would get cheaper.
But just like anything, as if it gets cheaper, you corner the market and then it goes up. Now we're slaves to products made overseas when we could've just we could've continued making it here.
[00:17:21] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's
[00:17:22] Unknown:
it it gets so complicated. It does. So yeah. I mean I understand. We and we are not economists.
[00:17:27] Unknown:
No. And anyone who's listened to maybe any of these episodes, I mean, we do first and foremost not trust the government, but I I think you would you would agree with me that we equally distrust big business. Right? I mean, this whole global economy's done nothing but, like, allow the best capitalists to Get richer. Yeah. To succeed at the expense of everyone else. Yeah. We've suffered be and they've got richer, so they that's why it was pushed. Yeah. But the problem is they they the capitalists do this via the government. I mean, they they enable them legally and functionally and institutionally to do what they do. You can't get you can't become a big
[00:18:19] Unknown:
really big business without the help of the government. You can't.
[00:18:23] Unknown:
Right. That's like I say, I don't like cops. Well, it's not that I don't like cops, and there's plenty of good people who are cops. There's plenty of cops who do good things every day. Right? But they're they're out just enforcing laws that don't need to be laws in the first place. I mean, that's my problem with the cops. So, like, when I bitch about a cop, it's not because I don't like the person because that person's a cop. It's because I mean, what kind of person wants to side with the government, like, at that extent? Right? Like, why would you do the government's bidding?
[00:19:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Why would why would you wanna be the the the long arm of of the government? Yeah. And that's how I look at cops. I mean, they're Yeah. I mean, the they always say that it's a job, though. You know, it's our job. We have to keep peace, but they're not they're not keeping peace. If if they were doing the job they were supposed to do, they would be stopping corruption and major crimes. You know, they would be protecting people's property from another person or protecting harm against another person or stopping corruption, but they don't do that. They come down on the regular man who has no recourse because the regular man has to go to work every day. Yeah. Right. So they enact laws that probably aren't even they're probably not even real, but people just don't wanna be inconvenienced.
So they just pay their fine or whatever, and they just go back to work because they can't be hassled. But I don't think a lot of that stuff's even a lot of what they hold people in front of the magistrate for is even, it's not even valid. I mean, they say they just do it because they know it's a revenue stream. Yeah. I mean People don't have a time to fight it. Like, I'm sure you've been pulled over for rolling through a stop sign or something. Right? Never. I don't roll through stop signs. Oh, well Well, of course. I mean
[00:20:28] Unknown:
I mean, like like, I've been No. I've been fine for rolling through a stop. It's fucking dumb. Yeah. It's dumb, especially if there's no one around.
[00:20:36] Unknown:
Another thing is is why can't you drive through a stoplight when there's like, it's three in the morning and there's no one around? Like, there's no point in just sitting at that stoplight, but if you pull through and a cough sees you, you're gonna get it. And that doesn't that's that's that's insanity
[00:20:51] Unknown:
because It helps no one. It gives money to the government. It is a victimless, I'm sorry, a crime. I mean, it's just you shouldn't even call it victimless. There's no Exactly.
[00:21:01] Unknown:
They're they're pulling you over just to raise revenue.
[00:21:04] Unknown:
Yeah. So it's fucking dumb. So that gets to the point of this entire podcast maybe is, I mean, people need to think about the way we live and why we live this way and who dictates your life. I mean and, again, we've said it before. There's almost no decision you make that the government is not somehow involved in either directly or indirectly, and that that should scare everyone.
[00:21:34] Unknown:
You can't do anything. You are committing eight crimes a day just existing as far as the government is concerned. Sure. Yeah. And and everybody is gonna try to get away with it because it's it's none of it makes sense. You know? There I mean, I could talk about what I'm doing here, but I'd hate
[00:21:58] Unknown:
to give them a Yeah. We'll talk about that. On it.
[00:22:03] Unknown:
But every everybody knows that they're committing crimes every day. Like, if you're if you're not, you're just going through your life like, oh, okay. I'm following the rules. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I I don't even know how you're existing. I mean, there's so many laws on the books that you you have to be committing crimes. It's, what do they call it? Anarcho tyranny at this point where the only people who pay for crimes are the people that actually are following the rules. Everybody else who doesn't follow the rules gets away with that. I mean, either you're super rich and you're not getting, you're not under the thumb or you're extremely poor and you're not under the thumb. The only people who are being held down by their government are the people in the middle who are willing to live by the rules. That's certainly true. I mean, that's so, like, when they say raise taxes on the rich. Right? Like, every millionaire
[00:23:02] Unknown:
or billionaire is gonna have enough accountants, legal teams, whatever, that they're not gonna pay shit. Right? Yeah. So they'll pay capital gains, which I don't know what I think about that. I mean, if you have a business that's making money, why should you have to pay? I don't know what I think about that.
[00:23:21] Unknown:
I I
[00:23:23] Unknown:
Another topic. Yeah. I have mixed feelings. But, yeah, like, I think maybe Dave Smith just pointed this out. Like, if you're gonna raise taxes on the top whatever percent of income, it's gonna affect upper middle class people. Right? Like the doctor who makes, you know, 700,000 a year is gonna pay half that fucking money in taxes. Well, what's the what's the benefit of that? Number one, the amount of money you're taking in from those people is relatively negligible, right, compared to what we spend to fund wars or whatever else we do. And then negligible. Yes. So then why would that guy anyone making that amount of money not anyone, but I'd say a decent percentage of the people making that money do something that contributes positively to society. Right? Like, let's just say a surgeon or something. Well, then what does the taxes do? Like, why would that guy give a fuck to continue doing well if he's not gonna get anything for it or gonna get half his shit taken for it? Yeah. He should give up. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you? Like, if you're gonna go and stress out about whether someone lives or dies if you do your job well for half the fucking money you're supposed to make, why are you penalizing that man or woman?
[00:24:38] Unknown:
It just makes no sense. It doesn't. Is that that person's better off going and pushing a broom somewhere and saying take whatever you want? Yeah. You know, why should I be top of my field if you're just gonna take half of everything I have? And and And there's all these people on TV that are always pushing, they're like, well, America's great because, you know, it's obviously, it's the greatest country on Earth. But when you're when you're doing something like that to somebody who's at the in the top of their field, like a doctor, you're you're taken away from them. It's like, are we really living under capitalism?
I mean, it's you know, we're clearly being, we're sold on this idea of freedom, but you clearly don't have any freedom if you're if you're penalized for being the best. Right. That's exactly right. So you can get in arguments about socialism and communism and capitalism, but whenever they're done wrong, they're all the same because the money rises to the top, the top benefits, and everyone under it suffers. Now with capitalism, it takes longer to suffer. I'm not completely against things like communism and socialism. I'm just against what tends to happen under those systems, which is the money rises to the top, and the people live in lush palaces, and all the people suffer underneath them. And, you know, we've been sold this bill of goods so that capitalism is different, but it's not. It just happens slower.
[00:26:28] Unknown:
Right. It's certainly not different. And, I mean, if anyone can make a hard argument for no government at all, I mean, I don't even think that. I don't
[00:26:40] Unknown:
Well, it would be tough to have no government at all, but let's let's think the way a good way to think about it is we need a government who wants they're not thinking short term. We need a government that thinks
[00:26:56] Unknown:
how to preserve things long term. Yeah. See. So this gets directly where maybe we were going tonight, which was, like, the Federalist Papers. Yeah. Like, the whole Federalist argument, and I can't speak to it like I could at one time, but if you I used to be a huge Alexander Hamilton guy. Still am. If you read and know the history of that time period I mean, it's almost impossible to make a good argument against everything Hamilton thought. Like, we didn't win the revolution because we were more powerful than Great Britain. Like, Great Britain really didn't even dedicate a large portion of their empire to trying to crush the colonies. I mean, it was like a small portion of what they could have done.
And, eventually, they're just like, fuck it. This isn't worth it economically to continue dealing with this problem. So as soon as that war ended, I mean, we were not in a good spot. You had other major empires, like, what, France, Spain, and Great Britain still who could have come in and just taken the colonies if they wanted to. So Hamilton's whole argument is, look. We need to be a united group of states or colonies, whatever you wanted to call them, and we need to be strong, and we need to create wealth, and we need to advance in solidarity if we're going to be a player in the world capable of not being taken over by a foreign power. I mean, that was the whole the whole thing. So everything he he was the architect of essentially The United States in general. I mean, he he truly was. He he kind of built the federal government.
He was essentially the first president. I mean, everything big that Washington did came from Hamilton. The whole reason the country grew like it did and became powerful is because of Alexander Hamilton. But at the same time, everything I bitch about that I think is bad and all this power that the government's gotten is also because of Hamilton. Within. Yeah. So very, you know, mixed feelings about it. So that's why I always question, like, is it even possible for humans to get this right at all? It doesn't seem like it is. I mean, like, The United States and the constitution wrap it up then. I mean, really? Like, is there Right. Like We've never found a good answer. Nobody knows. We we we have an experiment right now that's going on, and it doesn't seem to be going well. No. Certainly not.
Damn. So what are we doing now? Obituaries, we get into this No. Keep talking about where you're talking. We'll do that. I'm trying to find article one We'll just cut it off. Section eight, clause three. We're gonna try to talk, Federalist Papers and the Commerce Clause today. And we picked a supreme court case that we think everyone, any sane person would agree with us on, but the supreme court, unfortunately, unanimously disagreed with us. Wickard v Filburn. So we'll get into that at some point. I guess now's a good a time as any. We're gonna try to make a a reasonable podcast, talk about reasonable shit. Right?
Important things instead of just go on and on about whatever. Talking shit and getting drunk is fun, but eventually, you gotta grow up. I don't think anyone wants to listen to it. No. I'm not convinced this constitution I'm looking at is the right goddamn one.
[00:30:45] Unknown:
Which constitution is that? Did you find one from, Well, Sarah bought this book. Is that like a Howard Zinn constitution? Well, don't. The rewritten history of The United States? Do not deride Howard Zinn. Fuck that. That guy sucks.
[00:31:00] Unknown:
Well, it's like Noam Chomsky. Always hated Noam Chomsky. And now I read some Noam shit, and I'm like, hey. He's fucking right on the money. Dude, I love Noam Chomsky. Well, Howard Zinn wasn't well, maybe I'm I'm speaking a little out of turn here. I thought they were kinda
[00:31:14] Unknown:
similar. Or is Howard Zinn just a huge cut? Dude, Howard Zinn is one of those revisionists. He just wants to bag on everything that America ever did. And I was a dumb bastard when I was young. And I had a girlfriend who was like, oh, you should read this, alternate history United States. Who is his girlfriend? I had no idea. Her name's Kim. And she's like, this is the way it is. And, you know, I was young. So when you're young, you're a little bit liberal. Yeah. I didn't know any better. So I'm like, oh, let me read this, history of The United States. So she gives me this book, and I'm reading it. And I start believing all this shit about, you know, the way the way it basically undermines all all of our founding fathers. Right? Which Well, then I know he trashes
[00:32:03] Unknown:
like, look. Anyone today could look back and say Christopher Columbus was an asshole. Right? But that would be completely What's that? Day go. Day go. Yes. Be completely out of context. So, I mean, not that you should try to justify slavery and invasion of foreign lands and killing everybody, but that's just the fucking way it was. Listen. Right?
[00:32:28] Unknown:
Listen. From let's say let's say we look at history the way we've been taught it. 3,000 BC was, basically, the beginning of history for all of what we're taught. Right? So It's when the Jews started writing shit down? Yeah. Pretty much? Right around the time when the Jews started writing stuff down so that they can control the narrative.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Exactly what's happened. So
[00:32:57] Unknown:
that's the beginning of history as far as people are concerned. Everything else was wiped out. So you go from 3,000 BC, and I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying you go from 3,000 BC to 1450, '14 '90 '2. K? There's a man. The history of the human race has basically just been subjugation of other peoples up until that point. It's what you did. You conquered lands, which, you know, is crazy because you had all that room at the time. Like, the world was barely populated. Yeah. It's true. But yet they continue to go conquer lands. That's that's what you did. Every people that have lived in an area has conquered it from someone else.
There's there's no reason to look back and say, well, this person took from that person. So what? In fifth in 1492, Columbus sailed across the ocean and just did what people are gonna do. Okay? He he he was given a commission from Spain. He sailed across the ocean. He was looking for what? He didn't come here for free. He came here for riches. So what they did is they came here and they took what they could from the people that they would have taken whether they sailed to Africa or Indonesia or anywhere. They came here and they destroyed the Indians. It's just what people do.
Is it right? No. But do we know any better?
[00:34:27] Unknown:
No. And is it wrong? I I don't know. I mean Like, it's really easy to sit here What were they doing with it? Right. But it's it's so easy to sit here in modern times where things are pretty good and bitch and whine about how mean people were. But
[00:34:46] Unknown:
Yeah. Imagine if we didn't have the prosperity we've had since 1960, then people will be saying, oh, they discovered a new land? I mean, let's say it's 1870. Oh, hey. We just discovered an entire new continent of land, and it's peopled by, I don't know, indigenous people, but there's riches beyond belief there. What would people have done in 1870? They would have sailed there and took it from them. Same shit. Same shit. Like, we're not that far removed. It's what people do. Just because we can look back from comfort and say that we shouldn't have done it Right. Doesn't mean that it was wrong.
[00:35:33] Unknown:
And then yeah. I mean, I guess you can make this point in all directions. Like the war in Ukraine, how how the fuck does anybody support continuing it? Makes no sense. People are dying. These are the same type of people who will tell you that Christopher Columbus was an asshole. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Unknown:
So The number one today, as enlightened people, all of us should want to end war. It's a waste of resources no matter who's involved.
[00:36:06] Unknown:
It's waste of everything.
[00:36:08] Unknown:
War is like war is like making some sort of product and going out and sinking into the ocean over and over again. That's all it is.
[00:36:20] Unknown:
That yeah. I mean, that's pretty good pretty good way to put it. And the fact that anyone supports it, it just makes no sense. It doesn't. There's no way like hippie dippy bullshit. Like, it just We are not hippies. There's no good justification for any of these wars at all,
[00:36:41] Unknown:
especially now. None. If you can do it with a deal, with some sort of exchange,
[00:36:47] Unknown:
then you should do it that way. Actually, about the only good justification would have been, like, Vladimir Putin's. Like, hey. You keep fucking with me. I am scared. I told you I'm scared. Quit coming closer to my country with your fucking military. And then finally, he lashes out. That seems pretty reasonable. Well, I'm sorry, Phil. You're a Putin apologist. Yes. I'm definitely a Putin apologist. Right? But, I mean, like, where were all these people bitching and whining about going to war with fucking Iraq? You can't even justify that.
At least, like, if you asked an alien, hey. These people kept fucking with this guy, and he kept telling, if you keep doing this, we're gonna go to war eventually. And then it happened. They'd be like, oh, yeah. That makes, like like, a child would understand that. But but they don't know the history. That the problem is that these people it's like they
[00:37:44] Unknown:
their history is ten minutes ago. They don't understand that there's an entire there's there's two thousand years of history of why Russian Russia doesn't want Europe on their doorstep. There's two thousand years. They've been invaded countless times through the meadow. It's basically a meadow that you could waltz across right into Russia. They they do not want it. And if you understood geography and history, you would know that Russia doesn't want anybody that close, which is why they need to control that portion of the world. Any rational person should know that.
Yeah. That's and any rational person like a homeless person sleeping on your doorstep with a gun. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't tolerate that. You would not tolerate it.
[00:38:44] Unknown:
And every it's just
[00:38:47] Unknown:
Anybody can make whatever argument they want, but they're not educated enough to know the history of why they invaded Ukraine. So they might as well shut up, go back to taking pictures of their food, and realize that they have no idea what they're talking about, and they should never spout their bullshit.
[00:39:09] Unknown:
I agree. And if you point the obvious out that, like, let's just say, like, the left apparently hates Vladimir Putin. His style of government and this overreach of government and everyone else's lives is exactly what they support. I mean, how can they not see the contradiction? It makes no sense to me. They like to ignore that.
[00:39:35] Unknown:
Yeah. And then In in in all you know, you're right. Like, that's their guy, really.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
Yeah. It it should be their fucking guy. Yeah. Totalitarianism.
[00:39:44] Unknown:
They love that.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what they're arguing for. Yeah.
[00:39:49] Unknown:
I don't I no. This is the kind of subject that pisses me off because you watch stupidity around every turn, and there's nothing you can say because all they do is call you a Russian apologist or a Putin apologist. The thing is is Russia wanted Russia, like, wanted a strong man. This is not what do they call it? It's called, like, the single man theory where they say, well, this man is doing this to his population. They did it to, Libya with Oh. Gaddafi? Yeah. Gaddafi. With Gaddafi. Yep. Yeah. So Saddam Hussein. That was part of we're gonna bring democracy to the Saddam Hussein. It it's a single man theory. It's like he's controlling it all, and the people don't want it. But the thing is the Russians asked for Vladimir Putin after getting totally screwed after the cold war ended.
That's it. It boils down to that. They wanted it. They got it, and he's giving them what they asked for. Why should we step in? It's Well and what if they the Russians work out their own history. They done to us? Nothing. They've done nothing. Like, anyone
[00:41:09] Unknown:
explain to me what threat Russia has been?
[00:41:13] Unknown:
There's no threat. There's no threat. It's the same as a domino theory in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Like, there was never a threat. Let those people rule their countries the way they want. They're not gonna spread to our hemisphere.
[00:41:31] Unknown:
Right. I mean, the only country that's really out fucking with everyone else is The United States. Zip.
[00:41:38] Unknown:
Yeah. The people you should be afraid of is your government because one day they're gonna go from what they're talking about now to the complete opposite, and everybody's gonna go, okay. You know? So we've been fighting communism for eighty years. And then one day, they're gonna go, communism's the answer. They're doing it now. They're just not saying it. Right. That or any
[00:42:06] Unknown:
populist movement is bad. Right? Like, the right Everybody hates populism.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
I don't know why.
[00:42:16] Unknown:
Well, like, the right hated what what was it? Occupy Wall Street. Like, looking back, Occupy Wall Street was a bunch of fucking cunts, but, also, I agree with the sentiment. Like, you know, maybe we should do something about these very powerful business interests that control the government. Right?
[00:42:37] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Where you can call up George w Bush and say, hey. You're gonna bail us out. Right. And he had, okay. And then Barack Obama. Okay. Same thing. That's what people should be worried about, not this bullshit. Yeah. And you know what? That's when it all changed because they used to oh, I I don't know how to express this. They used to feed you one line forever. Everybody was getting along. Racism was basically on a decline. Every television show was black and white mixed, and most of white America watched black TV. Everybody got along. Nobody had any problem with any other person. They told jokes about the different races. You're a cracker or you're a black dude and you can dance, and you're a white dude and you can't. Everybody was getting along.
And then they crashed the economy and bailed out those banks in 02/2008. And then people on both sides started saying, it's it's the it's the, the rich who are involved with the government. The banks are involved with the government. So both sides came together, and that scared the shit out of these people. The left and the right were both out there saying, put an end to this. There was a tea party. There was the Occupy Wall Street. What do they used to call them? Three percenters? 1%? I don't remember. Yeah. Like, the one percenters. And that's when whoever's in charge, I'll say they or them, you know, we can discuss the definition of their them later. But they got scared, and they said, it's no longer about race.
These people are now looking up at us. So what did they do? They did everything they could from 02/2008 to now to divide people. We were basically getting along. Yeah. And and divide them along all these Yeah. Same bullshit lines they always have. All these little lines that they've always been divided amongst. You're like like you said. But and it was all just to distract from the fact that they were robbing every one of us. And that's where we're at today, and social media made it easier because you get news constantly.
[00:45:15] Unknown:
And now they're doing the same thing through inflation, but the government doesn't give a fuck about inflation. I think Trump actually does, but it's gonna get worse with the tariffs. I mean, that's not gonna help anybody. I just I I can't get behind tariffs. I I don't understand them.
[00:45:32] Unknown:
I don't understand either. I'm not an economist. I can't say one way or the other it's right. I'm also not believe I don't believe all this anti Trump sentiment that's come out recently. Like, that is definitely a sign up. There's a man who is Oh, yeah. I don't I don't think there's a man who's elected, by an overwhelming majority of people in The United States, both, popular vote and, electoral college. The man was given a mandate no matter what anybody says or how you try to divide it. Define mandate. He was given a mandate to change the way everything was done. Now I'm not falling for it. Well, unfortunately, he hasn't fucking done that yet. As long as he's gonna He he no. He doesn't. But I also don't believe the other side's, opposition to it. It's not true.
Like, he's not falling in the polls. People still believe in him. If if they don't, it's only because they're listening to the newspapers and social media stories and news. Well, that's the whole goal of that. Right. That's the goal is you put it out there constantly, and then people start questioning it. I don't believe that he's not doing the right thing because of that. But from what I see is he's making some big
[00:46:57] Unknown:
mistakes. Yeah. So, like, the first one is, are we gonna start a war with Yemen? Like, what is the fucking point of that? You were he was elected, and he ran on the whole America First thing, which as dumb and redneck as it sounds is a very good fucking idea. And what the hell does The Middle East have to do with America First? Nothing. I think I think
[00:47:19] Unknown:
as elected as America First President, he should be he should be crucified for, this war in Yemen. There is no reason for this.
[00:47:34] Unknown:
No. I mean, the only reason Like, he that instantly disqualifies him for almost everything. Yeah. The only reason is to continue to support, you know, Boeing and fucking Yeah. Lockheed Martin and all this other shit. Yeah. Which is what he's doing and why the base isn't rarely against them is beyond me.
[00:47:55] Unknown:
So Well, he he it needs like, there needs to be people in the street from the right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. They they need to be rioting above for this. Like, what are you doing? We did not elect you for this.
[00:48:07] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I don't know. There's a big part of me that thought he was gonna follow through on some of this shit and doesn't seem like it. I mean, the tariffs, I don't know. You can make the argument that the tariffs would drive manufacturing back and
[00:48:25] Unknown:
but that would take twenty five years of concerted effort. Everything Actually Everything will take twenty five years. Yeah. So the thing is, like, he can't So yeah. Even if he's right, he'll never reap the benefits of it. Correct. Tariffs
[00:48:39] Unknown:
if that were the first step in this process, you'll never get to the second step anyways. So why are we gonna cause unnecessary pain now? But, yeah, getting where do you wanna go from here?
[00:48:53] Unknown:
Read the obituaries? No. Get, get in this commerce clause? Yeah. Get in the commerce clause. We're we're done bitching about shit we can't control. We have to cut we have to cut a bunch of this out anyways. So Do you know, do you don't know anybody who can make a difference. Let's say you woke up in the morning, you're you're drinking your orange juice and listening to the radio. If you heard something on there that you didn't, that that you didn't agree with, could you do anything to change it? No. No. Could you go downtown and get a group of people together and change it? Nope. Nope. What's the only way you can make a change in that situation?
Is if you're rich enough to get on the phone and call a senator or a bunch of senators up and say, make a difference. So why bitch about any of this? Well, so Nobody needs to be fighting amongst each other. We're all neighbors. We're all regular people. Unless you can unless you're rich enough to make a difference with a phone call, then don't even worry about it because you might as well just go back to sleep.
[00:49:58] Unknown:
That's a good point. So, like, the whole, say, Trump getting elected again, I do believe that was the populist movement. But, I mean, if that's the result, you just the populist movement is powerful enough to get Trump in office, but nothing fucking changes. What's the point anyways? Nothing. And you can't boycott shit anymore to the point it works. Like, Henry today was bitching because Target didn't have any Pokemon cards. Mhmm. And he's like, well, someone should, you know, arrest them or something. I'm like, well, buddy, I'm like, you could just never buy shit from Target again. And at least be in control of your own conscience. Right? Yeah. Like, if you really disagree with something, then do not participate. Exactly. That's what and that's what you should do. You can do. Mhmm. And if everyone fucking did that and everyone were honest with themselves, that might make a difference. That might make a difference. But, unfortunately, you don't have enough people who No. Who can do that. Well, you I mean, if I were honest with myself, I wouldn't fucking work where I work because we make shit for the military industrial complex. And that's at the end of the day, that's what we do. Yeah.
And that got blood on my hands because of it at least a little bit. Right? Yes. Like, there's no there's no denying that. Right. We are all our hands my hands tied. Hands are tied. My hands are tied. Yeah. I mean, I participate in what facilitates this steel being made to go to Boeing, and I'm sure they use it to kill kids in Palestine. Yeah. Like, I was looking at my daughter today, and she's so beautiful and sweet. And I love her so much. And, like, she sat on my lap, and I felt great. And I'm like, there's plenty of men just like me in Gaza and Palestine right now that have had their fucking lives ruined because their little girl got killed by a bomb made in The United States. Right? Yes. Like, that happens. And they will never forget.
No. And anyone who can sit here and try to say anything to justify that, it makes no sense to me. You're definitely on the wrong side if you ever try to justify that. Yeah. You are on the wrong fucking side. Pure and simple.
[00:52:08] Unknown:
Yeah. They jump through all these hoops. You see them talk on Facebook. I don't know if you look, but I've been looking recently just to drum up support for the old podcast. But I see people, and they talk about it relentlessly, and there is no argument for that side of it. You're like you said, you're kidding yourself. If you're if you're killing children in another country in any capacity, you're wrong. Yeah. So,
[00:52:41] Unknown:
like, for Russia, and I don't know the effects, if any. But let's say, like, in in the nineties when we did the embargo for Iraq. Right? Like like, the consequence of that was a bunch of fucking people starving to death. A million people. Yeah. And how many of them were women and kids and Most of them. People who didn't fucking deserve it. Most of them. So, yeah, when you vote for the Republican that supported that, you're legitimately voting to starve people out until they die. And yeah. I mean, it is fucked. Yeah. It's pretty sad. I mean, when you look around and see the consequences of everything that you participate in, it's not good. It is sad. And you and and, you know, it's not regular people. Anywhere you go, it's not regular people. It's
[00:53:37] Unknown:
it's the people that rule us. Yeah. Like, people around the Earth are all pretty much the same.
[00:53:48] Unknown:
Yeah. I agree with that.
[00:53:50] Unknown:
Russians, they're just like us. All they wanna do is go to work, feed their family, come home, raise their kids. That's it.
[00:54:02] Unknown:
Yep. That's what it should be.
[00:54:05] Unknown:
But for some reason, there's people above us who get everybody into wars, and they say, oh, well, you're naive if you think it's not gonna happen. Well, you know what? Maybe if Russia was a superpower in the Eastern Hemisphere and we were a superpower in the Western Hemisphere, we could collaborate and make sure other countries who were fighting each other could resolve their differences. Instead of having a huge power struggle between us trying to stay on top and getting involved in undermining Russia, China, you know, North Korea, all this stuff. Like, maybe if there were two giant superpowers, you could bring some sort of peace to the world.
Like, we were sold that lie in the fifties and sixties and seventies about communism, but now the Russians, they're not communist. They're they have a society exactly like ours. They're basically capitalists who wanna make money, raise their families just like us. So if they could go down into, let's say let's say they could go settle a dispute in Azerbaijan or or, down in the Middle East. Let's say the world was divvied up differently, and the Middle East was controlled by the USSR or Russia. Not the USSR. I'm saying Russia as a as a Right. Demar what we consider democracy. They could handle that. I'm not saying, you know, crush these people, but I'm saying intervene in a way that allows everybody to get along, you know, work out some deals just like, Donald Trump would do, work out deals between who's gonna benefit because when people end up benefiting and being able to live their life a little better, they don't fight. Right? I mean, the only thing that causes people to fight are, you know, economic disparity and stuff like it. You're absolutely crushed by by having no money, no future, no prospects.
So if you had two two superpowers on both sides of the world collaborating, you could pretty much have world peace. Yes. So how many people
[00:56:37] Unknown:
like, let's say the cold war, and I have no idea what I'm talking about at this point, but how many people do you think actually actively kept that going at any given moment?
[00:56:49] Unknown:
What? The contention?
[00:56:52] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, take out the part of the equation is citizens who were tricked into believing it. But how many people actually
[00:57:02] Unknown:
like, a thousand people, maybe? I'm sorry. You have to explain. I'm I'm missing the point. Like, let's say Tricked into believing what?
[00:57:09] Unknown:
How many people do you think orchestrated the fear in in The United States to to continue the Cold War? It can't be that many people. Right? No. It's a small cabal. Has to be. Like, there were plenty of people in fucking Blairsville who believe the Russians were going to drop a nuke on us. Right? Yeah. But why the fuck did they believe that? Because someone was telling them. You're right. There's How many of those people actually existed who were able to It's it's make up that information. It's 500 people in the government.
[00:57:46] Unknown:
I mean, just if everybody would
[00:57:48] Unknown:
come to terms with this and fucking reject it is what needs to happen. Well, they they
[00:57:57] Unknown:
they came out in 1989. They came out of the cold war. They knew that they had failed at what they had done. That's why they agreed. That's why Gorbachev agreed to to stop, with the cold war. They did to, allow, the Berlin Wall to come down and for the for the East to join the West. They knew it had failed. They were at the end of their rope. They were bank you know, not bankrupt, but completely out of money from the Afghanistan war like we broke them. They knew they'd failed, and they wanted to join the world. They were willing to to to do whatever it took to become prosperous country in the world. Like, some people call it the end of history.
That time, you know. I I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but they call it, like, the end of history. Like, the Cold War was supposed to be the end of all wars. And it was a it was a grand time. They were they were saying there's no more reason to have conflict. And and Russia and The USSR and all those countries, they wanted to join, everybody. It's not like there was anybody sitting around going, we should still continue to be communist. I mean, there were obviously factions, but the main government of The USSR knew they had failed and wanted to join the world.
The United States told them that they could and then kept them at arm's length for the next thirty years.
[00:59:38] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:59:39] Unknown:
Basically destroying their we funded NGOs in their own country to ensure that they couldn't get a piece of the world. Like, we basically funded their oligarchs to stay in power, to rob the the Russians of all of their industry materials and everything. We encouraged it to the point where you know, inflation went sky high. They completely ruined their country to the point where even after ten years, they started seeing, they started saying that the word capitalism was an evil word again. Mhmm. Because we screwed them over to the point where they're they were in the shitter. I mean, they've been in the shitter ever since because of us. We could've welcomed them and brought them to the world safe, but we wanted to rob them. We wanted to ensure that they never had another, you know, basically, like, after World War one. We wanted to make sure Germany never had a a foothold again. We did that to the Russians.
They got pissed. They elected Vladimir Putin Putin, somebody to bring pride back to the the country. And and what And why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? Anybody would do it. We're doing it now with Donald Trump. He's not even he's not even a good person, and we're bringing we want him here because he is the antithesis to all the bullshit we've been forced to swallow for
[01:01:26] Unknown:
twenty years. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not turning out that way.
[01:01:30] Unknown:
I'm sorry. That was a that was a terrible
[01:01:33] Unknown:
It was pretty goddamn good. Well,
[01:01:36] Unknown:
now's a good time as any to segue into this. Let's let's jump into what we're here to talk about. Commerce. I'm gonna cut this shit up. Yeah. We we definitely gotta cut it up. Let me let me cut out all that. Put the whole fucking thing out.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
No editing. Just just add a bit in the beginning. It says, if you wanna get past everything stupid, skip to hour three. Okay. You know? Fuck it. These these podcasts keep getting longer. That's fine. It's what it's all about. Well, folks, the constitution, section eight, article one, article one. Could be wrong. Yeah. Section. Article one, section eight. Clause three, the commerce clause. So this is what the United States government has taken advantage of to determine how we buy and sell everything, and that's not an exaggeration. So to read the first part of section eight, it says that congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, impose, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of The United States, but all duties, impose, and excises shall be uniform throughout The United States. So just as an offshoot real quick, shall be uniform means any tax levied is the same for anyone paying it, which is the libertarian argument against the graduated income tax, but that's for another time. So continuing on, to clause three.
The congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with Indian tribes. So anything you buy, any tax you pay, everything you do economically in in relation to the federal government. That's where they've gotten all their power from. Again, from one sentence, to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. So to shed some light on this, we were gonna talk about, one or two Supreme Court cases where the federal government used the so called Commerce Clause to dictate how the government can be involved in the individual's life, in particular, in economic terms. So a famous court case, Wickard versus Filburn, is what we're gonna talk about.
What do you think, Johnny?
[01:04:25] Unknown:
You're the constitutional scholar here, Phil. I'm the color.
[01:04:28] Unknown:
We're gonna read the obituaries first. We're gonna get right into this. No. Just get into it. Alright. So I have here, a book called American Constitutional Law, the Structure of Government. So to give a short synopsis of the case, here we go. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 imposed limitations on the acreage individual farmers could devote to wheat production. In setting such limits, Congress sought to control the volume of wheat moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses and shortages and thereby prevent abnormally lower high wheat prices. Filburn, who owned a small farm in Ohio, exceeded his allotment of 11.1 acres for the 1941 wheat crop. He produced 23 acres of wheat intending to keep the excess for use on his own farm, penalized a hundred and $17.11 for growing the excess wheat he refused to pay and brought action to prevent collection. When the district court granted an an injunction on nonconstitutional grounds, the government appealed.
So just to review, this is in the thirties in the midst of the Great Depression. FDR was president. He took many actions to try to end the depression. That's why you wanna look at it. And this is one of the things he did. He was gonna set from top down, try to regulate wheat prices, in the market. And I guess the goal of that would have been to make wheat, you know, affordable for everyone. So this would come down to whether you believe top down economics can work. At the end of the day, there were a whole bunch of farmers, I'm sure, who they decided, you know, we'll grow as much wheat as we want, and we'll sell the amount we're supposed to, and we'll use the rest for our own consumption, which is what Philburn did. This gentleman,
[01:06:48] Unknown:
he he said that he was growing his wheat for use on his farm to feed livestock.
[01:06:55] Unknown:
Correct. So, again, he he didn't lie about it. The government told him he was allowed to grow 11.1 acres in 1941. He grew 23 instead.
[01:07:07] Unknown:
So he was allowed to grow 11 acres of wheat for sale. Right? And he grew more.
[01:07:16] Unknown:
Well, no. So what this comes down to is and we'll get into it, it didn't matter if you were directly or indirectly affecting the market. And what we'll get into here is the government said you can grow 11.1 acres of wheat and no more. And long story short, what happens is the guy says, look. I grew this fucking wheat, and I'm only gonna sell 11.1 acres worth of wheat on your market. They said, well, no. It doesn't matter because if you're gonna use wheat for your own consumption Then you're then you're not buying it from the market. You're not participating in the market that we're trying to control. And they tell him that that's not okay Because if a whole bunch of people do that, then our control of the market doesn't mean shit because And it's called what they call aggregate.
[01:08:12] Unknown:
The more people that do it, it adds up, so then it takes away Yeah. From the market that they could control.
[01:08:19] Unknown:
So, basically, what he says is at the end of this majority opinion, they say, Philburn's own contribution to the to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself. Well, let me start it. We have to cut this, Johnny. Philburn's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation. His contributions taken together with the many others similarly situated is far from trivial. So and this comes down to, you know, government overreach. Can the government tell you what to do with your own property, in particular, legally? I mean, it's not illegal to grow wheat on your own property. Right?
[01:09:11] Unknown:
No. So so what the government was saying, what the there there if there's a surplus of wheat grown, then it's gonna upset
[01:09:27] Unknown:
The market. So they're trying to fix a market price, again, during the Great Depression. So,
[01:09:34] Unknown:
you know, since everyone can afford to buy wheat. And their argument is that if many farmers do this, then it adds up, and it can affect the market even though he's only trying to grow the act he's selling the 11 acres that he's allotted.
[01:09:49] Unknown:
Well so what it came down to is the government sat down and said there's this many people. They're gonna buy this much wheat. If that's the case, then if everyone buys the amount of wheat we think they should buy, wheat should cost about this much per fucking pound or whatever. Right? In a bushel. So they're saying if there's 300,000 farmers and they don't actually buy any wheat on the market, That's gonna fuck our pricing up, and they're saying we can't have that.
[01:10:19] Unknown:
Yeah. So Yeah. So you're growing it for your own use. You're not buying it. So that's gonna add up, and it's gonna affect. Yes. Okay.
[01:10:28] Unknown:
And, again, they're using that one sentence out of the constitution to justify government involvement to the point where you're not allowed to grow wheat for your own consumption. Is your boy Hamilton? Yep. So Publius. Publius was a they. Just real quick to get into the the majority opinion. And, again, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously all nine justices in favor of the government and against Filburn.
[01:11:03] Unknown:
Not at first.
[01:11:04] Unknown:
No. Well, there was a district court who had agreed with Filburn, then it eventually worked its way to the supreme court. So justice Jackson was the he penned the majority opinion. It is urged that under the commerce clause of the constitution, article one, section eight, clause three, Congress does not possess the power it has in this instance sought exercise. The question would merit little consideration since our decision in United States v. Darby sustaining the federal power to regulate production of goods for commerce, except for the fact that this act extends federal regulation to production not intended in any part for commerce, but wholly for consumption on the farm.
Filburn says that this is a regulation of production and consumption of wheat. Such activities are here, which is beyond the reach of congressional power under the commerce clause since they are local in character, and their effects upon interstate commerce are at most indirect. So stopping there. I mean, just a normal person who has a fucking garden. This is basically what this is. It's a larger garden. Right? It's an eleven eight 11.1 acre garden. But this is, I think, the general point of this podcast is you have to ask yourself, if you were growing tomatoes on your porch in a pot that we're hanging, I mean, under what the government's arguing here, they could come in and tell you you're not allowed to do that.
Right?
[01:12:37] Unknown:
Or yeah. Or you you couldn't you could grow so much, but anything over that was taking away from their plan for the economy.
[01:12:50] Unknown:
Right. And at what point does it stop? I mean There's no. And and They never give you that information? No. I mean, apparently, here was anything over 11.1 acres, but I mean, what Right. That didn't that was arbitrary. Right. And what farm is less than 11.1 acres now? No real farm. I wouldn't think so.
[01:13:12] Unknown:
So, I mean, I'm just trying to point out Well, aren't they trying to do the same thing now? They're trying to they're not saying that it's part of the interstate commerce clause, but they're, they're trying to use people who are growing backyard backyard gardens and chickens. They're trying to say that they are, they're in the wrong. I'm sure they are. Yeah. What But but it they're they're using a different excuse. This is why chicken prices is so high?
[01:13:41] Unknown:
Well Egg prices. Well, I'm I'm guessing they don't want you dependent on them
[01:13:48] Unknown:
or, big business to for eggs or or backyard gardens. So they're trying to make rules, and they're drumming up stories on social media saying that, you know, people are getting sick from backyard vegetables and backyard chickens and stuff like that just because they're trying to, it's not so much involved with commerce anymore, but they're just they don't want people to be self sufficient because if they're not self sufficient, then they they need the government. Well, that makes perfect sense for the government one. That was that's probably not the same thing, but Well, no. I mean seems similar.
[01:14:22] Unknown:
No. It ties in because if you were to read this whole case, it comes down to two words, direct or indirect. And Filburn's argument ends up being, look. I get your point in government, but this is, indirectly affecting the market value of wheat. I'm growing this on my own land. It's for my own consumption. Mhmm. So then the question for the government comes down to, well, traditionally, with the commerce clause, we regulated things that directly affect commerce between the states because that was the whole point of the commerce clause. So going back to Hamilton, you had a bunch of states that were loosely associated with one another. Right? Mhmm. So let's say me and you, Johnny, are good friends, and I live on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and you live on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, but you live in Ohio. I'm in Pennsylvania.
Well, you wanna sell me whatever, fucking peanuts. And I tax you, you know, 2¢ every hundred pounds of peanuts, and you're my buddy. So to give you good business, I tax the peanut producer from New York who also borders Pennsylvania, 75 a pound. Mhmm. That was the whole point of the fucking commerce clause was to make economic activities between states fair and reasonable. And
[01:15:54] Unknown:
as a whole, we could bargain with other countries. Correct. Yeah. So the whole
[01:15:59] Unknown:
foreign portion of the commerce clause is is, I guess, wholly different than Yeah. Regulation of commerce between the states. Which the foreign portion should be probably more aligned with what people wanted. Yes. They did not ask for it,
[01:16:17] Unknown:
for themselves to be regulated, how much they could they could grow. Yeah. And then, I mean and there's also good
[01:16:23] Unknown:
good reason for the federal government to be involved in interstate commerce. I mean, I Boy. He's right he's right there. I don't know where I cut off. What I was gonna say is, like, I'll grant there's there's good reason for the federal government to have some oversight of interstate commerce. Right? Like, you can't have the railroads running all fucked up. Right? Like, when the railroads first started, like, trains would reckon each other constantly. Yeah. That's a fact. I mean, people fucking died, caused all kinds of huge problems. Like, there has to be some centralized oversight of certain activities, and, like, the railroad's a really good example of that. And as technology advanced, like, railroads is a perfect example. There had to be some type of centralized authority that governed how these things worked.
So the main question in this case is, how far can the government take this argument? And we would contend that growing wheat on your own property does not fall under the purview of the Commerce Clause. But, continuing on, if I could find it,
[01:17:40] Unknown:
No. The Commerce Clause, beyond this case, it goes on to almost doesn't it go on to affect almost everything that people do? Yes. It does. In modern day, isn't it isn't the Commerce Clause what they point to almost in every situation? Yes. This is why, like what was that big dude black dude,
[01:18:00] Unknown:
Eric Garner, who got strangled to death by the Kimbo Slice? Kimbo Slice? Eric Gar he was the guy who the cops
[01:18:09] Unknown:
killed for selling loose cigarettes. Right? Yeah. No. That was, George Floyd?
[01:18:14] Unknown:
No. George Floyd was a a camp breathe guy. Oh, okay. Yeah. Garner. Garner. Okay. Loose cigarettes guy. He was way before. I mean, that's gonna be a commerce clause thing where the government says, well, you're supposed to pay taxes when you sell cigarettes, and you can't sell loose cigarettes because you're not giving the government their cut Right. Even though you already gave the fucking government their cut when you bought the pack of cigarettes. Mhmm. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's the type of things that happen. And this is the whole point of everything we get to is if you actually stop and think critically about anything, maybe what you're arguing for doesn't make any sense.
Right? Like, if you're gonna be a conservative Republican who is gonna argue that, well, fuck Eric Garner. He broke the law. The cops had every right to arrest him. Does it really make sense with your own supposed beliefs? I mean, any good conservative Republican would tell you they want lower taxes. And at the end of the day, the cops were fucking with that guy because he was selling loose cigarettes. Right. They should be siding with this gentleman. Correct. How could you not be? Yeah. I mean, he died as a result of government overreach, not as a result of illegally selling loose cigarettes, because that should never be a law in the first place.
[01:19:34] Unknown:
No. Yeah. If you purchase the pack, you've paid your tax Right. Then you can do whatever you want with those cigarettes after that moment. Right. You're not gonna hear Fox News or CNN No. They'll never any of that. Right. They'll never talk. Fox News will say the guy broke the law. CNN will say the cops are racist. But then the the Republicans surround, they want lower taxes in all situations. Yeah.
[01:19:58] Unknown:
So, I mean, that's that's really how far all this stuff reaches. I mean, if you got anything from this podcast ever, it would be to stop and think critically about what you believe and why and if it makes sense in any given situation because it most likely doesn't. Well, back to the court case. So Filburn says, look. I yes. I grew this extra wheat even though you told me not to, but it it affects the market indirectly, which which historically up to this point, the government would not step in for an indirect effect of the market. So government says, in answer to the in answer, the government argues that the statute regulates neither production nor consumption, but only marketing.
And in the alternative, that if the act does not go beyond the regulation of marketing, it is sustainable as a necessary and proper implementation of the power of congress over interstate commerce. So, again, gotta flip to my page here. The necessary and proper clause. This is what the this is what the government's arguing. Again, section eight said, congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and impose and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of The United States, but all these imposts and ex laces shall be uniform throughout The United States.
I fucked up here, Johnny. The necessary and proper clause. I'm trying to find it. We'll have to find that later. The point is the government cites the necessary and proper clause here, which is like one sentence in the constitution. Where is it at? I don't remember.
[01:21:51] Unknown:
It's gonna make us look like dumbasses. Don't worry about it. We'll cut it out.
[01:21:56] Unknown:
Well, pause it real quick then. We'll cut it out. Yeah. Dego. Dego. Well, we're gonna jump around a bit here. We're trying to make a good argument, but it's difficult because we're fucking dumb and drinking. But,
[01:22:17] Unknown:
yeah, at least we're thinking about it. Sure. So
[01:22:22] Unknown:
to get back to this court case, again, this gets to the heart of what the constitution was supposed to be. So in my opinion, the historical constructionist argument that the constitution is one thing written down, but there needs to be some perspective on it. And that perspective would be the other documents from the time written by the founders. So the Federalist Papers, any of Hamilton's writings, Jefferson's writings, all this shit. I mean, you have to view the constitution in those terms at the time it was written to know what it fucking mean Meaned to know what it meant.
So to get back to section eight here, it covers a whole lot of things. The commerce clause is just one of them. Another thing would be coining money, the establishment of post offices, the construction and maintenance of a navy. And, again, you go to the very last paragraph in section eight, it says to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, again, to make a navy, to coin money, to regulate commerce, and all the powers things that you would like your government to do for you. Correct. So, like, an example of this would be the states voted to ratify this constitution.
The constitution says, look. We're gonna establish a post office or we're gonna establish a navy. So if you're gonna establish a navy, the government might say, hey. We kinda gotta build some ports Mhmm. And factories to build these ships. Yeah. That's pretty reasonable. Right? Right.
[01:24:19] Unknown:
And we'll excise some sort of
[01:24:22] Unknown:
Sure. Have some type of tax to Tax to do that. Yeah. Pay for this. Tax the businesses or whatever you're gonna do to get the accomplished.
[01:24:29] Unknown:
So that's So people have to agree to that. That's really the question here,
[01:24:33] Unknown:
is is the people who support a very large powerful government will turn to this necessary and proper clause, as they call it, again, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. So, really, that's that's what the argument comes down to here is what is necessary and proper. Is it necessary and proper for the government to step in and tell a man who owns his own land that he can or can't grow wheat for his own consumption? And I think we me and Johnny would both argue, no. That's not necessary and proper.
[01:25:13] Unknown:
No. You can't tell a man what to do on his own property. Right. Because he's not hurting anyone else. Just like
[01:25:19] Unknown:
I mean, a parallel would be like, if the navy's gonna build a ship and they use a certain type of steel, and they come into your garage right now and say, hey. You can't, you can't have any more of this steel you've been buying to build whatever the fuck you're building here, Johnny, because you're messing with the pro the market price of this steel now by buying it. You know what? We wanted to use these for these ships' propellers. They did do that. Did they?
[01:25:44] Unknown:
Well, I think so. I'm I'm not in on steel, but with gold. I'm sure yeah. There you go. But right. So Yeah. But go ahead.
[01:25:53] Unknown:
No. I'm just getting to the I mean, the heart of all of this is the perversion of the wording of the constitution always in favor
[01:26:04] Unknown:
of the government. Yeah. And this Wickard v Phil Burn is a perfect example of that. But we know we know that the the reason for the constitution was to limit the power. So you can interpret it you can interpret these things as saying, we're giving the government, you know, sweeping powers. Right. You know, because we knew that the original purpose of it was to limit.
[01:26:29] Unknown:
Well
[01:26:30] Unknown:
So everybody's fatal flaw there. Everybody's interpreting it as to be to give the government more power. The original purpose was to
[01:26:37] Unknown:
expressly grant certain authorities to the government that was created, and no more than that. And I guess you could take my word for it, but that was the fucking point of it. Like, keep in mind, these were men who had just defeated the British Empire in a war because that government was too powerful in their minds.
[01:27:03] Unknown:
So they weren't, you know, up in arms to make another government that were equally as powerful. So you have to view it through that lens. You can't you can't constantly just say you can't just have a, you can't view it through today's lens. You have to view it through what they were thinking.
[01:27:20] Unknown:
Correct. And I don't see another way to do it. So, I mean, we could we could continue reading this, but, again, at the end of the day, the government and this was a big shift in government power again in 1938. Well well, this court case was in 1942. It was a step for the government where they said, if previously you couldn't directly influence interstate commerce, which would be like a different tax from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Pennsylvania to New York Mhmm. Now they're saying you can't indirectly affect interstate commerce. So you grow wheat for yourself. You're not even gonna sell it. No one's gonna know you even grew it. Right. You and 40 other people are affecting the market indirectly. Yes.
By not even participating in the market. In fact, you're actively not participating in the market. So this is this one of those things where
[01:28:17] Unknown:
this is a precedent set? Yes. So ever since this case, the government has used this, portion of the interstate commerce clause.
[01:28:30] Unknown:
Well, I don't wanna say because there's been many commerce clause cases since, and I don't really know where we stand now.
[01:28:39] Unknown:
If we can continue this in another episode. Do you think, they could come down on you for do can the interstate commerce clause clause be used for almost any action that the government doesn't like? Do you think it can be interpreted in that way ever since this precedent was set?
[01:28:58] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. I mean, as soon as you cross a state border, you're you're within interstate commerce. Yeah. So there's a lot of laws based on this. Yeah. I mean, this is why you're not supposed to buy cigarettes from, you know, New York from the fucking Indians and bring them back into Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, like, you could get arrested for that. Right? From
[01:29:19] Unknown:
the Indians in the on a in a reservation and take them out of the reservation. Yeah. Correct. And that's why. And why is that the government's business?
[01:29:30] Unknown:
Why should it be other than they wanna take your money?
[01:29:35] Unknown:
It all comes down to money.
[01:29:37] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:29:41] Unknown:
So, which Federalist Papers does this, did they discuss before putting this in the constitution?
[01:29:49] Unknown:
This is what? Number 11? Number 11. And 42? Yes. Well, I think 42 was more, foreign commerce.
[01:30:01] Unknown:
So 11 is more relevant.
[01:30:03] Unknown:
Yes. 11 would be and they barely touch on it, I guess. But 11 would would cover interstate commerce. So,
[01:30:17] Unknown:
Federalist paper number 11 from Alexander Hamilton. The utility of the union in respect to commercial relations and the navy.
[01:30:31] Unknown:
Yes. And so, again, the reason this was so important is at at those times, like, maritime
[01:30:39] Unknown:
Yeah. The most important. Yes. Way that people got commercial goods. Yes. That was the way
[01:30:46] Unknown:
you took goods across the ocean. I mean, any wealthy country needed a strong navy Yeah. And a secure maritime system Yes. To thrive. Yeah. So that's why this is so important. And the only way you're gonna have a strong navy is to have a strong
[01:31:05] Unknown:
central government that can Yeah. Build and support that navy. Yeah. Support the navy. Right. So that's his argument is to say, well, we need we need to have a navy to secure our, our prosperous future.
[01:31:19] Unknown:
Yeah. And he was right because we had the articles of Confederation. Which didn't allow for that. Yeah. I mean, the fucking Ohio didn't wanna pay taxes to raise a hand. They were just they just weren't gonna do it. Right. So he he was, he was he was trying to bind everyone together to say we need a federal.
[01:31:35] Unknown:
We need some sort of, everybody needed to bind together so that we could all prosper. Correct. Okay. And that's what happened for
[01:31:45] Unknown:
some time.
[01:31:47] Unknown:
Federalist number 11. The importance of the union in a commercial light is one of those points about which there is least room to entertain a difference of opinion and which has, in fact, commanded the most general ascent of men who have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies well to our intercourse with foreign countries as well as with each other. That that's hard to interpret from somebody who's just been looking at social media for fucking ten years. I don't particularly understand it, but, there are appearances to authorize a supposition that the adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of America, has already excited uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of Europe.
And I tell you what, I wish
[01:32:37] Unknown:
Well, I shame people don't still write like this. So I think what he's trying to say there is, like, look. The Europeans are looking at The United States now, like, as another potential
[01:32:47] Unknown:
Yeah. Superpower.
[01:32:48] Unknown:
Right. And we need to shut that down or oppose it. Then he goes on to argue that, look. Europe's scared because they should be. We're going to be a very prosperous, wealthy nation due to our, thriving economy. Right. Isolation,
[01:33:07] Unknown:
land. Yeah. You know, they were already manufacturing here. They were scared.
[01:33:16] Unknown:
Yeah. So then and then he's making the argument that, like, look. If we come together and Yeah. Want to be prosperous, we're going to need Yeah. We can't have,
[01:33:25] Unknown:
New Jersey making deals with France.
[01:33:29] Unknown:
Correct.
[01:33:30] Unknown:
And, New York
[01:33:32] Unknown:
not you know? And, also, New Jersey is not powerful enough on its own to counteract Great Britain or France, in particular, on the open ocean.
[01:33:42] Unknown:
So that's that's his argument. Yeah. It's, they seem to be apprehensive of our too great interference in that carrying trade, which is the support of their navigation and the foundation of their naval strength. Those of them which have colonies in America look forward to what this country is capable of becoming
[01:34:02] Unknown:
with meaningful solitude. Yes. So what he's referring to there is, like I mean, what? There were 13 Yeah. Colonies. Right? So as soon as you got West Of Ohio Pittsburgh. Ohio. Yeah. Right? I don't think Ohio was a colony then. Nope. So, yeah, I mean, as soon as you got West Of Pennsylvania, you're talking land that wasn't ours and that was controlled by some other empire much more powerful than The United States. Mhmm. Again, whether it be France, Spain, or Britain.
[01:34:36] Unknown:
Yeah. They foresee the dangers that may threaten their American dominions from the neighborhood of states, which have all the dispositions and will possess all the means requisite to the creation of a powerful marine. Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the policy of fostering divisions among us and of depriving us as far as possible of an active commerce in our own bottoms. You want commerce in your bottom, Phil? Yeah. This would answer the threefold purpose of preventing our interference in their navigation of monopolizing the profits of our trade and of clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness.
[01:35:13] Unknown:
Yeah. So what he's saying there is if Pennsylvania's fighting with Ohio and Ohio's fighting with New York, how are we gonna get off the ground floor here? Like, we can't we cannot have all this dissension
[01:35:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Within the colonies. So so number so first off, the, the Federalist Papers, which we're reading from, are an argument for So a federal constitution. Well, actually,
[01:35:41] Unknown:
it was I don't wanna say propaganda piece because I wrote, like, the Federalist Papers, but Yes. It is what it is. Piece. Yes. It was to convince New York State to vote to ratify the constitution. Oh, just I mean, that's all it was. Yeah. Just New York State. Just New York State. The others were on board? Not yet. I mean, and, of course, the Federalist Papers were disseminated however much through the rest of the cones. But Of course. But yeah. I mean, it was
[01:36:09] Unknown:
Alexander Hamilton. Why is it folks in directly in New York? Whenever it involves all of them, or were they a holdout?
[01:36:18] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Because Okay. Man, I can't remember who the They held the most power? Governor of New York would have been, was an anti Hamilton guy. Interesting. Yeah. But Hamilton was a big time lawyer at the time. Yeah. Rich. Well, not rich, actually. Some Dutch guy. Kinda fucking broke. He was being blackmailed. That's the other thing we should talk about Hamilton a little bit. Talked a bunch of shit, was fucking other women, running around on his wife, was supposedly, like, you know, a stand up guy, but he wasn't. But It had a lot of very powerful, you know, enemies, and those enemies were, those who controlled the New York state government.
So it was an uphill battle in New York state to ratify the constitution.
[01:37:09] Unknown:
Man is, Andrew Alexander Hamilton is a natural elite.
[01:37:14] Unknown:
So this man is a Well, that's the thing. Like, he wasn't. He came from a poor background. Okay. Yeah. He he came from the British West Indies. At some point, I believe, immigrated to the colonies
[01:37:27] Unknown:
and kinda build his life up Okay. For nothing. But what I'm saying, he is a natural elite person. Yes. Like, he is not this is not a man who has power, grift, or anything. He's not a parasite. This this man is a
[01:37:41] Unknown:
natural Oh, yes. Self built. Self built.
[01:37:44] Unknown:
Like, he's not he he is not trying to live off the backs of others. This man is a person who generally is thinking about more than just his generation. Right. So he
[01:37:58] Unknown:
volunteered to fight in the revolutionary war Mhmm. Per his own merits, worked his way up through and became like Washington's orderly, basically. Right. And, like, distinguished service, wasn't a bitch, fought in battle. Mhmm. Same as, like, Aaron Burr. Mhmm. This is why I like it on, like, Jefferson because Jefferson would bag on Hamilton, and Jefferson, like, ran away like a bitch whenever he was faced with, you know, actual violence.
[01:38:33] Unknown:
True. Okay. So yeah. But I'm sorry. Jefferson still contributed. He he may have needed his solitude in his little fancy wancy, desk and some slaves to take care of shit while he basically outlined, everything that would basically shape our country for two hundred years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but that's the thing.
[01:39:01] Unknown:
Had we done
[01:39:02] Unknown:
But without but without both of these people, how could anything have gotten have gotten done? So, like, the I mean, the revolutionary
[01:39:10] Unknown:
fervor came from a lot of different directions, including just it was it was kinda natural. Like, you had all these people living in these colonies who didn't wanna be under the thumb of the British anymore. It's just that simple. They were getting wanna be under the thumb of
[01:39:28] Unknown:
monarchy or where the human individual wasn't the main, the focus of of their life? Like, you always had you know, you were never you were never the ultimate. Like, it was always the monarch. Right? Right. So they they were they were setting out to change that. So, we were talking to, like, a huge group of people that thought that way. Yeah. And
[01:39:54] Unknown:
to point out, none of this was, like, on moral grounds. Nothing. It was all economic. I mean, at the end of the day, your only defense against the government is how economically powerful you are or how economically free you are. If they could take all your money, that's that's really your only power. Right? I mean, that's why the next step is is violence, which is what happened in the revolution. I mean, the colonists thought that, you know, they're really fucking with our ability to keep our money and keep our property, and they're encroaching on our property. Right? I mean, your money is your property. That's the whole Western political thought. Like, if you put labor into something and you are compensated for it, that compensation is your property Mhmm. And it's the byproduct of your labor.
So at the end of the day, that's why we went to war with Great Britain, and that's why the revolution happened. So Hamilton and Jefferson would both agree on that. Mhmm. But Hamilton, his counterargument was, yeah, Great Britain was fucking us, but, the way they do business is the way you have to do business if you wanna be a powerful nation. That's that's what he thought. I mean, it's not like Hamilton hated the British. I think he very much admired their system of government and their ability to become powerful. That's why they were the Federalists.
They wanted to make a federal government Mhmm. That
[01:41:31] Unknown:
made a powerful nation. Now Thomas Jefferson was more of a, let's say, state. Oh, absolutely. He he wanted more of an agrarian society. Yeah. Okay. So that's where they always butted heads. Jefferson and Hamilton always butted heads on, the way it should be run. Right. But then you have was correct, but yet everything he argued for led to what we have today as government overreach. Yeah. Which is Because they interpret all of this in incorrectly. Which it seems like is the natural, Consequence of government. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. You know, once you get a little, you're gonna take more, which is where that inner, article one section eight clause 18 comes from is that look. Look at this sentence right here.
This gives us the ability to do whatever we need to do, which is not the way it was meant.
[01:42:34] Unknown:
Right. Right. Okay. I mean, this well, look what Jefferson did. He made the fucking Louisiana purchase. Right? Like, it's a huge
[01:42:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Government overstaff. Yeah. But that's part of that clause. Right? Let's use, the government's money to better our nation.
[01:42:52] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? So that's, like, every that's, like, everything
[01:42:56] Unknown:
he stood against, though. It was, but, yeah, he did see that as a great opportunity. Yeah. And it was the right move. It was definitely the right move.
[01:43:06] Unknown:
But so this is where, I guess, it's like some some introspection for me because, like, I argue against the big government, but, like, at a certain point, like, there has to be both. Right? Yeah. Like, you'd be doomed without a powerful government to give you the opportunity to make money and live safely and prosper. But at the same time, it's the same thing that can take it all away from you at the drop of the hat.
[01:43:38] Unknown:
Why does it always tend towards they can take it away from you at the drop of the hat? Why is it never the other way where they just provide you with security to live your life and prosper? Yeah. Don't know. It's never been that way. That's a shame. Like, we, we started this country with that intention, and it instantly went off the rails. Yeah. Right. Government overreach. Like like you said, even Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase. Well well, the first
[01:44:04] Unknown:
one of the biggest sticking points of ratifying the constitution was the supreme court and the separation of powers and the fact that they said, look. The Supreme Court will be the most powerful branch because they can just judicially review any law they want. They're like wizards. And I don't remember which Federalist paper it is, but Hamilton, it's like the shittiest one. He puts forward, like, a real shitty argument that says, I know judicial review won't happen, but it fucking did almost immediately. Right? It was Marbury versus Madison. And I believe that was over the institution of a national postal service. Maybe we we can look this up real quick. Judicial review. Yeah. Was it Marbury v Madison?
What's the You and I are talking. Don't worry about anybody. Well, we should we should let people know. We're
[01:45:03] Unknown:
Listen. The one thing I wanna ignorant to the fact that they're listening to this. Listen. The one thing I wanna say is if you're out there and you think we're full of shit, send a message. (724) 562-3523. You can send it anonymously. Tell me we're full of shit. Give us some, argument against what we're saying. We will talk about it. I want to hear from anybody who's listening.
[01:45:29] Unknown:
Yeah. And I guess the other point maybe to take from this podcast is we're trying to move in a direction now that is meaningful and talk about real shit. We're jumping around a little bit, and we weren't super well prepared. But, talking about these court cases, this the important thing to remember is this is what governs the way you have to live your life now. That's what we're talking about. So this Wickard v Filburn case, we're talking about the commerce clause, Marbury versus Madison with judicial review, what's a law, what isn't a law. This is all what dictates how you live your life, and anything you bitch and whine about comes down to this. I mean, it really does.
Like abortion, all these dumb fucking issues, a lot of people think are important. It it all comes down to this, what the government can make you do and what they can't make you do. Coercion versus cooperation, all that. That's what we wanna start talking about.
[01:46:37] Unknown:
Yeah. I think I think it's good to at least just talk about it so that people are more aware of, the way the the sort of the way you're living your life. You I mean, you're not just cascading through your fucking existence, jumping from Instagram to Facebook. Like, there are there are real reasons why you're here and why there are laws, of, or why why our laws are set up the way they are. Like, there's there's not just we're not this isn't like you can't just not ever think about history. You have to you you know, it didn't it didn't start ten minutes ago.
Everything started, you know, way long before we were here. You know, there's a reason why we live this way. So as long as we talk about and make people more aware of, you know, the history behind all this stuff, it even if we're wrong, at least it'll get people thinking about it. Right. And I could be wrong about this, but to draw a parallel,
[01:47:50] Unknown:
is it the senate is what can make a tariff and impose it? Am I wrong about
[01:47:59] Unknown:
that? I don't I don't know. Can the president just unilaterally
[01:48:03] Unknown:
impose a tariff? I don't believe so.
[01:48:07] Unknown:
Oh. So Let's find out.
[01:48:11] Unknown:
I'm just taking I mean, you you could accuse me of being conservative, which I'm not, but the point I'm trying to work around to here is this is why you get a Trump who can just do whatever the fuck he wants because everyone has lost sight of the fact that there's supposed to be rules provided by the constitution that dictates how things work. And, like, all the Trump supporters are really happy right now that Trump's in power, and Yeah. They'll parade them. Right. Yeah. They'll parade them on Fox News and be very happy about everything he's doing. But just remember, it sets a precedent that the next president can do the same shit. And the thing is there are rules. Like, executive orders
[01:48:59] Unknown:
were never meant to be used the way they're being used today. Correct. Like, whether I agree or disagree with the Yeah. Exactly.
[01:49:08] Unknown:
The order itself, I I disagree
[01:49:10] Unknown:
regardless because it shouldn't happen. You shouldn't the the president should not be able to make an executive order to change it. Right. So like like you said, like, totally agree with some of the stuff that he's doing, but it's completely wrong. Yeah. And I don't agree with the tariffs. But Right. You can't do that. So the US constitution gives congress the power to regulate foreign commerce, impose import tariffs, and raise revenue. One, Congress in turn has enacted laws giving the president the authority to impose tariffs under certain conditions.
[01:49:43] Unknown:
What are the certain conditions? Mhmm. See, this is the kind of fucking bullshit you get.
[01:49:48] Unknown:
Yeah. When you get away from common language and a common document, this is what you get.
[01:49:58] Unknown:
So just to plainly say the point, just remember, just because your guy's in office and doing shit you like, it sets a precedent that when the guy you don't like is in office, he's gonna do shit you don't like. Yeah. Which is the way,
[01:50:11] Unknown:
Banana Republics work and Correct. You know. And it's crazy to witness this. I mean, it was much it was is it I mean, yes. It's exciting, but it was a much better time whenever this stuff was, reined in and under control. Like, let's say, what, before '19, what, 04/2001. Whenever they actually had to declare war on another country.
[01:50:40] Unknown:
Yeah. And they actually did
[01:50:42] Unknown:
declare a war. Yeah. The last time they declared a war. But Now a word from our sponsor.
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[01:53:50] Unknown:
So I don't know. Maybe this is just a good way to kick off what to expect moving forward. Gonna make a real effort to prepare for these and
[01:54:01] Unknown:
put something meaningful out there. Yeah. Well, at least we need to at least talk about some things. And even if we don't know every all the ins and outs, we can we can at least give our perspective on it and bring the attention to others. Yeah. And maybe
[01:54:17] Unknown:
actually talk about something meaningful.
[01:54:19] Unknown:
I mean, interstate commerce clause, like, for the for our government to use that as as the crowbar to to do anything they want seems a little that's that just seems that that this is why you don't give your federal government the power. You they take one sentence out of the whole thing, and that's that's what they've used to regulate everything for a hundred years.
[01:54:51] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, and they do it with everything. Like like, they've gotten mobsters under Homeland Security. Right? Yeah. Like, they had to create RICO to try to get mobsters. What's RICO? I forget. Racketeering, something in corruption. So it was like, Rico was made because, like, say, you had the Tony Soprano who ran the mob. Right? K. So he didn't actually kill anyone, but everyone who got killed was under his order. Mhmm. So he didn't commit the crime, but he orchestrated it. Wouldn't happen without him. He was a mastermind. Well, well, they had no way to take down mob bosses because they would just get their shitty underling hitman or whatever. It didn't mean shit, so the crime organization wouldn't take a big hit.
So they made Rico so they could say, well, yeah, these 16 hitmen killed 40 people, but, they did it under the express orders of this mob boss so that they could go after that mob boss. And not just for, like, you know, killing people. It'd be like any, any scam they had going. Yeah. Like, it wouldn't have happened without the mob boss ordering it to happen. Right. And the only way to really take down the mob was to take down the mob boss Yeah. So they made Rico so they could go after a mob boss. But then, like, the Department of Homeland Security, whatever, after nine eleven, they got the massive spy networks.
So it wasn't meant to go after domestic criminals, but, hey, if we pick up a domestic crime here and there during our spying operations, we can we can sure use that information to wreck the mob. Right? Mhmm. Now is it bad to wreck the mob? Probably not. But did you make the fucking law to go after the mob? No. No. If you're gonna go after the mob, why can't you go after a political opponent? Right? And both sides will do that.
[01:57:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. You can't stop it. I mean, what what one's gonna do it, the others are gonna do it. Yeah. It's just the perversion of everything
[01:57:10] Unknown:
and the overreach,
[01:57:12] Unknown:
every chance they get to overreach. So how how do you think we could have kept everything on track? I don't think you could have. That's what I'm saying. It's There's absolutely no way to have kept this country on track. I don't think so. What if what do you think would have happened had we not federalized? What do you think if we went with more of a, like, Thomas Thomas Jefferson's view of everything if he if he wasn't also, instantly corrupted by it and, joined in. Let's say we went to a more agrarian states rights kinda kinda view. Man, I died.
[01:57:51] Unknown:
What do you think would happen? I mean, you gotta figure one of the, like, Britain would've just waltz right back in and You don't think everybody would have banded together again and says, get the fuck out of here. You lying me? I don't think maybe someone correct us if or correct me if I'm wrong, but I I think the general the general assessment is if Britain really wanted to crush us, they could have just done it. They just had so much other shit going on. Like, how how many other places were they involved in?
[01:58:23] Unknown:
They had an empire much like we have an empire today. Yes.
[01:58:27] Unknown:
So, like, if Russia wanted to really put the hammer down on Ukraine, they could just but they could wipe Ukraine off the map, like, by the end of this sentence. Right?
[01:58:38] Unknown:
A lot of people argue that that is not the case, but I think Russia could wipe Ukraine off the map if they wanted to without US involvement.
[01:58:46] Unknown:
Sure. Let's just say they drop some nukes. Done.
[01:58:49] Unknown:
Right? Well, yeah, if you were gonna flex that big, yes. But I think But whatever. Do they could probably do a just men.
[01:58:57] Unknown:
Sure. But I think the situation at the time during the revolution and for twenty years after was if Great Britain really wanted to come in and put the hammer down, they they could have done it. Oh, so they were
[01:59:12] Unknown:
they were, they were where?
[01:59:15] Unknown:
They were, I think so. Yeah. Okay. And that was the whole point of the Federalist movement was, hey. We got a real big fucking problem here. Hey. We're a fledgling country, but we better fucking
[01:59:26] Unknown:
step it up real quick. And if we hadn't,
[01:59:29] Unknown:
I think that's what
[01:59:31] Unknown:
Yeah. So they were pulling together, but maybe it was something that should have been should have been, they should have maybe let it fall by the wayside later, like, once you were all established. Yeah. Can you imagine that?
[01:59:49] Unknown:
I don't think I can imagine it.
[01:59:53] Unknown:
I guess it would be hard to get 50 states to call you. The central bank.
[01:59:58] Unknown:
When was the central bank period? Like eighteen o three? Something like that. Oh, well, the first
[02:00:03] Unknown:
United States or the first bank of The United States is probably I'm guessing it was seventeen ninety something.
[02:00:10] Unknown:
Maybe 1793,
[02:00:12] Unknown:
something like that. Yeah. But it failed instantly, didn't it? Or they they threw them out instantly. They I don't think so.
[02:00:19] Unknown:
I mean, Hamilton sold bank.
[02:00:23] Unknown:
First bank of the United States. I think
[02:00:27] Unknown:
the citizens of The United States sent them back in pretty quick. I don't think so. I mean, because you had like the whiskey rebellion and shit that that they stamped out in Pennsylvania. Right? Which I think that whole rebellion was against the federal government for trying to put an excise tax on
[02:00:47] Unknown:
whiskey. Bank of the United States closed. Opens at five. You bet two two stars
[02:00:54] Unknown:
on Yelp. Well, good. Good on that person.
[02:00:58] Unknown:
First Bank of the United States was a national bank charter for a term of twenty years by United States Congress in 1791.
[02:01:04] Unknown:
There you go. So two years after
[02:01:07] Unknown:
constitution was drafted. Not set monetary policy, regulate private banks, hold their access or their or act as a lender of last resort. They were national insofar as they were allowed to have branches in multiple states and lend money to the US government. Other banks in The US were each chartered by and only allowed to have branches in a single state. Okay. So it was just it was like a multistate bank. I'm guessing it's not not as central as we would say a central bank is today. I wouldn't think so. No. No. But they were trying to at least establish a currency that all states could use. Well, so that was a huge problem during the
[02:01:48] Unknown:
revolution was there was no central accepted currency. Yeah. So even trying to fund the war was, like, next to impossible. Can you imagine going
[02:02:00] Unknown:
to war, you know, with promise of pay? And there was absolutely no way you you I mean, you knew you weren't getting paid, but you just kept going. Yeah. Well, I mean, they fucked a lot of people over after the war because They did?
[02:02:14] Unknown:
A lot of those people fought that war. And, you know, like, tons of people deserted. Like, they just leave. They're like, fuck you. You're not paying me. I'm not gonna Well, your farm needed tended to, so you just left. Or you weren't getting paid. Yeah. You weren't getting paid. Right. Suffering in the cold and Yeah. But you were there anyway. I mean, you went originally. Right. I mean, imagine that. That's pretty good. But even after the war, like, these people had all kinds of promises from individual states Mhmm. From the continental army, which was, you know, basically billed as the nonexistent federal army Yeah. Under the promise that, hey. When we win this war, we will take care of you. Yeah. That was like Washington's promise to all these men. What was the fucking fort they were at?
Valley Forge. Valley Forge. Yeah. Like, hey. If you stay here and stick this out, we're gonna take care of you. A bunch of them never gotten taken care of.
[02:03:13] Unknown:
And That set a precedent.
[02:03:16] Unknown:
Sure. Sure did. But, I mean, that was part of Hamilton's that was one of his big issues that he wanted to fix was, hey. We gotta make this central bank and central government so we can pay these fucking guys back. Mhmm. And I don't I don't believe it ever happened. Settle foreign debts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, beating around the bush is the same idea. How do you become powerful and and, you know, outlast these problems without a central government. You you really don't. At this point, how do you continue on without a central government? I don't know.
Well,
[02:04:02] Unknown:
maybe things just need to change. Maybe we don't need maybe we can just, you know, let's say we just abolish it and, everybody goes back to fend them for themselves. We let the government only provide security for the nation. The one last thing.
[02:04:21] Unknown:
See, I would say that's like that's like the worst thing we could let them do. No? You think? I don't know. It seems like that's the only place that caused the biggest fucking issues with these endless wars.
[02:04:35] Unknown:
What if they were they were reined in? What if it you couldn't leave what if you couldn't leave the continent? I mean, the not continent, but the, The United States. Like, what if all the army navy had to stay and they just
[02:04:46] Unknown:
provided for security here? Well, that would be great. Wouldn't that be great? That'd be a huge first step in the right direction. Naive thinking? No. Not a lot of people will tell you it's naive thinking. Right. But imagine if we just had
[02:05:01] Unknown:
our let's say we had our let's cut our budget in half for military spending, but we kept everything here. Would we still be the most powerful nation on Earth even though we were isolated?
[02:05:16] Unknown:
Oh, I think we'd quickly become more powerful.
[02:05:20] Unknown:
That's that's a pretty good argument.
[02:05:22] Unknown:
I'd say, we probably would become more powerful. Taking advantage of our own natural resources and,
[02:05:29] Unknown:
you know, doing everything here. Let's say let's say you pulled let's say you pulled everybody back from all of our 898 bases that we have around the world, all the underhanded operations we have going on. If we pull back Fucking killing people everywhere. Stop killing people in other countries. Stop. You know? We'll bring them all back. They're here in The United States. We're an isolationist country. We're taking care of any all of our veterans. You know? We cut our military budget. Shit. You probably cut it more than half, but let's say we cut it in half. We're totally fine, and then we're peaceful, and we trade with the rest of the world.
Do you think do you think we would have the issues we have now? I mean, I think a lot of those Muslim countries and people that we've been bombing the shit out of for eighty years would reassess and go, okay. They've changed their policy. Yeah. We have we have a grudge, you know, that they killed my brother and his wedding and, you know, all my kids and all this stuff. But they look like they've become isolationists, and they're not gonna fuck with us anymore. Yeah. I'd say we'd probably be a lot better off without that blowback. We definitely would. The only problem was blowback is the probably one of the most important things that we're contending with around the world today. It's yeah. I think it's the number one thing. The issue with that is it's like a you're talking like a that's a generation of work. Oh, yeah. I'm I'm I'm not I'm trying not to be naive, but I'm just saying I'm just saying,
[02:07:14] Unknown:
like, can this fucking stupid ass country endure twenty five years of violence from, I mean, like, the Islamofascists, if that's what you wanna they have plenty of reasons to hate to hate The United States. Plenty of good reasons. Right? They do. Yeah. So if we just say tomorrow, hey. We're done. We're not gonna fuck with you anymore. That's not gonna fix the problem. Yeah. But what if we what if we could protect our borders?
[02:07:41] Unknown:
Like, ultimately. Right.
[02:07:43] Unknown:
But I mean We did pull back. Yeah. In a perfect world, yes. Pull back and say, hey. Look. We're just gonna stay this off until it calms down, which it will someday. Yeah. But they'll never let it get to that point. No. Right. I mean, you have plenty of people. Like, we get another nine eleven. We'll be right back at war.
[02:08:02] Unknown:
But that's the thing is, like, if we pulled back and we protected our own borders and we left all these people alone, and we were smart about the whole thing,
[02:08:11] Unknown:
eventually, they would find other enemies. Yeah. Like, long term, that'd be the thing to do. Well, they have other enemies. I mean, goddamn. Like, the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other. Right? Like, we flip flopped who we support, and Yeah. We've used it to our advantage to continue these wars. Yeah. Just let them do what they want. Yeah. Leave those people alone. It's not our goddamn business. No. Anyways No.
[02:08:38] Unknown:
And I don't understand anybody who argues for that. It's that's the crazy thing. It's like I see people arguing for
[02:08:46] Unknown:
continuing that. That's the wildest thing about, like, the Democrats railed against it for Yeah. Since what? 02/2001, basically. Right? They railed against it our entire life. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, they're the ones who who support it. Yeah. It makes no sense. That's the worst part, man. It's like, you get
[02:09:08] Unknown:
everybody gets fucking psyopt on this stuff. You know? When you've been a when you've been I guess I guess when you're 20, you don't know. But as you're 40, you start doing the, like, pattern recognition thing, and, you know, which everybody's good at, you know, as a human. You're good at pattern recognition, and you start going, man, it sure looks like it sure looks like the shit we're doing around the world is causing us a lot of problems back here, you know, which 20 year olds don't see. You know? They see one or the other. You know? They wanna they wanna stand behind Ukraine or stand behind something else. But, like, as you're as you get to be 40, you start going, well, hey. Hey. Maybe maybe we gotta just end these wars. Maybe the Russians aren't that bad. Maybe maybe we gotta stop funding both sides of a a Saudi war or, you know, a Middle East war.
Yeah. Well I don't think young people see it, but it was older. You know? I was thinking about that on the drive down here,
[02:10:14] Unknown:
like, along the same lines. Like, I was not in the military, never saw war, never seen anything that bad, like, at all. Right?
[02:10:22] Unknown:
Yeah. And neither of you. Right? Yeah. Except for Ted there's corn day. Yeah. Corn day.
[02:10:30] Unknown:
But no. Like, if you read some of these stories out of, like, Russia and World War two, just the pure brutality, Like, they should just make everyone read that. Be like, hey. You realize when you stand with Ukraine or whatever the fuck you say, this is what's happening over there. Like, this is ground warfare, and read these horrible recollections of World War two, and this is what you're supporting. Like, I don't think people realize No. Like, the brutality of what's going on. They think it's cute. Yeah. It is not like a cool action movie. Like, this is people starving to death. Mhmm.
Their children being, you know, mutilated and killed. It's so bad. It's so fucking bad. There's a movie called, fuck. It's it's about Russia in in the second World War. Man, I can't remember what it's called. It's brutal, though. It just follows like this. I I think it's a young girl who ends up in, like, the Russian army somehow. Mhmm. Just like first couple years of the war when the Nazis invade and just like how awful it was. Mhmm. You know? And the things they don't talk about. Like, in the movies you watch, like, in Saving Private Ryan, they don't show the,
[02:12:00] Unknown:
you know,
[02:12:01] Unknown:
millions of rapes that happened all over Europe. Like, every teenage girl to old woman got fucking raped at some point.
[02:12:13] Unknown:
Right? Are you sure? Pretty sure. The French?
[02:12:17] Unknown:
I mean, I don't know about so much on that side of the war, but, like, in in Germany and Russia oh, yeah. Like, when the Germans came through Russia in '41, '40 '2, whatever Mhmm. Every fucking girl in every town got raped. It was even worse when the Russians came through back into Germany in '45. It was, that was payback. Oh, yeah. And they don't talk about that. No. And that's brutal, man. I mean,
[02:12:52] Unknown:
like, you read these recollections where Germans were asking for it. Yeah. They they were asking for it. I mean, those women who died the way they were dressed? Yeah. All that black and red and white. Yeah.
[02:13:03] Unknown:
I don't know what I'm trying to get at him. Just saying it's so fucking bad. Yeah. It's like the worst side of humanity.
[02:13:10] Unknown:
Yeah. People think war is cute. It's not it's not fucking cute. And, again, I'm not speaking from
[02:13:15] Unknown:
personal experience, but, man, just do yourself a favor and, like, read a book about Yeah. The Russian front in World War two. Read a book about mechanized warfare once. Yeah.
[02:13:27] Unknown:
Yeah. These people, they're if you're still out there trying to get Donald Trump not to make a deal in Ukraine, which he won't. He's a fuck too. Yeah. It seems like he's not gonna. Yeah. I mean, he said fucking day one. I'll do it. I gotta do bullshit. He shoulda ended it already. But, if you're against it, like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, end the war.
[02:13:50] Unknown:
Yeah. And I don't I could be wrong. It doesn't seem like, you know, like, the right thing's a big thing right now in the world, but fucking maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Well, fucking let let the goddamn Russians have what part of Ukraine they won. End it.
[02:14:04] Unknown:
You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah. Well You can say that, oh, it's it you can't let him because then he'll just continue. Okay. Well, when is he ever? This is the first time he's done anything. No. And he said for thirty years, hey. You've been fucking us in the ass. And this is why and and he never did a thing until, what, 2022. Yeah. He didn't do a goddamn thing until 2022, but he kept saying, listen. You are stepping over the line. And he kept trying to be part of the West. He kept doing it. Like, those those, when he's, with George w Bush on his ranch, I mean, he was trying to be part of the West. This man wanted to stop having the West insult Russia and bring them into prosperity, but they just kept keeping them at arm's length. Now he's saying, I told you, and now this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. And it's not
[02:15:09] Unknown:
like, I think Putin's a piece of shit, and I don't like Russia. That doesn't mean we need to be going to war with them. No. Make a deal.
[02:15:17] Unknown:
Just make one deal with these people and, you know, set up some some some deal that is good for Ukraine and Russia and everybody and just let them continue. If you're ethnic Ukrainian or whatever whatever that is, they're mostly Russian, but, like, if you're ethnic Ukrainian in the East, the Eastern Side of Ukraine, establish a country, Western Ukraine, you're now part of Russia. They wanted to be part of Russia, and they evacuated all those people because they were being bombed by the Eastern half of Ukraine. So the Russians evacuated those people to Russia, you know, which for some reason our media says that, you know, they stole them. No. They didn't steal them. They evacuated them because they're being oppressed for, like, what, twenty years? Yeah. So 2014 at least. You know, these are ethnic Russians who live in Ukraine.
[02:16:16] Unknown:
Or the other answer is just it's not our fucking problem at all. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly.
[02:16:21] Unknown:
And and and if Europe thing is, like, there's no reason for us us to be involved. We could watch it Right. And if on TV. And if Europe can't defend itself,
[02:16:30] Unknown:
that's fucking Europe's problem. I mean, the fact that they've outsourced all of their energy to Russia again, not The United States' problem. Why why are we involved? Yeah.
[02:16:45] Unknown:
Yeah. To let to let her have learn a fucking lesson. Yeah. To get involved is crazy because it has nothing to do with us. Nope.
[02:16:53] Unknown:
We've gotta lighten this up a bit. I'm not lightening anything up.
[02:16:59] Unknown:
I'm gonna get shit faced and start start talking more shit. You got a lot of fucking oil back here, Johnny. I know. I got What are you doing with all that? You know, I got so many motorcycles and fucking vehicles. It's ridiculous. Goddamn. All that shit's for a different bike or whatever.
[02:17:18] Unknown:
You you use a synthetic? I don't think you were a synthetic man.
[02:17:23] Unknown:
Well, which one's synthetic?
[02:17:26] Unknown:
Oh, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. It's made by BMW. Mini Cooper. One of the little fuck brothers. BMW stand for?
[02:17:33] Unknown:
Big Mexican women. I'm not sure. Like big Mexican women. Yeah. Me too. 40 the same. 47 or older. Why why is it why does every Mexican woman's face look like a goddamn, 12 inch skillet?
[02:17:47] Unknown:
Is is that why we went to war with them? First place?
[02:17:52] Unknown:
Mexico?
[02:17:53] Unknown:
All the monstrous women.
[02:17:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Dude. I'm not sure why we went to war with Mexico. I guarantee it was some sort of propaganda campaign from our United States government. That was,
[02:18:04] Unknown:
what's that asshole's name? Teddy Roosevelt? As well. Yeah.
[02:18:09] Unknown:
Well, he's a real cunt when you get down to it. Right? He's a real cunt when you get down to it. But but as far as people go,
[02:18:17] Unknown:
that dude was a bad ass. Oh, he was a bad dude. That was a bad dude. He was like a cool bro to have as a friend. Imagine Teddy Roosevelt met Joe Biden? Oh god. He'd fuck Jill for sure. Oh, fuck. Yeah. I've been what did Jill look like when she was young?
[02:18:36] Unknown:
I assume she'll go out like Ashley Biden.
[02:18:39] Unknown:
I don't know Ashley Biden. Who's a Joe's daughter? Niece? She a crackhead too? I don't know. Wonder if Hunter was fucking fucking Is Hunter only a half son, or is that a fool?
[02:18:52] Unknown:
Man, I don't know. You wanna talk about, like, some corruption? Those people need to all fucking have their goddamn
[02:18:58] Unknown:
craniums removed. That's like the credit card shit Biden didn't Oh, yeah. Delaware. Yeah. That's how do you vote for Joe Biden? Dude, everybody Everybody
[02:19:07] Unknown:
everybody's memory stem is long. That's true. That dude's the worst person ever, and they just they sold him as a a an old man who was gonna get us back to normalcy.
[02:19:19] Unknown:
Is he Come on. The ten minute memory thing's funny because I still jerk off to, like, seventh grade fantasies ahead. Eighth grade for me. But is that wrong?
[02:19:33] Unknown:
No. Why would that be wrong? Well, I make some 37
[02:19:37] Unknown:
now. Dude, it's in the bank. That's what I'm saying there. Yeah. Are the memories just as vivid? Oh, yeah. I could start naming names, so I'm not gonna Dude, I'll tell you. I'm more respect than that.
[02:19:50] Unknown:
Man, it's crazy. When you were a young man, just just like it was like every moment. You know? You just were thinking about, holy fuck. Holy fuck.
[02:19:59] Unknown:
I got a jacket. You know? Well, I don't know how you were, but I don't know if I was uninformed or naive. I didn't know a whole lot about, you know, pussy's and stuff when I started jerking off and getting boners for no reason. Mhmm. So I don't know what to think about. It was fucked up. It's weird, man.
[02:20:21] Unknown:
What did you think about pussy's stuff?
[02:20:24] Unknown:
I don't know if I knew what it was. What age are we talking about? 20? Much younger. Much younger. Okay. Maybe, like, fifth grade or something. Alright. So young.
[02:20:34] Unknown:
Should a fifth grader know everything about pussy? I don't think so. Right? No. Fuck no. Why would you know everything? Oh, I didn't know at that time. Nobody knew. Okay. Good. At least, I mean, for us, I mean, I didn't know. Think I knew what a pussy was in fifth grade. Neither do I. I just know that chick cartoon characters didn't have a fucking bulge. That's what I knew. That's why, like,
[02:20:57] Unknown:
I can see why people get addicted to, like, the anime shit. Yeah. That's a fucking tactic that there's Japanese is it Japanese, Koreans, all of them? How so? Oh, oh, take it down. Pokemon cards. You ever see, like, the trainer decks? No. Oh, it's like like, I'd park jerk off too now if I had to. Yeah. Like, the decks of, like, the Pokemon trainers, like the characters. No. It's like anime porn. Is it? Oh, geez. It's like, you know, chicks with their asses hanging out, basically. It's chicks. Okay. I thought Pokemon was just, like, cartoon characters and shit. I I don't know if it used to be, but now there's like trainers. Like you buy a deck of cards and there's like half anime porn in it.
[02:21:36] Unknown:
Okay.
[02:21:38] Unknown:
So But the point I'm making is like, it's, like, you know, my son's into Pokemon. Ah. So what point is he gonna look at a Pokemon card and not know what the fuck's going on at all? Yeah. That's a hard time I like to What what do you mean? Like, he's gonna think all women are like that? No. No. Just, like, he's gonna get fucking hard, not know what's going on. No. I'm sure he already is. He's just not telling me. Hate.
[02:22:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I guess you're right.
[02:22:07] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a hard time in life. Nobody ever. No one prepares young men for Eight to twelve. For anything. Yeah. Eight to twelve. Eight to twelve. Twelve to sixteen. Whatever. Dude, I'm telling you. Like,
[02:22:18] Unknown:
you're talking about not knowing what that shit was like. Like, I had no clue. Like Neither did I.
[02:22:24] Unknown:
I just
[02:22:25] Unknown:
I don't I don't know what I thought. Like, I remember being extremely attracted to the the lifeguards at, the Jewish community center. Like like, extremely. And they were all, like, sixteen, seventeen, 18. And I'm I'm I'm gonna say 10 my first year Yeah. At the Jewish community center. That was the first year I was allowed to join. I was a member from 10 to 13. How much did that cost? My mother paid a hundred dollars a year for that. Damn. But it but you got to swim at the pool every day, and it was right next to the house. You know what I mean? And, you know, it was in our neighborhood.
And I remember, I'm, like, 10 years old. I'm looking at these these lifeguards, and I just I had no idea what I was even thinking. Like, I mean, I didn't it's not like I touched myself yet. You know? I just there was, like, like, you would look at them and you'd be like, Yes. There's they had, like, a power that you couldn't explain.
[02:23:29] Unknown:
Yep. That's
[02:23:31] Unknown:
that's true. And there were some fucking good looking girls nagging 10 in the pool. Were they Jewish?
[02:23:38] Unknown:
No. Shame. Yeah. I remember. I think I was in maybe sixth grade. Mhmm. We had basketball practice at school one day. This is the high school well, they called it the junior high gym, but it was like the old high school gym. Mhmm. So the end of the gym at the double doors opened into the I'm gonna say, like, junior's locker hallway. I don't know how your high school was, but, like, kinda like the freshmen's lockers were all in one big long hallway. Yeah. Yeah. One big hallway. And sophomores were kind of the fucking you took the turn, and there was their hallway. Yeah. Exactly. That's where it was. Okay. So this would have been, like, the juniors or maybe the seniors. Mhmm. And there's this chick bent over. This would have been, like damn.
How old are you in sixth grade? 12?
[02:24:30] Unknown:
Sixth grade is probably 10, I think. Yeah. Well, hold on thirteen and eighth, twelve and seventh, eleven and six. I'd say.
[02:24:42] Unknown:
What year do you, what are you? A senior when you graduate high school when you're 18? Yeah. Let's say you're 18. So what's six years before that? Yeah. Sixth grade. Okay. 12. I was younger. 12. Whatever. Somewhere around there. Yeah. It's Anyways, there's a basketball practice, and somebody opened the door, the double door at the end, and there's a girl bending over, like, picking up books from her locker. And this is so this would have been, like, if I were 12, two thousand You wait. Hold on. You went to you were in what grade? Six. And you went to a high school where the all grades? No. So I think Morrisville was different. We had, like, k through five was elementary, then six to eight Oh. Was middle school. Okay. Okay. Then nine to 12 was high school. Okay. So you saw an eighth grader? No. No. I saw a senior or a junior. How? You weren't in that school?
No. The schools were, like, connected. Oh. So then when I had, like, middle school basketball practice, it was in, like, the junior high gyms. Mhmm. So yeah. Anyways, doors open. This chick was bending over getting, like, books out of her locker. And, like, there's a low rise jeans they wore around that time. Oh, you lucky bastard. Thong hanging out. It my fucking bastard. Head exploded, dude. I've never felt more fucked up without being on drugs or alcohol. Mhmm. Like, it just blew my mind. I didn't know what I was looking at. Mhmm. It was, like, the first time I ever saw anything like that. Oh, man. And I think about it all the time, but it fucked me up in the moment. And for, like, days after that. Yeah. Like, that's what I mean. Like, what's a young man supposed to do to make sense of that? Yeah.
[02:26:17] Unknown:
Today, they have access to all of it. Yeah. Isn't that fucked up? Yeah. It is. I don't know how to navigate that with my kids. Listen. I couldn't imagine navigating that if I was 12 years old. Can you imagine seeing that shit if you were 12? No. Is it gonna fuck up? Yeah. They're all gonna be fucked up. They're all fucked up. But what's it gonna do for you? Has any idea what this is going to do to you? No. They don't. This is the first time. Yeah. Nobody has any idea. There's there's 12 year olds right now looking at hardcore pornography. Like Oh, it's fucked up. Violent,
[02:26:46] Unknown:
hardcore Yeah. No. Pornography. Like, I never looked at violent, hardcore pornography. I still don't. The only point I would've seen back there would be like a magazine that you stole Yeah. From sheets or found somewhere. Hid it in the bushes. Yeah. Exactly what we did. Yeah. That's it. We're like a Tupperware container we'd put them in Mhmm. So they didn't get wet. Yeah. Mhmm. Bury it or put it in the Put them back at the motor dips. Mhmm. Actually, down behind your house.
[02:27:10] Unknown:
I'm bored. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I remember Not the dyke. You know what we thought? We found out one we found one one time, and we ripped pages out of it. I was like Yeah. Everybody's got a couple of pages. Six pages. Yeah. Here's these pages. Here's these pages. Everybody took them out. That must be why I like
[02:27:26] Unknown:
huge bushes because the pages I got, they always had bush. I love it. Oh, yeah. What's your thoughts on that? You like On bushes? I'm I'm I'm either way. I don't care. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna turn down
[02:27:38] Unknown:
either. Yeah. But when I was when I was younger I prefer a lot of hair. When I was younger, they had bushes, and when I'm older, they don't, so I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I had both best of both worlds. I'm a what do they call it? It's, you know, they say the pre Internet generation Well, you're just that had the the Internet and then then had didn't have it and then had it. I'm there. You're just an opportunist, Johnny. I had I am. I have bushes and then no bushes. I'm good with it. Yeah. I I'm just saying, what was it? You can't pick one you prefer? Prefer? Oh, man. That's what I'm asking. I kinda like like almost like the buzz cut. You know what I mean? Like, where it's there, but, like, not long.
I dig that. I like it long. Yeah. See, I dig it when it's just, like, in between.
[02:28:22] Unknown:
See, I'm all about, like, the
[02:28:24] Unknown:
Like, I don't wanna look like a plucked chicken, and I don't want us to look like you have a goddamn, what's his name? Larry King? No. Not Larry King. Larry King. Mike Tyson's manager in a headline. Oh. Donkey. Donkey King. Yeah. Larry King.
[02:28:40] Unknown:
That's you. I just like I prefer the natural state of things. Yeah. Well, that's good. But, like, whatever the smell is you're gonna have? No. The smell's good. But you're gonna have the real smell if there's hair down there. Right? Right. It is good. Things are gonna be trapped. Musky. That's what I like.
[02:28:56] Unknown:
Good. I like it too. It's not even because I yourself, though. Like, you're you're I'm saying it's not even because I like it, though. It's The stories you've told in the past made me think that, like, you like Harry just because you're Harry, and you you don't wanna feel embarrassed of how Harry you are so that you're cool with the, with Harry chicks so that, you know, that whole bra thing where you don't wanna take it off Yeah. Because you couldn't, you know, so you just said you never like boobs. It's the same thing with hair. You're like, like, I like hair because I'm hairy. I am hairy. Maybe if you weren't hairy, you'd be like, mom, I I can get down. Even if a girl didn't like shave her legs or anything, I don't think I'd care at all. Yeah. That's that's that doesn't really bother me either. I mean, occasionally you wanna see them shaved, but,
[02:29:38] Unknown:
if they're hairy, it doesn't bother me. But why would it bother you? I guess.
[02:29:43] Unknown:
Oh, I don't know. It doesn't bother me. What do you think there's a shift? Just occasionally, I wanna see everything bare just to see a woman the way, you know, like, they What the Lord intended. No. The way the magazines intended. But, yeah, I don't I don't I don't mind. You know? If they get a little hairy, I don't fucking worry about it. Think there's a change in
[02:30:05] Unknown:
just getting something much deeper here. Like, your story when you were 10, then you felt all fucking horny at the pool. Yeah. That's like a that's an instinctual thing. Right? I'd say. I mean, I didn't know anything. You think that's going away? Probably is. Do you think, like, all this ultra, Yeah.
[02:30:27] Unknown:
What's the word I'm looking for here? Ultra, stimulation is gonna fuck up I bet you it is. People's I bet your kids don't even I bet you they don't even feel it once, like like I'm saying, like, it was, like, world change. You said it was, like, blew your mind. Same thing. I don't think kids get that anymore probably because they've already been exposed to so much of it. Huge fucking bummer. That is a bummer because that is, like, that's, like, a really good time in life. Like, it's it's it's scary, and it's, it's confusing, but it's also really fun.
[02:30:55] Unknown:
Yeah.
[02:30:57] Unknown:
That's, like, the funnest thing ever. Yeah. So, like, to to already be desensitized to that would be a bummer. Yeah. Fuck. Dude, because, like, some of my earliest sexual experiences were so much fun. Like, they were, like, thrilling fun.
[02:31:14] Unknown:
Like, shit. Like
[02:31:16] Unknown:
like, you you can't even come down from that kinda high. No. You know? And then then kids,
[02:31:23] Unknown:
once they're desensitized, they probably never feel that. Yeah. I can think of, like, the first blowjob I got still. Yeah. I've had a whole bunch of blow jobs over the years. You
[02:31:34] Unknown:
know? Yeah. I can still remember the first one. One is amazing. Yeah. You're like, oh my god. It's in your mouth? Yeah. Which I still say, actually. I'm still very excited every time it happens. Oh, there's so much fun. You don't have to do anything. No. This is good. That's, like, the first thing that's you know, it's so much better because you don't have to do anything. When you have to do the work, it takes away from the fucking,
[02:32:03] Unknown:
the good feeling. Maybe. I don't know. See, I like They're putting in the work? Oh, yeah. I don't think it's good unless the other person's having fun. I don't mean that in, like, a arrogant kind of way. I can't believe the other person wants to be involved unless they're having a good time. I understand. So then if the other person doesn't wanna be involved, I don't like it Yeah. As much. Well, that's good. That's a good way to feel. I'm I still get real excited about blowjobs. Oh, no. I'm not saying I don't get excited about blowjobs.
[02:32:32] Unknown:
How old am I? I'm saying if if Thirty years ago, I was having the the best time having a blowjob, and then I'm still having that exact best time today.
[02:32:45] Unknown:
You're gonna have to, who was at Homer City, the one control room operator, unit one and two? Larry? Do I have to say his last name? You don't kinda Did he give you a good blowjob? No. No. No. I wish. You What do you mean? Talking about? No. Which unit? Unit 1 And 2? Larry Oh, yeah. Let So Good guy. Yeah. Great guy. But I always said Larry like Tom Waits just woke up from the best nap of his life right after getting the best blowjob of his life. That's true. Is that a perfect That's a perfect description, Larry. Every time I look at him, he looks just like that. I'm like, God. You're right. You're right. And I've said that to a lot of people. They never got Dude, that's hilarious. Reference.
[02:33:31] Unknown:
But doesn't he look just like that? Hey, Larry. If you ever hear this, that is a perfect description of you. Just a guy living his best fucking life. Every time I saw him, he looked so fucking
[02:33:41] Unknown:
content. Yeah.
[02:33:44] Unknown:
I know a lot of people that he knows. I there's a dude who lives
[02:33:47] Unknown:
down the street from me. Who's like his Larry's like his fucking uncle or something. Passed out at the seat with a chew in, then he wake up, and he'd be like then he's spitting the chew cup. Fucking nice guy, man. Yo. Yeah. Larry's cool. Super smart too.
[02:34:02] Unknown:
He always knew what the fuck was going on. Where Larry's at? He probably retired. He recorded now? Yeah. He was pretty old.
[02:34:09] Unknown:
Yeah. There was the one remember all the fucking I man, I'm losing good. Losing track of everything. Remember how the feed water heaters were all lined up? Like, a l p Yep. HP? Like, one drained into the other is a big fucking problem if it didn't work. Yeah. The one on, like, the Third Or Fourth Floor, valve was all fucked up. Mhmm. And I was I went in the one that was like, hey. I'm a go fuck with this valve controller, Larry. And, like, let me know if it causes any problems. Then I went up and, like, started fucking around, and it, like, opened all of a sudden. No. Fuck it. He gets on. He's like, oh, he's like, whatever you just did, you shouldn't have done. You know? He's like, that's gonna cause us big problems, buddy. Dude.
He got all under control there. Dude, that plant was so cool. Do you hey. Did you see the videos they Yeah. I was gonna go watch this morning, but it I was gonna I was gonna go too. I slept in till ten. I was fucking tired. Dude, I slept in till nine today. I wanted crazy. I really wanted to watch it. You know where I wanted to watch it from? Do you ever you know when you drive in 217, like, from Derry, you can see the plant way up on the hill? Mhmm. I wanted to watch it from there. Just see stacks fall from way, way far away. They tore down stacks like that. It'll never be the same. Yeah. It's fucked up, man.
[02:35:27] Unknown:
All because coal ain't cheap. Well, it should be cheap. It will be cheap. Artificially made it inexpensive. It will be cheap again.
[02:35:35] Unknown:
They'll be sorry.
[02:35:37] Unknown:
Dude, that plant like, seeing those videos of them stacks fall, like, normally, I don't get fucking worried about any of that shit. I don't want but, man, can you imagine just driving down 119 for Not seeing enough. Not seeing it. That's that's that's rough. It's hard. That good penis folk art gone. Yeah.
[02:35:55] Unknown:
Yeah, man.
[02:35:56] Unknown:
Converse City Rockets?
[02:35:59] Unknown:
For it's hard to explain how great of a place that was to work. It was. It was like dirty Disneyland. And there's a bunch of people who will be like, you're a fucking dudeie. That place sucked. You're an asshole, dude. If you think Homer City sucks to work at, you're a piece of shit. I know. Homer City was the best. If you worked there, you hit the lottery. Yeah. Damn. So, yeah, they knocked the fucking towers down today. Yeah. Then I saw an aerial picture. Huge portions of it are fucking gone, dude. Really? Like, coal handling's gone. Half half one of the nids is ripped down completely.
[02:36:31] Unknown:
That's fucking brand new. They just built that. Yeah. That was $1,000,000,000
[02:36:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Down the drain. The fuck now. Yep. And the first of its kind in the world. Yeah. And still the biggest in the world
[02:36:47] Unknown:
of this dry what what a new Is that was the biggest?
[02:36:50] Unknown:
Novel integrated desulfurization
[02:36:52] Unknown:
system. Right? That was the biggest of its kind? Yeah. Do you remember remember them fucking solenoids on top of that? Oh, god. Then Talk about the whole time. Yeah. Well, that was Joe who figured out
[02:37:03] Unknown:
I mean, we all did it. We would just go from Philip Philip a crow? 10 feet of tubing with a can of crow. Right? It would work. Oh, the first time he did it, it blew my mind because we kept going up and changing them. And I remember he was finally like, fuck this bullshit. And he took a can of grill and Dude, damn things worked. They they actuated, what, like, a million times? Oh, yeah. I remember when we trended it and figured it out. Yeah. It was, like, fucking it was what is it, like, 13,000 times a day or something? It was, like, some fucking crazy number. Yeah.
Yeah. But the first time, Joe just emptied a can of crow into the tubing. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck to think of this. And it just worked. I'm like, goddamn it. There's shit. Then just did that forever after that. Coral Christopher. Coral Christopher.
So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
[00:00:21] Unknown:
What about today? Is today the worst day of your life? Yeah. Wow. That's bad stuff. I'm sorry.
[00:00:31] Unknown:
Go on. Is there any way that you could We're not gonna be Sort of.
[00:00:36] Unknown:
Just so we can load us so that I don't know that I'm happy. Got choice between the political debt. That I'm asking. That I'm asking. Make our choice between economy and liberty, all confusion and sovereignty. Taking fishing all day. Wow. I place economy among the first and most important of republican purges, and public debt is the greatest of the dangers to disappear. I think it is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. We must have a central bank to secure this country's finances. If the Americans ever allow five
[00:01:37] Unknown:
overconfidentiality. Also continuing to reduce our security's power. Looking ahead, we'll take a data division advantage in determining the extent to which additional policy from a major program.
[00:02:33] Unknown:
I'm Trevor Moore. Did you know that it's illegal to say I want to kill the president of The United States Of America? It's illegal. It's a federal offense. It's one of the only sentences that you're not allowed to say. And it was okay for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it's illegal to say, I want to kill the president of The United States Of America. I'm not actually saying it. I'm just letting you know that it's illegal to say that. It's kind of like a public service. I'm letting you know so that you don't accidentally go out and say something like that. But what's interesting is that it's it's very illegal to say, I really, really think someone out there should kill the president of The United States Of America.
That's illegal. Extremely illegal. Very, very illegal. But not illegal to say with a mortar launcher because that's its own sentence. It's an incomplete sentence, but it may have nothing to do with the sentence before that. So that's perfectly fine. Yeah. Well, yeah. I also found out that it's incredibly extremely illegal to go on television and say something like the best place to fire a motor launcher at the White House would be for the roof of the Rock And Rollers Unit building because of minimal security and you'd have a clear line of sight to the president's bed. Insanely illegal.
Ridiculously, recklessly,
[00:03:56] Unknown:
insanely illegal. It can't be argued. More illegal. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel me. It's illegal.
[00:04:03] Unknown:
Ridiculously, horribly, felony, escalate. Absolutely. You will not stop. And they will lock you up. Extremely against the law. You are dead. One thing that is technically legal to say is that we have a group that meets Fridays at midnight under the Brooklyn Bridge and the password is six Semper Tyrants. Per Moore, a founder of the Whitest Kids You Know sketch comedy group, has died following an accident on Friday night according to Deadline.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
He was 41 years old. The comedian's manager issued a statement to the outlet confirming his death on behalf of Moore's family. Reading in part, quote, we are devastated by the loss of my husband, best friend, and the father of our son. He was known as a writer and comedian to millions, and yet to us, he was simply the center of our whole world. We don't know how we'll go on without him, but we're thankful for the memories we do have that will stay with us forever. The statement went on calling his death a, quote, tragic and sudden loss. Quote, we ask that you please respect our privacy during this time of grieving. War is survived by his wife, Amy Carlson.
[00:05:12] Unknown:
Good morning. Good morning, Vietnam.
[00:05:20] Unknown:
Hi. Welcome to another episode of Good Morning, Vietnam. This week, I'm joined by my good buddy Phil, where we discuss the interstate commerce clause, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Wickard versus Filburn, and government overreach. Station gamblers we go on to bullshit about a little bit of crap after that. Light as these sorry. No local news. For the coming night. Music and artwork for the episode is provided by Nick and the Gormons. If you like what we're doing or if you don't like what we're doing or you have something to say, please text us at (724) 562-3523 or send us a message at [email protected].
And consider donating at patreon dot com patreon dot com backslash Vietnam pod. That's patreon.combackslashveitnompod. Let's get started. Podcasting, it's a it's just kind of a, like, a weird medium right now. Right? Like, nobody trusts the news, but yet somebody would trust two idiots sitting in a garage. Like, that's that's kind of a weird, Certainly trust us. Sorry. Well, I would think that if you tuned in for two hours and listened to two guys talk, like, you'd at least know whether or not we were full of shit. Yeah. But here's the thing.
I'm not claiming to know anything, and we are full of shit. But at least I think later, we would at least admit we were full of shit if we were wrong. Right? Like, if if we were talking about some something and somebody called in and said, hey. I don't think what you're saying is right. Then if we looked into it, I I think we we definitely we're humble enough to say, you know what, a listener? I mean, not that there's any listeners, but you know what, listener? You are right, and I think we would admit it. I don't I don't think we're I don't think we we're that full of ourselves that we would just think we're right about everything. I mean, opinionated, yes. But those opinions are mostly just to be funny. Right? Well, I agree. We're not saying shit.
Seriously, we're saying shit to be funny and controversial.
[00:07:44] Unknown:
That and, I mean, our whole theory, you know, like, our fundamental belief that we both share is subjective, right, in some way. Like, let's say we don't like big government. Well, no one can point to a communist society that hasn't ended in complete catastrophe. Right?
[00:08:09] Unknown:
Yeah. True. There's no popular governmental sponsored communist or social society socialist society that has
[00:08:18] Unknown:
ended in anything other than disaster. Right. And then to not get us confused, we don't like the American system as it has worked out. No. There's plenty of good arguments that it was never gonna work out good anyways. Right? Oh. I mean, it's it's it's been perverted. This is my problem. Like, I've always believed in the constitution and the American experiment, but it just went south almost immediately.
[00:08:50] Unknown:
Right? I would think that right out of the gate, we started losing what it meant to be individual and free, which the constitution was definitely designed to keep regular people from having to know what what way I see it is it's almost like a document that was designed to keep common people from having to know the law extensively other than just what was laid out. Like, it was a common person document. It's not it's not meant for scholars. It's meant for a common person. Yeah. Well, the one
[00:09:35] Unknown:
I think the distinction lost the language to interpret it. Right. But the distinction that everyone forgets or maybe never talks about is the constitution wasn't meant to secure or define your freedoms. It was a grant it was an agreed to grant of authority to to a government. That's all it was supposed to be. And all these individual liberties that we bitch about losing, like, that was supposed to be assumed. But, unfortunately, social contract, whatever you wanna call the constitution, it's been litigated since day one in favor of the government. I mean, that's that's just a way that it It has. Yeah. I mean but that's what everyone should mention that. Like like, when you start talking about the constitution, it was a grant of very specific authorities
[00:10:35] Unknown:
to the government. It it was never meant to be you have these rights. Right. It was you are a person of this earth or this country, and you're allowing you're allowing a, a group of people who are your delegated, I'm sorry, your delegates.
[00:11:01] Unknown:
Well, they must be your your representatives.
[00:11:04] Unknown:
Right? Your interests. Right. That's it. There's no there's nothing other like, those are not rights granted to you by the government at all. These are rights that you have as a human who has born in in the universe, and you possess those rights whether there's anybody lording over you or not. You possess them. To to me, that's the way I view the constitution is, like, even without borders, a country, a government, you were born with these rights, and these men
[00:11:37] Unknown:
vocalize that. Right. So the whole Western political philosophy is kind of centered on the the idea that you have well, as they term it, unalienable rights, which I believe is is true.
[00:11:53] Unknown:
I mean, they would say, like, god given this type of shit, which I'm not religious. But You don't have to bring god into it. No. You If you think of it more of in a hippie or Wiccan sort of way is you were born on this planet, and you were automatically, as a human, granted all these rights.
[00:12:10] Unknown:
Right. No one can take them from And then I mean, you could go so many different directions with this conversation, but I I I don't get how there could be any person who is of the opinion that they will turn to a government or defer to the government anything. I mean, why do you need the government to make
[00:12:39] Unknown:
Imagine waking up and being scared of everything that's out there. Can you imagine that? I know it's hard for somebody like you or me to imagine. But imagine when you wake up in the morning, you're absolutely terrified of the outside world, and you just want somebody to tell you what what to do.
[00:13:01] Unknown:
Right. And then my question in return to that would be, what what is there really to be afraid of? I mean, of all the worst things you could point to, the government is always behind it. Right? I mean, even like, let's talk about racism, for instance. What about when The United States threw Japanese Americans in internment camps? I mean, have you ever heard any any liberal talk about this ever? No. No. And why? I mean, it's one of the worst things that's ever happened in this country. Doesn't support their narrative of
[00:13:39] Unknown:
of Roosevelt being one of the greatest presidents that there ever was. Exactly. So they never mentioned it.
[00:13:48] Unknown:
And that's because and these people are too fucking stupid to realize they've been had, but he was a big government man, and that hurts everyone. It just it always does. I mean, I don't know what what government program can you point to that's that's actually helped helped anyone? I mean, there's been some good things. Like, I don't know. Like, the TVA, for instance. Like, that's not bad. Right? Like, they brought power to the South, advanced everyone.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
Well So that's not bad. Wasn't that that's what the government is for. You know, things like the TDA Right. Infrastructure. CCC, at the time when they put people to work all around the country during a time when nobody had any jobs. Like, you took young men in and you said, hey. Come come work for us. We'll give you a paycheck, and you build all these trails, parks, boy scout camps, everything. Like, that is what the government is for. The government is not for, dictating the way you're gonna live your day daily life.
[00:15:03] Unknown:
Right. So, I mean and this is what Trump should be for. Like, his whole, let's bring manufacturing back. Like, no one actually believes that's gonna happen. Right? Like No. Like, the tariffs aren't gonna spur manufacturing in this country. But, I mean, it's just a shame that we just don't bring it back. I mean, we could just make everything here. Everyone have a good job again. It's like that John Mellencamp song. What's that song? Like, vacation in the Gulf Of Mexico. Yeah. That's a big house outside. Yeah. That kinda pokes fun at the whole idea. Yeah. But it is true. I mean, if everyone's doing well enough that they can work a good job, raise a family, then go on vacation for a week, you're like, that's not a bad situation.
[00:15:50] Unknown:
No. Yeah. If you keep people prosperous, you have no other problems.
[00:15:56] Unknown:
Yeah. And then and it just goes to prove that There's no reason for us to have ever
[00:16:01] Unknown:
joined. Now I know some people don't like it when you say that, but there's no reason for us to have ever joined into this globalism thing because glow globalism only meant that United States got poorer. And at the time, nobody nobody nobody said anything about that. Or or whoever did, you know, was demonized and saying, well, you don't want prosper for the rest of the world. You know, pro you don't want prosperity for the rest of the world. You know? Or they they sold us this lie about a service economy. Well, it's like, well, okay. You don't need to make anything. You just need to have a service economy. But that's not true. Like, we if we kept it all here, we would have remained prosperous long after the rest of the world, sort of fell into their globalism and and, free trade. You know, we were sold down the river by George Bush and Bill Clinton on this lie that everything would get cheaper.
But just like anything, as if it gets cheaper, you corner the market and then it goes up. Now we're slaves to products made overseas when we could've just we could've continued making it here.
[00:17:21] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's
[00:17:22] Unknown:
it it gets so complicated. It does. So yeah. I mean I understand. We and we are not economists.
[00:17:27] Unknown:
No. And anyone who's listened to maybe any of these episodes, I mean, we do first and foremost not trust the government, but I I think you would you would agree with me that we equally distrust big business. Right? I mean, this whole global economy's done nothing but, like, allow the best capitalists to Get richer. Yeah. To succeed at the expense of everyone else. Yeah. We've suffered be and they've got richer, so they that's why it was pushed. Yeah. But the problem is they they the capitalists do this via the government. I mean, they they enable them legally and functionally and institutionally to do what they do. You can't get you can't become a big
[00:18:19] Unknown:
really big business without the help of the government. You can't.
[00:18:23] Unknown:
Right. That's like I say, I don't like cops. Well, it's not that I don't like cops, and there's plenty of good people who are cops. There's plenty of cops who do good things every day. Right? But they're they're out just enforcing laws that don't need to be laws in the first place. I mean, that's my problem with the cops. So, like, when I bitch about a cop, it's not because I don't like the person because that person's a cop. It's because I mean, what kind of person wants to side with the government, like, at that extent? Right? Like, why would you do the government's bidding?
[00:19:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Why would why would you wanna be the the the long arm of of the government? Yeah. And that's how I look at cops. I mean, they're Yeah. I mean, the they always say that it's a job, though. You know, it's our job. We have to keep peace, but they're not they're not keeping peace. If if they were doing the job they were supposed to do, they would be stopping corruption and major crimes. You know, they would be protecting people's property from another person or protecting harm against another person or stopping corruption, but they don't do that. They come down on the regular man who has no recourse because the regular man has to go to work every day. Yeah. Right. So they enact laws that probably aren't even they're probably not even real, but people just don't wanna be inconvenienced.
So they just pay their fine or whatever, and they just go back to work because they can't be hassled. But I don't think a lot of that stuff's even a lot of what they hold people in front of the magistrate for is even, it's not even valid. I mean, they say they just do it because they know it's a revenue stream. Yeah. I mean People don't have a time to fight it. Like, I'm sure you've been pulled over for rolling through a stop sign or something. Right? Never. I don't roll through stop signs. Oh, well Well, of course. I mean
[00:20:28] Unknown:
I mean, like like, I've been No. I've been fine for rolling through a stop. It's fucking dumb. Yeah. It's dumb, especially if there's no one around.
[00:20:36] Unknown:
Another thing is is why can't you drive through a stoplight when there's like, it's three in the morning and there's no one around? Like, there's no point in just sitting at that stoplight, but if you pull through and a cough sees you, you're gonna get it. And that doesn't that's that's that's insanity
[00:20:51] Unknown:
because It helps no one. It gives money to the government. It is a victimless, I'm sorry, a crime. I mean, it's just you shouldn't even call it victimless. There's no Exactly.
[00:21:01] Unknown:
They're they're pulling you over just to raise revenue.
[00:21:04] Unknown:
Yeah. So it's fucking dumb. So that gets to the point of this entire podcast maybe is, I mean, people need to think about the way we live and why we live this way and who dictates your life. I mean and, again, we've said it before. There's almost no decision you make that the government is not somehow involved in either directly or indirectly, and that that should scare everyone.
[00:21:34] Unknown:
You can't do anything. You are committing eight crimes a day just existing as far as the government is concerned. Sure. Yeah. And and everybody is gonna try to get away with it because it's it's none of it makes sense. You know? There I mean, I could talk about what I'm doing here, but I'd hate
[00:21:58] Unknown:
to give them a Yeah. We'll talk about that. On it.
[00:22:03] Unknown:
But every everybody knows that they're committing crimes every day. Like, if you're if you're not, you're just going through your life like, oh, okay. I'm following the rules. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. I I don't even know how you're existing. I mean, there's so many laws on the books that you you have to be committing crimes. It's, what do they call it? Anarcho tyranny at this point where the only people who pay for crimes are the people that actually are following the rules. Everybody else who doesn't follow the rules gets away with that. I mean, either you're super rich and you're not getting, you're not under the thumb or you're extremely poor and you're not under the thumb. The only people who are being held down by their government are the people in the middle who are willing to live by the rules. That's certainly true. I mean, that's so, like, when they say raise taxes on the rich. Right? Like, every millionaire
[00:23:02] Unknown:
or billionaire is gonna have enough accountants, legal teams, whatever, that they're not gonna pay shit. Right? Yeah. So they'll pay capital gains, which I don't know what I think about that. I mean, if you have a business that's making money, why should you have to pay? I don't know what I think about that.
[00:23:21] Unknown:
I I
[00:23:23] Unknown:
Another topic. Yeah. I have mixed feelings. But, yeah, like, I think maybe Dave Smith just pointed this out. Like, if you're gonna raise taxes on the top whatever percent of income, it's gonna affect upper middle class people. Right? Like the doctor who makes, you know, 700,000 a year is gonna pay half that fucking money in taxes. Well, what's the what's the benefit of that? Number one, the amount of money you're taking in from those people is relatively negligible, right, compared to what we spend to fund wars or whatever else we do. And then negligible. Yes. So then why would that guy anyone making that amount of money not anyone, but I'd say a decent percentage of the people making that money do something that contributes positively to society. Right? Like, let's just say a surgeon or something. Well, then what does the taxes do? Like, why would that guy give a fuck to continue doing well if he's not gonna get anything for it or gonna get half his shit taken for it? Yeah. He should give up. Yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you? Like, if you're gonna go and stress out about whether someone lives or dies if you do your job well for half the fucking money you're supposed to make, why are you penalizing that man or woman?
[00:24:38] Unknown:
It just makes no sense. It doesn't. Is that that person's better off going and pushing a broom somewhere and saying take whatever you want? Yeah. You know, why should I be top of my field if you're just gonna take half of everything I have? And and And there's all these people on TV that are always pushing, they're like, well, America's great because, you know, it's obviously, it's the greatest country on Earth. But when you're when you're doing something like that to somebody who's at the in the top of their field, like a doctor, you're you're taken away from them. It's like, are we really living under capitalism?
I mean, it's you know, we're clearly being, we're sold on this idea of freedom, but you clearly don't have any freedom if you're if you're penalized for being the best. Right. That's exactly right. So you can get in arguments about socialism and communism and capitalism, but whenever they're done wrong, they're all the same because the money rises to the top, the top benefits, and everyone under it suffers. Now with capitalism, it takes longer to suffer. I'm not completely against things like communism and socialism. I'm just against what tends to happen under those systems, which is the money rises to the top, and the people live in lush palaces, and all the people suffer underneath them. And, you know, we've been sold this bill of goods so that capitalism is different, but it's not. It just happens slower.
[00:26:28] Unknown:
Right. It's certainly not different. And, I mean, if anyone can make a hard argument for no government at all, I mean, I don't even think that. I don't
[00:26:40] Unknown:
Well, it would be tough to have no government at all, but let's let's think the way a good way to think about it is we need a government who wants they're not thinking short term. We need a government that thinks
[00:26:56] Unknown:
how to preserve things long term. Yeah. See. So this gets directly where maybe we were going tonight, which was, like, the Federalist Papers. Yeah. Like, the whole Federalist argument, and I can't speak to it like I could at one time, but if you I used to be a huge Alexander Hamilton guy. Still am. If you read and know the history of that time period I mean, it's almost impossible to make a good argument against everything Hamilton thought. Like, we didn't win the revolution because we were more powerful than Great Britain. Like, Great Britain really didn't even dedicate a large portion of their empire to trying to crush the colonies. I mean, it was like a small portion of what they could have done.
And, eventually, they're just like, fuck it. This isn't worth it economically to continue dealing with this problem. So as soon as that war ended, I mean, we were not in a good spot. You had other major empires, like, what, France, Spain, and Great Britain still who could have come in and just taken the colonies if they wanted to. So Hamilton's whole argument is, look. We need to be a united group of states or colonies, whatever you wanted to call them, and we need to be strong, and we need to create wealth, and we need to advance in solidarity if we're going to be a player in the world capable of not being taken over by a foreign power. I mean, that was the whole the whole thing. So everything he he was the architect of essentially The United States in general. I mean, he he truly was. He he kind of built the federal government.
He was essentially the first president. I mean, everything big that Washington did came from Hamilton. The whole reason the country grew like it did and became powerful is because of Alexander Hamilton. But at the same time, everything I bitch about that I think is bad and all this power that the government's gotten is also because of Hamilton. Within. Yeah. So very, you know, mixed feelings about it. So that's why I always question, like, is it even possible for humans to get this right at all? It doesn't seem like it is. I mean, like, The United States and the constitution wrap it up then. I mean, really? Like, is there Right. Like We've never found a good answer. Nobody knows. We we we have an experiment right now that's going on, and it doesn't seem to be going well. No. Certainly not.
Damn. So what are we doing now? Obituaries, we get into this No. Keep talking about where you're talking. We'll do that. I'm trying to find article one We'll just cut it off. Section eight, clause three. We're gonna try to talk, Federalist Papers and the Commerce Clause today. And we picked a supreme court case that we think everyone, any sane person would agree with us on, but the supreme court, unfortunately, unanimously disagreed with us. Wickard v Filburn. So we'll get into that at some point. I guess now's a good a time as any. We're gonna try to make a a reasonable podcast, talk about reasonable shit. Right?
Important things instead of just go on and on about whatever. Talking shit and getting drunk is fun, but eventually, you gotta grow up. I don't think anyone wants to listen to it. No. I'm not convinced this constitution I'm looking at is the right goddamn one.
[00:30:45] Unknown:
Which constitution is that? Did you find one from, Well, Sarah bought this book. Is that like a Howard Zinn constitution? Well, don't. The rewritten history of The United States? Do not deride Howard Zinn. Fuck that. That guy sucks.
[00:31:00] Unknown:
Well, it's like Noam Chomsky. Always hated Noam Chomsky. And now I read some Noam shit, and I'm like, hey. He's fucking right on the money. Dude, I love Noam Chomsky. Well, Howard Zinn wasn't well, maybe I'm I'm speaking a little out of turn here. I thought they were kinda
[00:31:14] Unknown:
similar. Or is Howard Zinn just a huge cut? Dude, Howard Zinn is one of those revisionists. He just wants to bag on everything that America ever did. And I was a dumb bastard when I was young. And I had a girlfriend who was like, oh, you should read this, alternate history United States. Who is his girlfriend? I had no idea. Her name's Kim. And she's like, this is the way it is. And, you know, I was young. So when you're young, you're a little bit liberal. Yeah. I didn't know any better. So I'm like, oh, let me read this, history of The United States. So she gives me this book, and I'm reading it. And I start believing all this shit about, you know, the way the way it basically undermines all all of our founding fathers. Right? Which Well, then I know he trashes
[00:32:03] Unknown:
like, look. Anyone today could look back and say Christopher Columbus was an asshole. Right? But that would be completely What's that? Day go. Day go. Yes. Be completely out of context. So, I mean, not that you should try to justify slavery and invasion of foreign lands and killing everybody, but that's just the fucking way it was. Listen. Right?
[00:32:28] Unknown:
Listen. From let's say let's say we look at history the way we've been taught it. 3,000 BC was, basically, the beginning of history for all of what we're taught. Right? So It's when the Jews started writing shit down? Yeah. Pretty much? Right around the time when the Jews started writing stuff down so that they can control the narrative.
[00:32:54] Unknown:
Exactly what's happened. So
[00:32:57] Unknown:
that's the beginning of history as far as people are concerned. Everything else was wiped out. So you go from 3,000 BC, and I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying you go from 3,000 BC to 1450, '14 '90 '2. K? There's a man. The history of the human race has basically just been subjugation of other peoples up until that point. It's what you did. You conquered lands, which, you know, is crazy because you had all that room at the time. Like, the world was barely populated. Yeah. It's true. But yet they continue to go conquer lands. That's that's what you did. Every people that have lived in an area has conquered it from someone else.
There's there's no reason to look back and say, well, this person took from that person. So what? In fifth in 1492, Columbus sailed across the ocean and just did what people are gonna do. Okay? He he he was given a commission from Spain. He sailed across the ocean. He was looking for what? He didn't come here for free. He came here for riches. So what they did is they came here and they took what they could from the people that they would have taken whether they sailed to Africa or Indonesia or anywhere. They came here and they destroyed the Indians. It's just what people do.
Is it right? No. But do we know any better?
[00:34:27] Unknown:
No. And is it wrong? I I don't know. I mean Like, it's really easy to sit here What were they doing with it? Right. But it's it's so easy to sit here in modern times where things are pretty good and bitch and whine about how mean people were. But
[00:34:46] Unknown:
Yeah. Imagine if we didn't have the prosperity we've had since 1960, then people will be saying, oh, they discovered a new land? I mean, let's say it's 1870. Oh, hey. We just discovered an entire new continent of land, and it's peopled by, I don't know, indigenous people, but there's riches beyond belief there. What would people have done in 1870? They would have sailed there and took it from them. Same shit. Same shit. Like, we're not that far removed. It's what people do. Just because we can look back from comfort and say that we shouldn't have done it Right. Doesn't mean that it was wrong.
[00:35:33] Unknown:
And then yeah. I mean, I guess you can make this point in all directions. Like the war in Ukraine, how how the fuck does anybody support continuing it? Makes no sense. People are dying. These are the same type of people who will tell you that Christopher Columbus was an asshole. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Unknown:
So The number one today, as enlightened people, all of us should want to end war. It's a waste of resources no matter who's involved.
[00:36:06] Unknown:
It's waste of everything.
[00:36:08] Unknown:
War is like war is like making some sort of product and going out and sinking into the ocean over and over again. That's all it is.
[00:36:20] Unknown:
That yeah. I mean, that's pretty good pretty good way to put it. And the fact that anyone supports it, it just makes no sense. It doesn't. There's no way like hippie dippy bullshit. Like, it just We are not hippies. There's no good justification for any of these wars at all,
[00:36:41] Unknown:
especially now. None. If you can do it with a deal, with some sort of exchange,
[00:36:47] Unknown:
then you should do it that way. Actually, about the only good justification would have been, like, Vladimir Putin's. Like, hey. You keep fucking with me. I am scared. I told you I'm scared. Quit coming closer to my country with your fucking military. And then finally, he lashes out. That seems pretty reasonable. Well, I'm sorry, Phil. You're a Putin apologist. Yes. I'm definitely a Putin apologist. Right? But, I mean, like, where were all these people bitching and whining about going to war with fucking Iraq? You can't even justify that.
At least, like, if you asked an alien, hey. These people kept fucking with this guy, and he kept telling, if you keep doing this, we're gonna go to war eventually. And then it happened. They'd be like, oh, yeah. That makes, like like, a child would understand that. But but they don't know the history. That the problem is that these people it's like they
[00:37:44] Unknown:
their history is ten minutes ago. They don't understand that there's an entire there's there's two thousand years of history of why Russian Russia doesn't want Europe on their doorstep. There's two thousand years. They've been invaded countless times through the meadow. It's basically a meadow that you could waltz across right into Russia. They they do not want it. And if you understood geography and history, you would know that Russia doesn't want anybody that close, which is why they need to control that portion of the world. Any rational person should know that.
Yeah. That's and any rational person like a homeless person sleeping on your doorstep with a gun. Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't tolerate that. You would not tolerate it.
[00:38:44] Unknown:
And every it's just
[00:38:47] Unknown:
Anybody can make whatever argument they want, but they're not educated enough to know the history of why they invaded Ukraine. So they might as well shut up, go back to taking pictures of their food, and realize that they have no idea what they're talking about, and they should never spout their bullshit.
[00:39:09] Unknown:
I agree. And if you point the obvious out that, like, let's just say, like, the left apparently hates Vladimir Putin. His style of government and this overreach of government and everyone else's lives is exactly what they support. I mean, how can they not see the contradiction? It makes no sense to me. They like to ignore that.
[00:39:35] Unknown:
Yeah. And then In in in all you know, you're right. Like, that's their guy, really.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
Yeah. It it should be their fucking guy. Yeah. Totalitarianism.
[00:39:44] Unknown:
They love that.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what they're arguing for. Yeah.
[00:39:49] Unknown:
I don't I no. This is the kind of subject that pisses me off because you watch stupidity around every turn, and there's nothing you can say because all they do is call you a Russian apologist or a Putin apologist. The thing is is Russia wanted Russia, like, wanted a strong man. This is not what do they call it? It's called, like, the single man theory where they say, well, this man is doing this to his population. They did it to, Libya with Oh. Gaddafi? Yeah. Gaddafi. With Gaddafi. Yep. Yeah. So Saddam Hussein. That was part of we're gonna bring democracy to the Saddam Hussein. It it's a single man theory. It's like he's controlling it all, and the people don't want it. But the thing is the Russians asked for Vladimir Putin after getting totally screwed after the cold war ended.
That's it. It boils down to that. They wanted it. They got it, and he's giving them what they asked for. Why should we step in? It's Well and what if they the Russians work out their own history. They done to us? Nothing. They've done nothing. Like, anyone
[00:41:09] Unknown:
explain to me what threat Russia has been?
[00:41:13] Unknown:
There's no threat. There's no threat. It's the same as a domino theory in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Like, there was never a threat. Let those people rule their countries the way they want. They're not gonna spread to our hemisphere.
[00:41:31] Unknown:
Right. I mean, the only country that's really out fucking with everyone else is The United States. Zip.
[00:41:38] Unknown:
Yeah. The people you should be afraid of is your government because one day they're gonna go from what they're talking about now to the complete opposite, and everybody's gonna go, okay. You know? So we've been fighting communism for eighty years. And then one day, they're gonna go, communism's the answer. They're doing it now. They're just not saying it. Right. That or any
[00:42:06] Unknown:
populist movement is bad. Right? Like, the right Everybody hates populism.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
I don't know why.
[00:42:16] Unknown:
Well, like, the right hated what what was it? Occupy Wall Street. Like, looking back, Occupy Wall Street was a bunch of fucking cunts, but, also, I agree with the sentiment. Like, you know, maybe we should do something about these very powerful business interests that control the government. Right?
[00:42:37] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Where you can call up George w Bush and say, hey. You're gonna bail us out. Right. And he had, okay. And then Barack Obama. Okay. Same thing. That's what people should be worried about, not this bullshit. Yeah. And you know what? That's when it all changed because they used to oh, I I don't know how to express this. They used to feed you one line forever. Everybody was getting along. Racism was basically on a decline. Every television show was black and white mixed, and most of white America watched black TV. Everybody got along. Nobody had any problem with any other person. They told jokes about the different races. You're a cracker or you're a black dude and you can dance, and you're a white dude and you can't. Everybody was getting along.
And then they crashed the economy and bailed out those banks in 02/2008. And then people on both sides started saying, it's it's the it's the, the rich who are involved with the government. The banks are involved with the government. So both sides came together, and that scared the shit out of these people. The left and the right were both out there saying, put an end to this. There was a tea party. There was the Occupy Wall Street. What do they used to call them? Three percenters? 1%? I don't remember. Yeah. Like, the one percenters. And that's when whoever's in charge, I'll say they or them, you know, we can discuss the definition of their them later. But they got scared, and they said, it's no longer about race.
These people are now looking up at us. So what did they do? They did everything they could from 02/2008 to now to divide people. We were basically getting along. Yeah. And and divide them along all these Yeah. Same bullshit lines they always have. All these little lines that they've always been divided amongst. You're like like you said. But and it was all just to distract from the fact that they were robbing every one of us. And that's where we're at today, and social media made it easier because you get news constantly.
[00:45:15] Unknown:
And now they're doing the same thing through inflation, but the government doesn't give a fuck about inflation. I think Trump actually does, but it's gonna get worse with the tariffs. I mean, that's not gonna help anybody. I just I I can't get behind tariffs. I I don't understand them.
[00:45:32] Unknown:
I don't understand either. I'm not an economist. I can't say one way or the other it's right. I'm also not believe I don't believe all this anti Trump sentiment that's come out recently. Like, that is definitely a sign up. There's a man who is Oh, yeah. I don't I don't think there's a man who's elected, by an overwhelming majority of people in The United States, both, popular vote and, electoral college. The man was given a mandate no matter what anybody says or how you try to divide it. Define mandate. He was given a mandate to change the way everything was done. Now I'm not falling for it. Well, unfortunately, he hasn't fucking done that yet. As long as he's gonna He he no. He doesn't. But I also don't believe the other side's, opposition to it. It's not true.
Like, he's not falling in the polls. People still believe in him. If if they don't, it's only because they're listening to the newspapers and social media stories and news. Well, that's the whole goal of that. Right. That's the goal is you put it out there constantly, and then people start questioning it. I don't believe that he's not doing the right thing because of that. But from what I see is he's making some big
[00:46:57] Unknown:
mistakes. Yeah. So, like, the first one is, are we gonna start a war with Yemen? Like, what is the fucking point of that? You were he was elected, and he ran on the whole America First thing, which as dumb and redneck as it sounds is a very good fucking idea. And what the hell does The Middle East have to do with America First? Nothing. I think I think
[00:47:19] Unknown:
as elected as America First President, he should be he should be crucified for, this war in Yemen. There is no reason for this.
[00:47:34] Unknown:
No. I mean, the only reason Like, he that instantly disqualifies him for almost everything. Yeah. The only reason is to continue to support, you know, Boeing and fucking Yeah. Lockheed Martin and all this other shit. Yeah. Which is what he's doing and why the base isn't rarely against them is beyond me.
[00:47:55] Unknown:
So Well, he he it needs like, there needs to be people in the street from the right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. They they need to be rioting above for this. Like, what are you doing? We did not elect you for this.
[00:48:07] Unknown:
Yeah. And and I don't know. There's a big part of me that thought he was gonna follow through on some of this shit and doesn't seem like it. I mean, the tariffs, I don't know. You can make the argument that the tariffs would drive manufacturing back and
[00:48:25] Unknown:
but that would take twenty five years of concerted effort. Everything Actually Everything will take twenty five years. Yeah. So the thing is, like, he can't So yeah. Even if he's right, he'll never reap the benefits of it. Correct. Tariffs
[00:48:39] Unknown:
if that were the first step in this process, you'll never get to the second step anyways. So why are we gonna cause unnecessary pain now? But, yeah, getting where do you wanna go from here?
[00:48:53] Unknown:
Read the obituaries? No. Get, get in this commerce clause? Yeah. Get in the commerce clause. We're we're done bitching about shit we can't control. We have to cut we have to cut a bunch of this out anyways. So Do you know, do you don't know anybody who can make a difference. Let's say you woke up in the morning, you're you're drinking your orange juice and listening to the radio. If you heard something on there that you didn't, that that you didn't agree with, could you do anything to change it? No. No. Could you go downtown and get a group of people together and change it? Nope. Nope. What's the only way you can make a change in that situation?
Is if you're rich enough to get on the phone and call a senator or a bunch of senators up and say, make a difference. So why bitch about any of this? Well, so Nobody needs to be fighting amongst each other. We're all neighbors. We're all regular people. Unless you can unless you're rich enough to make a difference with a phone call, then don't even worry about it because you might as well just go back to sleep.
[00:49:58] Unknown:
That's a good point. So, like, the whole, say, Trump getting elected again, I do believe that was the populist movement. But, I mean, if that's the result, you just the populist movement is powerful enough to get Trump in office, but nothing fucking changes. What's the point anyways? Nothing. And you can't boycott shit anymore to the point it works. Like, Henry today was bitching because Target didn't have any Pokemon cards. Mhmm. And he's like, well, someone should, you know, arrest them or something. I'm like, well, buddy, I'm like, you could just never buy shit from Target again. And at least be in control of your own conscience. Right? Yeah. Like, if you really disagree with something, then do not participate. Exactly. That's what and that's what you should do. You can do. Mhmm. And if everyone fucking did that and everyone were honest with themselves, that might make a difference. That might make a difference. But, unfortunately, you don't have enough people who No. Who can do that. Well, you I mean, if I were honest with myself, I wouldn't fucking work where I work because we make shit for the military industrial complex. And that's at the end of the day, that's what we do. Yeah.
And that got blood on my hands because of it at least a little bit. Right? Yes. Like, there's no there's no denying that. Right. We are all our hands my hands tied. Hands are tied. My hands are tied. Yeah. I mean, I participate in what facilitates this steel being made to go to Boeing, and I'm sure they use it to kill kids in Palestine. Yeah. Like, I was looking at my daughter today, and she's so beautiful and sweet. And I love her so much. And, like, she sat on my lap, and I felt great. And I'm like, there's plenty of men just like me in Gaza and Palestine right now that have had their fucking lives ruined because their little girl got killed by a bomb made in The United States. Right? Yes. Like, that happens. And they will never forget.
No. And anyone who can sit here and try to say anything to justify that, it makes no sense to me. You're definitely on the wrong side if you ever try to justify that. Yeah. You are on the wrong fucking side. Pure and simple.
[00:52:08] Unknown:
Yeah. They jump through all these hoops. You see them talk on Facebook. I don't know if you look, but I've been looking recently just to drum up support for the old podcast. But I see people, and they talk about it relentlessly, and there is no argument for that side of it. You're like you said, you're kidding yourself. If you're if you're killing children in another country in any capacity, you're wrong. Yeah. So,
[00:52:41] Unknown:
like, for Russia, and I don't know the effects, if any. But let's say, like, in in the nineties when we did the embargo for Iraq. Right? Like like, the consequence of that was a bunch of fucking people starving to death. A million people. Yeah. And how many of them were women and kids and Most of them. People who didn't fucking deserve it. Most of them. So, yeah, when you vote for the Republican that supported that, you're legitimately voting to starve people out until they die. And yeah. I mean, it is fucked. Yeah. It's pretty sad. I mean, when you look around and see the consequences of everything that you participate in, it's not good. It is sad. And you and and, you know, it's not regular people. Anywhere you go, it's not regular people. It's
[00:53:37] Unknown:
it's the people that rule us. Yeah. Like, people around the Earth are all pretty much the same.
[00:53:48] Unknown:
Yeah. I agree with that.
[00:53:50] Unknown:
Russians, they're just like us. All they wanna do is go to work, feed their family, come home, raise their kids. That's it.
[00:54:02] Unknown:
Yep. That's what it should be.
[00:54:05] Unknown:
But for some reason, there's people above us who get everybody into wars, and they say, oh, well, you're naive if you think it's not gonna happen. Well, you know what? Maybe if Russia was a superpower in the Eastern Hemisphere and we were a superpower in the Western Hemisphere, we could collaborate and make sure other countries who were fighting each other could resolve their differences. Instead of having a huge power struggle between us trying to stay on top and getting involved in undermining Russia, China, you know, North Korea, all this stuff. Like, maybe if there were two giant superpowers, you could bring some sort of peace to the world.
Like, we were sold that lie in the fifties and sixties and seventies about communism, but now the Russians, they're not communist. They're they have a society exactly like ours. They're basically capitalists who wanna make money, raise their families just like us. So if they could go down into, let's say let's say they could go settle a dispute in Azerbaijan or or, down in the Middle East. Let's say the world was divvied up differently, and the Middle East was controlled by the USSR or Russia. Not the USSR. I'm saying Russia as a as a Right. Demar what we consider democracy. They could handle that. I'm not saying, you know, crush these people, but I'm saying intervene in a way that allows everybody to get along, you know, work out some deals just like, Donald Trump would do, work out deals between who's gonna benefit because when people end up benefiting and being able to live their life a little better, they don't fight. Right? I mean, the only thing that causes people to fight are, you know, economic disparity and stuff like it. You're absolutely crushed by by having no money, no future, no prospects.
So if you had two two superpowers on both sides of the world collaborating, you could pretty much have world peace. Yes. So how many people
[00:56:37] Unknown:
like, let's say the cold war, and I have no idea what I'm talking about at this point, but how many people do you think actually actively kept that going at any given moment?
[00:56:49] Unknown:
What? The contention?
[00:56:52] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, take out the part of the equation is citizens who were tricked into believing it. But how many people actually
[00:57:02] Unknown:
like, a thousand people, maybe? I'm sorry. You have to explain. I'm I'm missing the point. Like, let's say Tricked into believing what?
[00:57:09] Unknown:
How many people do you think orchestrated the fear in in The United States to to continue the Cold War? It can't be that many people. Right? No. It's a small cabal. Has to be. Like, there were plenty of people in fucking Blairsville who believe the Russians were going to drop a nuke on us. Right? Yeah. But why the fuck did they believe that? Because someone was telling them. You're right. There's How many of those people actually existed who were able to It's it's make up that information. It's 500 people in the government.
[00:57:46] Unknown:
I mean, just if everybody would
[00:57:48] Unknown:
come to terms with this and fucking reject it is what needs to happen. Well, they they
[00:57:57] Unknown:
they came out in 1989. They came out of the cold war. They knew that they had failed at what they had done. That's why they agreed. That's why Gorbachev agreed to to stop, with the cold war. They did to, allow, the Berlin Wall to come down and for the for the East to join the West. They knew it had failed. They were at the end of their rope. They were bank you know, not bankrupt, but completely out of money from the Afghanistan war like we broke them. They knew they'd failed, and they wanted to join the world. They were willing to to to do whatever it took to become prosperous country in the world. Like, some people call it the end of history.
That time, you know. I I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but they call it, like, the end of history. Like, the Cold War was supposed to be the end of all wars. And it was a it was a grand time. They were they were saying there's no more reason to have conflict. And and Russia and The USSR and all those countries, they wanted to join, everybody. It's not like there was anybody sitting around going, we should still continue to be communist. I mean, there were obviously factions, but the main government of The USSR knew they had failed and wanted to join the world.
The United States told them that they could and then kept them at arm's length for the next thirty years.
[00:59:38] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:59:39] Unknown:
Basically destroying their we funded NGOs in their own country to ensure that they couldn't get a piece of the world. Like, we basically funded their oligarchs to stay in power, to rob the the Russians of all of their industry materials and everything. We encouraged it to the point where you know, inflation went sky high. They completely ruined their country to the point where even after ten years, they started seeing, they started saying that the word capitalism was an evil word again. Mhmm. Because we screwed them over to the point where they're they were in the shitter. I mean, they've been in the shitter ever since because of us. We could've welcomed them and brought them to the world safe, but we wanted to rob them. We wanted to ensure that they never had another, you know, basically, like, after World War one. We wanted to make sure Germany never had a a foothold again. We did that to the Russians.
They got pissed. They elected Vladimir Putin Putin, somebody to bring pride back to the the country. And and what And why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? Anybody would do it. We're doing it now with Donald Trump. He's not even he's not even a good person, and we're bringing we want him here because he is the antithesis to all the bullshit we've been forced to swallow for
[01:01:26] Unknown:
twenty years. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not turning out that way.
[01:01:30] Unknown:
I'm sorry. That was a that was a terrible
[01:01:33] Unknown:
It was pretty goddamn good. Well,
[01:01:36] Unknown:
now's a good time as any to segue into this. Let's let's jump into what we're here to talk about. Commerce. I'm gonna cut this shit up. Yeah. We we definitely gotta cut it up. Let me let me cut out all that. Put the whole fucking thing out.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
No editing. Just just add a bit in the beginning. It says, if you wanna get past everything stupid, skip to hour three. Okay. You know? Fuck it. These these podcasts keep getting longer. That's fine. It's what it's all about. Well, folks, the constitution, section eight, article one, article one. Could be wrong. Yeah. Section. Article one, section eight. Clause three, the commerce clause. So this is what the United States government has taken advantage of to determine how we buy and sell everything, and that's not an exaggeration. So to read the first part of section eight, it says that congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, impose, and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of The United States, but all duties, impose, and excises shall be uniform throughout The United States. So just as an offshoot real quick, shall be uniform means any tax levied is the same for anyone paying it, which is the libertarian argument against the graduated income tax, but that's for another time. So continuing on, to clause three.
The congress shall have the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with Indian tribes. So anything you buy, any tax you pay, everything you do economically in in relation to the federal government. That's where they've gotten all their power from. Again, from one sentence, to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes. So to shed some light on this, we were gonna talk about, one or two Supreme Court cases where the federal government used the so called Commerce Clause to dictate how the government can be involved in the individual's life, in particular, in economic terms. So a famous court case, Wickard versus Filburn, is what we're gonna talk about.
What do you think, Johnny?
[01:04:25] Unknown:
You're the constitutional scholar here, Phil. I'm the color.
[01:04:28] Unknown:
We're gonna read the obituaries first. We're gonna get right into this. No. Just get into it. Alright. So I have here, a book called American Constitutional Law, the Structure of Government. So to give a short synopsis of the case, here we go. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 imposed limitations on the acreage individual farmers could devote to wheat production. In setting such limits, Congress sought to control the volume of wheat moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses and shortages and thereby prevent abnormally lower high wheat prices. Filburn, who owned a small farm in Ohio, exceeded his allotment of 11.1 acres for the 1941 wheat crop. He produced 23 acres of wheat intending to keep the excess for use on his own farm, penalized a hundred and $17.11 for growing the excess wheat he refused to pay and brought action to prevent collection. When the district court granted an an injunction on nonconstitutional grounds, the government appealed.
So just to review, this is in the thirties in the midst of the Great Depression. FDR was president. He took many actions to try to end the depression. That's why you wanna look at it. And this is one of the things he did. He was gonna set from top down, try to regulate wheat prices, in the market. And I guess the goal of that would have been to make wheat, you know, affordable for everyone. So this would come down to whether you believe top down economics can work. At the end of the day, there were a whole bunch of farmers, I'm sure, who they decided, you know, we'll grow as much wheat as we want, and we'll sell the amount we're supposed to, and we'll use the rest for our own consumption, which is what Philburn did. This gentleman,
[01:06:48] Unknown:
he he said that he was growing his wheat for use on his farm to feed livestock.
[01:06:55] Unknown:
Correct. So, again, he he didn't lie about it. The government told him he was allowed to grow 11.1 acres in 1941. He grew 23 instead.
[01:07:07] Unknown:
So he was allowed to grow 11 acres of wheat for sale. Right? And he grew more.
[01:07:16] Unknown:
Well, no. So what this comes down to is and we'll get into it, it didn't matter if you were directly or indirectly affecting the market. And what we'll get into here is the government said you can grow 11.1 acres of wheat and no more. And long story short, what happens is the guy says, look. I grew this fucking wheat, and I'm only gonna sell 11.1 acres worth of wheat on your market. They said, well, no. It doesn't matter because if you're gonna use wheat for your own consumption Then you're then you're not buying it from the market. You're not participating in the market that we're trying to control. And they tell him that that's not okay Because if a whole bunch of people do that, then our control of the market doesn't mean shit because And it's called what they call aggregate.
[01:08:12] Unknown:
The more people that do it, it adds up, so then it takes away Yeah. From the market that they could control.
[01:08:19] Unknown:
So, basically, what he says is at the end of this majority opinion, they say, Philburn's own contribution to the to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself. Well, let me start it. We have to cut this, Johnny. Philburn's own contribution to the demand for wheat may be trivial by itself is not enough to remove him from the scope of federal regulation. His contributions taken together with the many others similarly situated is far from trivial. So and this comes down to, you know, government overreach. Can the government tell you what to do with your own property, in particular, legally? I mean, it's not illegal to grow wheat on your own property. Right?
[01:09:11] Unknown:
No. So so what the government was saying, what the there there if there's a surplus of wheat grown, then it's gonna upset
[01:09:27] Unknown:
The market. So they're trying to fix a market price, again, during the Great Depression. So,
[01:09:34] Unknown:
you know, since everyone can afford to buy wheat. And their argument is that if many farmers do this, then it adds up, and it can affect the market even though he's only trying to grow the act he's selling the 11 acres that he's allotted.
[01:09:49] Unknown:
Well so what it came down to is the government sat down and said there's this many people. They're gonna buy this much wheat. If that's the case, then if everyone buys the amount of wheat we think they should buy, wheat should cost about this much per fucking pound or whatever. Right? In a bushel. So they're saying if there's 300,000 farmers and they don't actually buy any wheat on the market, That's gonna fuck our pricing up, and they're saying we can't have that.
[01:10:19] Unknown:
Yeah. So Yeah. So you're growing it for your own use. You're not buying it. So that's gonna add up, and it's gonna affect. Yes. Okay.
[01:10:28] Unknown:
And, again, they're using that one sentence out of the constitution to justify government involvement to the point where you're not allowed to grow wheat for your own consumption. Is your boy Hamilton? Yep. So Publius. Publius was a they. Just real quick to get into the the majority opinion. And, again, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously all nine justices in favor of the government and against Filburn.
[01:11:03] Unknown:
Not at first.
[01:11:04] Unknown:
No. Well, there was a district court who had agreed with Filburn, then it eventually worked its way to the supreme court. So justice Jackson was the he penned the majority opinion. It is urged that under the commerce clause of the constitution, article one, section eight, clause three, Congress does not possess the power it has in this instance sought exercise. The question would merit little consideration since our decision in United States v. Darby sustaining the federal power to regulate production of goods for commerce, except for the fact that this act extends federal regulation to production not intended in any part for commerce, but wholly for consumption on the farm.
Filburn says that this is a regulation of production and consumption of wheat. Such activities are here, which is beyond the reach of congressional power under the commerce clause since they are local in character, and their effects upon interstate commerce are at most indirect. So stopping there. I mean, just a normal person who has a fucking garden. This is basically what this is. It's a larger garden. Right? It's an eleven eight 11.1 acre garden. But this is, I think, the general point of this podcast is you have to ask yourself, if you were growing tomatoes on your porch in a pot that we're hanging, I mean, under what the government's arguing here, they could come in and tell you you're not allowed to do that.
Right?
[01:12:37] Unknown:
Or yeah. Or you you couldn't you could grow so much, but anything over that was taking away from their plan for the economy.
[01:12:50] Unknown:
Right. And at what point does it stop? I mean There's no. And and They never give you that information? No. I mean, apparently, here was anything over 11.1 acres, but I mean, what Right. That didn't that was arbitrary. Right. And what farm is less than 11.1 acres now? No real farm. I wouldn't think so.
[01:13:12] Unknown:
So, I mean, I'm just trying to point out Well, aren't they trying to do the same thing now? They're trying to they're not saying that it's part of the interstate commerce clause, but they're, they're trying to use people who are growing backyard backyard gardens and chickens. They're trying to say that they are, they're in the wrong. I'm sure they are. Yeah. What But but it they're they're using a different excuse. This is why chicken prices is so high?
[01:13:41] Unknown:
Well Egg prices. Well, I'm I'm guessing they don't want you dependent on them
[01:13:48] Unknown:
or, big business to for eggs or or backyard gardens. So they're trying to make rules, and they're drumming up stories on social media saying that, you know, people are getting sick from backyard vegetables and backyard chickens and stuff like that just because they're trying to, it's not so much involved with commerce anymore, but they're just they don't want people to be self sufficient because if they're not self sufficient, then they they need the government. Well, that makes perfect sense for the government one. That was that's probably not the same thing, but Well, no. I mean seems similar.
[01:14:22] Unknown:
No. It ties in because if you were to read this whole case, it comes down to two words, direct or indirect. And Filburn's argument ends up being, look. I get your point in government, but this is, indirectly affecting the market value of wheat. I'm growing this on my own land. It's for my own consumption. Mhmm. So then the question for the government comes down to, well, traditionally, with the commerce clause, we regulated things that directly affect commerce between the states because that was the whole point of the commerce clause. So going back to Hamilton, you had a bunch of states that were loosely associated with one another. Right? Mhmm. So let's say me and you, Johnny, are good friends, and I live on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and you live on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio, but you live in Ohio. I'm in Pennsylvania.
Well, you wanna sell me whatever, fucking peanuts. And I tax you, you know, 2¢ every hundred pounds of peanuts, and you're my buddy. So to give you good business, I tax the peanut producer from New York who also borders Pennsylvania, 75 a pound. Mhmm. That was the whole point of the fucking commerce clause was to make economic activities between states fair and reasonable. And
[01:15:54] Unknown:
as a whole, we could bargain with other countries. Correct. Yeah. So the whole
[01:15:59] Unknown:
foreign portion of the commerce clause is is, I guess, wholly different than Yeah. Regulation of commerce between the states. Which the foreign portion should be probably more aligned with what people wanted. Yes. They did not ask for it,
[01:16:17] Unknown:
for themselves to be regulated, how much they could they could grow. Yeah. And then, I mean and there's also good
[01:16:23] Unknown:
good reason for the federal government to be involved in interstate commerce. I mean, I Boy. He's right he's right there. I don't know where I cut off. What I was gonna say is, like, I'll grant there's there's good reason for the federal government to have some oversight of interstate commerce. Right? Like, you can't have the railroads running all fucked up. Right? Like, when the railroads first started, like, trains would reckon each other constantly. Yeah. That's a fact. I mean, people fucking died, caused all kinds of huge problems. Like, there has to be some centralized oversight of certain activities, and, like, the railroad's a really good example of that. And as technology advanced, like, railroads is a perfect example. There had to be some type of centralized authority that governed how these things worked.
So the main question in this case is, how far can the government take this argument? And we would contend that growing wheat on your own property does not fall under the purview of the Commerce Clause. But, continuing on, if I could find it,
[01:17:40] Unknown:
No. The Commerce Clause, beyond this case, it goes on to almost doesn't it go on to affect almost everything that people do? Yes. It does. In modern day, isn't it isn't the Commerce Clause what they point to almost in every situation? Yes. This is why, like what was that big dude black dude,
[01:18:00] Unknown:
Eric Garner, who got strangled to death by the Kimbo Slice? Kimbo Slice? Eric Gar he was the guy who the cops
[01:18:09] Unknown:
killed for selling loose cigarettes. Right? Yeah. No. That was, George Floyd?
[01:18:14] Unknown:
No. George Floyd was a a camp breathe guy. Oh, okay. Yeah. Garner. Garner. Okay. Loose cigarettes guy. He was way before. I mean, that's gonna be a commerce clause thing where the government says, well, you're supposed to pay taxes when you sell cigarettes, and you can't sell loose cigarettes because you're not giving the government their cut Right. Even though you already gave the fucking government their cut when you bought the pack of cigarettes. Mhmm. So, yeah, I mean, that's that's the type of things that happen. And this is the whole point of everything we get to is if you actually stop and think critically about anything, maybe what you're arguing for doesn't make any sense.
Right? Like, if you're gonna be a conservative Republican who is gonna argue that, well, fuck Eric Garner. He broke the law. The cops had every right to arrest him. Does it really make sense with your own supposed beliefs? I mean, any good conservative Republican would tell you they want lower taxes. And at the end of the day, the cops were fucking with that guy because he was selling loose cigarettes. Right. They should be siding with this gentleman. Correct. How could you not be? Yeah. I mean, he died as a result of government overreach, not as a result of illegally selling loose cigarettes, because that should never be a law in the first place.
[01:19:34] Unknown:
No. Yeah. If you purchase the pack, you've paid your tax Right. Then you can do whatever you want with those cigarettes after that moment. Right. You're not gonna hear Fox News or CNN No. They'll never any of that. Right. They'll never talk. Fox News will say the guy broke the law. CNN will say the cops are racist. But then the the Republicans surround, they want lower taxes in all situations. Yeah.
[01:19:58] Unknown:
So, I mean, that's that's really how far all this stuff reaches. I mean, if you got anything from this podcast ever, it would be to stop and think critically about what you believe and why and if it makes sense in any given situation because it most likely doesn't. Well, back to the court case. So Filburn says, look. I yes. I grew this extra wheat even though you told me not to, but it it affects the market indirectly, which which historically up to this point, the government would not step in for an indirect effect of the market. So government says, in answer to the in answer, the government argues that the statute regulates neither production nor consumption, but only marketing.
And in the alternative, that if the act does not go beyond the regulation of marketing, it is sustainable as a necessary and proper implementation of the power of congress over interstate commerce. So, again, gotta flip to my page here. The necessary and proper clause. This is what the this is what the government's arguing. Again, section eight said, congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and impose and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of The United States, but all these imposts and ex laces shall be uniform throughout The United States.
I fucked up here, Johnny. The necessary and proper clause. I'm trying to find it. We'll have to find that later. The point is the government cites the necessary and proper clause here, which is like one sentence in the constitution. Where is it at? I don't remember.
[01:21:51] Unknown:
It's gonna make us look like dumbasses. Don't worry about it. We'll cut it out.
[01:21:56] Unknown:
Well, pause it real quick then. We'll cut it out. Yeah. Dego. Dego. Well, we're gonna jump around a bit here. We're trying to make a good argument, but it's difficult because we're fucking dumb and drinking. But,
[01:22:17] Unknown:
yeah, at least we're thinking about it. Sure. So
[01:22:22] Unknown:
to get back to this court case, again, this gets to the heart of what the constitution was supposed to be. So in my opinion, the historical constructionist argument that the constitution is one thing written down, but there needs to be some perspective on it. And that perspective would be the other documents from the time written by the founders. So the Federalist Papers, any of Hamilton's writings, Jefferson's writings, all this shit. I mean, you have to view the constitution in those terms at the time it was written to know what it fucking mean Meaned to know what it meant.
So to get back to section eight here, it covers a whole lot of things. The commerce clause is just one of them. Another thing would be coining money, the establishment of post offices, the construction and maintenance of a navy. And, again, you go to the very last paragraph in section eight, it says to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, again, to make a navy, to coin money, to regulate commerce, and all the powers things that you would like your government to do for you. Correct. So, like, an example of this would be the states voted to ratify this constitution.
The constitution says, look. We're gonna establish a post office or we're gonna establish a navy. So if you're gonna establish a navy, the government might say, hey. We kinda gotta build some ports Mhmm. And factories to build these ships. Yeah. That's pretty reasonable. Right? Right.
[01:24:19] Unknown:
And we'll excise some sort of
[01:24:22] Unknown:
Sure. Have some type of tax to Tax to do that. Yeah. Pay for this. Tax the businesses or whatever you're gonna do to get the accomplished.
[01:24:29] Unknown:
So that's So people have to agree to that. That's really the question here,
[01:24:33] Unknown:
is is the people who support a very large powerful government will turn to this necessary and proper clause, as they call it, again, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers. So, really, that's that's what the argument comes down to here is what is necessary and proper. Is it necessary and proper for the government to step in and tell a man who owns his own land that he can or can't grow wheat for his own consumption? And I think we me and Johnny would both argue, no. That's not necessary and proper.
[01:25:13] Unknown:
No. You can't tell a man what to do on his own property. Right. Because he's not hurting anyone else. Just like
[01:25:19] Unknown:
I mean, a parallel would be like, if the navy's gonna build a ship and they use a certain type of steel, and they come into your garage right now and say, hey. You can't, you can't have any more of this steel you've been buying to build whatever the fuck you're building here, Johnny, because you're messing with the pro the market price of this steel now by buying it. You know what? We wanted to use these for these ships' propellers. They did do that. Did they?
[01:25:44] Unknown:
Well, I think so. I'm I'm not in on steel, but with gold. I'm sure yeah. There you go. But right. So Yeah. But go ahead.
[01:25:53] Unknown:
No. I'm just getting to the I mean, the heart of all of this is the perversion of the wording of the constitution always in favor
[01:26:04] Unknown:
of the government. Yeah. And this Wickard v Phil Burn is a perfect example of that. But we know we know that the the reason for the constitution was to limit the power. So you can interpret it you can interpret these things as saying, we're giving the government, you know, sweeping powers. Right. You know, because we knew that the original purpose of it was to limit.
[01:26:29] Unknown:
Well
[01:26:30] Unknown:
So everybody's fatal flaw there. Everybody's interpreting it as to be to give the government more power. The original purpose was to
[01:26:37] Unknown:
expressly grant certain authorities to the government that was created, and no more than that. And I guess you could take my word for it, but that was the fucking point of it. Like, keep in mind, these were men who had just defeated the British Empire in a war because that government was too powerful in their minds.
[01:27:03] Unknown:
So they weren't, you know, up in arms to make another government that were equally as powerful. So you have to view it through that lens. You can't you can't constantly just say you can't just have a, you can't view it through today's lens. You have to view it through what they were thinking.
[01:27:20] Unknown:
Correct. And I don't see another way to do it. So, I mean, we could we could continue reading this, but, again, at the end of the day, the government and this was a big shift in government power again in 1938. Well well, this court case was in 1942. It was a step for the government where they said, if previously you couldn't directly influence interstate commerce, which would be like a different tax from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Pennsylvania to New York Mhmm. Now they're saying you can't indirectly affect interstate commerce. So you grow wheat for yourself. You're not even gonna sell it. No one's gonna know you even grew it. Right. You and 40 other people are affecting the market indirectly. Yes.
By not even participating in the market. In fact, you're actively not participating in the market. So this is this one of those things where
[01:28:17] Unknown:
this is a precedent set? Yes. So ever since this case, the government has used this, portion of the interstate commerce clause.
[01:28:30] Unknown:
Well, I don't wanna say because there's been many commerce clause cases since, and I don't really know where we stand now.
[01:28:39] Unknown:
If we can continue this in another episode. Do you think, they could come down on you for do can the interstate commerce clause clause be used for almost any action that the government doesn't like? Do you think it can be interpreted in that way ever since this precedent was set?
[01:28:58] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. I mean, as soon as you cross a state border, you're you're within interstate commerce. Yeah. So there's a lot of laws based on this. Yeah. I mean, this is why you're not supposed to buy cigarettes from, you know, New York from the fucking Indians and bring them back into Pennsylvania. Yeah. I mean, like, you could get arrested for that. Right? From
[01:29:19] Unknown:
the Indians in the on a in a reservation and take them out of the reservation. Yeah. Correct. And that's why. And why is that the government's business?
[01:29:30] Unknown:
Why should it be other than they wanna take your money?
[01:29:35] Unknown:
It all comes down to money.
[01:29:37] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:29:41] Unknown:
So, which Federalist Papers does this, did they discuss before putting this in the constitution?
[01:29:49] Unknown:
This is what? Number 11? Number 11. And 42? Yes. Well, I think 42 was more, foreign commerce.
[01:30:01] Unknown:
So 11 is more relevant.
[01:30:03] Unknown:
Yes. 11 would be and they barely touch on it, I guess. But 11 would would cover interstate commerce. So,
[01:30:17] Unknown:
Federalist paper number 11 from Alexander Hamilton. The utility of the union in respect to commercial relations and the navy.
[01:30:31] Unknown:
Yes. And so, again, the reason this was so important is at at those times, like, maritime
[01:30:39] Unknown:
Yeah. The most important. Yes. Way that people got commercial goods. Yes. That was the way
[01:30:46] Unknown:
you took goods across the ocean. I mean, any wealthy country needed a strong navy Yeah. And a secure maritime system Yes. To thrive. Yeah. So that's why this is so important. And the only way you're gonna have a strong navy is to have a strong
[01:31:05] Unknown:
central government that can Yeah. Build and support that navy. Yeah. Support the navy. Right. So that's his argument is to say, well, we need we need to have a navy to secure our, our prosperous future.
[01:31:19] Unknown:
Yeah. And he was right because we had the articles of Confederation. Which didn't allow for that. Yeah. I mean, the fucking Ohio didn't wanna pay taxes to raise a hand. They were just they just weren't gonna do it. Right. So he he was, he was he was trying to bind everyone together to say we need a federal.
[01:31:35] Unknown:
We need some sort of, everybody needed to bind together so that we could all prosper. Correct. Okay. And that's what happened for
[01:31:45] Unknown:
some time.
[01:31:47] Unknown:
Federalist number 11. The importance of the union in a commercial light is one of those points about which there is least room to entertain a difference of opinion and which has, in fact, commanded the most general ascent of men who have any acquaintance with the subject. This applies well to our intercourse with foreign countries as well as with each other. That that's hard to interpret from somebody who's just been looking at social media for fucking ten years. I don't particularly understand it, but, there are appearances to authorize a supposition that the adventurous spirit, which distinguishes the commercial character of America, has already excited uneasy sensations in several of the maritime powers of Europe.
And I tell you what, I wish
[01:32:37] Unknown:
Well, I shame people don't still write like this. So I think what he's trying to say there is, like, look. The Europeans are looking at The United States now, like, as another potential
[01:32:47] Unknown:
Yeah. Superpower.
[01:32:48] Unknown:
Right. And we need to shut that down or oppose it. Then he goes on to argue that, look. Europe's scared because they should be. We're going to be a very prosperous, wealthy nation due to our, thriving economy. Right. Isolation,
[01:33:07] Unknown:
land. Yeah. You know, they were already manufacturing here. They were scared.
[01:33:16] Unknown:
Yeah. So then and then he's making the argument that, like, look. If we come together and Yeah. Want to be prosperous, we're going to need Yeah. We can't have,
[01:33:25] Unknown:
New Jersey making deals with France.
[01:33:29] Unknown:
Correct.
[01:33:30] Unknown:
And, New York
[01:33:32] Unknown:
not you know? And, also, New Jersey is not powerful enough on its own to counteract Great Britain or France, in particular, on the open ocean.
[01:33:42] Unknown:
So that's that's his argument. Yeah. It's, they seem to be apprehensive of our too great interference in that carrying trade, which is the support of their navigation and the foundation of their naval strength. Those of them which have colonies in America look forward to what this country is capable of becoming
[01:34:02] Unknown:
with meaningful solitude. Yes. So what he's referring to there is, like I mean, what? There were 13 Yeah. Colonies. Right? So as soon as you got West Of Ohio Pittsburgh. Ohio. Yeah. Right? I don't think Ohio was a colony then. Nope. So, yeah, I mean, as soon as you got West Of Pennsylvania, you're talking land that wasn't ours and that was controlled by some other empire much more powerful than The United States. Mhmm. Again, whether it be France, Spain, or Britain.
[01:34:36] Unknown:
Yeah. They foresee the dangers that may threaten their American dominions from the neighborhood of states, which have all the dispositions and will possess all the means requisite to the creation of a powerful marine. Impressions of this kind will naturally indicate the policy of fostering divisions among us and of depriving us as far as possible of an active commerce in our own bottoms. You want commerce in your bottom, Phil? Yeah. This would answer the threefold purpose of preventing our interference in their navigation of monopolizing the profits of our trade and of clipping the wings by which we might soar to a dangerous greatness.
[01:35:13] Unknown:
Yeah. So what he's saying there is if Pennsylvania's fighting with Ohio and Ohio's fighting with New York, how are we gonna get off the ground floor here? Like, we can't we cannot have all this dissension
[01:35:29] Unknown:
Yeah. Within the colonies. So so number so first off, the, the Federalist Papers, which we're reading from, are an argument for So a federal constitution. Well, actually,
[01:35:41] Unknown:
it was I don't wanna say propaganda piece because I wrote, like, the Federalist Papers, but Yes. It is what it is. Piece. Yes. It was to convince New York State to vote to ratify the constitution. Oh, just I mean, that's all it was. Yeah. Just New York State. Just New York State. The others were on board? Not yet. I mean, and, of course, the Federalist Papers were disseminated however much through the rest of the cones. But Of course. But yeah. I mean, it was
[01:36:09] Unknown:
Alexander Hamilton. Why is it folks in directly in New York? Whenever it involves all of them, or were they a holdout?
[01:36:18] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Because Okay. Man, I can't remember who the They held the most power? Governor of New York would have been, was an anti Hamilton guy. Interesting. Yeah. But Hamilton was a big time lawyer at the time. Yeah. Rich. Well, not rich, actually. Some Dutch guy. Kinda fucking broke. He was being blackmailed. That's the other thing we should talk about Hamilton a little bit. Talked a bunch of shit, was fucking other women, running around on his wife, was supposedly, like, you know, a stand up guy, but he wasn't. But It had a lot of very powerful, you know, enemies, and those enemies were, those who controlled the New York state government.
So it was an uphill battle in New York state to ratify the constitution.
[01:37:09] Unknown:
Man is, Andrew Alexander Hamilton is a natural elite.
[01:37:14] Unknown:
So this man is a Well, that's the thing. Like, he wasn't. He came from a poor background. Okay. Yeah. He he came from the British West Indies. At some point, I believe, immigrated to the colonies
[01:37:27] Unknown:
and kinda build his life up Okay. For nothing. But what I'm saying, he is a natural elite person. Yes. Like, he is not this is not a man who has power, grift, or anything. He's not a parasite. This this man is a
[01:37:41] Unknown:
natural Oh, yes. Self built. Self built.
[01:37:44] Unknown:
Like, he's not he he is not trying to live off the backs of others. This man is a person who generally is thinking about more than just his generation. Right. So he
[01:37:58] Unknown:
volunteered to fight in the revolutionary war Mhmm. Per his own merits, worked his way up through and became like Washington's orderly, basically. Right. And, like, distinguished service, wasn't a bitch, fought in battle. Mhmm. Same as, like, Aaron Burr. Mhmm. This is why I like it on, like, Jefferson because Jefferson would bag on Hamilton, and Jefferson, like, ran away like a bitch whenever he was faced with, you know, actual violence.
[01:38:33] Unknown:
True. Okay. So yeah. But I'm sorry. Jefferson still contributed. He he may have needed his solitude in his little fancy wancy, desk and some slaves to take care of shit while he basically outlined, everything that would basically shape our country for two hundred years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, but that's the thing.
[01:39:01] Unknown:
Had we done
[01:39:02] Unknown:
But without but without both of these people, how could anything have gotten have gotten done? So, like, the I mean, the revolutionary
[01:39:10] Unknown:
fervor came from a lot of different directions, including just it was it was kinda natural. Like, you had all these people living in these colonies who didn't wanna be under the thumb of the British anymore. It's just that simple. They were getting wanna be under the thumb of
[01:39:28] Unknown:
monarchy or where the human individual wasn't the main, the focus of of their life? Like, you always had you know, you were never you were never the ultimate. Like, it was always the monarch. Right? Right. So they they were they were setting out to change that. So, we were talking to, like, a huge group of people that thought that way. Yeah. And
[01:39:54] Unknown:
to point out, none of this was, like, on moral grounds. Nothing. It was all economic. I mean, at the end of the day, your only defense against the government is how economically powerful you are or how economically free you are. If they could take all your money, that's that's really your only power. Right? I mean, that's why the next step is is violence, which is what happened in the revolution. I mean, the colonists thought that, you know, they're really fucking with our ability to keep our money and keep our property, and they're encroaching on our property. Right? I mean, your money is your property. That's the whole Western political thought. Like, if you put labor into something and you are compensated for it, that compensation is your property Mhmm. And it's the byproduct of your labor.
So at the end of the day, that's why we went to war with Great Britain, and that's why the revolution happened. So Hamilton and Jefferson would both agree on that. Mhmm. But Hamilton, his counterargument was, yeah, Great Britain was fucking us, but, the way they do business is the way you have to do business if you wanna be a powerful nation. That's that's what he thought. I mean, it's not like Hamilton hated the British. I think he very much admired their system of government and their ability to become powerful. That's why they were the Federalists.
They wanted to make a federal government Mhmm. That
[01:41:31] Unknown:
made a powerful nation. Now Thomas Jefferson was more of a, let's say, state. Oh, absolutely. He he wanted more of an agrarian society. Yeah. Okay. So that's where they always butted heads. Jefferson and Hamilton always butted heads on, the way it should be run. Right. But then you have was correct, but yet everything he argued for led to what we have today as government overreach. Yeah. Which is Because they interpret all of this in incorrectly. Which it seems like is the natural, Consequence of government. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. You know, once you get a little, you're gonna take more, which is where that inner, article one section eight clause 18 comes from is that look. Look at this sentence right here.
This gives us the ability to do whatever we need to do, which is not the way it was meant.
[01:42:34] Unknown:
Right. Right. Okay. I mean, this well, look what Jefferson did. He made the fucking Louisiana purchase. Right? Like, it's a huge
[01:42:42] Unknown:
Yeah. Government overstaff. Yeah. But that's part of that clause. Right? Let's use, the government's money to better our nation.
[01:42:52] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? So that's, like, every that's, like, everything
[01:42:56] Unknown:
he stood against, though. It was, but, yeah, he did see that as a great opportunity. Yeah. And it was the right move. It was definitely the right move.
[01:43:06] Unknown:
But so this is where, I guess, it's like some some introspection for me because, like, I argue against the big government, but, like, at a certain point, like, there has to be both. Right? Yeah. Like, you'd be doomed without a powerful government to give you the opportunity to make money and live safely and prosper. But at the same time, it's the same thing that can take it all away from you at the drop of the hat.
[01:43:38] Unknown:
Why does it always tend towards they can take it away from you at the drop of the hat? Why is it never the other way where they just provide you with security to live your life and prosper? Yeah. Don't know. It's never been that way. That's a shame. Like, we, we started this country with that intention, and it instantly went off the rails. Yeah. Right. Government overreach. Like like you said, even Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Purchase. Well well, the first
[01:44:04] Unknown:
one of the biggest sticking points of ratifying the constitution was the supreme court and the separation of powers and the fact that they said, look. The Supreme Court will be the most powerful branch because they can just judicially review any law they want. They're like wizards. And I don't remember which Federalist paper it is, but Hamilton, it's like the shittiest one. He puts forward, like, a real shitty argument that says, I know judicial review won't happen, but it fucking did almost immediately. Right? It was Marbury versus Madison. And I believe that was over the institution of a national postal service. Maybe we we can look this up real quick. Judicial review. Yeah. Was it Marbury v Madison?
What's the You and I are talking. Don't worry about anybody. Well, we should we should let people know. We're
[01:45:03] Unknown:
Listen. The one thing I wanna ignorant to the fact that they're listening to this. Listen. The one thing I wanna say is if you're out there and you think we're full of shit, send a message. (724) 562-3523. You can send it anonymously. Tell me we're full of shit. Give us some, argument against what we're saying. We will talk about it. I want to hear from anybody who's listening.
[01:45:29] Unknown:
Yeah. And I guess the other point maybe to take from this podcast is we're trying to move in a direction now that is meaningful and talk about real shit. We're jumping around a little bit, and we weren't super well prepared. But, talking about these court cases, this the important thing to remember is this is what governs the way you have to live your life now. That's what we're talking about. So this Wickard v Filburn case, we're talking about the commerce clause, Marbury versus Madison with judicial review, what's a law, what isn't a law. This is all what dictates how you live your life, and anything you bitch and whine about comes down to this. I mean, it really does.
Like abortion, all these dumb fucking issues, a lot of people think are important. It it all comes down to this, what the government can make you do and what they can't make you do. Coercion versus cooperation, all that. That's what we wanna start talking about.
[01:46:37] Unknown:
Yeah. I think I think it's good to at least just talk about it so that people are more aware of, the way the the sort of the way you're living your life. You I mean, you're not just cascading through your fucking existence, jumping from Instagram to Facebook. Like, there are there are real reasons why you're here and why there are laws, of, or why why our laws are set up the way they are. Like, there's there's not just we're not this isn't like you can't just not ever think about history. You have to you you know, it didn't it didn't start ten minutes ago.
Everything started, you know, way long before we were here. You know, there's a reason why we live this way. So as long as we talk about and make people more aware of, you know, the history behind all this stuff, it even if we're wrong, at least it'll get people thinking about it. Right. And I could be wrong about this, but to draw a parallel,
[01:47:50] Unknown:
is it the senate is what can make a tariff and impose it? Am I wrong about
[01:47:59] Unknown:
that? I don't I don't know. Can the president just unilaterally
[01:48:03] Unknown:
impose a tariff? I don't believe so.
[01:48:07] Unknown:
Oh. So Let's find out.
[01:48:11] Unknown:
I'm just taking I mean, you you could accuse me of being conservative, which I'm not, but the point I'm trying to work around to here is this is why you get a Trump who can just do whatever the fuck he wants because everyone has lost sight of the fact that there's supposed to be rules provided by the constitution that dictates how things work. And, like, all the Trump supporters are really happy right now that Trump's in power, and Yeah. They'll parade them. Right. Yeah. They'll parade them on Fox News and be very happy about everything he's doing. But just remember, it sets a precedent that the next president can do the same shit. And the thing is there are rules. Like, executive orders
[01:48:59] Unknown:
were never meant to be used the way they're being used today. Correct. Like, whether I agree or disagree with the Yeah. Exactly.
[01:49:08] Unknown:
The order itself, I I disagree
[01:49:10] Unknown:
regardless because it shouldn't happen. You shouldn't the the president should not be able to make an executive order to change it. Right. So like like you said, like, totally agree with some of the stuff that he's doing, but it's completely wrong. Yeah. And I don't agree with the tariffs. But Right. You can't do that. So the US constitution gives congress the power to regulate foreign commerce, impose import tariffs, and raise revenue. One, Congress in turn has enacted laws giving the president the authority to impose tariffs under certain conditions.
[01:49:43] Unknown:
What are the certain conditions? Mhmm. See, this is the kind of fucking bullshit you get.
[01:49:48] Unknown:
Yeah. When you get away from common language and a common document, this is what you get.
[01:49:58] Unknown:
So just to plainly say the point, just remember, just because your guy's in office and doing shit you like, it sets a precedent that when the guy you don't like is in office, he's gonna do shit you don't like. Yeah. Which is the way,
[01:50:11] Unknown:
Banana Republics work and Correct. You know. And it's crazy to witness this. I mean, it was much it was is it I mean, yes. It's exciting, but it was a much better time whenever this stuff was, reined in and under control. Like, let's say, what, before '19, what, 04/2001. Whenever they actually had to declare war on another country.
[01:50:40] Unknown:
Yeah. And they actually did
[01:50:42] Unknown:
declare a war. Yeah. The last time they declared a war. But Now a word from our sponsor.
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[01:53:50] Unknown:
So I don't know. Maybe this is just a good way to kick off what to expect moving forward. Gonna make a real effort to prepare for these and
[01:54:01] Unknown:
put something meaningful out there. Yeah. Well, at least we need to at least talk about some things. And even if we don't know every all the ins and outs, we can we can at least give our perspective on it and bring the attention to others. Yeah. And maybe
[01:54:17] Unknown:
actually talk about something meaningful.
[01:54:19] Unknown:
I mean, interstate commerce clause, like, for the for our government to use that as as the crowbar to to do anything they want seems a little that's that just seems that that this is why you don't give your federal government the power. You they take one sentence out of the whole thing, and that's that's what they've used to regulate everything for a hundred years.
[01:54:51] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, and they do it with everything. Like like, they've gotten mobsters under Homeland Security. Right? Yeah. Like, they had to create RICO to try to get mobsters. What's RICO? I forget. Racketeering, something in corruption. So it was like, Rico was made because, like, say, you had the Tony Soprano who ran the mob. Right? K. So he didn't actually kill anyone, but everyone who got killed was under his order. Mhmm. So he didn't commit the crime, but he orchestrated it. Wouldn't happen without him. He was a mastermind. Well, well, they had no way to take down mob bosses because they would just get their shitty underling hitman or whatever. It didn't mean shit, so the crime organization wouldn't take a big hit.
So they made Rico so they could say, well, yeah, these 16 hitmen killed 40 people, but, they did it under the express orders of this mob boss so that they could go after that mob boss. And not just for, like, you know, killing people. It'd be like any, any scam they had going. Yeah. Like, it wouldn't have happened without the mob boss ordering it to happen. Right. And the only way to really take down the mob was to take down the mob boss Yeah. So they made Rico so they could go after a mob boss. But then, like, the Department of Homeland Security, whatever, after nine eleven, they got the massive spy networks.
So it wasn't meant to go after domestic criminals, but, hey, if we pick up a domestic crime here and there during our spying operations, we can we can sure use that information to wreck the mob. Right? Mhmm. Now is it bad to wreck the mob? Probably not. But did you make the fucking law to go after the mob? No. No. If you're gonna go after the mob, why can't you go after a political opponent? Right? And both sides will do that.
[01:57:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. You can't stop it. I mean, what what one's gonna do it, the others are gonna do it. Yeah. It's just the perversion of everything
[01:57:10] Unknown:
and the overreach,
[01:57:12] Unknown:
every chance they get to overreach. So how how do you think we could have kept everything on track? I don't think you could have. That's what I'm saying. It's There's absolutely no way to have kept this country on track. I don't think so. What if what do you think would have happened had we not federalized? What do you think if we went with more of a, like, Thomas Thomas Jefferson's view of everything if he if he wasn't also, instantly corrupted by it and, joined in. Let's say we went to a more agrarian states rights kinda kinda view. Man, I died.
[01:57:51] Unknown:
What do you think would happen? I mean, you gotta figure one of the, like, Britain would've just waltz right back in and You don't think everybody would have banded together again and says, get the fuck out of here. You lying me? I don't think maybe someone correct us if or correct me if I'm wrong, but I I think the general the general assessment is if Britain really wanted to crush us, they could have just done it. They just had so much other shit going on. Like, how how many other places were they involved in?
[01:58:23] Unknown:
They had an empire much like we have an empire today. Yes.
[01:58:27] Unknown:
So, like, if Russia wanted to really put the hammer down on Ukraine, they could just but they could wipe Ukraine off the map, like, by the end of this sentence. Right?
[01:58:38] Unknown:
A lot of people argue that that is not the case, but I think Russia could wipe Ukraine off the map if they wanted to without US involvement.
[01:58:46] Unknown:
Sure. Let's just say they drop some nukes. Done.
[01:58:49] Unknown:
Right? Well, yeah, if you were gonna flex that big, yes. But I think But whatever. Do they could probably do a just men.
[01:58:57] Unknown:
Sure. But I think the situation at the time during the revolution and for twenty years after was if Great Britain really wanted to come in and put the hammer down, they they could have done it. Oh, so they were
[01:59:12] Unknown:
they were, they were where?
[01:59:15] Unknown:
They were, I think so. Yeah. Okay. And that was the whole point of the Federalist movement was, hey. We got a real big fucking problem here. Hey. We're a fledgling country, but we better fucking
[01:59:26] Unknown:
step it up real quick. And if we hadn't,
[01:59:29] Unknown:
I think that's what
[01:59:31] Unknown:
Yeah. So they were pulling together, but maybe it was something that should have been should have been, they should have maybe let it fall by the wayside later, like, once you were all established. Yeah. Can you imagine that?
[01:59:49] Unknown:
I don't think I can imagine it.
[01:59:53] Unknown:
I guess it would be hard to get 50 states to call you. The central bank.
[01:59:58] Unknown:
When was the central bank period? Like eighteen o three? Something like that. Oh, well, the first
[02:00:03] Unknown:
United States or the first bank of The United States is probably I'm guessing it was seventeen ninety something.
[02:00:10] Unknown:
Maybe 1793,
[02:00:12] Unknown:
something like that. Yeah. But it failed instantly, didn't it? Or they they threw them out instantly. They I don't think so.
[02:00:19] Unknown:
I mean, Hamilton sold bank.
[02:00:23] Unknown:
First bank of the United States. I think
[02:00:27] Unknown:
the citizens of The United States sent them back in pretty quick. I don't think so. I mean, because you had like the whiskey rebellion and shit that that they stamped out in Pennsylvania. Right? Which I think that whole rebellion was against the federal government for trying to put an excise tax on
[02:00:47] Unknown:
whiskey. Bank of the United States closed. Opens at five. You bet two two stars
[02:00:54] Unknown:
on Yelp. Well, good. Good on that person.
[02:00:58] Unknown:
First Bank of the United States was a national bank charter for a term of twenty years by United States Congress in 1791.
[02:01:04] Unknown:
There you go. So two years after
[02:01:07] Unknown:
constitution was drafted. Not set monetary policy, regulate private banks, hold their access or their or act as a lender of last resort. They were national insofar as they were allowed to have branches in multiple states and lend money to the US government. Other banks in The US were each chartered by and only allowed to have branches in a single state. Okay. So it was just it was like a multistate bank. I'm guessing it's not not as central as we would say a central bank is today. I wouldn't think so. No. No. But they were trying to at least establish a currency that all states could use. Well, so that was a huge problem during the
[02:01:48] Unknown:
revolution was there was no central accepted currency. Yeah. So even trying to fund the war was, like, next to impossible. Can you imagine going
[02:02:00] Unknown:
to war, you know, with promise of pay? And there was absolutely no way you you I mean, you knew you weren't getting paid, but you just kept going. Yeah. Well, I mean, they fucked a lot of people over after the war because They did?
[02:02:14] Unknown:
A lot of those people fought that war. And, you know, like, tons of people deserted. Like, they just leave. They're like, fuck you. You're not paying me. I'm not gonna Well, your farm needed tended to, so you just left. Or you weren't getting paid. Yeah. You weren't getting paid. Right. Suffering in the cold and Yeah. But you were there anyway. I mean, you went originally. Right. I mean, imagine that. That's pretty good. But even after the war, like, these people had all kinds of promises from individual states Mhmm. From the continental army, which was, you know, basically billed as the nonexistent federal army Yeah. Under the promise that, hey. When we win this war, we will take care of you. Yeah. That was like Washington's promise to all these men. What was the fucking fort they were at?
Valley Forge. Valley Forge. Yeah. Like, hey. If you stay here and stick this out, we're gonna take care of you. A bunch of them never gotten taken care of.
[02:03:13] Unknown:
And That set a precedent.
[02:03:16] Unknown:
Sure. Sure did. But, I mean, that was part of Hamilton's that was one of his big issues that he wanted to fix was, hey. We gotta make this central bank and central government so we can pay these fucking guys back. Mhmm. And I don't I don't believe it ever happened. Settle foreign debts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, again, beating around the bush is the same idea. How do you become powerful and and, you know, outlast these problems without a central government. You you really don't. At this point, how do you continue on without a central government? I don't know.
Well,
[02:04:02] Unknown:
maybe things just need to change. Maybe we don't need maybe we can just, you know, let's say we just abolish it and, everybody goes back to fend them for themselves. We let the government only provide security for the nation. The one last thing.
[02:04:21] Unknown:
See, I would say that's like that's like the worst thing we could let them do. No? You think? I don't know. It seems like that's the only place that caused the biggest fucking issues with these endless wars.
[02:04:35] Unknown:
What if they were they were reined in? What if it you couldn't leave what if you couldn't leave the continent? I mean, the not continent, but the, The United States. Like, what if all the army navy had to stay and they just
[02:04:46] Unknown:
provided for security here? Well, that would be great. Wouldn't that be great? That'd be a huge first step in the right direction. Naive thinking? No. Not a lot of people will tell you it's naive thinking. Right. But imagine if we just had
[02:05:01] Unknown:
our let's say we had our let's cut our budget in half for military spending, but we kept everything here. Would we still be the most powerful nation on Earth even though we were isolated?
[02:05:16] Unknown:
Oh, I think we'd quickly become more powerful.
[02:05:20] Unknown:
That's that's a pretty good argument.
[02:05:22] Unknown:
I'd say, we probably would become more powerful. Taking advantage of our own natural resources and,
[02:05:29] Unknown:
you know, doing everything here. Let's say let's say you pulled let's say you pulled everybody back from all of our 898 bases that we have around the world, all the underhanded operations we have going on. If we pull back Fucking killing people everywhere. Stop killing people in other countries. Stop. You know? We'll bring them all back. They're here in The United States. We're an isolationist country. We're taking care of any all of our veterans. You know? We cut our military budget. Shit. You probably cut it more than half, but let's say we cut it in half. We're totally fine, and then we're peaceful, and we trade with the rest of the world.
Do you think do you think we would have the issues we have now? I mean, I think a lot of those Muslim countries and people that we've been bombing the shit out of for eighty years would reassess and go, okay. They've changed their policy. Yeah. We have we have a grudge, you know, that they killed my brother and his wedding and, you know, all my kids and all this stuff. But they look like they've become isolationists, and they're not gonna fuck with us anymore. Yeah. I'd say we'd probably be a lot better off without that blowback. We definitely would. The only problem was blowback is the probably one of the most important things that we're contending with around the world today. It's yeah. I think it's the number one thing. The issue with that is it's like a you're talking like a that's a generation of work. Oh, yeah. I'm I'm I'm not I'm trying not to be naive, but I'm just saying I'm just saying,
[02:07:14] Unknown:
like, can this fucking stupid ass country endure twenty five years of violence from, I mean, like, the Islamofascists, if that's what you wanna they have plenty of reasons to hate to hate The United States. Plenty of good reasons. Right? They do. Yeah. So if we just say tomorrow, hey. We're done. We're not gonna fuck with you anymore. That's not gonna fix the problem. Yeah. But what if we what if we could protect our borders?
[02:07:41] Unknown:
Like, ultimately. Right.
[02:07:43] Unknown:
But I mean We did pull back. Yeah. In a perfect world, yes. Pull back and say, hey. Look. We're just gonna stay this off until it calms down, which it will someday. Yeah. But they'll never let it get to that point. No. Right. I mean, you have plenty of people. Like, we get another nine eleven. We'll be right back at war.
[02:08:02] Unknown:
But that's the thing is, like, if we pulled back and we protected our own borders and we left all these people alone, and we were smart about the whole thing,
[02:08:11] Unknown:
eventually, they would find other enemies. Yeah. Like, long term, that'd be the thing to do. Well, they have other enemies. I mean, goddamn. Like, the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other. Right? Like, we flip flopped who we support, and Yeah. We've used it to our advantage to continue these wars. Yeah. Just let them do what they want. Yeah. Leave those people alone. It's not our goddamn business. No. Anyways No.
[02:08:38] Unknown:
And I don't understand anybody who argues for that. It's that's the crazy thing. It's like I see people arguing for
[02:08:46] Unknown:
continuing that. That's the wildest thing about, like, the Democrats railed against it for Yeah. Since what? 02/2001, basically. Right? They railed against it our entire life. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, they're the ones who who support it. Yeah. It makes no sense. That's the worst part, man. It's like, you get
[02:09:08] Unknown:
everybody gets fucking psyopt on this stuff. You know? When you've been a when you've been I guess I guess when you're 20, you don't know. But as you're 40, you start doing the, like, pattern recognition thing, and, you know, which everybody's good at, you know, as a human. You're good at pattern recognition, and you start going, man, it sure looks like it sure looks like the shit we're doing around the world is causing us a lot of problems back here, you know, which 20 year olds don't see. You know? They see one or the other. You know? They wanna they wanna stand behind Ukraine or stand behind something else. But, like, as you're as you get to be 40, you start going, well, hey. Hey. Maybe maybe we gotta just end these wars. Maybe the Russians aren't that bad. Maybe maybe we gotta stop funding both sides of a a Saudi war or, you know, a Middle East war.
Yeah. Well I don't think young people see it, but it was older. You know? I was thinking about that on the drive down here,
[02:10:14] Unknown:
like, along the same lines. Like, I was not in the military, never saw war, never seen anything that bad, like, at all. Right?
[02:10:22] Unknown:
Yeah. And neither of you. Right? Yeah. Except for Ted there's corn day. Yeah. Corn day.
[02:10:30] Unknown:
But no. Like, if you read some of these stories out of, like, Russia and World War two, just the pure brutality, Like, they should just make everyone read that. Be like, hey. You realize when you stand with Ukraine or whatever the fuck you say, this is what's happening over there. Like, this is ground warfare, and read these horrible recollections of World War two, and this is what you're supporting. Like, I don't think people realize No. Like, the brutality of what's going on. They think it's cute. Yeah. It is not like a cool action movie. Like, this is people starving to death. Mhmm.
Their children being, you know, mutilated and killed. It's so bad. It's so fucking bad. There's a movie called, fuck. It's it's about Russia in in the second World War. Man, I can't remember what it's called. It's brutal, though. It just follows like this. I I think it's a young girl who ends up in, like, the Russian army somehow. Mhmm. Just like first couple years of the war when the Nazis invade and just like how awful it was. Mhmm. You know? And the things they don't talk about. Like, in the movies you watch, like, in Saving Private Ryan, they don't show the,
[02:12:00] Unknown:
you know,
[02:12:01] Unknown:
millions of rapes that happened all over Europe. Like, every teenage girl to old woman got fucking raped at some point.
[02:12:13] Unknown:
Right? Are you sure? Pretty sure. The French?
[02:12:17] Unknown:
I mean, I don't know about so much on that side of the war, but, like, in in Germany and Russia oh, yeah. Like, when the Germans came through Russia in '41, '40 '2, whatever Mhmm. Every fucking girl in every town got raped. It was even worse when the Russians came through back into Germany in '45. It was, that was payback. Oh, yeah. And they don't talk about that. No. And that's brutal, man. I mean,
[02:12:52] Unknown:
like, you read these recollections where Germans were asking for it. Yeah. They they were asking for it. I mean, those women who died the way they were dressed? Yeah. All that black and red and white. Yeah.
[02:13:03] Unknown:
I don't know what I'm trying to get at him. Just saying it's so fucking bad. Yeah. It's like the worst side of humanity.
[02:13:10] Unknown:
Yeah. People think war is cute. It's not it's not fucking cute. And, again, I'm not speaking from
[02:13:15] Unknown:
personal experience, but, man, just do yourself a favor and, like, read a book about Yeah. The Russian front in World War two. Read a book about mechanized warfare once. Yeah.
[02:13:27] Unknown:
Yeah. These people, they're if you're still out there trying to get Donald Trump not to make a deal in Ukraine, which he won't. He's a fuck too. Yeah. It seems like he's not gonna. Yeah. I mean, he said fucking day one. I'll do it. I gotta do bullshit. He shoulda ended it already. But, if you're against it, like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, end the war.
[02:13:50] Unknown:
Yeah. And I don't I could be wrong. It doesn't seem like, you know, like, the right thing's a big thing right now in the world, but fucking maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Well, fucking let let the goddamn Russians have what part of Ukraine they won. End it.
[02:14:04] Unknown:
You know what I'm saying? Like Yeah. Well You can say that, oh, it's it you can't let him because then he'll just continue. Okay. Well, when is he ever? This is the first time he's done anything. No. And he said for thirty years, hey. You've been fucking us in the ass. And this is why and and he never did a thing until, what, 2022. Yeah. He didn't do a goddamn thing until 2022, but he kept saying, listen. You are stepping over the line. And he kept trying to be part of the West. He kept doing it. Like, those those, when he's, with George w Bush on his ranch, I mean, he was trying to be part of the West. This man wanted to stop having the West insult Russia and bring them into prosperity, but they just kept keeping them at arm's length. Now he's saying, I told you, and now this is what I'm going to do. Yeah. And it's not
[02:15:09] Unknown:
like, I think Putin's a piece of shit, and I don't like Russia. That doesn't mean we need to be going to war with them. No. Make a deal.
[02:15:17] Unknown:
Just make one deal with these people and, you know, set up some some some deal that is good for Ukraine and Russia and everybody and just let them continue. If you're ethnic Ukrainian or whatever whatever that is, they're mostly Russian, but, like, if you're ethnic Ukrainian in the East, the Eastern Side of Ukraine, establish a country, Western Ukraine, you're now part of Russia. They wanted to be part of Russia, and they evacuated all those people because they were being bombed by the Eastern half of Ukraine. So the Russians evacuated those people to Russia, you know, which for some reason our media says that, you know, they stole them. No. They didn't steal them. They evacuated them because they're being oppressed for, like, what, twenty years? Yeah. So 2014 at least. You know, these are ethnic Russians who live in Ukraine.
[02:16:16] Unknown:
Or the other answer is just it's not our fucking problem at all. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly.
[02:16:21] Unknown:
And and and if Europe thing is, like, there's no reason for us us to be involved. We could watch it Right. And if on TV. And if Europe can't defend itself,
[02:16:30] Unknown:
that's fucking Europe's problem. I mean, the fact that they've outsourced all of their energy to Russia again, not The United States' problem. Why why are we involved? Yeah.
[02:16:45] Unknown:
Yeah. To let to let her have learn a fucking lesson. Yeah. To get involved is crazy because it has nothing to do with us. Nope.
[02:16:53] Unknown:
We've gotta lighten this up a bit. I'm not lightening anything up.
[02:16:59] Unknown:
I'm gonna get shit faced and start start talking more shit. You got a lot of fucking oil back here, Johnny. I know. I got What are you doing with all that? You know, I got so many motorcycles and fucking vehicles. It's ridiculous. Goddamn. All that shit's for a different bike or whatever.
[02:17:18] Unknown:
You you use a synthetic? I don't think you were a synthetic man.
[02:17:23] Unknown:
Well, which one's synthetic?
[02:17:26] Unknown:
Oh, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. It's made by BMW. Mini Cooper. One of the little fuck brothers. BMW stand for?
[02:17:33] Unknown:
Big Mexican women. I'm not sure. Like big Mexican women. Yeah. Me too. 40 the same. 47 or older. Why why is it why does every Mexican woman's face look like a goddamn, 12 inch skillet?
[02:17:47] Unknown:
Is is that why we went to war with them? First place?
[02:17:52] Unknown:
Mexico?
[02:17:53] Unknown:
All the monstrous women.
[02:17:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Dude. I'm not sure why we went to war with Mexico. I guarantee it was some sort of propaganda campaign from our United States government. That was,
[02:18:04] Unknown:
what's that asshole's name? Teddy Roosevelt? As well. Yeah.
[02:18:09] Unknown:
Well, he's a real cunt when you get down to it. Right? He's a real cunt when you get down to it. But but as far as people go,
[02:18:17] Unknown:
that dude was a bad ass. Oh, he was a bad dude. That was a bad dude. He was like a cool bro to have as a friend. Imagine Teddy Roosevelt met Joe Biden? Oh god. He'd fuck Jill for sure. Oh, fuck. Yeah. I've been what did Jill look like when she was young?
[02:18:36] Unknown:
I assume she'll go out like Ashley Biden.
[02:18:39] Unknown:
I don't know Ashley Biden. Who's a Joe's daughter? Niece? She a crackhead too? I don't know. Wonder if Hunter was fucking fucking Is Hunter only a half son, or is that a fool?
[02:18:52] Unknown:
Man, I don't know. You wanna talk about, like, some corruption? Those people need to all fucking have their goddamn
[02:18:58] Unknown:
craniums removed. That's like the credit card shit Biden didn't Oh, yeah. Delaware. Yeah. That's how do you vote for Joe Biden? Dude, everybody Everybody
[02:19:07] Unknown:
everybody's memory stem is long. That's true. That dude's the worst person ever, and they just they sold him as a a an old man who was gonna get us back to normalcy.
[02:19:19] Unknown:
Is he Come on. The ten minute memory thing's funny because I still jerk off to, like, seventh grade fantasies ahead. Eighth grade for me. But is that wrong?
[02:19:33] Unknown:
No. Why would that be wrong? Well, I make some 37
[02:19:37] Unknown:
now. Dude, it's in the bank. That's what I'm saying there. Yeah. Are the memories just as vivid? Oh, yeah. I could start naming names, so I'm not gonna Dude, I'll tell you. I'm more respect than that.
[02:19:50] Unknown:
Man, it's crazy. When you were a young man, just just like it was like every moment. You know? You just were thinking about, holy fuck. Holy fuck.
[02:19:59] Unknown:
I got a jacket. You know? Well, I don't know how you were, but I don't know if I was uninformed or naive. I didn't know a whole lot about, you know, pussy's and stuff when I started jerking off and getting boners for no reason. Mhmm. So I don't know what to think about. It was fucked up. It's weird, man.
[02:20:21] Unknown:
What did you think about pussy's stuff?
[02:20:24] Unknown:
I don't know if I knew what it was. What age are we talking about? 20? Much younger. Much younger. Okay. Maybe, like, fifth grade or something. Alright. So young.
[02:20:34] Unknown:
Should a fifth grader know everything about pussy? I don't think so. Right? No. Fuck no. Why would you know everything? Oh, I didn't know at that time. Nobody knew. Okay. Good. At least, I mean, for us, I mean, I didn't know. Think I knew what a pussy was in fifth grade. Neither do I. I just know that chick cartoon characters didn't have a fucking bulge. That's what I knew. That's why, like,
[02:20:57] Unknown:
I can see why people get addicted to, like, the anime shit. Yeah. That's a fucking tactic that there's Japanese is it Japanese, Koreans, all of them? How so? Oh, oh, take it down. Pokemon cards. You ever see, like, the trainer decks? No. Oh, it's like like, I'd park jerk off too now if I had to. Yeah. Like, the decks of, like, the Pokemon trainers, like the characters. No. It's like anime porn. Is it? Oh, geez. It's like, you know, chicks with their asses hanging out, basically. It's chicks. Okay. I thought Pokemon was just, like, cartoon characters and shit. I I don't know if it used to be, but now there's like trainers. Like you buy a deck of cards and there's like half anime porn in it.
[02:21:36] Unknown:
Okay.
[02:21:38] Unknown:
So But the point I'm making is like, it's, like, you know, my son's into Pokemon. Ah. So what point is he gonna look at a Pokemon card and not know what the fuck's going on at all? Yeah. That's a hard time I like to What what do you mean? Like, he's gonna think all women are like that? No. No. Just, like, he's gonna get fucking hard, not know what's going on. No. I'm sure he already is. He's just not telling me. Hate.
[02:22:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I guess you're right.
[02:22:07] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a hard time in life. Nobody ever. No one prepares young men for Eight to twelve. For anything. Yeah. Eight to twelve. Eight to twelve. Twelve to sixteen. Whatever. Dude, I'm telling you. Like,
[02:22:18] Unknown:
you're talking about not knowing what that shit was like. Like, I had no clue. Like Neither did I.
[02:22:24] Unknown:
I just
[02:22:25] Unknown:
I don't I don't know what I thought. Like, I remember being extremely attracted to the the lifeguards at, the Jewish community center. Like like, extremely. And they were all, like, sixteen, seventeen, 18. And I'm I'm I'm gonna say 10 my first year Yeah. At the Jewish community center. That was the first year I was allowed to join. I was a member from 10 to 13. How much did that cost? My mother paid a hundred dollars a year for that. Damn. But it but you got to swim at the pool every day, and it was right next to the house. You know what I mean? And, you know, it was in our neighborhood.
And I remember, I'm, like, 10 years old. I'm looking at these these lifeguards, and I just I had no idea what I was even thinking. Like, I mean, I didn't it's not like I touched myself yet. You know? I just there was, like, like, you would look at them and you'd be like, Yes. There's they had, like, a power that you couldn't explain.
[02:23:29] Unknown:
Yep. That's
[02:23:31] Unknown:
that's true. And there were some fucking good looking girls nagging 10 in the pool. Were they Jewish?
[02:23:38] Unknown:
No. Shame. Yeah. I remember. I think I was in maybe sixth grade. Mhmm. We had basketball practice at school one day. This is the high school well, they called it the junior high gym, but it was like the old high school gym. Mhmm. So the end of the gym at the double doors opened into the I'm gonna say, like, junior's locker hallway. I don't know how your high school was, but, like, kinda like the freshmen's lockers were all in one big long hallway. Yeah. Yeah. One big hallway. And sophomores were kind of the fucking you took the turn, and there was their hallway. Yeah. Exactly. That's where it was. Okay. So this would have been, like, the juniors or maybe the seniors. Mhmm. And there's this chick bent over. This would have been, like damn.
How old are you in sixth grade? 12?
[02:24:30] Unknown:
Sixth grade is probably 10, I think. Yeah. Well, hold on thirteen and eighth, twelve and seventh, eleven and six. I'd say.
[02:24:42] Unknown:
What year do you, what are you? A senior when you graduate high school when you're 18? Yeah. Let's say you're 18. So what's six years before that? Yeah. Sixth grade. Okay. 12. I was younger. 12. Whatever. Somewhere around there. Yeah. It's Anyways, there's a basketball practice, and somebody opened the door, the double door at the end, and there's a girl bending over, like, picking up books from her locker. And this is so this would have been, like, if I were 12, two thousand You wait. Hold on. You went to you were in what grade? Six. And you went to a high school where the all grades? No. So I think Morrisville was different. We had, like, k through five was elementary, then six to eight Oh. Was middle school. Okay. Okay. Then nine to 12 was high school. Okay. So you saw an eighth grader? No. No. I saw a senior or a junior. How? You weren't in that school?
No. The schools were, like, connected. Oh. So then when I had, like, middle school basketball practice, it was in, like, the junior high gyms. Mhmm. So yeah. Anyways, doors open. This chick was bending over getting, like, books out of her locker. And, like, there's a low rise jeans they wore around that time. Oh, you lucky bastard. Thong hanging out. It my fucking bastard. Head exploded, dude. I've never felt more fucked up without being on drugs or alcohol. Mhmm. Like, it just blew my mind. I didn't know what I was looking at. Mhmm. It was, like, the first time I ever saw anything like that. Oh, man. And I think about it all the time, but it fucked me up in the moment. And for, like, days after that. Yeah. Like, that's what I mean. Like, what's a young man supposed to do to make sense of that? Yeah.
[02:26:17] Unknown:
Today, they have access to all of it. Yeah. Isn't that fucked up? Yeah. It is. I don't know how to navigate that with my kids. Listen. I couldn't imagine navigating that if I was 12 years old. Can you imagine seeing that shit if you were 12? No. Is it gonna fuck up? Yeah. They're all gonna be fucked up. They're all fucked up. But what's it gonna do for you? Has any idea what this is going to do to you? No. They don't. This is the first time. Yeah. Nobody has any idea. There's there's 12 year olds right now looking at hardcore pornography. Like Oh, it's fucked up. Violent,
[02:26:46] Unknown:
hardcore Yeah. No. Pornography. Like, I never looked at violent, hardcore pornography. I still don't. The only point I would've seen back there would be like a magazine that you stole Yeah. From sheets or found somewhere. Hid it in the bushes. Yeah. Exactly what we did. Yeah. That's it. We're like a Tupperware container we'd put them in Mhmm. So they didn't get wet. Yeah. Mhmm. Bury it or put it in the Put them back at the motor dips. Mhmm. Actually, down behind your house.
[02:27:10] Unknown:
I'm bored. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I remember Not the dyke. You know what we thought? We found out one we found one one time, and we ripped pages out of it. I was like Yeah. Everybody's got a couple of pages. Six pages. Yeah. Here's these pages. Here's these pages. Everybody took them out. That must be why I like
[02:27:26] Unknown:
huge bushes because the pages I got, they always had bush. I love it. Oh, yeah. What's your thoughts on that? You like On bushes? I'm I'm I'm either way. I don't care. Well, I mean, I'm not gonna turn down
[02:27:38] Unknown:
either. Yeah. But when I was when I was younger I prefer a lot of hair. When I was younger, they had bushes, and when I'm older, they don't, so I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. I had both best of both worlds. I'm a what do they call it? It's, you know, they say the pre Internet generation Well, you're just that had the the Internet and then then had didn't have it and then had it. I'm there. You're just an opportunist, Johnny. I had I am. I have bushes and then no bushes. I'm good with it. Yeah. I I'm just saying, what was it? You can't pick one you prefer? Prefer? Oh, man. That's what I'm asking. I kinda like like almost like the buzz cut. You know what I mean? Like, where it's there, but, like, not long.
I dig that. I like it long. Yeah. See, I dig it when it's just, like, in between.
[02:28:22] Unknown:
See, I'm all about, like, the
[02:28:24] Unknown:
Like, I don't wanna look like a plucked chicken, and I don't want us to look like you have a goddamn, what's his name? Larry King? No. Not Larry King. Larry King. Mike Tyson's manager in a headline. Oh. Donkey. Donkey King. Yeah. Larry King.
[02:28:40] Unknown:
That's you. I just like I prefer the natural state of things. Yeah. Well, that's good. But, like, whatever the smell is you're gonna have? No. The smell's good. But you're gonna have the real smell if there's hair down there. Right? Right. It is good. Things are gonna be trapped. Musky. That's what I like.
[02:28:56] Unknown:
Good. I like it too. It's not even because I yourself, though. Like, you're you're I'm saying it's not even because I like it, though. It's The stories you've told in the past made me think that, like, you like Harry just because you're Harry, and you you don't wanna feel embarrassed of how Harry you are so that you're cool with the, with Harry chicks so that, you know, that whole bra thing where you don't wanna take it off Yeah. Because you couldn't, you know, so you just said you never like boobs. It's the same thing with hair. You're like, like, I like hair because I'm hairy. I am hairy. Maybe if you weren't hairy, you'd be like, mom, I I can get down. Even if a girl didn't like shave her legs or anything, I don't think I'd care at all. Yeah. That's that's that doesn't really bother me either. I mean, occasionally you wanna see them shaved, but,
[02:29:38] Unknown:
if they're hairy, it doesn't bother me. But why would it bother you? I guess.
[02:29:43] Unknown:
Oh, I don't know. It doesn't bother me. What do you think there's a shift? Just occasionally, I wanna see everything bare just to see a woman the way, you know, like, they What the Lord intended. No. The way the magazines intended. But, yeah, I don't I don't I don't mind. You know? If they get a little hairy, I don't fucking worry about it. Think there's a change in
[02:30:05] Unknown:
just getting something much deeper here. Like, your story when you were 10, then you felt all fucking horny at the pool. Yeah. That's like a that's an instinctual thing. Right? I'd say. I mean, I didn't know anything. You think that's going away? Probably is. Do you think, like, all this ultra, Yeah.
[02:30:27] Unknown:
What's the word I'm looking for here? Ultra, stimulation is gonna fuck up I bet you it is. People's I bet your kids don't even I bet you they don't even feel it once, like like I'm saying, like, it was, like, world change. You said it was, like, blew your mind. Same thing. I don't think kids get that anymore probably because they've already been exposed to so much of it. Huge fucking bummer. That is a bummer because that is, like, that's, like, a really good time in life. Like, it's it's it's scary, and it's, it's confusing, but it's also really fun.
[02:30:55] Unknown:
Yeah.
[02:30:57] Unknown:
That's, like, the funnest thing ever. Yeah. So, like, to to already be desensitized to that would be a bummer. Yeah. Fuck. Dude, because, like, some of my earliest sexual experiences were so much fun. Like, they were, like, thrilling fun.
[02:31:14] Unknown:
Like, shit. Like
[02:31:16] Unknown:
like, you you can't even come down from that kinda high. No. You know? And then then kids,
[02:31:23] Unknown:
once they're desensitized, they probably never feel that. Yeah. I can think of, like, the first blowjob I got still. Yeah. I've had a whole bunch of blow jobs over the years. You
[02:31:34] Unknown:
know? Yeah. I can still remember the first one. One is amazing. Yeah. You're like, oh my god. It's in your mouth? Yeah. Which I still say, actually. I'm still very excited every time it happens. Oh, there's so much fun. You don't have to do anything. No. This is good. That's, like, the first thing that's you know, it's so much better because you don't have to do anything. When you have to do the work, it takes away from the fucking,
[02:32:03] Unknown:
the good feeling. Maybe. I don't know. See, I like They're putting in the work? Oh, yeah. I don't think it's good unless the other person's having fun. I don't mean that in, like, a arrogant kind of way. I can't believe the other person wants to be involved unless they're having a good time. I understand. So then if the other person doesn't wanna be involved, I don't like it Yeah. As much. Well, that's good. That's a good way to feel. I'm I still get real excited about blowjobs. Oh, no. I'm not saying I don't get excited about blowjobs.
[02:32:32] Unknown:
How old am I? I'm saying if if Thirty years ago, I was having the the best time having a blowjob, and then I'm still having that exact best time today.
[02:32:45] Unknown:
You're gonna have to, who was at Homer City, the one control room operator, unit one and two? Larry? Do I have to say his last name? You don't kinda Did he give you a good blowjob? No. No. No. I wish. You What do you mean? Talking about? No. Which unit? Unit 1 And 2? Larry Oh, yeah. Let So Good guy. Yeah. Great guy. But I always said Larry like Tom Waits just woke up from the best nap of his life right after getting the best blowjob of his life. That's true. Is that a perfect That's a perfect description, Larry. Every time I look at him, he looks just like that. I'm like, God. You're right. You're right. And I've said that to a lot of people. They never got Dude, that's hilarious. Reference.
[02:33:31] Unknown:
But doesn't he look just like that? Hey, Larry. If you ever hear this, that is a perfect description of you. Just a guy living his best fucking life. Every time I saw him, he looked so fucking
[02:33:41] Unknown:
content. Yeah.
[02:33:44] Unknown:
I know a lot of people that he knows. I there's a dude who lives
[02:33:47] Unknown:
down the street from me. Who's like his Larry's like his fucking uncle or something. Passed out at the seat with a chew in, then he wake up, and he'd be like then he's spitting the chew cup. Fucking nice guy, man. Yo. Yeah. Larry's cool. Super smart too.
[02:34:02] Unknown:
He always knew what the fuck was going on. Where Larry's at? He probably retired. He recorded now? Yeah. He was pretty old.
[02:34:09] Unknown:
Yeah. There was the one remember all the fucking I man, I'm losing good. Losing track of everything. Remember how the feed water heaters were all lined up? Like, a l p Yep. HP? Like, one drained into the other is a big fucking problem if it didn't work. Yeah. The one on, like, the Third Or Fourth Floor, valve was all fucked up. Mhmm. And I was I went in the one that was like, hey. I'm a go fuck with this valve controller, Larry. And, like, let me know if it causes any problems. Then I went up and, like, started fucking around, and it, like, opened all of a sudden. No. Fuck it. He gets on. He's like, oh, he's like, whatever you just did, you shouldn't have done. You know? He's like, that's gonna cause us big problems, buddy. Dude.
He got all under control there. Dude, that plant was so cool. Do you hey. Did you see the videos they Yeah. I was gonna go watch this morning, but it I was gonna I was gonna go too. I slept in till ten. I was fucking tired. Dude, I slept in till nine today. I wanted crazy. I really wanted to watch it. You know where I wanted to watch it from? Do you ever you know when you drive in 217, like, from Derry, you can see the plant way up on the hill? Mhmm. I wanted to watch it from there. Just see stacks fall from way, way far away. They tore down stacks like that. It'll never be the same. Yeah. It's fucked up, man.
[02:35:27] Unknown:
All because coal ain't cheap. Well, it should be cheap. It will be cheap. Artificially made it inexpensive. It will be cheap again.
[02:35:35] Unknown:
They'll be sorry.
[02:35:37] Unknown:
Dude, that plant like, seeing those videos of them stacks fall, like, normally, I don't get fucking worried about any of that shit. I don't want but, man, can you imagine just driving down 119 for Not seeing enough. Not seeing it. That's that's that's rough. It's hard. That good penis folk art gone. Yeah.
[02:35:55] Unknown:
Yeah, man.
[02:35:56] Unknown:
Converse City Rockets?
[02:35:59] Unknown:
For it's hard to explain how great of a place that was to work. It was. It was like dirty Disneyland. And there's a bunch of people who will be like, you're a fucking dudeie. That place sucked. You're an asshole, dude. If you think Homer City sucks to work at, you're a piece of shit. I know. Homer City was the best. If you worked there, you hit the lottery. Yeah. Damn. So, yeah, they knocked the fucking towers down today. Yeah. Then I saw an aerial picture. Huge portions of it are fucking gone, dude. Really? Like, coal handling's gone. Half half one of the nids is ripped down completely.
[02:36:31] Unknown:
That's fucking brand new. They just built that. Yeah. That was $1,000,000,000
[02:36:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Down the drain. The fuck now. Yep. And the first of its kind in the world. Yeah. And still the biggest in the world
[02:36:47] Unknown:
of this dry what what a new Is that was the biggest?
[02:36:50] Unknown:
Novel integrated desulfurization
[02:36:52] Unknown:
system. Right? That was the biggest of its kind? Yeah. Do you remember remember them fucking solenoids on top of that? Oh, god. Then Talk about the whole time. Yeah. Well, that was Joe who figured out
[02:37:03] Unknown:
I mean, we all did it. We would just go from Philip Philip a crow? 10 feet of tubing with a can of crow. Right? It would work. Oh, the first time he did it, it blew my mind because we kept going up and changing them. And I remember he was finally like, fuck this bullshit. And he took a can of grill and Dude, damn things worked. They they actuated, what, like, a million times? Oh, yeah. I remember when we trended it and figured it out. Yeah. It was, like, fucking it was what is it, like, 13,000 times a day or something? It was, like, some fucking crazy number. Yeah.
Yeah. But the first time, Joe just emptied a can of crow into the tubing. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck to think of this. And it just worked. I'm like, goddamn it. There's shit. Then just did that forever after that. Coral Christopher. Coral Christopher.
The Worst Day of My Life
Illegal Statements and Free Speech
Introduction to Good Morning, Vietnam
The Constitution and American Government
Federalist Papers and Hamilton's Vision
The Commerce Clause and Government Overreach
Wickard v. Filburn Case Discussion
Federalist Papers and the Need for a Strong Union
Isolationism and Military Spending
Personal Reflections and Nostalgia
