In this episode of The Joe Rooz Show, Joe shares his excitement for the weekend and discusses his ongoing quest for the perfect microphone for his vidcasts. He also highlights the importance of being a natural-born American citizen and previews an upcoming Bible study on America's Christian heritage. Joe expresses his frustration with censorship on platforms like YouTube and encourages listeners to connect with him through his website for questions and suggestions.
Joe welcomes Dr. Gregory Adaka, a physician with over thirty years of experience across three continents, to discuss the complexities of healthcare systems in the US, UK, and Nigeria. They explore the challenges of the American healthcare system, the influence of the healthcare industrial complex, and the potential for change. The conversation shifts to Dr. Adaka's personal journey of faith, his experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the intersection of science and spirituality. The episode concludes with a heartfelt discussion on the importance of faith and personal growth in one's spiritual journey.
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(00:01:05) Introduction and Independence Day
(00:04:28) America's Christian Heritage
(00:07:36) Interview with Dr. Gregory Adaka
(00:19:01) Comparative Healthcare Systems
(00:34:11) Managing Health and Lifestyle
(00:44:10) Healthcare Industrial Complex
(01:08:36) COVID-19 Experiences
(01:24:36) Faith and Personal Testimonies
(02:02:36) The Role of Faith in Science
- Wayne Rankin
- Rosanna Rankin
- Carolina Jimenez
[00:01:06]
Unknown:
Alrighty. Hey, folks. Coming to you live tonight from the asylum Studios. Transmitting from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and doing the very best we can to bring you the best quality political talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. This is the Joe Roos show, and I'm your host, Joe Roos. It is a beautiful, beautiful, overcast, kinda rainy 77 degrees here in Eagle Pass tonight, and, it is, Independence Day. It is the July 4, and that wonderful quality once again on the video stream.
On the video stream. Absolutely lovely. Alright, folks. You know, I'm gonna keep on complaining about it until rumble fixes this thing. It's terrible, but, there we go. It looks kinda somewhat clear. I guess the rapid movements of my body just send this thing into a tizzy like it does to most things. Wherever I go, I attract some attention. Right? Drive things and people crazy. Alright. Alright, folks. Well, as you could tell, I'm a bit giddy today. I don't know why. I just am. Maybe because it's Friday, and I'm looking forward to the weekend.
Got a lot of things to do. Got a lot of places to go, people to meet, that type of thing. And, I'm here still playing around with microphones. We went back to the Procaster. So we, gonna try this thing out for a little while, and I found a new mic that I wanna try out. As soon as I finish taking care of a couple of other bills there, I'm gonna make that purchase, and I'm sure that's gonna set me back a little bit. It's not too expensive, it's only a couple of undies, but I wanna try it out. Because it's designed for vidcasts. So, not the quality of it, just the design of it, the shape of it, and and such, so it's not so so right in your face.
And it's a good condenser mic and got some really good reviews on it, so we're gonna try it out. And, I'll surprise you when it actually comes. But, really excited about, tonight's show. We have a guest, lined up here that I've been really looking forward to talking to, and, we're gonna get to gonna get to him in just a minute, but just the usual, just a couple little things you wanna do as far as housekeeping goes. Alright. So again, this is Independence Day in here in The US Of A, And, one of the greatest gifts that I've been given is the is the, the fact that I am a natural born American citizen, that I enjoy the rights and the privileges that come with that. And, you know, you think about it, you could have been born anywhere in the world, Joe.
You could have been born anywhere in the world to any set of parents in the world, but god gave it gave you the opportunity to be here in the greatest republic that have ever existed on the face of the earth. Now coming up this weekend, we're gonna talk a lot about America and about America's Christian heritage. This coming Sunday for our bible study Sunday, we are going to, dive into a study of America's Christian heritage, and I am looking forward to that. I was working on something earlier today. I was gonna try to have it ready for us, for, for maybe a little bit into a second hour of the show tonight, but, wasn't able to get it all put together. It was something that I had been working on, about a year or so ago, and I never really finished it. So it wasn't formatted properly, and I was trying to work it all out, but it didn't didn't quite go the way I wanted it to, and I wasn't able to get it finished. But, in time for the show tonight. But it will be ready as the launching pad for our study of America's Christian heritage coming up this Sunday at 6PM central time. Don't forget, make sure you join us live right here on Rumble, x, Facebook, and Twitch.
Notice we don't say YouTube anymore because, we no longer stream on YouTube because of the, censorship that we experienced, in our discussion with, Svetlana Ryilkov over cancer treatments and COVID nineteen and all that stuff. And, so, yeah, they gave us a strike, and I said, you know what? This is the second time. I'm not gonna deal with it again. Don't wanna deal with it again. So we're just not gonna stream anymore on YouTube. No loss for us. No loss for them really either. Didn't have too much of a following on YouTube at this point anyway, but that's fine. So just one less place to have to worry about. Alright? Now, just some of that housekeeping we're talking about folks, head over to our website, joeroos.com. That's joroos.com.
Where's my banner? My banner's not up. I'm telling you, my tech crew stinks. They're terrible. They're not on point. There it is. Joroos.com. Joroos.com. Open up that web form, and when you do that, just send us off a question. Anything that's on your heart, anything on your mind, questions, comments, cares, concerns, anything that you might be thinking about, any suggestions you might have for a future guest would be really appreciated. Or maybe a a subject that you'd like to talk about. We do have a lot of things that are being worked on in the days and weeks ahead. Couple of format changes that might be coming your way, so stay tuned for that. That's gonna be a lot of fun. So get those questions and suggestions in. We really would appreciate that. Also, don't forget that this is a value for value show, and, we do, we do thrive on your donations. And you can head over to our support page, on our website, joeroos.com/support, and you can check out all of the options available to you, to make a donation. It could be a one time, a recurring, in any amount, or you could sign up for one of our producer tiers. If you if you, if you wanted to sign up with, or or, donate cryptocurrencies, we have our Ethereum address up there. We have our TEXECOINT address up there, Bitcoin, and, I think Tether as well. We got a few options up there for you. You can always do that too. We really do appreciate all of that. Alright. Also, and actually, you know, we'll save this one for later. We'll we'll talk about that in a little bit, because I really wanna get into our conversation here with, doctor Gregory Adaka. And I hope I'm saying his name right. I'm he'll correct me, I'm sure, when he when he gets on.
So doctor Gregory Adaka has lived and practiced medicine in three healthcare systems across three continents, and, and what he has seen is would probably surprise you. With over thirty years as a physician, including nearly twenty in The UK's National Health Service, ten in The US, and five in Nigeria, he offers a rare comparative view of what health care could be versus what it too often is. His master's in health administration from Cornell adds another layer to his insights, especially when it comes to the staggering cost and uneven quality of American medicine. But doctor doctor Adak doesn't always am I saying your name right, sir?
You are saying it perfectly correctly. I must say it perfectly correctly. I appreciate that. Outstanding. I do try to do that because, you know, my last my actual last name is is longer than what you see here there. So it's, it's Rusciello, but you you can only imagine how many people mangle the last name, so we just go Joe Rus. It makes it easier. But, doctor Dack, you don't you don't only talk, systems, you talk about soul. You talk about AI. You talk about God, science, race, entrepreneurship, and ethics. The conversations that we can potentially have are gonna span the practical, the philosophical, and the deeply personal.
Now, folks, if you're ready to talk about these things, we're gonna get into it right now. We're gonna go a little deep tonight because not was we really wanna spend some time talking about your faith, sir. And I'm I'm very interested in getting into your your testimony, how you came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, and, and and all the work that you've been doing for the for for for the Lord, in addition to all the work that you're doing in medicine. So welcome to the show, sir. Thank you so much for taking the time, and I know you are are you here local? Or you're or you're in The UK right now? No. I'm in Florida. I've been in, Okay. United States for ten years, going eleven years now. Where are we? 2014. Yep. Eleven years,
[00:09:46] Unknown:
in America, and we are now currently resident in South Florida. Great place to be. Where the sun always shines. That's right. The beach is five minutes away, but we never go there. But there you go. Well, let let me counter that with where I am in in Texas.
[00:10:01] Unknown:
The sun is always shining here because it's a desert, basically. And there's lots of sand too. Right? No. Actually, no. Not not too much of the sand, but a lot of cactus. Let's see. Average temperature right now at this time of year is about a 104, 105 degrees. I believe that. At night. At night. And, while you might be five minutes away from the lush beaches of Florida, I am five minutes away from the Rio Grande River and the border with Mexico. So, so so we have yes. Quite a bit. Quite a bit of fun, my friend. Quite a bit of fun. Live in, Dallas Fort Worth, one of the suburbs,
[00:10:38] Unknown:
on and off for a couple of years. And so we got used to the one zero five on 10 degrees that it always seems to hit around, September, August, or and thereabouts. It's baking hot, and unlike Florida, it's very dry. But, moving to Florida reminds me of Southern Nigeria. You're talking nineties temperature most of the summertime, 100% humidity. You step outside, and you're drenched in sweat. But we thank God for air conditioning. So Yes. Yes, sir. Amen.
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Amen to that. And, like, I I remember when you first moved here to Texas, moving day was, I think, was, like, July 15 or something like that. Oh. And, so move in day, it was a 113 degrees as we were unloading the truck. And, yeah, that was a rough day. That was a rough day. But you know what? We were here. It's all good. You know? The Lord Lord put me here for a reason. That's what we're working on. But, so let's let's let's get into this a little bit here. So, Jim, I I like to ask, you know, a couple of simple little softball type questions to get you started, get you loosened up and all that stuff. And we we had a, you know, we had a little nice little chat before the show started. So, but what's something that, that most people don't know about you, but really should know about you?
[00:11:53] Unknown:
Well, you've said it all, Lou. I mean, you said, I'm a Christian. I do follow the Lord. I'm a scientist at heart. I I love the scientific method. I love logic. I care about people. I'm in the caring profession, have been for thirty years. What else could I say that you haven't said already? You've, done pretty thorough research. You know? There's not much else I could say that'd be any different. Alright. Alright. Then I'll throw this one at you then. So, what's your go to beverage to unwind at the end of the day? Go to beverage.
Wow. I drink a lot of water.
[00:12:31] Unknown:
I would imagine. Yeah.
[00:12:33] Unknown:
I stopped drinking alcohol thirty four years ago. So Bravo. That's gone out the window. I don't like fizzy drinks. So I suppose that leaves, orange juice most of the time or some of the juice or the other. And when we can afford it, my wife and I like to do the mocktails.
[00:12:51] Unknown:
They're quite nice. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, I speak speaking of mocktails, I would love to I would love to say that I I I I don't drink, but I do from I do I I've I had a little bit of a of a road there where I kind of fell off the wagon for a little bit, and, I up to that up to that point, I'd been twenty five years, without it. And, but, yeah, we're back on track. We're good. We're good. Not an alcoholic, you know. And I know that's the that's that's the catch right there, you know. Sounds like. Yeah. The alcoholic always says they're not an alcoholic. Right? So that's how they get you. But, but no no no, it's, but but it's not bad. So my mine would be, like, I love my coffee, I love all that stuff, and I love my bourbons. As a matter of fact, I have a little bit right here. This is for the after the show.
So you know, take the edge off. Take the edge off. Get you to sleep. Yeah. There you go. But, but that's that's that's about the extent of it. But you wanna talk about mocktails. So, this this is something you might not expect. Alright. So, get yourself a nice Collins glass, ice, take, some, Topo Chico, and some, we sell I'm I have an affiliate link with the Alex Jones store. So, I get the vitamins and supplements, from him. And, they're great stuff, great products. So he has a product called x two, which is like iodine, basically. And, it's an iodine supplement. So so you get your Topo Chico, you get your ice, you get, you you top that up, you couple of drops of the x two, and then you get the ultra methylene blue.
[00:14:24] Unknown:
Are you serious? Oh, yes. Absolutely.
[00:14:26] Unknown:
And honestly, it I I didn't think it would, but it actually did. It taste very, very similar to a vodka cocktail without the vodka. And it was fantastic. No. I love taking the methylene blue. I I really do. It's Oh, you learn something new every day. Yeah. And to me, it's it's great. I love it. It it gives me this just just overall sense of, almost like a meditative calm.
[00:14:52] Unknown:
Interesting. You know? It affects everybody different. Poisoning in the ER. What is that? We use it in poisoning in the ER. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, gosh. I can't remember my toxicology. It's used for, well, methylene blue methylene blue. Either ethylene glycol or or it's, the organophosphorus. These things you have to memorize as a medical student what antidote is for what poison, and there are about 15 or so of the common poisons for which they are antidotes. The majority of poisonous things do not have any antidote. Most people may not be aware of that. But methylene blue goes with a particular poison, and I can't remember what it is. You use methylene blue. It might be iron top oh my gosh. Don't quote me. I'll give you the wrong information. But I remember that from my toxicology days. Okay. Well,
[00:15:37] Unknown:
what I love about it too is when I go to my doctor and I have to give a urine sample and it comes out green. So that that that makes it, you know, that that's always amusing just to That'd be interesting, I suppose. Just just just to get the questions from the lab tech when they, what the hell did you do? Yeah. You know, it's always fun. But, but yeah, that that's that's great. But I I do like it. It's, and and the one that I get through the Alex Jones store, it it they flavor it with, some natural mint and vanilla. So it it has so it doesn't taste horrible, you know.
I will say this, though, the first time that I took it, I I made the mistake of actually following the recommendations on the label. And and I took the I took the 20, and for about three days, my tongue was blue. So it was Wow. So it was It must have been as tight to see every time you open your mouth. Well, yeah. Well, no. Imagine doing the show like that, you know. So It'll engender a lot of questions. Sure. People will ask questions. Absolutely. And then what I did is, actually on the show, I I took a bottle I took some sparkling water, and I added it to the sparkling water, which I looked absolutely beautiful. It really did. You know, so I did that. And, I drank that during the course of the show, and and that was the first time that I actually got a reaction from it. But that but it wasn't that meditative type. It was more of all of a sudden my body just felt like it was on fire, and I broke out into this sweat. It was like a and I was extremely uncomfortable for the duration of the show. So it was it was great. Was that supposed to be an experiment or was it something that you thought you'd enjoy? Well, you know, I if if I'm gonna if I'm gonna push products on people to to try, I'm gonna try them first.
Of course. You know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell somebody to take methylene blue if if if I haven't tried it yet to see what the reactions are. So, You've got to be honest. Right? Of course. Yeah. I mean, it's my name attached to this thing. You know, I don't want to I don't want to be called a quack or anything like that and end up in court someplace. But, one thing I do have to remember to do though, sir, is I have to make sure that I remember to tell people before you take this stuff, make sure you check with your doctor. Because there are some medications that are contra, contra indicative of the, of methylene blue. Like, I was taking a medication that, I did not know was contraindicated for it. And, yeah, I I I got away with it. It didn't affect me, but it could have led to some serious, toxicity in my body because of it. So, you know, I had to be careful. So That's the thing. And the whole alternative medicine,
[00:18:07] Unknown:
sphere, because it's not as regulated or almost completely unregulated, there is always the possibility that the big pharma pharmacologicals that we're used to, which are tightly regulated, can cross react with what you take from the unregulated area, which it may not be poisonous or dangerous in any way except that you happen to be taking aspirin or amlodipine or regular, regular anti your blood thinners for something or the other. Right. And you're not aware that that other supplement can have this potential effect. And who reads all the small print? And that's where things can go awry. So just like you said, always tell your doctor, I got this from the Internet or somebody who I trust and believe. Is it going to have an effect with the medication that you've already prescribed for me? And it's his job to say yay or nay. Right. Of course, your job to make the judgment call whether you want to take the risk or not. Of course. Of course. And I I like to take risks. So I I I'm a I can see that. Yeah. I I like you on stage. Oh my goodness. It's like I have, I have I almost like, not a death wish, but, you know, I have, what what is that when when you when you're just willing to take risks without thinking about the consequences of it? I forget. Stupid, right? Yeah. That's what it's called. No. I think PIP personality would is the terminology we'd use. Yeah. I would just say stupid.
[00:19:28] Unknown:
Alright. So, so so you practice medicine all around the world, and, what has that opened up to you as far as the, as far as the American healthcare system? Yeah. Because you you you worked in Nigeria, you've worked over in The UK. Compare and contrast.
[00:19:48] Unknown:
I often do get that question. In The UK, they have the National Health Service Mhmm. Which is their way, well, let me say yes, their way of ensuring that everybody gets the best health care regardless of who you are or where you are in The UK. About 90% of the population are served by the National Health Service. Only about 10% use some form of private medical insurance, PMI, as we call it. When I lived there, I never had PMI even though I was a physician. There was just no need for it. Mhmm. Then that's their method. What you find is that all the wealthy countries of the world, whether you're talking about Australia, Singapore, Japan, Germany, Canada, you you just name it. Any of the OECD countries have all got some sort of system by which they guarantee that their citizens get the best health care and don't have to break the bank when they get it. The UK uses the National Health Service.
Theirs is a bit unique because the government owns everything vertically top to bottom, the hospitals, all the members of staff, doctors, nurses, you name it. Even the ambulance service, they all belong to the government in some way or the other. There are some public private partnerships, but by and large, the whole of the National Health Service is government owned and government controlled, paid for by, taxpayers' money. Compare that to Nigeria where I worked for five years, where it's completely, almost it's a mishmash. There are government hospitals and there are private hospitals. I left Nigeria and I'm practicing Nigeria about thirty years ago, so a lot has changed, I would say. Sure. Yeah. Yes. But back then, there was no insurance or whatnot. If you work for a nice company, they would take care of your health care. But the way they did it was they just paid your hospital bills, and you had a number of hospitals that they recognize and you could go to.
Then if you didn't work for a big fancy company, you paid your way. And so to a good extent back then and even now, your financial ability determines your access to health care. Mhmm. And there is a huge difference between what the rich in Nigeria get and what the poor get. If you're very rich, you can actually fly abroad and get health care abroad and pay for it there instead. Abroad means the Western world when you talk about abroad from Nigerian point of view. So going from, because I actually did my medical school and training and everything in Nigeria, practiced there for five years before I went back to The UK. So that was a bit of a culture shock, but I it was expected.
You go there. You prescribe stuff. Everything you want, you prescribe. The patient gets it. There's no holdups. There's nothing about can you afford it or not. All the latest technology, some of which I'd only seen in textbooks in Nigeria, was readily available right from the emergency room where I practiced. So it's a completely different ballgame. And then after seventeen years of that, I moved to The US. And for the last eleven years, I've been here. Again, all the technology is available, cutting edge stuff. You name it, it's there, but not everybody gets it. That's where the similarity between The United States and The UK and other western nations breaks down.
And, surprisingly, in some ways, this great country's great health care system reminds me of Nigeria.
[00:23:09] Unknown:
You know, it's it's interesting you said that because that when you said early on, you said it was like a mishmash of of public private and and so on. I mean, that's that's similar to what it is in The United States. You do have, like, you do have government run hospitals, like, I'm originally from New York City, and you had hospitals in New York City that were run by the city. Then you also had the private, usually usually there it's a Christian or a Catholic hospital, that that's a privately run thing, or you have, like the Shriners Hospitals and like in Pennsylvania and things like that that are privately funded. So when you said that, that that it yeah. It kinda, you know, triggered that thought. Well, it sounds kinda familiar. We we have that, you know.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
Here in People don't realize about America, though, is the huge amount of money that we spend on health care, unlike, other nations. Mhmm. And for those who think that the as you just mentioned, in America, everything is everything is, private, and the government doesn't no. No. The government spends a huge amount of money on health care. It spends the federal government spends more on health care in this country than on any other line item. Most people think about defense, and I always make the joke, defense. Right? You know, the military? No. The military budget, last year was $850,000,000,000.
Health and human services, which includes mostly Medicaid all of Medicaid and Medicare, but also includes the FDA, CMS, and just all the other health initiatives. So mostly Medicaid, Medicare, was over $1,200,000,000,000.
[00:24:41] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:24:42] Unknown:
That's just the federal government. When you add in, the state government's counties and what they spend, what they bring to the table in order to provide health care to their people. Then you add what we pay via our private insurance, companies into the health care system and the small percentage of people who actually pay out of pocket. Add it all up, you're looking at close to $9,000,000,000,000 is being spent on health care in The US. It's about nearly 16% of The United States' GDP, and that is the largest GDP in the world to begin with. Yeah. We've our GDP is about 27,000,000,000,000. It's the largest by far. China is 17,000,000,000,000, and that's number two. We're number one at 27,000,000,000,000.
So go figure. No other country even comes close to The United States when it comes to the amount of wealth that we have and resources that we have. You would think with all that, we don't need to spend that much in health care. We've we should have a lot of expendable wealth because we're that much more wealthy than everyone else. However, we spend more as a proportion of our GDP on health care than any other western nation. And by far, as I said, we're talking about 16% of our GDP. The average, percentage of GDP spent on health care by other western nations, the OECD countries, is about nine or 10%, 8% for some of them, and some of them even less so. So it's a huge amount of money that private individuals and the government and
[00:26:18] Unknown:
everybody and his cousin spends on health care in The United States. It's crazy when you think about it, though, like, how much money Well well, how much money goes to health care first of all. I mean, that that's just a crazy amount of money. But I think what which also very, I guess, like I I could try to think of the of the good word for it. I guess, sad, the sad state of affairs is, is how much of the medical industry is not even really about patient care anymore, it's about managing the financial end of the business. If I could put it that way, as a business. You know, and I I think that's that's really disheartening when you think that that at at the the core of every physician's office is the bottom line.
Is how much money am I gonna be getting from the insurance company? I'm not saying all doctors think like that. I I know that, you know, like any other profession in the world, you have you have the ones that are actually there to to actually help people and and to and to and to learn and to and to and to to be better physicians. And, and then you have the guys that are just, you know, I'm just a doctor. You know, there and to me, at least, there is a difference between somebody who has the I'm a physician personality as I'm just a doctor personality.
I think the guy the the folks that are that are looking to be the physician are actually looking to help people to bring the healing, and, and, and one of the conversations I had recently, with a with a former nurse was, that, you know, a lot of the healthcare system right now, and and you could speak about this, it seems like a lot of the healthcare system right now isn't so much about getting you healthy, it's just treating your illness and prolonging the illness, than actually bringing, some kind of solution to it. Had a conversation with my doctor, my personal doctor, and, I had told him, I said, you know, I wanna I wanna start coming off some of these medications because I I I don't feel right with them.
You know, and like I I have high blood pressure, but high blood pressure doesn't only have to be managed by medication. That could also be managed by your diet, your activities, your health, your your, you know, like working out, exercising, doing more physical activities. Of course, like I said, monitoring your diet, changing lifestyle habits. Yes. The the medication's there to help you, but when you get to that point where you're controlling, you're managing your lifestyle, you should be able to start coming off that medication and try to do and trying to maintain all of this without it.
That's healing. That that's that's what I think that a lot of pea a lot of, people who go into the medical profession lose sight of. You know, it's it's not and then you look at these you look at all these medications, okay, well, this medication is gonna have this side effect, that side effect, this side of And then we have a medication to take care of that side effect, that side effect, that side effect. But that has side effects, and we have a medication to take care of those side effects. You know, then ultimately it all ends up in death.
[00:29:19] Unknown:
You know? Well, you try to push death as far away as you can. Yes. Of course. To raise a a relevant point, I can I can use hypertension as an example? Mhmm. And I think it's a good example you raised. If you make the relevant lifestyle choices earlier on, you can prevent certain conditions from from certain conditions from emerging in your life Yes. At all to an extent. There is a genetic component, familial component. Sure. Some people, like, may be 22 years old now, and they've got hypertension in the future. It's coming, and there's nothing they can do about it. I used to have lots of hair, but genetically predisposed to lose it at some point like my dad's younger brother. My dad had hair until he died, but his younger brother was just like me. And most of the people in the family seem to be following the same route. There's something genetic about it. They say you get it from your There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. You know? Yeah.
[00:30:16] Unknown:
My wife likes it. That's all that matters. I say all the time, you know, I'm, you know, I'm starting to thin out here, you know, and No. No. You're you're good. When it no. No. My my point is, though. You know, so Don't don't even say a word, Joe. Don't even say a word. Please. Thank you. You know, listen. I I You're like this and telling me I've got this now. I I I spray paint this. It it it's Okay. Fair enough. It's it's not all there. I'll buy that. But you're you're saying about the blood pressure.
[00:30:40] Unknown:
Maybe genetically predisposed, and there might be not much you can do about it. But you never know until you try. And for the person who gets hypertension, let's say, 40 years old or whatnot and follows the trend of what's been going on in their family or in their community or whatnot, and you assume that that's the norm, But you'd what you don't know is that had you taken care of a few things like your weight and your exercise and your diet in earlier life, you may not be one of those who got hypertension. Right. Or you may have delayed this onset until much later on in life. However, there is a sort of point of no return where the damage has been done to the arteries and the blood vessels and, very importantly, the sensors that sense they're called baroreceptors in some parts of the blood vessels of the brain and in the arch of the aorta, and these are the places where your body has got sensors to measure blood pressure.
And even in the end nerve nerve ending, sorry, in some of the arteries of the body that cause spasm and contraction of the muscles of the arteries. If the damage has been done, your resting blood pressure is going to set higher. And at that stage, all you can do is manage the damage that has been done Right. Over the years And that makes sense. Environmental or genetic. You can improve things. That's for sure. If you play a rigorous sport, basketball or if you run a marathon or whatnot, you're one of these crazy people who keeps running and do a triathlon triathlon.
There is no way you can be that fit and have the blood pressure of another chap, same age as you, same background, and all whatnot. And even though you're 62 years old and your dad and mom both had high blood pressure, if you're a triathlete, you're very unlikely to have hypertension. Yeah. If you did have hypertension, you'd probably be able to manage it with one tablet of a water pill like hydrochlorothiazide or something. Had you not been the triathlete, you could have been on three drugs. Mhmm. So that's the difference. The earlier the start you start, the more you can prevent the illness from coming on in the first place.
Agreed. Even if the illness has already started, you can temper it with these lifestyle changes. But as much as I hate big pharma, I've got to admit that sometimes it it is what it is. You cannot fix what's already been completely damaged, and you have to reach for those medications and use them to control your blood pressure. And I like to let patients know when your blood pressure is under control because you're taking these two tablets, your h t zed and your enalapril, for example, or whatever. It's controlling your blood pressure. You want to keep it there for the rest of your life. If you come off the blood pressure medication or start eating lots of salt and all whatnot, your blood pressure starts to rise again, then you're just you're not doing yourself any good. It's up to date. It's down tomorrow.
It's up for a couple of months. You go back on the doctor's down it. You know, you want to keep it as low as possible for as long as possible to avoid the long term damage to the eye, the retina can cause blindness Yes. The heart muscle, the heart blood vessels, and so you reduce the likelihood of you getting a a heart attack or even getting a stroke. So to prevent all these oh, kidney failure. So to prevent all these long term effects, control the blood pressure. If you must use drugs, bite the bullet, take the drugs, it is what it is. Thank God you're alive. Generations ago, there were no drugs, and people would die of these things and have no idea why. It's just Yeah. Not the God fucking. And and I I I agree. I can agree with that. You know, I that that's that's, that that's that's another great way to look at it as well. You know, if the damage is done, the damage is done. You're gonna have to you have to manage the damage.
[00:34:12] Unknown:
But if if you're at the position where, look, you know what, I wanna try this. I wanna I wanna try to live healthier. I wanna eat healthier, be healthier, and try to wean try to get weaned off these medications, see how it works. I don't think that's necessarily a bad direction to go either.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree a 100%. As a the more the area, The healthier you try and live, it can only be an an advantage to you. Right. Again, you want your primary care doctor to be flexible, to give you the chance, to give you the facts. Don't blow sunshine up your face. Let you know that. Well, there's so much we could try, and the science leads us this way or that way. But by all means, give it a try. I'm all for sort of holistic medicine, but I hate the way it's been exploited and exploited by people who haven't got a clue what they're doing, and they've all got ulterior motives. And, Oh, yeah. Yeah. That could regain.
Do you know? Yeah. So but, yes, if if you say, look. I got this herbal tea from some place, Ceylon or, I don't know, South America, and they say it can lower blood pressure. If it is not going to do you any harm and it has no interaction with the medication you're you're taking, I'll drink the tea. But do it scientifically. Take the tea. Measure your blood pressure. Once a week is good enough. If after two, three weeks you notice your blood pressure is lower on average than it was the month before, then perhaps that tea works. But don't kid yourself and say, every time I drink it, I feel more relaxed. I think my blood pressure is is fine, but you measure it. Your blood pressure is doing one eighty over one ten. Your blood pressure is not fine. It's it's not called the silent killer for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. It probably give you symptoms generally.
I've got people walking into the ER with a blood pressure of 222. Relax. Good enough. Even know they've got a blood pressure. And I tell them how high it is, and you're like a walking ticking time bomb. But he looks normal. He doesn't feel anything. No headaches, no blood vision, nothing. That's often the case. So people often get carried away with the warm, fuzzy feelings they get by a marketeer selling them this concoction, and they take it. And it seems to work. It makes me feel good. But the real parameters you should be measuring, check them. And if the parameters not getting any better,
[00:36:22] Unknown:
ditch that, go for what you know. Alright, folks. Don't listen to what he's saying. Buy my supplements because, you know, 10% of what you buy comes to the shop. I'm kidding. No.
[00:36:34] Unknown:
There you go. You know the tricks. You have to laugh. Come on. It's a lot of fun.
[00:36:39] Unknown:
But, but just just to go back to what you said there for a second. I I remember, oh, man. That was a bad about ten, fifteen years ago. I was going through a a very very very stressful situation in my personal life. And, I had I had gone to my to see my primary doctor, and this is back in New York. And, I'll never forget it was the funny to me it was funny, because I have I have a sick sense of humor like that. You know, I'm, you know, I'm a Sicilian from New York, you know, you know, these these things. Yeah. There you go. So, so I remember I was sitting in in the doctor's office, the the, the young lady comes in, she takes my blood pressure, and she she looks at she looks at the meter, and she looks at me, and she goes, let me try the other side.
I was like, okay. That's normal. You got a bizarre reading of one arm. Yeah. You always try the other, just the visual. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Right? You know, so It sounds so funny, like, I don't my let me try the other side just in case. Let me can can I get the other yeah. Sure. Sure. So I give the other side, and she looks at it, she goes, I'll be right back. Oh, my gosh. That doesn't sound good. Right. Now, of course, that makes you more nervous. You're like, oh, jeez. What's going on? You know? So my doctor comes in, and he has his he he looks like he looks like he's seen a ghost when he walks into the office. It's in the exam room and he goes, hey Joe, hey how do you feel? I'm fine.
He goes, you you don't have a headache or anything? No. How about your hearing? Do you hear like a like a in your ears? No. What about your vision? You have I'm blind. I mean, my vision is never right. But, you know, so so he's like, he goes, okay. He goes, well the reason why I'm asking Joe is because, you know, someone with your blood pressure right now, we'd be having you in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room. And I forget what it was, but it was some ridiculously high number, and I was like It's been really high. And I was like Really high. Oh, I'm fine. I I I feel great, actually. If I if I was any better, I wouldn't be able to stand myself right now.
[00:38:38] Unknown:
I I I tell people this all the time, you know, that blood pressure, it is called the silent killer Oh, yeah. Because most often most often, it's totally asymptomatic. If you develop a headache or blurred vision and stuff, those are in extreme cases, and it doesn't correlate very well to the blood pressure. So it's easy to have a blood pressure. It's supposed to be about a 120 over ninety, hundred and ten over 80, that sort of range in the normal person. But it's not unusual for patients to walk in with a 185 over a 110 or 220 and have no symptoms. Yeah. I know. In fact, symptoms from high blood pressure are actually rare.
Most people with extremely high blood pressure are still asymptomatic.
[00:39:20] Unknown:
Wow. And that that's just that really is scary when you when you when you really, really think about that. And I think it's the same thing too with diabetes. Like, my like, in my family, my family history, everybody in my family is basically diabetic. When I I I had I had a a a like a spurt of weight gain, and went to the doctor, got got all my my labs and everything. Excuse me, it came back and he was like, well, he was your borderline diabetic. Okay. Okay. Well, what do we do? Well, I'm gonna put you on this medication, that medication, this medication, that medication. Well, hold on a second. You said borderline. Right? Yeah. That's what I said. I said, why am I gonna be going to this medication? Okay, man. You know, why am I Listen, fuck. You said borderline. Right. Let's let's let's calm down here and let's do let's do something else before we get on the medications because I know that once you're on those medications, it's pretty much gonna be for the rest of your life. And, you know, I I feel like I already take enough medications for the rest of my life. I don't wanna take anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm tired of you go you go you go in my restroom and right across I the entire cabinet length is just one pillock from the pillock.
[00:40:22] Unknown:
I'm tired of it, man. It takes it takes me twenty five minutes in the morning to go through all my medications. It's scary. A good doctor is supposed to go through your record and see what you're on and not just throw more stuff at it. But, you know, it's it's a lot easier just to write a prescription than to go into all these things. Type two diabetes is one of those even more so than hypertension that can be controlled by lie with lifestyle activity. Right. Particularly if you get it early. Weight loss and activity and diet. Those three things can really, really take a hold of type two diabetes and shove it out the door. And there are those who were diagnosed, not just prediabetic, with type two diabetes on metformin or some other medication, then they lost a lot of weight, changed their diet, and exercise like crazy and all whatnot Right. And eventually come off their medication.
And if they're able to maintain that low weight, may never go on medication again. So type two diabetes is one of those examples of where if you you can change it sorry. Treat it, so to speak, even cure it with lifestyle changes, the way you can't with so many other, conditions that have gone too far. It is a good example of something that where your lifestyle changes can have such a positive effect.
[00:41:37] Unknown:
Well, we gotta we gotta take a pause here for a second. I have a I have a little notification popped up if you have a read available. So fellow Americans, are you tired of paying outrageous prices for your prescription medications? Well, I've got some great news for you on this July 4. Blockbusterhealth.com is running their Independence Day Bonanza where you can save up to 80% on the medications you're already taking. Just like president Trump said, the days of Americans paying more than what everyone else is in the world is paying is over. Blockbuster Health connects you with the same exact medications through their Canadian prescription referral system. Same brands, same quality, but at international prices. They're giving away their normally $29.99 American patient guide to prescription savings absolutely free this Independence Day. This guide will show you exactly how to access savings today while we wait for government policies to catch up. Whether it's insulin, blood pressure medication, or any other prescription medication, thousands of Americans are say are saving daily, hundreds every month.
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[00:43:05] Unknown:
Totally understandable.
[00:43:06] Unknown:
Totally understandable. Sometimes these these reads drive me crazy. Sometimes they'll they'll just pop up at the most, you know, awkward times. Like, I I had this I had this read pop up and and it was like, I I was getting this really really great conversation with with one of the guests. And and you know, the guest was on a roll, and I didn't wanna interrupt. On a roll. And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. And I'm watching because it it's it's teed up to the number of viewers that are actively watching. So it's like, alright. I'm watching, I'm watching, I'm watching, and and and the guest was going and going and going. And I'm like, alright. Take a breath. I wanna get this I wanna get this read in here. And by the time they finish what they were saying, I lost one viewer, and it lost the read.
[00:43:48] Unknown:
No. So Listen. For me, just give us a sign to hunt anything, and I'll stop short and let you in. Yeah. No worries. Just let me know. It'll be another, nineteen minutes before another one is available. So Oh, gotta Gotta pay the bills. Gotta pay the bills. Yeah. There's a this crazy little counter on the side of the screen here. It's like so distracting.
[00:44:07] Unknown:
Right. It's awesome. But, let me ask you this. The healthcare industrial complex. Mhmm. We just saw a read about some of the factors of the healthcare industrial complex. How does that, I guess, how does that affect how care is provided for here in The United States?
[00:44:31] Unknown:
Well, you probably guess where the phrase came from. It was, Eisenhower who referred to the military industrial complex, in his, his outgoing speech Mhmm. After his second term, I believe it was. And, the phrase has been co opted in so many different ways by so many different people, this complex, that complex. I have, some people I listen to who refer to the the the, what was it called, the evangelical Christian complex evangelical publishing entertainment complex, something like that. You know? But I've heard something similar to that. Yeah. Actually. You get the point because there is an industry out there almost in every sector of life. And the industry, of course, it is industries do what industries do. They're trying to make money. Yeah.
And, sadly, it's such a powerful part of The US health care system. As I said, the the it it's it's a slush fund. We we we we we spend so much more on health care than anywhere else. So, of course, what do you expect? Where the, the dead body is there, the vultures will be or vice versa, Jesus said in one of his, one of his, very colorful parables. Mhmm. So, yes, it does have an effect on how the health care system is run, who gets what, for how long, and how much. And although so much of the, the health care system is not for profits, people are not often aware of that. There's government and there's private not for profit.
There's only one sector, the private for profit hospitals that are actually trying to look at their bottom line in order to make money. But then a good 15% of all health care costs is pharmaceuticals, and there is a lot of money being spent and a lot of profit that is being generated. So as long as the, the the need the bottom line, as you mentioned earlier on, is a part of the system is going to be a driver. And, unfortunately, in this free country we have, nobody wants to be told what to do, and, you know, everybody's got their, you know, don't tread on me mindset.
But as I always say, as much as I respect that, that's why I came to America in the first place. It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. There there there is an old phrase an old phrase, and you probably could relate to this. It's, what's, what's a conservative? It's a liberal who got mugged. Yes. So you may you may have heard it before. I've heard that before. Yeah. But I I forgot about it. You know, latte liberal sipping his coffee and, you know, falling in love with the whole world. Oh, and you hear about criminal activity. Oh, no. That they're all fine. There's a reason why they gave that way. And to a good extent, I have to agree. There are reasons why people do the wrong thing. But oftentimes, that liberal has never experienced some of the things that people complain about. He gets mugged, and he thinks, you know what? I'm a conservative going forward. Now that's a bad joke on the liberals. Of course. But, on the other side, the freedom loving conservatives sometimes, as I said, it's all fun and game till somebody loses an eye, and I mean that literally. I attended a church once in Fort Myers, and there was a guy there who was deeply conservative, Christian, you name it, checks all the boxes, but he was fiercely in favor of universal health care.
And, well, you can tell where I stand on that issue. So I I had to agree with him. I was like, why are he but he was unusual in that environment. But because of what he had been through, the surgeries and the complications and everything and the bills of what he had been doing, the system had broken him. Right. And he rapidly recognized that it shouldn't be this way. There's some things in a wealthy nation that should be available to everyone. We've got the best of the best. I think it's about 49%. It's just only 50%. Yeah. It's 49 something percent of all new drugs that come to market in the world come from The United States.
The second in line, I think it's it's Germany no. I think UK and then Germany, then you've got Israel and all the rest. But they are talking 10%, 8% nor all bunched together. Mhmm. 49% of all the new drugs that come to market come from The United States. Yet, we buy some of these drugs from another country. I'm naming no names because it's cheaper there than it is here. How do you explain that? Like, Canada.
[00:48:47] Unknown:
The one I just read.
[00:48:48] Unknown:
You said it.
[00:48:50] Unknown:
Well, I I it's record I I read that. I I said it was in the read.
[00:48:56] Unknown:
You know? I know. I know. I I I you you you set it up for me perfectly. Perfect. You see, because there is a million dollar billion dollar industry now of people who import drugs from Canada to The United States, but yet we always laugh at Canada and their health care system. Yeah. We run there to go and buy their drugs. Now why is it less expensive there? It's complicated. I know. I did comparative health care at Cornell and all that. But the will to fix it, the will to change it has never been that strong because many people benefit from it the way it is. Right. However, in a recent talk that I've started giving, I think we are at an inflection point, and it's beginning to change.
And if you look at the history of the idea of universal health care in America, it's on the dismal history, but it does date back to the early nineteen twenties Mhmm. Under president Teddy Roosevelt who first mentioned it. Of course, he didn't even start. He would have been crazy back then, but he did say that a nation's strength does depend on the health of the people. So he saw that it was a a a a, an important part of the government's duties to ensure that everybody in the country was healthy so that we could be strong. It was a good theory or a good hypothesis, but he never took it very far. I don't think anybody in any significant amount in the culture of The United States back in the nineteen twenties would have swallowed that pill. Yeah. Yeah. But years down the line, by the time FDR came into play and then the, the the new deal and everything, it was brought further forward, still was instituted until Medicaid Medicare, Medicare in 1965, under, Lyndon b Johnson.
That slow gradual process was it took decades. Then it got to Medicaid Medicare. We've got to remember that at the time when it was brought up initially by FDR, even the American Medical Association was against it. The culture was against it. Why should the government interfere? Why should you take my money, tax me to pay for somebody else's sick? It just didn't seem right. It seemed so un American. By 1965, the bill was passed, but it was a fifty fifty thing. Half of the nation still didn't want it. But you try touching Medicaid now, Medicare now. Look at how the react reaction is like everybody thinks it's essential. Well, most people do. Mhmm. And the same thing happened over a more accelerated period of time with the Affordable Care Act, which, of course, we know how controversial that was back in 2010.
And a lot of conservatives felt that it wouldn't survive a year. I remember Pat Robertson, I keep saying this when I talk sometimes, about a year or two into the, Obamacare. He was saying, latest news, I used to watch seven hundred club and CBN news a lot, that it's gonna die a death of a thousand deaths. There's some new information that came up about another senator, another rep, who was putting together a bill to attack its legality. And he said, it's too many illegal illegal things are are supporting it. It can't survive. It's gonna die a death of a death of a thousand cuts. But it didn't, and we're ten years into it now. And, clearly, it's not going anywhere.
In fact, and this is what might surprise many people, the culture of the nation has changed the to the point where people are frustrated, angry at the system. Yes. When that happens, that's when you get change. And it may not be the government stepping in and giving us government health care or the national health service that we have in The UK. It could be private corporations who see a niche, an opportunity, and there are several already who are doing it. Yes. Yeah. How GoodRx is able to give you cheap they're not from Canada. Cheap medication here. When I first saw GoodRx, this yellow card, yellow white card is working in the emergency. What's this? Is this is this really? It can't be. It's been fake. They look on a website. They've got everything. Then I studied what is behind GoodRx and how it works. They play the system in order to provide
[00:52:57] Unknown:
cheap prescription medications to people, sometimes a third of the cost of what the standard cost of that medication is. Oh, yeah. I've used GoodRx for, on occasion, you know, because I I was getting a better deal through them than I was through my, prescription plan.
[00:53:11] Unknown:
Prescription plan with your insurance? Right. Could you imagine that? Yeah. Then, of course, there are always there's always a the millionaire, billionaire person who sees an opportunity and says that, look look at what Amazon is doing. Look at him and hers and, what's his face, Mark Cuban and his, cost plus drugs. It's a matter of time where I always say politicians, pundits, and big industry notices that there is a lot of support for this. Mhmm. And if there's a lot of support for it, they begin to do things. So I was I'm warning people now that they should get ready for the change because I think the change is inevitable.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
I do too.
[00:53:50] Unknown:
And I it we there are many who may not like it, and I don't know what form it's going to be. And, again, I don't know when it's going to happen. I've got no predictions. But I just look at the graph and the mood and the gap between the haves and the have nots, and I think it's inevitable, somewhere or the other. And as I said, it could be some big corporation or what changes their method just to make these medications, health care, doctors available to everyone. After all, I mean, all of the other western nations have got it. Why are we so behind with all our resources and all the money that we've got?
I think most Americans are not aware of the statistics, which is how bad our indices really are. Mhmm. Infant mortality rates, our maternal mortality rate, our death by preventable diseases compared to, say, Germany, France, Australia, all the other Western countries. We are so far I made this joke in one talk I gave that because we're in the twenty fourth position in the top 40 nations when it came to preventable deaths, deaths by preventable diseases. Why are we, The United States, USA, in the twenty fourth position? If we took the twenty fourth position in the Olympics, wouldn't you think something would have gone desperately wrong? Yeah. America, We're the best at everything. We've got to be number one. Yeah. You're Even in soccer these days, the American team's going places in the World Cup. You know?
Well, first on the moon, first on everything. I know people are decrying the end of America is gonna die. I don't think so. Not in the well, probably not in my lifetime. We're we still lead in so many ways, and the reason is because we've got the vicuna. We've got the capital. We've got the intelligence. We've got the the the we we we we've got the academic info. Well, I hope you keep the academic infrastructure. We've got the academic infrastructure to continue that research. We may not be ahead in every area, semiconductors and you know? Right. But we will design the best computers.
Just saying. Mhmm. You know? So with all that being said, we should be number one in health care. Our industry should be the best, but they are not, sadly. People, when they hear about this, will begin to wonder. This so called socialized medicine that they have in Europe across the pond that we decry and we laugh at so much. How is it they're keeping their people alive and living healthier lives? And I don't just mean because they've they've got McDonald's in England, by the way, just to let you know. Mhmm. They eat fast food all across the country. Oh, for sure. Or maybe only France has some of these healthy places. In The UK, it's terrible.
But yet, their health care indices are so much better as I always do. Nobody in these Western countries would mortgage their house, get a remortgage or or go back or declare bankruptcy because of an illness. I told you the difference between practicing medicine, for five years in Nigeria where sometimes you're prescribing something for someone. You look at them. You know they can't afford. And they look at they look at my child. The doctor, I I can't pay this bill. I can't. And you look at him. You you he's not lying. This guy can hardly afford three squares a day. I don't have some way to give him the money to get the medication. The pharmacy is just across the street from the hospital, but he can't afford it. He's gonna go home, take the kid, and just give him whatever.
It's sad when you see this and you live this, and then you now go to The UK and you find anything you want. Write the prescription. Anticancer, drugs, what you name it. They're gonna get they're not gonna pay a dime. It's paid for by taxpayers' money. You pay your taxes. Even if you don't pay your taxes, you you walk in. You're British. Right? Yeah. You you get your medication. Why not? It's the NHS. There's only two well, the two things that the the Brits complain about more than anything else. One is the weather. Two is the NHS. It's struggling right now, though. It's struggling. It's expensive. It's it's it's difficult. And The UK has gone through some serious challenges, starting with, I think the trigger the main trigger was Brexit.
It hit The U The UK economy so badly. They made some recovery. The NHS took a blow, and then,
[00:57:53] Unknown:
COVID happened. Mhmm. And that took them back into the Well, I'm sure also the the the the open borders policy, is a drain on that system as well. I mean, you you have you have all these, these, these migrants coming in through the country, and they're they're jumping into the system. They're claiming benefits out of this out of the health care system. You know, it's it's a it's unsustainable at some point. It's gonna collapse. And, and and just I just wanna go back to one thing you said too. I mean, I don't disagree with the fact that, there are times in in someone's life where they do need government assistance.
But what troubles me is people who take a bet advantage of the government and take advantage of government assistance, like generational welfare. You know, I've, unfortunately I hear about that. I mean, but I hear about this a lot. Unfortunately, I I've seen it. I've I've dealt with it firsthand. I, one of the hats that I've worn over the course of my life is, I worked, I worked for New York City. I was a I was an operations manager toward the end of my career. And, I was I was I managed three districts up in, up in North Manhattan. And, in addition to all of that, they also gave me a program to oversee that took folks that were on public assistance.
They sent them to a a diff they sent them to a city agency, and one of them was was mine. And our responsibility was to train them and give them some kind of a marketable skill so that they could come off public assistance.
[00:59:18] Unknown:
Mhmm. Alright.
[00:59:20] Unknown:
Out of I would I would get every every three months, I would get about 200 to 300 people, alright, that are on public assistance that we we're supposed to train. Of those two, three hundred people, maybe 10 Maybe 10 people actually took advantage of the programs that were being offered for the get their driver's license, their their high school diploma, you know, the the training on how to use, you know, the computers and and and resume writing and preparation, interviewing skills, and all that stuff. And plus the opportunities that the agency itself would provide, for, you know, to learn some kind of a skill like in, for example, there was a there's a there was a forestry division in my agency, you know, and they would train you on on how to be a forester, and that is, you know, to to get up there and cut trees and Yeah. And trim things down and identify, you know And aim for it. Yeah. Exactly. And and And at least put three squares on the table. Yeah. And, and, they would have to work in this program for six months. And at the end of the six months, the goal was that they would be trained and have some kind of a skill, whether it's in security or or forestry work or or or or general maintenance or housekeeping or whatever it is, whatever it was they were part of. But unfortunately, out of the out of those two, three hundred people that would come through, when I tell you that maybe ten, fifteen people actually worked their way through the program and got to the end of the program. Because what a lot of folks did is they were on generational welfare. I I I was speaking to one I spoke to one young lady, I don't remember her name, but, but I remember her her her story. She told me, she goes, why should I be here and do this? I get more money from public assistance than I get here. I don't pay rent.
Public assistance pays rent, you know. And then she said that, and for childcare, she had like four kids, four kids from four different dads. And what she would do is she would hire a cousin to be the childcare provider while she was out working. Public assistance would pay the cousin, and the cousin and the the worker would split the payment. Split the pay. Yeah. You know? And and and she told me one time, she goes, she knows ways around she knew where she knew ways around the system that she knew the system better than the people who actually worked in the system. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And, and she said, well, my my mom was on public assistance, my grandmother's on public assistance, you know, and it just went on and on and on, and they all learn from each other is how to to game the system. How to game the system. Yeah. You know, and unfortunately, that's the reality of it. And when it comes to things like health health care and public assistance and whatnot, I don't have a problem. If somebody has a legitimate need, and you need this to just kinda get you over the hump, hey, that's what it's there for. God bless you for it.
You know? Go for it. Do it. But when it becomes abusive, and people are taking advantage of that system, and they do it with the and they do it with with the health care also, you know? I know people who who have been on public assistance, and went on public assistance, got health care from the from the state, got health care, got got, SNAP benefits, so on and so forth. And, you know, with that government paid health care at taxpayer expense, you know, they went and got, they got the, the the the the gastro bypass surgery. They got the sleeves. They got this taken care of. Got that cut off. This cut off. This moved up further. This one dropped down lower. You know? This this moved more to the left. You know, that You're exaggerating for sure. Right? You exaggerating. Well, you know, but yeah. You know what I'm saying. You know, it's like, you know Nobody gets plastic surgery on the government. But no. But but they do. You can get bypass. Yeah. If you're if you meet the criteria Yeah. And it's a health threat, yeah. You got it. And you know something? All it takes is you to find that one doctor who'll say, yeah.
[01:03:20] Unknown:
Sure. You need it. You need it. Yep. You know? Inside the documents. And then I I agree with you a 100%. Unfortunately, the system is it's it's a complex system. Mhmm. It's broken and it's open to exploitation.
[01:03:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's not just in America. And I think that's where people get frustrated, is when they see I don't think people get frustrated that somebody who has a legitimate need, an elderly person who's living on a fixed income and can't afford certain things, why not? Why not help them with that? You know? But I think it's it's when people see the system being played and saying, hey, you know what? That's my tax dollars.
[01:03:52] Unknown:
And it's a generation thing you mentioned. We see that a lot in England sometimes. Mhmm. It's everywhere. Three generations of that's the the the grandmother. I mean, when I say grandmother, she's 52. The mother and then the grandchild, these are three people, and they're all claiming benefits. Yep. The grandmother may have worked when she was younger, but hasn't worked in donkey's ears. The daughter has never worked straight out of school into welfare. The daughter's daughter, is about to finish school, and she's already got in her mind what she's gonna do when she gets a GCSEs. That's with us, your your your, like, your diploma. Yeah. Out of high school, you're now of age. You start claiming your benefits. You she's already got it all planned because what's her mother did? Her grandmother did generational.
Yeah. It's sad. The difficulty is with this thing. The difficulty is you want to you want to get rid of these weeds. But if you pull up the weeds carelessly, you will pull up the wheat as well. Mhmm. Unfortunately, it might hit the headlines and, you know, make the voters feel happy when you say I'm gonna go in with a sledgehammer and get rid of all this nonsense, but you hurt those who really need it. Right. Now the hard work is to differentiate and delineate between those who are genuine and those who are fake. And those who are genuine, but they're not there because they want to be. The system has pushed them that way. It makes more sense for them to claim the benefit than to go to work. My brother wrote an essay on this back in the nineteen nineties called, is about what we call in England the benefit trap.
It's just rational. Why should I go out and work? I can cut hair. I can mow mow a yard and or whatnot and get that money on the side, still be claiming benefits, and get all the benefits rather than take a regular job, leave the side gig and the benefits that I'm claiming, and now I can hardly even pay my rent. Right. So it's complicated, and I would say anybody who wants to go in there and make the changes has to think it through so you don't hurt those who really need it in a bid to get those who don't.
[01:06:01] Unknown:
Sorry. I I didn't realize that I didn't turn the, my phone on do not disturb, and I'm just buzzing like crazy. I hear it. Yeah. I know what. I was well, it's it's connected to my watch. My watch is going crazy and it's distracting me. Yeah. So I wanna make sure I shut I put the do not disturb on. But, I and I agree with you. It's it's the generational thing is the biggest problem. And the other problem too with, I think, government involvement in in things like health care is, you know, we all like to have the idea that the government's looking out for our best interest, the government wants to help us, and the government's government is benevolent and kind and all that stuff. But the government Yeah. Right. But the government Yeah. But the government is can also be easily weaponized.
You know, we we all we're all familiar with the term wrongthink. Right? You're familiar with that? Yep. So, you know, who's to say that, you know, this this, you know, program because once you control somebody's health care, you control them. You know? Okay. You need a bypass surgery? Well, I don't like what you posted on your Facebook page about the the the current, governor of your state, or or the mayor of your city, or the, the mayor in London, or your your MP, or whatever. And, if you want that surgery, then you're gonna have to, you know, fix that. Well, it's a hypothetical situation. Of course it is. Of course it is. Of course it is. But it doesn't happen. Well, who knows? You don't know that.
[01:07:21] Unknown:
I mean, I've been in the system for donkeys years. It doesn't happen. Well, what well, okay. Fine. But No. What what okay. You you there's interpersonal conflicts, and if you got a bad doctor, you've got a bad doctor. Of course, sir. That all that does happen. The fact that the doctor doesn't like you or your policies or whatnot, and it alters the way. Sometimes even sometimes even subconsciously, the way he treats you. Right. I knew about that. That happens. But systemically, if it can be proven that something was withheld from you, even though you needed it medically because of your political views, particularly when it concerns the government taxpayers money that should have been spent on you for your bypass surgery, for example Mhmm. But it wasn't done. And you can prove that the reason why was because this guy didn't like, oh my goodness. They will throw the book at him. This is America, man. Well, you would you would hope you would hope so. But
[01:08:11] Unknown:
Yeah. In in in a in a smaller microcosm of that, we we saw a lot of that take place with that type of censorship with around COVID nineteen. How many people got deplatformed, kicked off of social media, put in jail because they disagreed with the government narrative.
[01:08:29] Unknown:
You know? It was a crazy time. It was a crazy time. Oh, sure. Yeah. For sure. And look. America is a land of extremes, Joe. Oh, sure. I tell you this. I tell you this. It's odd that even in, I mean, in America, where the land of the free home of the brave and stuff like that, some of the positions they took were more extreme Mhmm. Than the positions that were being taken in The UK Yeah. Concerning vaccinations, concerning school closures, and things like that. There's a bit more nuance that was applied in Europe around these things. And even then, even though they they look back now and think they overdid it. But in America, it was like all or none. Shut everything down. Close everything down. Yeah. And then again, the backlash was open everything up. I'm gonna cough in your face and
[01:09:10] Unknown:
take my rifle into a subway. It's like well, I mean, it was Subway the store. You know? Yeah. I know what you meant. Yeah. I remember the I I know the story you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, come on. That was me. No. I'm kidding.
[01:09:21] Unknown:
I would have fully passed you, Joe. I wouldn't you must have thought you, the guy with the with the wooden m 60. With an m 60, it was made of wood.
[01:09:31] Unknown:
Oh, god. I I didn't laugh. No. But you have to, dude. You have to, dude.
[01:09:37] Unknown:
At least his mates had, you know, real firearms. Yeah. God. Anyway, so so so but the this what struck me was the extremes we went to. And I I can say this because from personal experience. COVID, for me, was a very, very trying time, the year 2020. I worked in Miami in the midst of, the worst of the worst. Saw people die Sure. To give people the bad news. It's it's even now, it's they're they're not good memories. We were worshiped as heroes in the first wave in the spring, of of of twenty twenty. Mhmm. But by the summer of twenty twenty, with all the riots going on or whatnot, the medical people have been trying to say, you're part of the conspiracy and no longer were no longer being admired. We're being vilified, and that went on to the end of twenty twenty, the elections, then the vaccine. That was just from one thing to another. It it it it was rough. It was a rough time. And, yes, I believe there was too much extreme, there's too much extreme positioning on both sides. I hate to use the term both sides. Oh, for sure. Oh, I agree with you. Yeah. Sides. Yeah. Yeah.
It was rough. We were just caught in between because we don't keep people alive. We're trying to do our best. And it it's hard, when you you you you come into a waiting room during the second wave. During the first wave in in in the spring, the first lockdowns, we have an ER department. It's technically the biggest hospital in The United States. We have an ER department that could hold about, I don't know, 40 people comfortably in the waiting room. Okay. Then they had a 114 Wow. On the computer in the waiting room. I don't where did they fit them? Because I got and this is during COVID. Sweaty, coughing, fevers, you name it. Waiting to see the doctor.
I had, I came in one shift, in the morning. There's a woman who'd been there, and she had HIV, Of course. Who had been there overnight for fourteen hours. Oh my gosh. Waiting in the waiting room. I said, where is she? And she's gone out to the McDonald's to go get some food. Couldn't even find her. Oh, wow. They finally brought her in and stuff like that. That was nothing. During the second wave in the summer when things really went crazy, I came in one morning shift. There'd been there was a man there who'd been there for thirty two hours, and he was nearly 80 years old. Thirty two hours in the waiting room using our bathroom, eating our cold turkey sandwiches for thirty two hours. Wow. I was the one who saw him when I came in on the morning shift. I saw the number on the computer because he got the the the time duration. Is this real? But, yeah, he'd been there. Old guy, nearly 80 years old. Jeez.
The the the system could not handle the number of people coming in. He didn't have COVID. Thank god. But the system couldn't handle the number of people coming in. Mhmm. And yet I leave a a twelve hour shift being slaughtered, wearing the n 95 mask throughout. You dare not take it off because you don't know what you're gonna breathe in in an environment like that. No vaccines. Nothing. What could you yeah. You step out from that, turn on the TV at home, and you get this talking head saying it's all fake. It's all this, all that. I want to smack the TV.
[01:12:44] Unknown:
But that was my emotion at the time. I hear you. I I, down here in Texas, I I work in a I work in a health care facility. I work in a nursing home. And, I do, I do, I'm the facility maintenance director and the life safety director. So, part of what I had to deal with was, like, biohazard materials and so on and so forth. Right. Right. Right. And, did you did you ever get COVID at all? Only the I never did. Okay. Even now. I had I I got it in the first round, the first wave. Oh. And, In in the spring of twenty twenty? Yeah. I actually got, I got sick in, the June, early July of twenty twenty.
[01:13:24] Unknown:
Oh. Right. So, oh, that was second wave. That was second wave? Yeah. There were three waves in 2020. Okay. There are three spikes. The first was one that took everybody by surprise when people were dying and the morgues were full in New York. That was the first one, New York and California. Okay. The second wave when the summer came, June yeah. That that that was that's where he came everywhere. Everybody was getting it was having their horror stories. Yeah. And yeah. I I got so so I got sick. And,
[01:13:47] Unknown:
you know, I knew I was sick. I I knew, you know, but, you know, stubborn stubborn Joe doesn't, he's gonna do his thing and and and because my my building needs me and and all that great stuff, and, you know, all that hero stuff, that crap. But, you know, but, I got sick, and, my doctor gave me, very unconventional treatment. He gave me the hydroxychloroquine.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
The hydroxychloroquine.
[01:14:12] Unknown:
The, the the the zinc and the steroids and all that stuff. Zinc I do take. And And all that. And you know something? The first before I got the medication, it was it was twenty four hours from the time that they diagnosed it, and the medications were available to me. I took I took the first I took the first dosage, and by the end of that day, I felt great. Mhmm. I was up. I was taking care of myself in the restroom, you know, I was able to get in the shower by myself. I had cleaned myself up and cleaned the bedroom, because of course I was isolated, you know? Isolated. Yeah. You know, I mean, I cleaned the bedroom. I got everything reorganized, and, you know, I sat there. I was watching Ghost Adventures and all that crap on TV, you know, and, you know, having conversations with the pillow. And, you know, so how are you today? I'm feeling better. How are you? Oh. You know? It was fun. And, then, I I didn't I didn't get sick after that, until about, I think, two years later.
I had a I had a stuffy nose, but what they were still doing at my facility is if if you had even the slightest stuffy nose or or sneezing, coughing, whatever, they they stuck that swab up your nose. And, yeah. Well, no. Actually, it wasn't that bad. It was it it it was just it was the Oh, they they they yeah. Later on, it became just you just twirl it a bit. Yeah. Yeah. When I got the test, they were just twirling your nose. But the initial ones is, like, jamming it into your brain. Well, that's I had to go through that because when I had got my my test done, it was they they were up there and I was like, wait. Did you get enough of my brain material in it or what? I mean, come on. Like, lobotomizing you. But the, but, the second time I got it, like, I had nothing. It's like I was fine. As a matter of fact, I had I had test kits at my house, and I I I remember the second time I started feeling sick. I I did the swab. I had gone to New York, to see my family, and, I came back. I got sick while I was up in New York.
Came back down here, I swabbed myself, so I had a positive result. So I took a picture of it, I sent it to my boss, and I was like, hey look, I'm sick. He was like, yeah, don't come back to work. Don't don't wait. That sounds so New York. Don't come back to work. Yeah. That's so New York. So I was like, alright, whatever. And so, so I'm I'm sitting around the house. The next day, I was like, you know what? I don't feel sick. What? I had a I had a stuffy nose. That was it. So I swabbed myself again. Negative.
[01:16:36] Unknown:
Okay. Positive, perhaps.
[01:16:38] Unknown:
Well, that's what I thought too. So so I waited. So I so I got they they want me out for the week. So Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So day three, I'm gonna try it one more time. I'm gonna see what I get. Swabbed again, day three, negative. Called my boss, I was like, alright look, I swabbed the first time, positive. I swabbed two negatives since then. So he's like, I don't know. Come back to come come come back and we'll we'll swab you here at the at the facility. Alright. Yeah. Fine. So I get to the facility, they swab me. No, you're positive. Oh my gosh. Really? Yeah. So I go I go back I go back to my house and I'm looking at the same exact test kit, you know, the whole the whole shebang, everything's the same.
Swab myself, negative. Take a picture of it. I was like, look, if you wanna keep paying me to not be at work, fine. I'm good. I I I'll see that I'll play with my podcast. I'll I'll be fine, you know. No. Yeah. That's funny thing. Some of the I mean, with some of the test kits,
[01:17:32] Unknown:
it and and that's another thing about medicine generally and the nuance in medicine. It's funny because I was talking about this, I think, with my daughter just a a few days ago or a couple of weeks ago about testing in medicine. It's not a black and white on or off most times for most things. Right. Even things like a test that look like a pregnancy test, either positive or negative, isn't it? You know? But the reality is, what it's showing you is the greatest possibility that this is what we think it is. Mhmm. As far as we know, The statistical likelihood that this is not what we think it is is really small. So he's not a 100% doctor. No. It never is. Okay. Okay. Neck pain, not a CT scan, not a biopsy.
You always have to have a what is what's known as the gold standard. Mhmm. That is essentially your 100%. Right. But it's never a 100%. Yeah. So there are many ways to test for, I don't know, say, a broken bone. A plain X-ray is what you normally use, but some fractures can be missed in a plain X-ray. Sure. A CAT scan gives you a lot more detail. An MRI may not give you all the details of the fracture because it can be a bit hazy. But even if a fracture line doesn't show, even in a CAT scan, an MRI, what's known as bone edema, the swelling in the bone. Right. And that tells you there must be a little fracture line there even though we can't see it on the X-ray. So you use that as your gold standard. But even that's not a 100% because it could've given you a wrong result.
But you've got to have a gold standard, and then you test everything else against the gold standard. But people don't often know that what doctors do is always a a a a balance of probabilities. Mhmm. So when you ask the doctor, so what do you think, doctor? It's likely this, but it could be this. I've seen this before. The book say this. The study say this. So we're gonna treat it with this, and we expect the best outcome. Most times, it's not that complicated. It's I'm coughing. I've got a fever. It hurts on this side of my chest. You do an x-ray. Boom. You've got pneumonia. Here, take some amoxicillin for fourteen days. You'll be fine. You're young. Right. And that's it. But when it comes to more complex conditions, testing, the series of tests you do, the order in which you do them, and how you interpret the results is a, a job all of its own. And the patient always wants to simply know, what is it, doctor? Tell me. But very often, the doctor can't never give you a clear answer. You you you know what was always in my life more accurate than any medical test I've ever been through? What was this? My dad.
If he said you're sick, you're sick. He said you're fine.
[01:20:08] Unknown:
Like, I I used to play I played three sports growing up. I played football, baseball, hockey. Alright? And in bet and in between all that, I was at a gym, I was working out, and, you know, just Oh, wow. To to lift like me then. To to lift the to, you know, to raise the weight for football and and for hockey, lower the weight for for baseball, you know, so in between all that stuff. And, I remember I was at the gym, and I and I was on a leg press machine. And my knee was bothering me, and, you know, I I had I had a lot of weight on the machine and I I did just a couple of reps. I I I I'm trying to remember. I think it was like five fifty on the on the leg press.
And, you know, my knee was killing me. And I had actually gotten hurt playing football. I I got up out of the huddle, I'm sorry, the huddle, off the pile, after a play, and the the guy the guy the lineman from the other team tripped, and he went sideways, and he went across my leg. And when he did that, I just felt everything go snap, crackle, pop. I crawled off the field, I sat out for one play, went back in, finished the game, finished the season, moved on to my weight training routine, you know, to get ready for hockey, and and yeah, and then start working out and all that stuff. I would go home and wonder why my knee was three times the size of my thighs put together, you know, but young and invincible. You know what I mean? So, did all that great stuff. And then one day my dad, I I was talking to him, and, I said, yeah, my knee's bothering me. It it wasn't swollen at that point or anything like that. I said, but it it hurts, you know, like like it's if I try to get up, if I get up too quick, like I feel like it's giving out, or if I'm walking it feels like there's somebody pushing, you know, behind my kneecap, you know, like pushing my leg forward.
So my dad was like, let me look at it. I would tease my, okay doc. Here you go. Take a look. You know? And, what he what he did is he closed fisted, punched the side of my knee. I jumped about 90 feet in the air. He goes, yeah, you you you tore your meniscus. And I was like, took the That's the test, but not that way. Yeah. Yeah. So so we took to so we went to You're right. Yeah. So we went to went to the doc went to a doctor, who I found out after the fact is actually the team physician for the New York Knicks at the time. Oh. And, he he comes in and he goes, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you have a a a torn medial meniscus.
He goes, you're gonna need surgery, and, it's gonna it's gonna sideline you for about six to eight weeks. Okay? He goes, but, he goes, you don't have to have the surgery if you if you wanna continue playing, and you wanna walk again, normally, yeah, you'll have the surgery, but if you don't want it, that's fine. He goes, you're young. I was 19 when this happened, you know. So, so he's like, you're young. You could you could actually work your way through this or have the surgery and get it done faster, so on and so forth. So, so I I ended up having the surgery, and, he told me that you're you're probably gonna need a a knee replacement by the time you're 50.
Alright. Well, I'm 54. I still have my original me, so I'm good. I'm not in any kind of discomfort whatsoever, but that was what my dad would do. I I went to my dad, I was playing football, and I got I I I jammed my fingers. My two because I because I was the I was the I was the center, so I would snap. So I I jammed my my two my two index figures. Actually, I don't know if you can see it, but it's twisted. Yeah. I can. Compared to the rest. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's thanks to my dad. Because because, I was telling him, I I was saying, dad, I don't know if I don't know if it's, if if I just jammed it or if it's or if it's broken or anything like that. And he looked at it, he grabbed it, he went like that. He goes, now you're fine.
[01:23:57] Unknown:
That was my dad. No x rays or anything? Nothing? No. No.
[01:24:01] Unknown:
Nothing like that. But he was old. But he but when I would go to the doctor later on and say, so I did this? He goes, yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. That's broken. You broke that. Well, obviously my dad broke it, I think. You know, but I mean, obviously, I'm not gonna say that because they would have had my dad arrested me. No. It it may not be that he it may have been broken before he yanked it. Oh, yeah. For sure. No. I know. I'm just being so I'm being facetious. I'm taking you too seriously, Joe. You can, bro. It's Friday. It's a Friday show. We don't we don't do things seriously on Friday yet. It's been a long day for me. It's been a long day. Yes. I know. And actually, you know what? I didn't realize it, but we're over the hour. We're at we're at 01:27 right now. I get Yeah. It looks like oh, yeah. Yep. That's right. I don't wanna let you go yet because if you if you got, like, maybe another ten minutes or so because I I really I wanted to ask you about your walk of faith. You know, we we talked a lot about medicine. We talked a lot about, you know, a bunch of laughs about things.
But one thing I do take very seriously is faith. And, I think I met I think I put it in in our our text message back and forth. You know, I am a I am a blood bought born again King James Bible believing Christian. You know? I saw all that and I thought, oh, gosh. Yeah. Here we go. One of those. Yes. One of those. Yeah. Pulpit pound ins. I'm an atheist by the way. I don't live in a Okay. Hey, look. It's You know what I tell people that that do that to say that to me? Hey, look. Are you a betting person? Me? No. Well, that's that's what I would ask them. I would say, sir, are you a betting person? Like like, would you go to a casino? Would you play play the slot machines and Yeah. Cards and all that stuff? Well, yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, fine. So then you understand that the you understand the concept of odds.
Odds. Mhmm. Right? Okay. So, if I'm wrong and there is no God, I've lived a clean life. I've I've I've lost I've lost nothing. I've absolutely nothing. But if if If you're wrong. If you're wrong, you're going to hell. You know? You don't say that. I do. No. I do. I'm I am very blunt. You would too, wouldn't you? I am very I am very blunt. I'm a Sicilian from New York, dude. Yeah. Yeah. You know? So I'm Nigerian, so I get you. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's it's all the same, bro. You know? It doesn't have in common is the the bluntness. Yep. Well, that's that's the whole thing. So, Even their arms are their feet. So that's the so that's the point. It was like, okay. So so so you gotta be you gotta acknowledge the odds. Alright? So Absolutely. If if I'm wrong, hey look, I lived a good life. I lived a clean life. I was respectful of people. I took care of people. I was charitable. I loved people. You know, no matter what they did, I turned the other cheek, all that stuff. And I was happy. I lived a good life.
Okay, fine. But if you're wrong If you're wrong. You're gonna you're gonna be burning in hell for the rest of eternity, you know? So it's like Pitch bolts and all that. Right? All of that. So you so play the odds, man. You know, what have you got to lose? Put your full faith, trust, and confidence in the lord Jesus Christ.
[01:26:45] Unknown:
That's it. That's it. I I I I got with the concept of of salvation, what it really meant Mhmm. Because I grew up in a Christian home, if you know what I mean. But the understanding that I couldn't save myself, and have an assurance of eternity, without the sacrifice that Christ had made on the cross, that understanding of that came to me when I was 12. Somebody in school was preaching to me. Mhmm. He was telling me what I'd heard before. I'd seen that they used to have tracks in those days. This is back in 1917. Tracks. I have tracks somewhere around here. You really used to call them? Yeah. So I'd seen stuff like that before and everything, but it never really kicked until this guy explained it to me, and that's when I made the decision. It was just before the summer holidays.
And then I remember, through the summer holidays, I went back home, played through the summer. I can remember the decision I'd made at the end of the term. Mhmm. And it seemed like so far away, and that was it. I went back to my normal life. I was going to, third form. What do you call that in America? That'd be oh, gosh. Is it six I can't even hear. I lost 30. Okay. So and then I thought, this thing I'd experienced at the end of last term, I'm gonna have to go back to it. I I it was too strong. I I would, but I never knew when I would. And I played played the fool, got into college, played in college and all whatnot. And it's when I was in college that, again, I caved into the pressure of somebody talking to me about Jesus and gave my life to God. This time, I stuck with it for a few months, and then my all my friends said this is not gonna last, and it didn't. So I was back to my usual ways.
It wasn't until my first, my first job as a as as an intern, you you it's you you call a houseman, the first year of residency as a physician Okay. After medical school. I read a book which a friend of mine had given me. I'd heard that he'd given his life to Christ, and I couldn't believe it because I knew how crazy he was in college and stuff. Yeah. I got that reaction too. Yeah. He gave me this book, if I watch my knee, and I already I think it was all I know that. Yeah. Morning, I woke up and I thought I'm I'm being a hypocrite in this book. I know what the truth is. And I fell on my knees, and I'm I mumbled some prayer to God that I'm coming back to you, Lord, and all whatnot. I left the room feeling so elated. You know? Then I had this sound in my this word in my ear for the next few days that this is not gonna last, Greg. You've been here before. Ask the devil getting at you, brother.
Oh, I tell you. That's what I I didn't realize it at the time until after a day or two, I realized that is just, like, a satanic voice taunting me. Say, oh, fair enough. I just like me talking to myself. You know? Listen. Alright. You're good. You're good for a day, two days a week. Let me give you a do you think in a year's time, you're still gonna be, like, carrying a bible? It's not gonna happen, Greg. And that scared me. I just felt so empty and hollow thinking that the warmth and the relationship I felt I now had with God was gonna go away because I was gonna backslide again or something like that. And then the voice I heard, a quiet gentle voice saying, just take it one day at a time. I'm gonna be a Christian tomorrow. And then tomorrow, I told her I'm gonna be a Christian tomorrow. I could only vouch for the next twenty four hours, and I did that for the next few weeks. And I don't know what point the fear and doubt left me. Yeah. I can't really say. But and it's been thirty five years. I've had ups and downs. That's true. I've had all kinds of things, challenges of faith. Of course. The church is doing all kinds of nonsense.
After thirty years, you've seen done it all well, not done it all, but seen it all, all sorts of atrocities and things like that. But I've come to, I think, understand God, obviously, you should better than I did way back then. I I believe I have a better relationship and understanding with God in spite of the fact that I'm still a scientist at heart, and I have no fear that my knowledge of science would make me discount the existence of God. In fact, it's the opposite. The more I see the discoveries that science leads leads us in that direction, the more it confirms that there's that which exists beyond the material world in which we live. Agreed. Totally agree. I have a relationship with him. One of the arguments that I've I always make is that when
[01:30:55] Unknown:
I I I hold I hold the Bible at at a very high standard. Alright? The word of God. I I believe that the King James Bible is God's word for us today in English. You know, you can read whatever you wanna read, NIV, ESV, RSV, ASV, whatever version you wanna read. Fine. You know, I'm not gonna beat you over the head with my book and say my book is is is better. It is. But Oh. Hit me. Hit me. Move over the head. I felt it. Well, the thing is is like, you know, it's like what I would tell people when I'd be preaching, because I because I used to I served as an associate pastor for a little while. I I did street Oh, wow. I did street preaching. Good to see you, man. Thank you, sir. I did, well, praise the Lord for it, to be honest, really. But, never thought I'd say that see the day where I'd see that little thing in front of my name saying Pastor Joe. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But, but, you know, praise the Lord for that.
But, you know, I I would just tell people, look, if, you know, if you're reading any other version, it's unfortunate because you're losing some very important doctrine. Because despite what people say, oh, Bible say anything. No. They don't. They really don't. You know, and, you know, as a matter of fact, I did a Bible study show a couple years ago where I I I did a side by side between the King James Bible and the NIV, and I showed you all the places where the NIV was changed, and how those simple little word changes changed doctrine.
Like, for just as an example, on top of my head, an easy one. Okay? In the NIV, it says, talking about, when when Jesus was a baby, and he was presented at the temple. It's the the, the the NIV says, the child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about him. Okay? The King James says the King James says, Joseph and his mother marveled at what was said about him. Okay? Very, very subtle difference. Very subtle. Alright? Who was Jesus's father?
[01:32:56] Unknown:
Well, his real father is God. Correct. Not the father. Correct.
[01:33:00] Unknown:
Joseph is his for all intents and purposes, was his stepfather. Right. Okay. So which one is right? Is if is Joseph and his mother marveled at what was said about him, or was the child's father and mother amazed at what was said about him? They're splitting hairs here, Joe. Mhmm. They're splitting hairs. But but it's an important one because if you take if you take that away, what are you changing? You're changing a doctrine. You're absolutely if you take it that way, you are absolutely changing a doctrine entirely. You're correct. Yes. You're quite correct. You're changing the deity of Christ. There's another verse too. It's in Colossians. I think it's Colossians one thirteen. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm going a little cold here. But, Colossians one thirteen in the King James Bible says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, The forgive Forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness of sin. The new versions take out through his blood.
They just say, in whom in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sin. Alright? It's the blood of Christ that cleansed you of your sin. So you're taking that word that one little thing changes a whole doctrine.
[01:34:16] Unknown:
A doctrine You're right. It changes that verse. Yeah. And However, I'd I'd be if I well, maybe I'd be be a blase if I say, no. What what did they say? No. No. No. No. No thing. No foul. Because that concept of the blood of Jesus paying for our sins exists in other scriptures in numerous places. Exactly. Exactly. And you find that consistent chain
[01:34:39] Unknown:
throughout the King James Bible. But in the modern vie Bibles, like the NIV, ESV, RSV, and so on and so forth, it's inconsistent. Yeah. It gives you a bit more work to do than anything. So what is it? Right. Well, and that's it too. Very good. Very good point. It's indicating that there's works involved because it's not through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. No. I don't mean that kind of work. I mean, just
[01:35:03] Unknown:
Listen. I'm I'm talking to you a pastor. This is a pastor speaking. There's a preacher's. I can hear it.
[01:35:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I I talked to Well, you got me there. You got me. You got me a 100%. Sometimes sometimes I get to preaching when I shouldn't. I'm trying to be a bit facetious, but you got me. No. I know. It's alright. It's like, yes. But that's the thing. So like I said, I hold the scripture to a very very high standard. And and to go to something else you said too about about, you know, when you when you first got saved. Right? Yeah. And I'm and I'm gonna agree with you on this one. When I first got saved, I got down on my knees on a pier in in Lower Manhattan. On I was on Pier 34 between Canal Street and West Street along the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan. I had complete chaos going on around me. Wow. Which I'll explain to you another time. It's just way too long to get into. But, but, I got down on my knees on that pier, and I and and I asked Jesus Christ to be my savior.
When I got up, I knew I was saved. Mhmm. I knew I knew something was different. But if you ask me, well, do you know Jesus Christ? No. I I just met him. You know? Wow. That's powerful. That is so well put. You know, I just met him. I don't know. I just met him. Right. So When you've met him. Exactly. When you knew you'd met him. Exactly. And, you know, it took I I like I say, I got saved February, so I'll be coming up on twenty five years that I'm saved. To this day to this day, I still, wherever I go, carry my bible.
That bible is right there with me wherever I go. Because I I I carry my Bible too. It's on the phone. Yeah. Well, you know what? And that that's that's great. That's a great point. But I actually carry the Bible with me. You know, the physical book because Oh, oh, the days. The good old days. Because I'll I'll be honest with you. There's my old Bibles from back then. Oh, so what? When I got saved, underlined, marked, and everything. Oh, yeah. Easy. In in the room across the way from me, I have a bookshelf with all of my study materials, Bibles, and so on and so forth. When I say Bibles, I'm talking through all of my I am talking the physical Bible, and I'm gonna tell you why. And you're gonna probably, you know, oh, God, you're one of those people. Because that digital book that you have on your phone, at some point, the government can turn around and say No. You you have to go there. Have to go there, brother. I have to go there. You know, at some point, they can just turn it off on you. They can take away the access to whatever it is. Whether it's your phone whether it's your bible, whether it's any book that you that you purchase through like Amazon, you know, books or whatever. And I don't I don't even know who's still out there that does this stuff. But, you know, those those Well, it's the what what you the price of convenience is that Yeah. You oftentimes lose control. Yeah. It's very convenient Yes. But you can lose control. So let let so let me I know what you said, it's always good to have a backup. Where's one of my wife's vipers will be here. So it's there's always Yeah. You have to. You have to. So, so you gave me your let me give let me give you mine really quickly. So, I grew up predominantly in a Roman Catholic family.
[01:38:03] Unknown:
Okay. Just like me. My, my uncle,
[01:38:06] Unknown:
who as a child, I idolized my uncle. I I mean, I everything he did, I wanted to do because I just I looked at him as like, he is got it all together, you know. He was the first person in our family to leave the family religion and go to another faith. Alright? And I didn't realize it at the time, but there were some doctrinal issues with the choice that he made, but I didn't see that because I was a child. I was I was going through Catholic catechism, you know. I was I was like, what, 12 maybe? In that. In that. In that. In that. In that. So so, what he would do is he would he would he he went to bible school for this, denomination that he became part of. And I'm not gonna say what it is, but he went to the to to bible school. He eventually went to seminary, became a pastor in that in that denomination.
And, you know, like I said, I idolized my uncle, and and I I would talk to him all the time about it. And, what he would do is he would come home from school on his breaks, and he would take all of my Catholic catechism books and rewrite them. Wow. Yeah. Like he would he would take pay he would he would put big red x's through pages. This is not how it happened, and he would staple an addendum to it. And then I wouldn't notice that until I get to catechism class. I open it up and there's the nun standing over my shoulder. She's like, what's that? What's that? You know? I I you know. I don't know how he got there. You know, I my my dog did it. You know? But
[01:39:36] Unknown:
but, I don't get my homework.
[01:39:38] Unknown:
But but but he would also leave his books, in textbooks, in his theology books. And at a very, very young age, I was reading them. I was just sucking it all in. I I was naturally curious about the whole thing. Well, fast forward a little bit to the time when you're supposed to take your first communion. Right. And you're supposed to go to the confessional and and and and tell the guy in there that, you know, all the stuff that you did wrong. And, you know, he's supposed to say, okay, you know, I absolve you. Well, I wouldn't go. And And I said, why am I gonna tell you what I've done wrong? You're worse than I am.
You know? And and he was like and and we debate it. Now, he's debating a 12 year old. You know? Oh. It's not like me. So he got so he got frustrated, and I'll I will never forget this. Okay. I'll never forget this, and I I wish my mom was still alive that she can corroborate my story. But he physically took me by the hand, pulled me out of the church, out of the classes, and handed me off to my mother who was waiting for me and said, we don't need his kind here. That's what that's what he said to my mother. And my mother was like, oh, really? Fine. You don't have to go back. Done. So I kind of wandered my way through my life, and I would tell people, well, you know, I I I I'm the Pope of the Worldwide Church of Joe. You know, I I believe what I believe. They preach what I preach.
Like it or leave it. It's up to you, you know. Orgy at my place next week. Bring bring the toga. You know, that type of it was it was stupid. I know. But, you know, that that's
[01:41:07] Unknown:
the way it was. That's what you do when you've got no connection to God in any other way. Exactly. Exactly. Through life. Right? Exactly. So,
[01:41:15] Unknown:
but I talked to my uncle and he was like, well, he goes, I can set you up with with some bible studies from, you know, from the church that he was part of and so on and so forth. And he would send me recordings of which kinda made me laugh later on when I learned more about the denomination that he was part of and some of the restrictions that they have and and all that fun stuff and well, if you're not supposed why recording things and never mind. Anyway, so, so, like I said, he became a pastor of that in that in that denomination. He was pastoring a church in Pennsylvania, and, you know, and it was great. But I love my uncle. I remember when I went to his ordination ceremony, I cried like a baby. Mhmm. You know, it it affected me. And, so one day, I got a little bit older. I had gone through a lot of the bible studies that he set me up with, and I went up to him and I said and his name is Joe also. I said, uncle Joe, I said, I wanna be I wanna I wanna be a part of your church. I wanna be what you are. Would would you would you help me and baptize me?
And my uncle looked me dead in the face and said, no. Why? He said, this isn't for you. Wow. What a letdown that was, you know?
[01:42:26] Unknown:
How? Why? Why did he think so?
[01:42:28] Unknown:
I didn't know it at the time. I found out later on, but there were some issues. The church the church, the denomination was part of was very, very legalistic. And he was starting to see how it how the legalism that they were teaching didn't really mesh up with what the Bible was teaching. Right. And he was starting to question a lot of it. Right. The straw that the straw that broke the camel's back for him was and I could talk about this because he doesn't like me anymore, so he doesn't watch my show. But, the straw that broke the camel's back for them was, they went food shopping, and, it was he and his wife, and they bumped into some some folks from the church, and they physically went through his shopping cart to make sure that he was purchasing things that were in accordance with the restrictions that that denomination had.
So, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and he's like, we're done. This isn't right. Something's something's wrong here. It's wrong here. You know? So, and
[01:43:30] Unknown:
and I'm thankful now, of course, you know, that he didn't pull me in with him. Yeah. Because you you were so willing. You you would have gone through another well, you would have you wouldn't some like you probably wouldn't have lasted that long. Probably not. No. Your questioning
[01:43:41] Unknown:
spirit would have said, nah. Yeah. Exactly. Why? Yo. Not doing this. Exactly. So, again, I went through life, did my own thing. I I worked for New York City. I worked in law enforcement investigations, all that stuff. I got reassigned to a command in Lower Manhattan just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. So this is about maybe a year before the World Trade Center thing happened. And, so I got assigned there and, I went, you know, you know, before I reported for duty my first day, I had to go see meet the commanding officer who turned out to be a good friend of mine. He was actually one of my academy instructors when I went through the academy. And so he was thrilled to have me there. He was like, oh, dude, when I when I heard you were coming in, I I this was really great. I I need you here that you you're the kind of guy I need. I'm like, alright. Well, that's cool. What do you got for me? He goes, well, unfortunately though, I had to put you on the overnight. He goes, that's where I need the most help. I was like, alright. That's fine. No problem. I have no problem with that. Yeah. Not a problem with that at all.
Mostly because you make more money on the overnight, you get differentials. So, you know Yeah. The overnight same thing in medicine. Yeah. And and you don't everything too. And you don't deal with all the all the the stuff that the day shift deals with and the mid shifts deal with, you know, you you know, it's kinda quiet. So, so, and he goes, and one more thing. I was like, well, what's that? He goes, it's your turn. Since you're the new guy in the shift. My turn for what? Like, here we go. For what? He goes, you gotta ride with Gail. I'm like, alright. Who's Gail? Bill. Yeah. Tangier's Gail.
Okay? That doesn't help me either. Who is Tangier's Gail? She's one of those born again Christian types. She's gonna talk your ear off all night long. So, he goes, we've all been through it. It's your turn. I'm like, alright. So I kind of felt like, I I know enough. I I can hold my own. You know? I'm fine. So, I report I report to do my first shift. She comes out of the locker room. She looks me right in the face. She gets right in my right, like almost nose to nose. She goes, are you saved? I'm like, I'm like, I just got here. Okay? Calm down.
We'll get to that point. We got we got eight hours ahead of us. Let's Oh my gosh. Let's calm. No. Answer the question right now. Are you saved? So I I just I don't know what made me say it. I just turned around and said, look. At this time, I wish to assert my fifth amendment privilege as, guaranteed by the the United States Constitution against self incrimination. I don't have to tell you anything. I plead the fifth. Yeah. Plead the fifth here. So, so, you know, I I I got into uniform. We we left. We went on patrols. We hit our we hit our sector. And we're driving around, and we're talking, and and we are arguing. Not arguing like like like hostile or The debate. Debating. Yeah. Debating.
See I have to I have to explain that because there's a lot of people that are around me here that don't know the difference between arguing and arguing. Okay. So, you know, just a little slow. But,
[01:46:49] Unknown:
just say it like that. Don't worry, I do because I have to laugh when I Yeah. Well, you're educated. That's why. So because you understand. It it's not that. It's just I'm I'm just that vain. I make a lot of noise when I make my points. Yes, sir. I I get you. Alright.
[01:47:02] Unknown:
Okay. And you're educated. So, so the, so with with some, you know, going all of a sudden having these great debates back and forth, you you know. And it was really interesting, and that was really interesting what she was saying. And of course, you know, me being me being me, I'm antagonistic, you know. So I'm just like egging her on. I'm like doing whatever I can to kind of stir her up and and and all that stuff. And, like like one day one day I said to just randomly, I was I was driving and I was I came to a stoplight, and I'm sitting there. I said, hey, do you have you you think Jesus ever ate bacon? She was like, don't you blasphemy.
[01:47:38] Unknown:
She's like, don't you blasphemy. And I was like
[01:47:42] Unknown:
I'm just asking. Just a question. I was like I was like I was like Just a thought. And and she hated I I shortened her name. So her name was like I said Tangiers. Alright? And that's what she wanted to be called. I never called her. I called her Tangie. She hated it. It was just kinda draddler. I said, come on Tangie. I'm kidding around for crying out loud. Get over it. So, but we but we got very close, you know. And and we had a really good friendship. We had a good working relationship. She was just an overall, just a great person. Love her to death. And, you know, if if there was a way that I could track her down, because I know I know she moved long time ago. I would love just to say, how you doing? Harvey. You know?
But, so one night, we're getting off duty, and she says, you know, there's this Christian radio station on the AM channels up in New York. She was like, yeah, there's a Christian radio station. You might like it. Check it out. She gave me the the station ID. I was like, yeah, alright. I'll do that. So I left I left work. I turned on that that Christian radio station, and I heard a guy preaching or teaching really, the more bible study, by the name of J. Vernon McGee. I don't know if you ever heard Yeah. I got a name. I had no idea this man had been with the Lord for years. Even back then? That back then. And I had no idea, but everything that he was talking about, everything he was teaching just seemed so relevant to me and my life at that moment.
So, I was shocked when I found out that he was gone. Mhmm. So I would listen to every day. Every morning, I would I'd leave work, I'd put it on, I would purposely drive home slower just so I can hear the whole thing. You hear? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and and the more I listened, the more hungry I got for more. And I remember I I I, I went back to I went back to my house and I I went to my attic and I started tearing my attic apart. And my wife at the time said, she was, what are you looking for? My bible. You have a bible?
Really? You lying. It's here somewhere. It's here. I have no idea. Yeah. So It's somewhere. So I found it, you know, and and and I I started reading the thing and, you know, I I I I tried reaching out to my uncle, but you know, he he he he never really got back to me on it until much much later on. But I tracked down addresses for bible studies and things like that, and I started doing all these bible studies on my own. I started buying books and and whatnot. And, just constantly reading, constantly reading. Just read, read, read, read, read. And then, long story short, fast forward to just one night, it was July 17.
July 16, seventeenth, somewhere around there. I was getting ready to go to work. It was a Sunday night. And, I was like, you know, I always listen to the traffic reports. It's always the same mess, the same traffic, the same route, all that stuff. Let me let let me see what's on that Christian station tonight. So I put it on, and there was a guy in there. It was a it was a it was a it was like a bible study show. It was a live show, and he was taking questions. He would he would preach, teach a little bit, then he would stop, answer phone calls, take questions, pray with people, you know. He would try to keep he would try to keep the questions to the context of the show, but you know, people would call all kinds of crazy questions, and he would answer them. He would take his time and and and talk to them about it. And I was like, wow this is great, man. I'm listening to this. And it was at one point, I got really spooked out.
Because like you said before, that still soft voice.
[01:51:04] Unknown:
That's it. Right?
[01:51:06] Unknown:
I was sitting at a traffic light, and the subject of the bible study was hell and who's going there.
[01:51:13] Unknown:
Oh my gosh.
[01:51:14] Unknown:
Okay. Really heavy. Are you okay? Really heavy really heavy stuff. Okay? And and I'm not saying that I'm not being sarcastic. It was really heavy, like he was not holding back. He was saying it like it was. And, but the thing was that it just seemed like at the end of every sentence, it was, did you get that, Joe? I'm talking to you. This is for you, Joe.
[01:51:38] Unknown:
Oh, gosh.
[01:51:39] Unknown:
Scare literally when I say literally scared the hell out of me, it literally scared the hell out of me. Literally? Literally. Okay. Out of me. So I I I I so I wrote down the phone number, because I was gonna call, you know. But, by the time I got to to to a phone that I could call, the show was over. And besides, I I was gonna chicken out anyway. I was really gonna do it. You just didn't think you'd be able to go through it. Yeah. No. I I just I I I chickened out. But what I did is I I wrote down the phone number to the church that that was sponsoring the show, and I called the next day. And I I must have sounded like an idiot. Hey, I heard you on the radio. You know, I'm a big fan.
But, I called and of course, I got his voicemail, which terrified me even more. I'm like, oh, this is prolonging the whole thing. You know, and then Until he called you back? Five minutes later, dude. Five minutes later, he called me back. And we we were on the phone for about an hour. And he was like Wow. He was like, why don't you come to church Sunday? I was like, yeah. No. I'm not coming to church. Are you out of your mind, man? I said, I'll I said, you I I said, I'm sure you have a very nice church building, but if you wanted to remain standing, I'm not coming to church Sunday.
[01:52:45] Unknown:
Alright? That lightning bolt. It's it's lightning
[01:52:49] Unknown:
bolt. It's following me, man. It's just waiting for that moment. You know? Where where where do you think you're going?
[01:52:57] Unknown:
I don't, you know, I'm afraid, but just to interject, he used that lightning bolt joke a lot because he used to be born again, I think when in his high school days, and we're in college acting crazy. And if anybody said anything that was really sacrilegious, he would make the joke look I'm gonna stand aside because I can stand the bolt light is coming. I don't wanna get hit when it hits you. Yeah. I know. Yeah. So,
[01:53:20] Unknown:
so he was like, well, he goes, well, so I said to him, I said, how about this? How about, if you have time during the week, I'll come by your office, and we'll sit down, we'll talk. He goes, well, you know, we he goes, we rent space at a community school in Lower Manhattan, so I don't really have office space. And I I didn't I didn't realize how common that really was, that a church would rent space like that. So I thought then you the church to you was always this church building with people and all that. Exactly. So I I was kinda like leery when he said that. I was like, oh, oh, okay. Okay. So I said, so, where is this place that you meet? So he gave me the address. I said, you gotta be kidding me. He said, that's right across the street from where I work. Wow. It's like it's like a like like not even a block away from where I work. So he was like, well, you see, God works things out, so you can come to church. I'm like, yeah, I'm not.
Well, I'll meet you some place, you know, we'll we'll we'll So we ended up meeting for dinner. And, man, I came I came ready to bear dude. I I had this big red duffle bag. I loaded every book that I had into that bag. And I carried that thing with me into the city, and I met I met up with him. And it was weird too because I there were no pictures of him anywhere. Like I I didn't know what he looked like, but when I saw him when I saw him, I knew that that was the guy I was going The guy I'd be talking to on the phone. This is him. Yeah. Exactly. And he and actually, he said the same thing, and he actually wrote a book, and he included this whole story in his book. It's like one chapter in his book. So Wow. Yeah. I know. It's crazy. So, so, we go to this we go to this restaurant, and we're sitting there, we're talking, just having a conversation. And, he goes, well, I don't think we just came here for the food, so what's on your mind? I said, well, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm dealing with, this is what I'm thinking about, this is what I, you know, it's been on my mind, and this is what I've been doing. Took the bag and I dumped it. I literally opened it. I dumped everything out on the table, and all he did was this, is he kinda craned his neck. He looked at it. He goes, okay. And he took his arm, he just pushed everything off the tabletop.
Took his King James Bible, put it on the table, he goes, this is all you need. Dude, I was hooked right there. As soon as he said, he was so confident and so matter of fact, you don't need that. This is all you need right here. What do you need? You know, and Brilliant. And so I Brilliant. So and I do I I literally did this. Talk to me. Sayon, brother. Sayon. Yeah. And, My goodness. And he did. He started showing me scripture. We started talking about stuff. And, you know, he answered he was so patient with me. I don't know how he did it, but he was so patient with me that that he answered almost every question, like, instantly. Like like, no pause. Nothing. He didn't say, well, nothing.
I asked a question, boom. He had an answer and scripture. Answer and scripture. Answer in every question I had. And he said something to me that actually stayed with me from from that day to today, and I use it all the time. He said, that book has the answers to every single question you have in life In life. And eternity. He goes, now, ask me where they all are. I don't know. I don't know. But it's there somewhere. But it's but but they're there, and God gave us the book so we can find it. That stayed with me. And that's exactly how he said it, and I use that regularly when I talk to people about this stuff. Well, how do you know? Because I believe that it's all there. I just gotta find it. If I take the time, listen to the Lord, listen to the Holy Spirit, let him guide me, I will find it. It may take me a day, it may take me a year. I don't know, but I'll find it.
So, anyway. Just a brilliant story though. So we so we finished we finished our lunch, our dinner, And, he was he was like, so you have to you have to get to work. Right? Yeah. I got I got roll call in about forty five minutes, so I gotta go. So he was like, alright. So I'll walk back with you. So we're we're walking, we're talking, all that stuff. And we come across this we come right to the front of my of my command. And, he was like, do you have ten minutes? Just ten more minutes. I just wanted to I I because I really wanna show you just a couple more things. I don't think that the Lord brought us together here just to have a dinner and a conversation. This is more important. Okay.
So he went out onto the onto Pier 34 Of A West Street in Canal Street, second bench from the gate. Sat there, he opened up the bible, he started taking me down with the what's what's called the Romans Road. Now I'm sure you're familiar with that. Yep. Yep. So as he's doing that, and this is all in his book by the way. As he's doing that, some guy comes around on a bicycle, and he's riding in circles around the bench that we're sitting on. And while he's giving me scripture, this guy is riding around cursing at us, spitting at us, cursing at us, and all that stuff. Until at some point, I don't know what he hit, but he hit something on that deck that flipped him over the handlebars.
Wow. And literally cut, literally busted his skull open. I mean, blood everywhere. I mean, I know I know when you cut your head, you you bleed more, you know. It looked it looked nasty. It looks worse than what it is, but this was bad because it actually fractured his skull. Woah. So, so, you know, I I it's what I do, you know. It's I I law enforcement. I I I help people. So I jumped up. I started, you know, making calls. Hey, I need we need to get a bus down. In New York, we call them buses, the ambulance. Call them the bus. I need a bus down here. I got I got the guys from my command came down and, you know, the the bus shows up, they start working on them, and, while they're working on them, this pastor, he's kneeling down with there with the guy that was just cursing at him, spitting at him, asking him if he can pray for him. Some lady comes running over, claims to be his girlfriends cursing out the pastor, telling him to get the f away and all that stuff.
And so, he backs away. I'm still here because that's what I do. I'm directing the scene. And he very very gently takes me by the arm, like he just taps my my elbow. And he goes, come on. He goes, they're trying to save his life. We're doing something more important. We're trying to save your soul. Led I was like, okay. Yeah. Just we walked we walked away. He had all the right words, didn't he? Oh, man. He was amazing. I love I love the man. I really do. He he's he's such a great friend. You know, I still hear from him every now and then. You know, time and distance, it makes it hard, but, you know, it's, what a great man. Incredible preacher, incredible teacher. I mean, I amazing. Just a God has definitely touched this man. Mhmm.
So he leads me away, says what he says, he says a quick prayer for them. And in the middle of all of that chaos, the sirens, the the the the the flashing lights, the yelling, the screaming, the crying, all that stuff, The word of God just penetrated into my heart. I'm starting to crack up here a little bit. The word of God penetrated into my heart. I got down on my knees right there, and I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to save me. Wow. And it didn't really hit me that that what had just happened until when I got up, and I looked up, and I saw that pastor standing in front of me with his hand out saying, come on brother. The first time he called me brother, dude, man, I I lost it.
I lost it. Amazing. You know? And then Amazing. And then right after that, you know, we we parted ways, and I was like, I will be in church on Sunday. That's it. And he was like, great. He'll be waiting for you. Went to went to work. Now I Now remember Tangiers. Alright? Never told her any of this stuff was going on, what I was talking about, and I was even meeting this guy. I go up to the command, she comes walking out of the locker room, she looks me dead in the face, and she goes, you got saved. Wow. And I was like, what are you talking about? She goes, uh-uh. Don't start your new life with a lie.
[02:01:16] Unknown:
What
[02:01:18] Unknown:
did she see? She she said that I looked like I was glowing. Like there was just this radiance coming off of me that she had not seen before in me. And she goes, you got saved. And we spent the whole night driving around. I don't I don't even think we did anything related to the work. That's full scripture of bible and everything. All we did all night was just go over the story, over the story, over the story, over the story. It was is the probably the most incredible experience in my life. You know, it was the day that I got saved. And then, and then nine eleven took place.
I I I I worked on the pile for for a few months. It was right down the street from my command. Did rescue, did some recovery, did, security post, building sweeps, you know, all that stuff. And then, but related to the spiritual side of it, when I got saved, I immediately wanted to preach. I wanted to teach. So when I the first day I went to church, I didn't say anything to the pastor about it. But he comes up to me, he goes, Joe, if you're interested, I have a discipleship institute, and we're starting up a class on on bible teaching and bible preaching. Would you be interested in signing up for it? He goes, I won't there's no charge for you, you know. Normally, it's like a donation, whatever you wanna give. He goes, I don't want I don't want money from you. I just want you to take the class. I want you to get involved.
Okay. I did. And that so that was in July. And in December, I preached my first message. So it was it was horrible. But you know what? You have a recording of it even now? No. Thank God. No. No. You should keep these. No. No. No. No. No. But, but, yeah. No. And and from that point on and shortly after that, strange, I got I got an invitation to from a from a church in Upstate New York, contacted my church in downstate about a church in Washington state that wanted somebody to come that had some, involvement with the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center, and, because they were doing some kind of like a memorial, services for it. Yeah. And, my pastor asked me, he goes, would you be willing to go?
Uh-oh. Well, the devil doesn't want us talking about this, brother. That was a quick switch. Well, yeah. Well, I don't I I that it said I needed a refresh. I got I got, I got kicked out. But see, the devil doesn't want me talking about this. So,
[02:03:57] Unknown:
so You look a lot clearer in this shot than you did in the last one. Yeah. I think,
[02:04:02] Unknown:
my my my and I'm having a problem with the, the studio that I use. So I'm I'm trying to work towards getting away from the browser studio to an OBS with the stream deck and all that stuff. Right. Right. But it takes takes some money to do it. So, but we're working on it. We're working on it. So at any rate, the, so so the invitations went all around and I this this church I lost you now. I'm back. I see. Okay. Now you're back you're back where you belong.
[02:04:35] Unknown:
Let's see. Turn on camera and join the stage. Come on. There you go. Perfect.
[02:04:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So, yeah. That that's that's the cutest time to shut up. So, we'll, I'll I'll just say this and wrap it up quick. So, I got, so I got this invitation. I went out to Washington state, and I got to to preach to 400 lumberjacks. What? Which was an incredibly interesting experience. And, I gotta do this. Hold on. Sorry. Alright. If you're looking for a great place online for news and discussion and entertainment, then you need to check out Truth Social, Donald Trump's social media website. You'll get breaking news stories and commentary from top media figures. If you wanna see Trump's legendary Truth Social posts, then get on Truth Social today. I've told you folks many, many times, if you really wanna follow what this administration is doing, get on Truth Social because he posts it there first, if anywhere else.
Join a growing community of patriots on a free speech platform designed to avoid censorship and cancellation by big tech. Make your voice heard, join the movement, join Truth Social, and make sure you follow me there at joe roos.
[02:05:49] Unknown:
Alright. Done. Done.
[02:05:52] Unknown:
Gotta pay the bills. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All all how much? 12¢. Alright. So,
[02:05:59] Unknown:
Is it that bad? 12¢.
[02:06:01] Unknown:
Take what you can get. It all adds up. It all adds up. Well, actually actually, the the payout for the, for the, prescription thing that I read was considerably more than that. It was weird. But, anyway. So I went up there. I preached to these guys. It was a great experience. Came back, man. I was just on fire, you know. And I came back and the the pastor said, hey, listen. I'm gonna be out going on vacation. He goes, I want you to preach a Sunday service for me, like a main service. I was like, what do you mean? Yeah. Okay. Sure. Well, when you picked a 400 lumberjack, why not? Well, yeah. That was like my test. That was my trial run. So so I did that and then, you know, I just everything just started moving and going and and just just moving at a fast pace. And then fast forward, a few years later, I had to I had to leave that church because they moved further into Manhattan, and it was becoming a difficult because I was getting out of work, had to drive all the way back to where I lived, which was like forty five minutes away, and then, you know, then turn around, come back, you know, forty five minutes, and then traffic and all that mess. It was just it was just very, very hard. So, so I found this little, independent Baptist church up in, where I lived on Staten Island, and, started going there. And about after a year of that, the pastor of that church came to me and he said, listen, you know, Joe, I I because, you know, I the the Lord's definitely touched you. You have a you have a a real knack for for the word of God and for handling scripture. He goes, I don't know if you know or not, but I'm sick. I have this, this, this, and this.
It's not looking very good. Mhmm. So I need somebody to kinda just fill the pulpit for me from time to time, and so on and so forth, and so I did. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. I'll help you out wherever. Well, at the following business meeting, he informed the church that he was putting my name forward to be the associate pastor of the church.
[02:07:44] Unknown:
Did he tell you that first? No.
[02:07:46] Unknown:
No. But I I told him, I said, look, I, you know, I I wish you would have told me, you know, but, you know, if if I said, as long as long as it's a a unanimous decision in favor, that's the only way I'll do it. If there's one dissent, I'm not gonna do it. I'm out. Yeah. And it was unanimous. So That was it. Yep. And then when that happened, my first wife decided she didn't wanna be married to a pastor or preacher. Oh. Yeah. So after a year in serving that, we split. And, I didn't have to step down because I didn't do anything to need to step down, like it wasn't any immorality or anything like that. There was no cheating involved. There was no money problem, nothing like that. It's just it had basically, I guess, ran its course. So so, so so I had to step down from the pastorate there, and then, you know, ended up getting divorced finally.
And then and then I met my second wife, and, moved out here to Texas after I retired, and that's how I'm here in Texas. But I I I still teach. I still preach at my local church here, at the great church. I love it. It's a great bunch of people.
[02:08:58] Unknown:
Yeah. It's a gift, isn't it? So it's not gonna go away. The gifts and the calling are without repentance. So, yep. Yeah. And then It's yours. And then I did a a Bible study podcast for three years,
[02:09:08] Unknown:
and, that was a lot of fun. And, and and actually with this podcast too, I just recently started a, started teaching doing a bible study on Sundays, as part of this show. And, so that's been pretty good. Got a couple in there. But I can't stay away from the politics either because, you know, so far so far, I'd say I did I did a Father's Day message, and then the the the the following two shows, one was a, a, politics in the bible, and, the one I did last Sunday was the Christian's bill of rights.
[02:09:39] Unknown:
Oh my gosh. And then I've got to say this at this point that, I'm so glad that I've come on to this this show and done this because, as much as I would I've been doing this way. This is the first time I've been on what is traditionally referred to as talk radio. Mhmm. I mean, it's Long form. Yeah. Video same similar. And maybe it was a good thing that you maybe didn't dig too far into my background spiritually. All you found was a believer. Mhmm. It's common believer. Oh, well, let's get him in. Because you may not have wanted me. You'd have thought, nah. He wouldn't want to listen to what I have to say.
But it was nice to hear what you had to say. I felt very welcomed. I appreciate it. I felt ex accepted, and, and I felt appreciated. Of course. Even though some of the things you said that I disagreed with were able to have a bit of banter without coming at each other. Right. And there's so much of that, in the world today, in America, and even in the church, and that's just so sad. Yeah. But but the fact that I could be on your show and I know I'm I'm not a lefty liberal extremist anyway, but there are many people, from I mean, your audience
[02:10:55] Unknown:
who would look at me and hear what I have to say about health care, for example, and say, oh, no. We don't wanna listen to him. But I felt welcome here, and I'm and I'm glad for the opportunity I had. Well, listen, brother. Anytime you wanna come on the show, you just let me know. We we can we'll definitely get you in here. I mean, I I I really enjoyed our conversation. I was and, you know, it's funny too because, you know, sometimes you look, you you you get these you you get these profiles that you look at for guests and and such, and it's like sometimes you look at someone and say, I don't know. I don't think so.
But there was some when when I when your profile came up, it it was just like you said, yeah, I wanna I wanna talk to him. I wanna go I wanna have him come on, you know. And, and it was a blessing for me, and I really do appreciate it. And and and I know we we talked to me somewhere, I'm gonna stay off for an hour, and it's two hours fifteen minutes. You know? Oh, you got to pay me for this. Is it two Yeah. Two yeah. I can see that. Yep. You you owe me now, Joe. You owe me. Consultation fee. You read my profile, and you saw
[02:11:48] Unknown:
words like scientist and Mhmm. You know, the scientific method. And even though I talked about him, I'm proud about my Christianity and my my my following of Christ, but I did mention my attitude to health and health care. Mhmm. I know the sort of arguments I get in with people in church who believe that any kind of government involvement in health care is wrong and it's socialism and stuff like that. Mhmm. And yet you still decided to have me on. I'm I'm kudos to you. You know? That but that but that's the whole thing too. It's it's dialogue. You know? You we Dialogue. You Dialogue. You have to keep talking about things. You can't you can't just push somebody to the side and say, well, you know what?
[02:12:26] Unknown:
He doesn't believe what I believe. I'm not gonna talk to him about this stuff. I'm sure. Yeah. Or and the other way around. No. You have to. That's the whole that's that's what makes society work. Is the ability to sit down and have a conversation. Have a conversation. Maybe have disagreements Yeah. And then work your way through it. And work your way through them. We laughed our way through the conversations that we disagreed with, you know. And that's that's the thing. And then on top of that, when it comes to faith and and and and, you know, your relationship with the Lord Look, your relationship with the Lord is your relationship with the Lord. Mine is mine. I can't make you accept mine. You can't make me accept yours. You may not agree with everything that I stand on. I may not agree with everything you stand on, but but there's one thing, one very, very important thing.
You believe that salvation is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. That's it. And that the gospel message the gospel message is first Corinthians fifteen one through three. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yep. And that Jesus Christ is the son of God. You got those things? That's it. We have fellowship.
[02:13:32] Unknown:
We have fellowship. As Everything else is secondary. The brethren told you the chap told you, and he said, hello. Get up, brother. What was the expression? He called you a brother Yep. After he had led you to the Lord, and that's the most important thing and very few anything else matters beyond that. Unfortunately, we fight over the smallest thing The most inconsequential
[02:13:53] Unknown:
things ever. And you know what it also is too, is that a lot of Christians and I I know I'm gonna get flack for this, but I don't really care because I'm just gonna say the truth. A lot of a lot of Christians, and I've come across this in churches, ones that I visited, churches that I've attended, You could be saved for fifty years and still be a child. Have no growth whatsoever in in your faith. None whatsoever. We are not meant to be on the sincere milk of the word all of our life.
[02:14:31] Unknown:
The book of Hebrews time for meat. There's a time for crackers bones. Correct. We've got to grow into that. Correct.
[02:14:37] Unknown:
And if you are if you if you come to me and say, well, I've been saved fifty years and you're still acting like a child in the faith. Well, you know what? It doesn't matter how long you've been saved. That's yeah. That that's a that's a problem. That's something you have to work on with the Lord. I'm not I can't help you with that. You have Maturity. We have to be able to sit down and talk to each other. And again, if we could fellowship around the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ Mhmm. And that he is the only way to salvation, the only way to heaven, then we have fellowship. Everything else is everything else is inconsequential.
We can disagree on the preservation and and the inspiration of scripture. That's fine. It's okay. You believe in Jesus Christ as your personal savior? That's all that matters. That's all that matters. No. We could agree. We we could disagree on baptism.
[02:15:21] Unknown:
Alright? Some And they have. Yeah. Fought and died over baptism. Right. You know The woman preached. Do you know what? Cover their cover their hair. It's the church is split and split and split and split over centuries. Look, I'm a Baptist by denomination. Alright? I mean, I tell I'm a born again Christian. You know, that that's first and foremost. Mhmm. But denominationally,
[02:15:38] Unknown:
I'm a Baptist. And I will be the I will be the first one to tell you Baptists don't believe that baptism saves you. Alright? The most baptism does is get you wet. It's all it is. Gets you wet. It's an outward display of a change that has taken place internally. Exactly. Yeah. That's all it is. That's right. You know, and some people go as far as saying, well, it's a step of obedience. You know, Jesus Christ himself, God himself manifest in the flesh, submitted himself the way by doing it. He did it. Submitted himself to baptism. We should do it too. Perfect. I love that. That's a great answer. I love that. Yeah. It's because it's right. He did. He submitted himself to the to the law and got baptized.
[02:16:20] Unknown:
Okay. To show what men ought to do because Correct. That was God acting as a man. So everything he did was an example. Well, not every most things he did was an example of what we ought to do, and baptism was certainly one of them. Absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. You will. And so,
[02:16:37] Unknown:
you, you know, you should be growing in your faith. And if you're gonna bicker and nitpick over the smallest little details, that's not growing in your faith. I thought growing in your faith. No. That's legalism. That's that's that's that's stagnant. If I could find a if I can find a good word for that, that that's a stagnant faith. That's a nice polite word for it. I'll I'll accept stagnant. Yeah. So there you go. Alright. Well Paul was a bit more harsh in some of the week. Yeah. Yeah. He was well, I'm Stagnant. You know, I'm I'm trying. I'm trying. You you have you have not seen me street preach, so you have no idea.
Just imagine. Oh, gosh. Hey, you. You're tone of hell. Come over here. I I'd be the one saying it would not calm down. Calm down. Right. Hey. You. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. I'm you. Come here. You're going to hell. Come over here. I wanna talk to you. I was like, he doesn't really mean it like that. Jesus loves you. He because Jesus loves you, but you're going to hell. Come over here. You're going to hell regardless. It was like so It was like, I had a member of the church back in New York come up to me one day. He was like, he goes, hey hey hey, brother Joe, I wanna ask you a question. I was like, sure. He goes, I am struggling with something. Yeah. What's up? Smoking.
Well, what about it? Well, I I I I know I shouldn't be doing it. I I know I have to stop. I know it's a sin. Okay. I I don't recall seeing thou shall not smoke in the bible. You know? Don't get controversial. This is about to wrap the show up. You know? So so I said, alright. I said, well, look. I said, and his name is Joe too. Look, we're in New York. Everybody's name is Joe. Nobody's Joe in New York. Joe Joe, Anthony, or Dominic. It's it's it's just the way, especially in an Italian community. It's all it is, you know. Everybody's Joe. Everybody's Joe, Anthony, or Dominic.
[02:18:25] Unknown:
Tony. Yeah. Joe, Tony.
[02:18:27] Unknown:
Yeah. There you go. So, you know, so I said to him, I said I said, Joe, look. You have a you have liberty in Christ. Okay? You can do anything you want to do in Christ. Okay? As a as a believer, as someone who's saved. Should you do it? Should you do it? No. It's not a good testimony. But the only thing about smoking is not gonna send you to hell, it's just gonna make you smell like you've been there. Alright? So what you need I said, what you need to do is you take baby steps. You know what? You have a cigarette. Lord, give me the strength. Give me the grace.
Give me the mercy to go Overcome. To go an hour without another cigarette. Yeah. Just You know? When that hour comes, when that on. Yeah. When that hour's up, when you feel that the urge is coming, you you gonna smoke again? Lord, you've got me through an hour, please. By your grace, by your mercy, give me another hour. Give me fifteen minutes. Give me half an hour. You keep doing that step by step by step by step, but don't you think that the prodigal son did that when he was making his way back from the pig pen to his father's place? He had no clothes. He was walking barefoot across the desert. He had no food, no water as far as we know according to what, you know, I mean, that's preaching between the lines, I think. But Well, that's the story Jesus told. He said, yeah. We we we get the picture. Right? Step by step. Step by step. You know? Father sees him, runs out to him, meets him halfway, and brings him in. Exactly. You know, step by step. Just one step. I can't make it all the way. In this first shot, I'm gonna get to that tree right there. Mhmm. Get to the tree. I'm gonna sit here for a minute, and I'm gonna go to that tree over there. That's I'm convinced that that's probably the way he did it, to work his way back, and then his father sees him afar off and goes out and gets him and brings him in, puts him on the best robe, and the ring back on his finger, and orders up the do the triathlon. He wasn't at running. I'm gonna run 30 miles and make it home. The Christian walk the Christian the Christian walk in life is not a sprint. It's a it's a long running race. That's why the that's why the apostle Paul used that illustration in Philippians, and used it again in, the second Corinthians, I think it was, or or Colossians.
He he used that example many, many times that it's a race. You're running a race. Running a race. It's not a sprint. Not a sprint. Long distance, long haul. And you don't look back. Step by step. You don't you don't look back. You keep your eyes forward. That's why he said, I keep pressing toward the mark. What that means in modern English is I'm looking straight ahead. I'm not I don't care what happened behind me. Yeah. That's in the past. That's under the blood of Christ. I'm looking straight ahead, and I'm gonna get there. That's what it is. That'll preach. That'll preach. Amen. Amen. I know because I preach it too.
Thank you so much, Joe. It's been fantastic. Oh, I'm, brother, I'm so glad we did this. And let and I meant what I said, if anytime you wanna come back on the show, because I would love to talk to you more about your faith and and how it impacts, you know, your work as in in the medical field as a scientist, because there are, you know, people who are skeptical of that stuff. You know, how could you be a scientist? So, but, Yeah. That's true. Unfortunately, yeah, there is. But, you you know, like that great book says, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. You know, and the and the Fantastic title, wasn't it? Yeah. Fantastic title. And the more and the more you the more Yeah. And and like you said also earlier, the more you look at the discoveries that were that that are made in science, you cannot you can't attribute this just just the cellular structure itself.
Mhmm. How could you possibly say that that thing was a result of some kind of cosmic bang billions of years ago, and and out of chaos came order? That doesn't work.
[02:22:16] Unknown:
That's one of the linchpins. Out of chaos came order. Or starting something else. European and then close system and all that. But the reality is it's it's the other way around. Yeah. In the universe, and I think this all results from the fall of Adam, from the universe,
[02:22:30] Unknown:
Everything is slowly in decay. It's going the other direction, not that direction. Whatever that's a whole other Yeah. Everything. It's like an example I used on a message I preached not too long ago. That is, I took this watch. Right? Alright. My my my Samsung Galaxy whatever number it is watch. Okay. Well, the example I use when I was preaching this was, I said, so here I am, I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm and I'm, you know, I'm working on my I'm working on my show notes, and and all of a sudden I see this movement out of the corner of my eye, and I see all these bits and pieces coming sliding onto the door, and they're working their way, they're crawling their way up over here, and they crawled up on my desk.
They wrapped themselves around my arm, and somehow, someway, all of that became a watch that works perfectly. Do you believe that could possibly happen?
[02:23:20] Unknown:
No. I hope not. I hope not. That's maybe you need to leave my office. But yeah. But they would say given enough time and enough chance, the molecules will work their way. It it's as I said, it's it's talk for an entire another two hour show. Sure. Yeah. But I I do create an apologetics, and, I I know you can't win people over by force of argument No. Rationality. But when asked to give a defense for the things that I believe in, I I and I'm able to say these things because I think it's relevant, the the the what time and chance can do and can't do, what we have learned from science that explains, as I said earlier, that there is that which exists beyond the material world in which we live. That's correct. We know that now for a fact. Even if science can't tell you what it is, it can at least tell you that it's there. Yeah. I yeah. I know. I and I agree with that 100%. That's absolutely right. That's fantastic. Alright. So, here's what we'll do.
[02:24:18] Unknown:
I will message you after the show. I need your shirt sizes and an address. I'm gonna send you some t shirts.
[02:24:25] Unknown:
You're joking.
[02:24:26] Unknown:
No. You don't want one of our world famous Joe Russo Podcast t shirts? Why would I wanna wear that? I don't know. I don't know. Well, you could wear it to church. Advertise for and I'm most I'm gonna send you this one, and the other one that we have available right now. The one that says, I have rabies. Gonna send that one to you too. Why rabies? Well, it it it stems from a joke that I made very early on in one of the early early episodes of the show. It's like, I was I was I was talking about how much I really despise going into a crowded supermarket, and like I wish I had I have rabies. Everybody runs away from me. Exactly. They'll they'll they'll part the way. Like like Moses, you know, part in the Red Sea. They'll leave me alone.
You know? Oh, no. So I so I printed the shirt and said, I have rabies.
[02:25:08] Unknown:
You're impossible.
[02:25:09] Unknown:
You're impossible. But I thank you for that. I thank you for the gift, honestly. Oh, yeah. No problem. No. That's a plan. I I would love to do that. So if if you if you want that, I'll send you, you just send me your address or an address I can send it to and the sizes you need. No problem. And I'll I'll get that out to you right away, sir. Alright. Well, if you wanna stick around for a second, I'm just gonna close this thing up here. It'll just take a second. Okay. And then, we'll we'll we'll, we'll, oh, man. I'm falling asleep.
Alright. Let's, let's do this. Alright. Alright, folks. Well, this has been a great two hour conversation two and a half hour conversation with, my brother Gregory here. So we really do appreciate that. So, folks, don't forget. Head over to our web site, joerouge.com, open the contact form, send us over any questions, comments, cares, concerns you have, any suggestions. And then also, don't forget our shout outs. Thank you to our executive producers, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you to executive producer Carolina Jimenez. I know I said it wrong, don't yell at me. And our and our producer, anonymous Angela, thank you all so much for all the work that you do to help us out and your support.
Alright, folks. We will see you tomorrow on the show for the, spotlight show, Saturday spotlight. And then don't forget Bible study Sunday, 6PM central time right here on Rumble. Alright, folks. Make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride. Good night. Goodbye.
[02:26:34] Unknown:
How about I said?
Alrighty. Hey, folks. Coming to you live tonight from the asylum Studios. Transmitting from the pimple on the backside of Texas, the beautiful city of Eagle Pass, and doing the very best we can to bring you the best quality political talk radio we could muster without all the bluster. This is the Joe Roos show, and I'm your host, Joe Roos. It is a beautiful, beautiful, overcast, kinda rainy 77 degrees here in Eagle Pass tonight, and, it is, Independence Day. It is the July 4, and that wonderful quality once again on the video stream.
On the video stream. Absolutely lovely. Alright, folks. You know, I'm gonna keep on complaining about it until rumble fixes this thing. It's terrible, but, there we go. It looks kinda somewhat clear. I guess the rapid movements of my body just send this thing into a tizzy like it does to most things. Wherever I go, I attract some attention. Right? Drive things and people crazy. Alright. Alright, folks. Well, as you could tell, I'm a bit giddy today. I don't know why. I just am. Maybe because it's Friday, and I'm looking forward to the weekend.
Got a lot of things to do. Got a lot of places to go, people to meet, that type of thing. And, I'm here still playing around with microphones. We went back to the Procaster. So we, gonna try this thing out for a little while, and I found a new mic that I wanna try out. As soon as I finish taking care of a couple of other bills there, I'm gonna make that purchase, and I'm sure that's gonna set me back a little bit. It's not too expensive, it's only a couple of undies, but I wanna try it out. Because it's designed for vidcasts. So, not the quality of it, just the design of it, the shape of it, and and such, so it's not so so right in your face.
And it's a good condenser mic and got some really good reviews on it, so we're gonna try it out. And, I'll surprise you when it actually comes. But, really excited about, tonight's show. We have a guest, lined up here that I've been really looking forward to talking to, and, we're gonna get to gonna get to him in just a minute, but just the usual, just a couple little things you wanna do as far as housekeeping goes. Alright. So again, this is Independence Day in here in The US Of A, And, one of the greatest gifts that I've been given is the is the, the fact that I am a natural born American citizen, that I enjoy the rights and the privileges that come with that. And, you know, you think about it, you could have been born anywhere in the world, Joe.
You could have been born anywhere in the world to any set of parents in the world, but god gave it gave you the opportunity to be here in the greatest republic that have ever existed on the face of the earth. Now coming up this weekend, we're gonna talk a lot about America and about America's Christian heritage. This coming Sunday for our bible study Sunday, we are going to, dive into a study of America's Christian heritage, and I am looking forward to that. I was working on something earlier today. I was gonna try to have it ready for us, for, for maybe a little bit into a second hour of the show tonight, but, wasn't able to get it all put together. It was something that I had been working on, about a year or so ago, and I never really finished it. So it wasn't formatted properly, and I was trying to work it all out, but it didn't didn't quite go the way I wanted it to, and I wasn't able to get it finished. But, in time for the show tonight. But it will be ready as the launching pad for our study of America's Christian heritage coming up this Sunday at 6PM central time. Don't forget, make sure you join us live right here on Rumble, x, Facebook, and Twitch.
Notice we don't say YouTube anymore because, we no longer stream on YouTube because of the, censorship that we experienced, in our discussion with, Svetlana Ryilkov over cancer treatments and COVID nineteen and all that stuff. And, so, yeah, they gave us a strike, and I said, you know what? This is the second time. I'm not gonna deal with it again. Don't wanna deal with it again. So we're just not gonna stream anymore on YouTube. No loss for us. No loss for them really either. Didn't have too much of a following on YouTube at this point anyway, but that's fine. So just one less place to have to worry about. Alright? Now, just some of that housekeeping we're talking about folks, head over to our website, joeroos.com. That's joroos.com.
Where's my banner? My banner's not up. I'm telling you, my tech crew stinks. They're terrible. They're not on point. There it is. Joroos.com. Joroos.com. Open up that web form, and when you do that, just send us off a question. Anything that's on your heart, anything on your mind, questions, comments, cares, concerns, anything that you might be thinking about, any suggestions you might have for a future guest would be really appreciated. Or maybe a a subject that you'd like to talk about. We do have a lot of things that are being worked on in the days and weeks ahead. Couple of format changes that might be coming your way, so stay tuned for that. That's gonna be a lot of fun. So get those questions and suggestions in. We really would appreciate that. Also, don't forget that this is a value for value show, and, we do, we do thrive on your donations. And you can head over to our support page, on our website, joeroos.com/support, and you can check out all of the options available to you, to make a donation. It could be a one time, a recurring, in any amount, or you could sign up for one of our producer tiers. If you if you, if you wanted to sign up with, or or, donate cryptocurrencies, we have our Ethereum address up there. We have our TEXECOINT address up there, Bitcoin, and, I think Tether as well. We got a few options up there for you. You can always do that too. We really do appreciate all of that. Alright. Also, and actually, you know, we'll save this one for later. We'll we'll talk about that in a little bit, because I really wanna get into our conversation here with, doctor Gregory Adaka. And I hope I'm saying his name right. I'm he'll correct me, I'm sure, when he when he gets on.
So doctor Gregory Adaka has lived and practiced medicine in three healthcare systems across three continents, and, and what he has seen is would probably surprise you. With over thirty years as a physician, including nearly twenty in The UK's National Health Service, ten in The US, and five in Nigeria, he offers a rare comparative view of what health care could be versus what it too often is. His master's in health administration from Cornell adds another layer to his insights, especially when it comes to the staggering cost and uneven quality of American medicine. But doctor doctor Adak doesn't always am I saying your name right, sir?
You are saying it perfectly correctly. I must say it perfectly correctly. I appreciate that. Outstanding. I do try to do that because, you know, my last my actual last name is is longer than what you see here there. So it's, it's Rusciello, but you you can only imagine how many people mangle the last name, so we just go Joe Rus. It makes it easier. But, doctor Dack, you don't you don't only talk, systems, you talk about soul. You talk about AI. You talk about God, science, race, entrepreneurship, and ethics. The conversations that we can potentially have are gonna span the practical, the philosophical, and the deeply personal.
Now, folks, if you're ready to talk about these things, we're gonna get into it right now. We're gonna go a little deep tonight because not was we really wanna spend some time talking about your faith, sir. And I'm I'm very interested in getting into your your testimony, how you came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, and, and and all the work that you've been doing for the for for for the Lord, in addition to all the work that you're doing in medicine. So welcome to the show, sir. Thank you so much for taking the time, and I know you are are you here local? Or you're or you're in The UK right now? No. I'm in Florida. I've been in, Okay. United States for ten years, going eleven years now. Where are we? 2014. Yep. Eleven years,
[00:09:46] Unknown:
in America, and we are now currently resident in South Florida. Great place to be. Where the sun always shines. That's right. The beach is five minutes away, but we never go there. But there you go. Well, let let me counter that with where I am in in Texas.
[00:10:01] Unknown:
The sun is always shining here because it's a desert, basically. And there's lots of sand too. Right? No. Actually, no. Not not too much of the sand, but a lot of cactus. Let's see. Average temperature right now at this time of year is about a 104, 105 degrees. I believe that. At night. At night. And, while you might be five minutes away from the lush beaches of Florida, I am five minutes away from the Rio Grande River and the border with Mexico. So, so so we have yes. Quite a bit. Quite a bit of fun, my friend. Quite a bit of fun. Live in, Dallas Fort Worth, one of the suburbs,
[00:10:38] Unknown:
on and off for a couple of years. And so we got used to the one zero five on 10 degrees that it always seems to hit around, September, August, or and thereabouts. It's baking hot, and unlike Florida, it's very dry. But, moving to Florida reminds me of Southern Nigeria. You're talking nineties temperature most of the summertime, 100% humidity. You step outside, and you're drenched in sweat. But we thank God for air conditioning. So Yes. Yes, sir. Amen.
[00:11:08] Unknown:
Amen to that. And, like, I I remember when you first moved here to Texas, moving day was, I think, was, like, July 15 or something like that. Oh. And, so move in day, it was a 113 degrees as we were unloading the truck. And, yeah, that was a rough day. That was a rough day. But you know what? We were here. It's all good. You know? The Lord Lord put me here for a reason. That's what we're working on. But, so let's let's let's get into this a little bit here. So, Jim, I I like to ask, you know, a couple of simple little softball type questions to get you started, get you loosened up and all that stuff. And we we had a, you know, we had a little nice little chat before the show started. So, but what's something that, that most people don't know about you, but really should know about you?
[00:11:53] Unknown:
Well, you've said it all, Lou. I mean, you said, I'm a Christian. I do follow the Lord. I'm a scientist at heart. I I love the scientific method. I love logic. I care about people. I'm in the caring profession, have been for thirty years. What else could I say that you haven't said already? You've, done pretty thorough research. You know? There's not much else I could say that'd be any different. Alright. Alright. Then I'll throw this one at you then. So, what's your go to beverage to unwind at the end of the day? Go to beverage.
Wow. I drink a lot of water.
[00:12:31] Unknown:
I would imagine. Yeah.
[00:12:33] Unknown:
I stopped drinking alcohol thirty four years ago. So Bravo. That's gone out the window. I don't like fizzy drinks. So I suppose that leaves, orange juice most of the time or some of the juice or the other. And when we can afford it, my wife and I like to do the mocktails.
[00:12:51] Unknown:
They're quite nice. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, I speak speaking of mocktails, I would love to I would love to say that I I I I don't drink, but I do from I do I I've I had a little bit of a of a road there where I kind of fell off the wagon for a little bit, and, I up to that up to that point, I'd been twenty five years, without it. And, but, yeah, we're back on track. We're good. We're good. Not an alcoholic, you know. And I know that's the that's that's the catch right there, you know. Sounds like. Yeah. The alcoholic always says they're not an alcoholic. Right? So that's how they get you. But, but no no no, it's, but but it's not bad. So my mine would be, like, I love my coffee, I love all that stuff, and I love my bourbons. As a matter of fact, I have a little bit right here. This is for the after the show.
So you know, take the edge off. Take the edge off. Get you to sleep. Yeah. There you go. But, but that's that's that's about the extent of it. But you wanna talk about mocktails. So, this this is something you might not expect. Alright. So, get yourself a nice Collins glass, ice, take, some, Topo Chico, and some, we sell I'm I have an affiliate link with the Alex Jones store. So, I get the vitamins and supplements, from him. And, they're great stuff, great products. So he has a product called x two, which is like iodine, basically. And, it's an iodine supplement. So so you get your Topo Chico, you get your ice, you get, you you top that up, you couple of drops of the x two, and then you get the ultra methylene blue.
[00:14:24] Unknown:
Are you serious? Oh, yes. Absolutely.
[00:14:26] Unknown:
And honestly, it I I didn't think it would, but it actually did. It taste very, very similar to a vodka cocktail without the vodka. And it was fantastic. No. I love taking the methylene blue. I I really do. It's Oh, you learn something new every day. Yeah. And to me, it's it's great. I love it. It it gives me this just just overall sense of, almost like a meditative calm.
[00:14:52] Unknown:
Interesting. You know? It affects everybody different. Poisoning in the ER. What is that? We use it in poisoning in the ER. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, gosh. I can't remember my toxicology. It's used for, well, methylene blue methylene blue. Either ethylene glycol or or it's, the organophosphorus. These things you have to memorize as a medical student what antidote is for what poison, and there are about 15 or so of the common poisons for which they are antidotes. The majority of poisonous things do not have any antidote. Most people may not be aware of that. But methylene blue goes with a particular poison, and I can't remember what it is. You use methylene blue. It might be iron top oh my gosh. Don't quote me. I'll give you the wrong information. But I remember that from my toxicology days. Okay. Well,
[00:15:37] Unknown:
what I love about it too is when I go to my doctor and I have to give a urine sample and it comes out green. So that that that makes it, you know, that that's always amusing just to That'd be interesting, I suppose. Just just just to get the questions from the lab tech when they, what the hell did you do? Yeah. You know, it's always fun. But, but yeah, that that's that's great. But I I do like it. It's, and and the one that I get through the Alex Jones store, it it they flavor it with, some natural mint and vanilla. So it it has so it doesn't taste horrible, you know.
I will say this, though, the first time that I took it, I I made the mistake of actually following the recommendations on the label. And and I took the I took the 20, and for about three days, my tongue was blue. So it was Wow. So it was It must have been as tight to see every time you open your mouth. Well, yeah. Well, no. Imagine doing the show like that, you know. So It'll engender a lot of questions. Sure. People will ask questions. Absolutely. And then what I did is, actually on the show, I I took a bottle I took some sparkling water, and I added it to the sparkling water, which I looked absolutely beautiful. It really did. You know, so I did that. And, I drank that during the course of the show, and and that was the first time that I actually got a reaction from it. But that but it wasn't that meditative type. It was more of all of a sudden my body just felt like it was on fire, and I broke out into this sweat. It was like a and I was extremely uncomfortable for the duration of the show. So it was it was great. Was that supposed to be an experiment or was it something that you thought you'd enjoy? Well, you know, I if if I'm gonna if I'm gonna push products on people to to try, I'm gonna try them first.
Of course. You know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell somebody to take methylene blue if if if I haven't tried it yet to see what the reactions are. So, You've got to be honest. Right? Of course. Yeah. I mean, it's my name attached to this thing. You know, I don't want to I don't want to be called a quack or anything like that and end up in court someplace. But, one thing I do have to remember to do though, sir, is I have to make sure that I remember to tell people before you take this stuff, make sure you check with your doctor. Because there are some medications that are contra, contra indicative of the, of methylene blue. Like, I was taking a medication that, I did not know was contraindicated for it. And, yeah, I I I got away with it. It didn't affect me, but it could have led to some serious, toxicity in my body because of it. So, you know, I had to be careful. So That's the thing. And the whole alternative medicine,
[00:18:07] Unknown:
sphere, because it's not as regulated or almost completely unregulated, there is always the possibility that the big pharma pharmacologicals that we're used to, which are tightly regulated, can cross react with what you take from the unregulated area, which it may not be poisonous or dangerous in any way except that you happen to be taking aspirin or amlodipine or regular, regular anti your blood thinners for something or the other. Right. And you're not aware that that other supplement can have this potential effect. And who reads all the small print? And that's where things can go awry. So just like you said, always tell your doctor, I got this from the Internet or somebody who I trust and believe. Is it going to have an effect with the medication that you've already prescribed for me? And it's his job to say yay or nay. Right. Of course, your job to make the judgment call whether you want to take the risk or not. Of course. Of course. And I I like to take risks. So I I I'm a I can see that. Yeah. I I like you on stage. Oh my goodness. It's like I have, I have I almost like, not a death wish, but, you know, I have, what what is that when when you when you're just willing to take risks without thinking about the consequences of it? I forget. Stupid, right? Yeah. That's what it's called. No. I think PIP personality would is the terminology we'd use. Yeah. I would just say stupid.
[00:19:28] Unknown:
Alright. So, so so you practice medicine all around the world, and, what has that opened up to you as far as the, as far as the American healthcare system? Yeah. Because you you you worked in Nigeria, you've worked over in The UK. Compare and contrast.
[00:19:48] Unknown:
I often do get that question. In The UK, they have the National Health Service Mhmm. Which is their way, well, let me say yes, their way of ensuring that everybody gets the best health care regardless of who you are or where you are in The UK. About 90% of the population are served by the National Health Service. Only about 10% use some form of private medical insurance, PMI, as we call it. When I lived there, I never had PMI even though I was a physician. There was just no need for it. Mhmm. Then that's their method. What you find is that all the wealthy countries of the world, whether you're talking about Australia, Singapore, Japan, Germany, Canada, you you just name it. Any of the OECD countries have all got some sort of system by which they guarantee that their citizens get the best health care and don't have to break the bank when they get it. The UK uses the National Health Service.
Theirs is a bit unique because the government owns everything vertically top to bottom, the hospitals, all the members of staff, doctors, nurses, you name it. Even the ambulance service, they all belong to the government in some way or the other. There are some public private partnerships, but by and large, the whole of the National Health Service is government owned and government controlled, paid for by, taxpayers' money. Compare that to Nigeria where I worked for five years, where it's completely, almost it's a mishmash. There are government hospitals and there are private hospitals. I left Nigeria and I'm practicing Nigeria about thirty years ago, so a lot has changed, I would say. Sure. Yeah. Yes. But back then, there was no insurance or whatnot. If you work for a nice company, they would take care of your health care. But the way they did it was they just paid your hospital bills, and you had a number of hospitals that they recognize and you could go to.
Then if you didn't work for a big fancy company, you paid your way. And so to a good extent back then and even now, your financial ability determines your access to health care. Mhmm. And there is a huge difference between what the rich in Nigeria get and what the poor get. If you're very rich, you can actually fly abroad and get health care abroad and pay for it there instead. Abroad means the Western world when you talk about abroad from Nigerian point of view. So going from, because I actually did my medical school and training and everything in Nigeria, practiced there for five years before I went back to The UK. So that was a bit of a culture shock, but I it was expected.
You go there. You prescribe stuff. Everything you want, you prescribe. The patient gets it. There's no holdups. There's nothing about can you afford it or not. All the latest technology, some of which I'd only seen in textbooks in Nigeria, was readily available right from the emergency room where I practiced. So it's a completely different ballgame. And then after seventeen years of that, I moved to The US. And for the last eleven years, I've been here. Again, all the technology is available, cutting edge stuff. You name it, it's there, but not everybody gets it. That's where the similarity between The United States and The UK and other western nations breaks down.
And, surprisingly, in some ways, this great country's great health care system reminds me of Nigeria.
[00:23:09] Unknown:
You know, it's it's interesting you said that because that when you said early on, you said it was like a mishmash of of public private and and so on. I mean, that's that's similar to what it is in The United States. You do have, like, you do have government run hospitals, like, I'm originally from New York City, and you had hospitals in New York City that were run by the city. Then you also had the private, usually usually there it's a Christian or a Catholic hospital, that that's a privately run thing, or you have, like the Shriners Hospitals and like in Pennsylvania and things like that that are privately funded. So when you said that, that that it yeah. It kinda, you know, triggered that thought. Well, it sounds kinda familiar. We we have that, you know.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
Here in People don't realize about America, though, is the huge amount of money that we spend on health care, unlike, other nations. Mhmm. And for those who think that the as you just mentioned, in America, everything is everything is, private, and the government doesn't no. No. The government spends a huge amount of money on health care. It spends the federal government spends more on health care in this country than on any other line item. Most people think about defense, and I always make the joke, defense. Right? You know, the military? No. The military budget, last year was $850,000,000,000.
Health and human services, which includes mostly Medicaid all of Medicaid and Medicare, but also includes the FDA, CMS, and just all the other health initiatives. So mostly Medicaid, Medicare, was over $1,200,000,000,000.
[00:24:41] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:24:42] Unknown:
That's just the federal government. When you add in, the state government's counties and what they spend, what they bring to the table in order to provide health care to their people. Then you add what we pay via our private insurance, companies into the health care system and the small percentage of people who actually pay out of pocket. Add it all up, you're looking at close to $9,000,000,000,000 is being spent on health care in The US. It's about nearly 16% of The United States' GDP, and that is the largest GDP in the world to begin with. Yeah. We've our GDP is about 27,000,000,000,000. It's the largest by far. China is 17,000,000,000,000, and that's number two. We're number one at 27,000,000,000,000.
So go figure. No other country even comes close to The United States when it comes to the amount of wealth that we have and resources that we have. You would think with all that, we don't need to spend that much in health care. We've we should have a lot of expendable wealth because we're that much more wealthy than everyone else. However, we spend more as a proportion of our GDP on health care than any other western nation. And by far, as I said, we're talking about 16% of our GDP. The average, percentage of GDP spent on health care by other western nations, the OECD countries, is about nine or 10%, 8% for some of them, and some of them even less so. So it's a huge amount of money that private individuals and the government and
[00:26:18] Unknown:
everybody and his cousin spends on health care in The United States. It's crazy when you think about it, though, like, how much money Well well, how much money goes to health care first of all. I mean, that that's just a crazy amount of money. But I think what which also very, I guess, like I I could try to think of the of the good word for it. I guess, sad, the sad state of affairs is, is how much of the medical industry is not even really about patient care anymore, it's about managing the financial end of the business. If I could put it that way, as a business. You know, and I I think that's that's really disheartening when you think that that at at the the core of every physician's office is the bottom line.
Is how much money am I gonna be getting from the insurance company? I'm not saying all doctors think like that. I I know that, you know, like any other profession in the world, you have you have the ones that are actually there to to actually help people and and to and to and to learn and to and to and to to be better physicians. And, and then you have the guys that are just, you know, I'm just a doctor. You know, there and to me, at least, there is a difference between somebody who has the I'm a physician personality as I'm just a doctor personality.
I think the guy the the folks that are that are looking to be the physician are actually looking to help people to bring the healing, and, and, and one of the conversations I had recently, with a with a former nurse was, that, you know, a lot of the healthcare system right now, and and you could speak about this, it seems like a lot of the healthcare system right now isn't so much about getting you healthy, it's just treating your illness and prolonging the illness, than actually bringing, some kind of solution to it. Had a conversation with my doctor, my personal doctor, and, I had told him, I said, you know, I wanna I wanna start coming off some of these medications because I I I don't feel right with them.
You know, and like I I have high blood pressure, but high blood pressure doesn't only have to be managed by medication. That could also be managed by your diet, your activities, your health, your your, you know, like working out, exercising, doing more physical activities. Of course, like I said, monitoring your diet, changing lifestyle habits. Yes. The the medication's there to help you, but when you get to that point where you're controlling, you're managing your lifestyle, you should be able to start coming off that medication and try to do and trying to maintain all of this without it.
That's healing. That that's that's what I think that a lot of pea a lot of, people who go into the medical profession lose sight of. You know, it's it's not and then you look at these you look at all these medications, okay, well, this medication is gonna have this side effect, that side effect, this side of And then we have a medication to take care of that side effect, that side effect, that side effect. But that has side effects, and we have a medication to take care of those side effects. You know, then ultimately it all ends up in death.
[00:29:19] Unknown:
You know? Well, you try to push death as far away as you can. Yes. Of course. To raise a a relevant point, I can I can use hypertension as an example? Mhmm. And I think it's a good example you raised. If you make the relevant lifestyle choices earlier on, you can prevent certain conditions from from certain conditions from emerging in your life Yes. At all to an extent. There is a genetic component, familial component. Sure. Some people, like, may be 22 years old now, and they've got hypertension in the future. It's coming, and there's nothing they can do about it. I used to have lots of hair, but genetically predisposed to lose it at some point like my dad's younger brother. My dad had hair until he died, but his younger brother was just like me. And most of the people in the family seem to be following the same route. There's something genetic about it. They say you get it from your There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. You know? Yeah.
[00:30:16] Unknown:
My wife likes it. That's all that matters. I say all the time, you know, I'm, you know, I'm starting to thin out here, you know, and No. No. You're you're good. When it no. No. My my point is, though. You know, so Don't don't even say a word, Joe. Don't even say a word. Please. Thank you. You know, listen. I I You're like this and telling me I've got this now. I I I spray paint this. It it it's Okay. Fair enough. It's it's not all there. I'll buy that. But you're you're saying about the blood pressure.
[00:30:40] Unknown:
Maybe genetically predisposed, and there might be not much you can do about it. But you never know until you try. And for the person who gets hypertension, let's say, 40 years old or whatnot and follows the trend of what's been going on in their family or in their community or whatnot, and you assume that that's the norm, But you'd what you don't know is that had you taken care of a few things like your weight and your exercise and your diet in earlier life, you may not be one of those who got hypertension. Right. Or you may have delayed this onset until much later on in life. However, there is a sort of point of no return where the damage has been done to the arteries and the blood vessels and, very importantly, the sensors that sense they're called baroreceptors in some parts of the blood vessels of the brain and in the arch of the aorta, and these are the places where your body has got sensors to measure blood pressure.
And even in the end nerve nerve ending, sorry, in some of the arteries of the body that cause spasm and contraction of the muscles of the arteries. If the damage has been done, your resting blood pressure is going to set higher. And at that stage, all you can do is manage the damage that has been done Right. Over the years And that makes sense. Environmental or genetic. You can improve things. That's for sure. If you play a rigorous sport, basketball or if you run a marathon or whatnot, you're one of these crazy people who keeps running and do a triathlon triathlon.
There is no way you can be that fit and have the blood pressure of another chap, same age as you, same background, and all whatnot. And even though you're 62 years old and your dad and mom both had high blood pressure, if you're a triathlete, you're very unlikely to have hypertension. Yeah. If you did have hypertension, you'd probably be able to manage it with one tablet of a water pill like hydrochlorothiazide or something. Had you not been the triathlete, you could have been on three drugs. Mhmm. So that's the difference. The earlier the start you start, the more you can prevent the illness from coming on in the first place.
Agreed. Even if the illness has already started, you can temper it with these lifestyle changes. But as much as I hate big pharma, I've got to admit that sometimes it it is what it is. You cannot fix what's already been completely damaged, and you have to reach for those medications and use them to control your blood pressure. And I like to let patients know when your blood pressure is under control because you're taking these two tablets, your h t zed and your enalapril, for example, or whatever. It's controlling your blood pressure. You want to keep it there for the rest of your life. If you come off the blood pressure medication or start eating lots of salt and all whatnot, your blood pressure starts to rise again, then you're just you're not doing yourself any good. It's up to date. It's down tomorrow.
It's up for a couple of months. You go back on the doctor's down it. You know, you want to keep it as low as possible for as long as possible to avoid the long term damage to the eye, the retina can cause blindness Yes. The heart muscle, the heart blood vessels, and so you reduce the likelihood of you getting a a heart attack or even getting a stroke. So to prevent all these oh, kidney failure. So to prevent all these long term effects, control the blood pressure. If you must use drugs, bite the bullet, take the drugs, it is what it is. Thank God you're alive. Generations ago, there were no drugs, and people would die of these things and have no idea why. It's just Yeah. Not the God fucking. And and I I I agree. I can agree with that. You know, I that that's that's, that that's that's another great way to look at it as well. You know, if the damage is done, the damage is done. You're gonna have to you have to manage the damage.
[00:34:12] Unknown:
But if if you're at the position where, look, you know what, I wanna try this. I wanna I wanna try to live healthier. I wanna eat healthier, be healthier, and try to wean try to get weaned off these medications, see how it works. I don't think that's necessarily a bad direction to go either.
[00:34:28] Unknown:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree a 100%. As a the more the area, The healthier you try and live, it can only be an an advantage to you. Right. Again, you want your primary care doctor to be flexible, to give you the chance, to give you the facts. Don't blow sunshine up your face. Let you know that. Well, there's so much we could try, and the science leads us this way or that way. But by all means, give it a try. I'm all for sort of holistic medicine, but I hate the way it's been exploited and exploited by people who haven't got a clue what they're doing, and they've all got ulterior motives. And, Oh, yeah. Yeah. That could regain.
Do you know? Yeah. So but, yes, if if you say, look. I got this herbal tea from some place, Ceylon or, I don't know, South America, and they say it can lower blood pressure. If it is not going to do you any harm and it has no interaction with the medication you're you're taking, I'll drink the tea. But do it scientifically. Take the tea. Measure your blood pressure. Once a week is good enough. If after two, three weeks you notice your blood pressure is lower on average than it was the month before, then perhaps that tea works. But don't kid yourself and say, every time I drink it, I feel more relaxed. I think my blood pressure is is fine, but you measure it. Your blood pressure is doing one eighty over one ten. Your blood pressure is not fine. It's it's not called the silent killer for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. It probably give you symptoms generally.
I've got people walking into the ER with a blood pressure of 222. Relax. Good enough. Even know they've got a blood pressure. And I tell them how high it is, and you're like a walking ticking time bomb. But he looks normal. He doesn't feel anything. No headaches, no blood vision, nothing. That's often the case. So people often get carried away with the warm, fuzzy feelings they get by a marketeer selling them this concoction, and they take it. And it seems to work. It makes me feel good. But the real parameters you should be measuring, check them. And if the parameters not getting any better,
[00:36:22] Unknown:
ditch that, go for what you know. Alright, folks. Don't listen to what he's saying. Buy my supplements because, you know, 10% of what you buy comes to the shop. I'm kidding. No.
[00:36:34] Unknown:
There you go. You know the tricks. You have to laugh. Come on. It's a lot of fun.
[00:36:39] Unknown:
But, but just just to go back to what you said there for a second. I I remember, oh, man. That was a bad about ten, fifteen years ago. I was going through a a very very very stressful situation in my personal life. And, I had I had gone to my to see my primary doctor, and this is back in New York. And, I'll never forget it was the funny to me it was funny, because I have I have a sick sense of humor like that. You know, I'm, you know, I'm a Sicilian from New York, you know, you know, these these things. Yeah. There you go. So, so I remember I was sitting in in the doctor's office, the the, the young lady comes in, she takes my blood pressure, and she she looks at she looks at the meter, and she looks at me, and she goes, let me try the other side.
I was like, okay. That's normal. You got a bizarre reading of one arm. Yeah. You always try the other, just the visual. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Right? You know, so It sounds so funny, like, I don't my let me try the other side just in case. Let me can can I get the other yeah. Sure. Sure. So I give the other side, and she looks at it, she goes, I'll be right back. Oh, my gosh. That doesn't sound good. Right. Now, of course, that makes you more nervous. You're like, oh, jeez. What's going on? You know? So my doctor comes in, and he has his he he looks like he looks like he's seen a ghost when he walks into the office. It's in the exam room and he goes, hey Joe, hey how do you feel? I'm fine.
He goes, you you don't have a headache or anything? No. How about your hearing? Do you hear like a like a in your ears? No. What about your vision? You have I'm blind. I mean, my vision is never right. But, you know, so so he's like, he goes, okay. He goes, well the reason why I'm asking Joe is because, you know, someone with your blood pressure right now, we'd be having you in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room. And I forget what it was, but it was some ridiculously high number, and I was like It's been really high. And I was like Really high. Oh, I'm fine. I I I feel great, actually. If I if I was any better, I wouldn't be able to stand myself right now.
[00:38:38] Unknown:
I I I tell people this all the time, you know, that blood pressure, it is called the silent killer Oh, yeah. Because most often most often, it's totally asymptomatic. If you develop a headache or blurred vision and stuff, those are in extreme cases, and it doesn't correlate very well to the blood pressure. So it's easy to have a blood pressure. It's supposed to be about a 120 over ninety, hundred and ten over 80, that sort of range in the normal person. But it's not unusual for patients to walk in with a 185 over a 110 or 220 and have no symptoms. Yeah. I know. In fact, symptoms from high blood pressure are actually rare.
Most people with extremely high blood pressure are still asymptomatic.
[00:39:20] Unknown:
Wow. And that that's just that really is scary when you when you when you really, really think about that. And I think it's the same thing too with diabetes. Like, my like, in my family, my family history, everybody in my family is basically diabetic. When I I I had I had a a a like a spurt of weight gain, and went to the doctor, got got all my my labs and everything. Excuse me, it came back and he was like, well, he was your borderline diabetic. Okay. Okay. Well, what do we do? Well, I'm gonna put you on this medication, that medication, this medication, that medication. Well, hold on a second. You said borderline. Right? Yeah. That's what I said. I said, why am I gonna be going to this medication? Okay, man. You know, why am I Listen, fuck. You said borderline. Right. Let's let's let's calm down here and let's do let's do something else before we get on the medications because I know that once you're on those medications, it's pretty much gonna be for the rest of your life. And, you know, I I feel like I already take enough medications for the rest of my life. I don't wanna take anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm tired of you go you go you go in my restroom and right across I the entire cabinet length is just one pillock from the pillock.
[00:40:22] Unknown:
I'm tired of it, man. It takes it takes me twenty five minutes in the morning to go through all my medications. It's scary. A good doctor is supposed to go through your record and see what you're on and not just throw more stuff at it. But, you know, it's it's a lot easier just to write a prescription than to go into all these things. Type two diabetes is one of those even more so than hypertension that can be controlled by lie with lifestyle activity. Right. Particularly if you get it early. Weight loss and activity and diet. Those three things can really, really take a hold of type two diabetes and shove it out the door. And there are those who were diagnosed, not just prediabetic, with type two diabetes on metformin or some other medication, then they lost a lot of weight, changed their diet, and exercise like crazy and all whatnot Right. And eventually come off their medication.
And if they're able to maintain that low weight, may never go on medication again. So type two diabetes is one of those examples of where if you you can change it sorry. Treat it, so to speak, even cure it with lifestyle changes, the way you can't with so many other, conditions that have gone too far. It is a good example of something that where your lifestyle changes can have such a positive effect.
[00:41:37] Unknown:
Well, we gotta we gotta take a pause here for a second. I have a I have a little notification popped up if you have a read available. So fellow Americans, are you tired of paying outrageous prices for your prescription medications? Well, I've got some great news for you on this July 4. Blockbusterhealth.com is running their Independence Day Bonanza where you can save up to 80% on the medications you're already taking. Just like president Trump said, the days of Americans paying more than what everyone else is in the world is paying is over. Blockbuster Health connects you with the same exact medications through their Canadian prescription referral system. Same brands, same quality, but at international prices. They're giving away their normally $29.99 American patient guide to prescription savings absolutely free this Independence Day. This guide will show you exactly how to access savings today while we wait for government policies to catch up. Whether it's insulin, blood pressure medication, or any other prescription medication, thousands of Americans are say are saving daily, hundreds every month.
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[00:43:05] Unknown:
Totally understandable.
[00:43:06] Unknown:
Totally understandable. Sometimes these these reads drive me crazy. Sometimes they'll they'll just pop up at the most, you know, awkward times. Like, I I had this I had this read pop up and and it was like, I I was getting this really really great conversation with with one of the guests. And and you know, the guest was on a roll, and I didn't wanna interrupt. On a roll. And I'm like, okay, okay, okay. And I'm watching because it it's it's teed up to the number of viewers that are actively watching. So it's like, alright. I'm watching, I'm watching, I'm watching, and and and the guest was going and going and going. And I'm like, alright. Take a breath. I wanna get this I wanna get this read in here. And by the time they finish what they were saying, I lost one viewer, and it lost the read.
[00:43:48] Unknown:
No. So Listen. For me, just give us a sign to hunt anything, and I'll stop short and let you in. Yeah. No worries. Just let me know. It'll be another, nineteen minutes before another one is available. So Oh, gotta Gotta pay the bills. Gotta pay the bills. Yeah. There's a this crazy little counter on the side of the screen here. It's like so distracting.
[00:44:07] Unknown:
Right. It's awesome. But, let me ask you this. The healthcare industrial complex. Mhmm. We just saw a read about some of the factors of the healthcare industrial complex. How does that, I guess, how does that affect how care is provided for here in The United States?
[00:44:31] Unknown:
Well, you probably guess where the phrase came from. It was, Eisenhower who referred to the military industrial complex, in his, his outgoing speech Mhmm. After his second term, I believe it was. And, the phrase has been co opted in so many different ways by so many different people, this complex, that complex. I have, some people I listen to who refer to the the the, what was it called, the evangelical Christian complex evangelical publishing entertainment complex, something like that. You know? But I've heard something similar to that. Yeah. Actually. You get the point because there is an industry out there almost in every sector of life. And the industry, of course, it is industries do what industries do. They're trying to make money. Yeah.
And, sadly, it's such a powerful part of The US health care system. As I said, the the it it's it's a slush fund. We we we we we spend so much more on health care than anywhere else. So, of course, what do you expect? Where the, the dead body is there, the vultures will be or vice versa, Jesus said in one of his, one of his, very colorful parables. Mhmm. So, yes, it does have an effect on how the health care system is run, who gets what, for how long, and how much. And although so much of the, the health care system is not for profits, people are not often aware of that. There's government and there's private not for profit.
There's only one sector, the private for profit hospitals that are actually trying to look at their bottom line in order to make money. But then a good 15% of all health care costs is pharmaceuticals, and there is a lot of money being spent and a lot of profit that is being generated. So as long as the, the the need the bottom line, as you mentioned earlier on, is a part of the system is going to be a driver. And, unfortunately, in this free country we have, nobody wants to be told what to do, and, you know, everybody's got their, you know, don't tread on me mindset.
But as I always say, as much as I respect that, that's why I came to America in the first place. It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. There there there is an old phrase an old phrase, and you probably could relate to this. It's, what's, what's a conservative? It's a liberal who got mugged. Yes. So you may you may have heard it before. I've heard that before. Yeah. But I I forgot about it. You know, latte liberal sipping his coffee and, you know, falling in love with the whole world. Oh, and you hear about criminal activity. Oh, no. That they're all fine. There's a reason why they gave that way. And to a good extent, I have to agree. There are reasons why people do the wrong thing. But oftentimes, that liberal has never experienced some of the things that people complain about. He gets mugged, and he thinks, you know what? I'm a conservative going forward. Now that's a bad joke on the liberals. Of course. But, on the other side, the freedom loving conservatives sometimes, as I said, it's all fun and game till somebody loses an eye, and I mean that literally. I attended a church once in Fort Myers, and there was a guy there who was deeply conservative, Christian, you name it, checks all the boxes, but he was fiercely in favor of universal health care.
And, well, you can tell where I stand on that issue. So I I had to agree with him. I was like, why are he but he was unusual in that environment. But because of what he had been through, the surgeries and the complications and everything and the bills of what he had been doing, the system had broken him. Right. And he rapidly recognized that it shouldn't be this way. There's some things in a wealthy nation that should be available to everyone. We've got the best of the best. I think it's about 49%. It's just only 50%. Yeah. It's 49 something percent of all new drugs that come to market in the world come from The United States.
The second in line, I think it's it's Germany no. I think UK and then Germany, then you've got Israel and all the rest. But they are talking 10%, 8% nor all bunched together. Mhmm. 49% of all the new drugs that come to market come from The United States. Yet, we buy some of these drugs from another country. I'm naming no names because it's cheaper there than it is here. How do you explain that? Like, Canada.
[00:48:47] Unknown:
The one I just read.
[00:48:48] Unknown:
You said it.
[00:48:50] Unknown:
Well, I I it's record I I read that. I I said it was in the read.
[00:48:56] Unknown:
You know? I know. I know. I I I you you you set it up for me perfectly. Perfect. You see, because there is a million dollar billion dollar industry now of people who import drugs from Canada to The United States, but yet we always laugh at Canada and their health care system. Yeah. We run there to go and buy their drugs. Now why is it less expensive there? It's complicated. I know. I did comparative health care at Cornell and all that. But the will to fix it, the will to change it has never been that strong because many people benefit from it the way it is. Right. However, in a recent talk that I've started giving, I think we are at an inflection point, and it's beginning to change.
And if you look at the history of the idea of universal health care in America, it's on the dismal history, but it does date back to the early nineteen twenties Mhmm. Under president Teddy Roosevelt who first mentioned it. Of course, he didn't even start. He would have been crazy back then, but he did say that a nation's strength does depend on the health of the people. So he saw that it was a a a a, an important part of the government's duties to ensure that everybody in the country was healthy so that we could be strong. It was a good theory or a good hypothesis, but he never took it very far. I don't think anybody in any significant amount in the culture of The United States back in the nineteen twenties would have swallowed that pill. Yeah. Yeah. But years down the line, by the time FDR came into play and then the, the the new deal and everything, it was brought further forward, still was instituted until Medicaid Medicare, Medicare in 1965, under, Lyndon b Johnson.
That slow gradual process was it took decades. Then it got to Medicaid Medicare. We've got to remember that at the time when it was brought up initially by FDR, even the American Medical Association was against it. The culture was against it. Why should the government interfere? Why should you take my money, tax me to pay for somebody else's sick? It just didn't seem right. It seemed so un American. By 1965, the bill was passed, but it was a fifty fifty thing. Half of the nation still didn't want it. But you try touching Medicaid now, Medicare now. Look at how the react reaction is like everybody thinks it's essential. Well, most people do. Mhmm. And the same thing happened over a more accelerated period of time with the Affordable Care Act, which, of course, we know how controversial that was back in 2010.
And a lot of conservatives felt that it wouldn't survive a year. I remember Pat Robertson, I keep saying this when I talk sometimes, about a year or two into the, Obamacare. He was saying, latest news, I used to watch seven hundred club and CBN news a lot, that it's gonna die a death of a thousand deaths. There's some new information that came up about another senator, another rep, who was putting together a bill to attack its legality. And he said, it's too many illegal illegal things are are supporting it. It can't survive. It's gonna die a death of a death of a thousand cuts. But it didn't, and we're ten years into it now. And, clearly, it's not going anywhere.
In fact, and this is what might surprise many people, the culture of the nation has changed the to the point where people are frustrated, angry at the system. Yes. When that happens, that's when you get change. And it may not be the government stepping in and giving us government health care or the national health service that we have in The UK. It could be private corporations who see a niche, an opportunity, and there are several already who are doing it. Yes. Yeah. How GoodRx is able to give you cheap they're not from Canada. Cheap medication here. When I first saw GoodRx, this yellow card, yellow white card is working in the emergency. What's this? Is this is this really? It can't be. It's been fake. They look on a website. They've got everything. Then I studied what is behind GoodRx and how it works. They play the system in order to provide
[00:52:57] Unknown:
cheap prescription medications to people, sometimes a third of the cost of what the standard cost of that medication is. Oh, yeah. I've used GoodRx for, on occasion, you know, because I I was getting a better deal through them than I was through my, prescription plan.
[00:53:11] Unknown:
Prescription plan with your insurance? Right. Could you imagine that? Yeah. Then, of course, there are always there's always a the millionaire, billionaire person who sees an opportunity and says that, look look at what Amazon is doing. Look at him and hers and, what's his face, Mark Cuban and his, cost plus drugs. It's a matter of time where I always say politicians, pundits, and big industry notices that there is a lot of support for this. Mhmm. And if there's a lot of support for it, they begin to do things. So I was I'm warning people now that they should get ready for the change because I think the change is inevitable.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
I do too.
[00:53:50] Unknown:
And I it we there are many who may not like it, and I don't know what form it's going to be. And, again, I don't know when it's going to happen. I've got no predictions. But I just look at the graph and the mood and the gap between the haves and the have nots, and I think it's inevitable, somewhere or the other. And as I said, it could be some big corporation or what changes their method just to make these medications, health care, doctors available to everyone. After all, I mean, all of the other western nations have got it. Why are we so behind with all our resources and all the money that we've got?
I think most Americans are not aware of the statistics, which is how bad our indices really are. Mhmm. Infant mortality rates, our maternal mortality rate, our death by preventable diseases compared to, say, Germany, France, Australia, all the other Western countries. We are so far I made this joke in one talk I gave that because we're in the twenty fourth position in the top 40 nations when it came to preventable deaths, deaths by preventable diseases. Why are we, The United States, USA, in the twenty fourth position? If we took the twenty fourth position in the Olympics, wouldn't you think something would have gone desperately wrong? Yeah. America, We're the best at everything. We've got to be number one. Yeah. You're Even in soccer these days, the American team's going places in the World Cup. You know?
Well, first on the moon, first on everything. I know people are decrying the end of America is gonna die. I don't think so. Not in the well, probably not in my lifetime. We're we still lead in so many ways, and the reason is because we've got the vicuna. We've got the capital. We've got the intelligence. We've got the the the we we we we've got the academic info. Well, I hope you keep the academic infrastructure. We've got the academic infrastructure to continue that research. We may not be ahead in every area, semiconductors and you know? Right. But we will design the best computers.
Just saying. Mhmm. You know? So with all that being said, we should be number one in health care. Our industry should be the best, but they are not, sadly. People, when they hear about this, will begin to wonder. This so called socialized medicine that they have in Europe across the pond that we decry and we laugh at so much. How is it they're keeping their people alive and living healthier lives? And I don't just mean because they've they've got McDonald's in England, by the way, just to let you know. Mhmm. They eat fast food all across the country. Oh, for sure. Or maybe only France has some of these healthy places. In The UK, it's terrible.
But yet, their health care indices are so much better as I always do. Nobody in these Western countries would mortgage their house, get a remortgage or or go back or declare bankruptcy because of an illness. I told you the difference between practicing medicine, for five years in Nigeria where sometimes you're prescribing something for someone. You look at them. You know they can't afford. And they look at they look at my child. The doctor, I I can't pay this bill. I can't. And you look at him. You you he's not lying. This guy can hardly afford three squares a day. I don't have some way to give him the money to get the medication. The pharmacy is just across the street from the hospital, but he can't afford it. He's gonna go home, take the kid, and just give him whatever.
It's sad when you see this and you live this, and then you now go to The UK and you find anything you want. Write the prescription. Anticancer, drugs, what you name it. They're gonna get they're not gonna pay a dime. It's paid for by taxpayers' money. You pay your taxes. Even if you don't pay your taxes, you you walk in. You're British. Right? Yeah. You you get your medication. Why not? It's the NHS. There's only two well, the two things that the the Brits complain about more than anything else. One is the weather. Two is the NHS. It's struggling right now, though. It's struggling. It's expensive. It's it's it's difficult. And The UK has gone through some serious challenges, starting with, I think the trigger the main trigger was Brexit.
It hit The U The UK economy so badly. They made some recovery. The NHS took a blow, and then,
[00:57:53] Unknown:
COVID happened. Mhmm. And that took them back into the Well, I'm sure also the the the the open borders policy, is a drain on that system as well. I mean, you you have you have all these, these, these migrants coming in through the country, and they're they're jumping into the system. They're claiming benefits out of this out of the health care system. You know, it's it's a it's unsustainable at some point. It's gonna collapse. And, and and just I just wanna go back to one thing you said too. I mean, I don't disagree with the fact that, there are times in in someone's life where they do need government assistance.
But what troubles me is people who take a bet advantage of the government and take advantage of government assistance, like generational welfare. You know, I've, unfortunately I hear about that. I mean, but I hear about this a lot. Unfortunately, I I've seen it. I've I've dealt with it firsthand. I, one of the hats that I've worn over the course of my life is, I worked, I worked for New York City. I was a I was an operations manager toward the end of my career. And, I was I was I managed three districts up in, up in North Manhattan. And, in addition to all of that, they also gave me a program to oversee that took folks that were on public assistance.
They sent them to a a diff they sent them to a city agency, and one of them was was mine. And our responsibility was to train them and give them some kind of a marketable skill so that they could come off public assistance.
[00:59:18] Unknown:
Mhmm. Alright.
[00:59:20] Unknown:
Out of I would I would get every every three months, I would get about 200 to 300 people, alright, that are on public assistance that we we're supposed to train. Of those two, three hundred people, maybe 10 Maybe 10 people actually took advantage of the programs that were being offered for the get their driver's license, their their high school diploma, you know, the the training on how to use, you know, the computers and and and resume writing and preparation, interviewing skills, and all that stuff. And plus the opportunities that the agency itself would provide, for, you know, to learn some kind of a skill like in, for example, there was a there's a there was a forestry division in my agency, you know, and they would train you on on how to be a forester, and that is, you know, to to get up there and cut trees and Yeah. And trim things down and identify, you know And aim for it. Yeah. Exactly. And and And at least put three squares on the table. Yeah. And, and, they would have to work in this program for six months. And at the end of the six months, the goal was that they would be trained and have some kind of a skill, whether it's in security or or forestry work or or or or general maintenance or housekeeping or whatever it is, whatever it was they were part of. But unfortunately, out of the out of those two, three hundred people that would come through, when I tell you that maybe ten, fifteen people actually worked their way through the program and got to the end of the program. Because what a lot of folks did is they were on generational welfare. I I I was speaking to one I spoke to one young lady, I don't remember her name, but, but I remember her her her story. She told me, she goes, why should I be here and do this? I get more money from public assistance than I get here. I don't pay rent.
Public assistance pays rent, you know. And then she said that, and for childcare, she had like four kids, four kids from four different dads. And what she would do is she would hire a cousin to be the childcare provider while she was out working. Public assistance would pay the cousin, and the cousin and the the worker would split the payment. Split the pay. Yeah. You know? And and and she told me one time, she goes, she knows ways around she knew where she knew ways around the system that she knew the system better than the people who actually worked in the system. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And, and she said, well, my my mom was on public assistance, my grandmother's on public assistance, you know, and it just went on and on and on, and they all learn from each other is how to to game the system. How to game the system. Yeah. You know, and unfortunately, that's the reality of it. And when it comes to things like health health care and public assistance and whatnot, I don't have a problem. If somebody has a legitimate need, and you need this to just kinda get you over the hump, hey, that's what it's there for. God bless you for it.
You know? Go for it. Do it. But when it becomes abusive, and people are taking advantage of that system, and they do it with the and they do it with with the health care also, you know? I know people who who have been on public assistance, and went on public assistance, got health care from the from the state, got health care, got got, SNAP benefits, so on and so forth. And, you know, with that government paid health care at taxpayer expense, you know, they went and got, they got the, the the the the gastro bypass surgery. They got the sleeves. They got this taken care of. Got that cut off. This cut off. This moved up further. This one dropped down lower. You know? This this moved more to the left. You know, that You're exaggerating for sure. Right? You exaggerating. Well, you know, but yeah. You know what I'm saying. You know, it's like, you know Nobody gets plastic surgery on the government. But no. But but they do. You can get bypass. Yeah. If you're if you meet the criteria Yeah. And it's a health threat, yeah. You got it. And you know something? All it takes is you to find that one doctor who'll say, yeah.
[01:03:20] Unknown:
Sure. You need it. You need it. Yep. You know? Inside the documents. And then I I agree with you a 100%. Unfortunately, the system is it's it's a complex system. Mhmm. It's broken and it's open to exploitation.
[01:03:30] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's not just in America. And I think that's where people get frustrated, is when they see I don't think people get frustrated that somebody who has a legitimate need, an elderly person who's living on a fixed income and can't afford certain things, why not? Why not help them with that? You know? But I think it's it's when people see the system being played and saying, hey, you know what? That's my tax dollars.
[01:03:52] Unknown:
And it's a generation thing you mentioned. We see that a lot in England sometimes. Mhmm. It's everywhere. Three generations of that's the the the grandmother. I mean, when I say grandmother, she's 52. The mother and then the grandchild, these are three people, and they're all claiming benefits. Yep. The grandmother may have worked when she was younger, but hasn't worked in donkey's ears. The daughter has never worked straight out of school into welfare. The daughter's daughter, is about to finish school, and she's already got in her mind what she's gonna do when she gets a GCSEs. That's with us, your your your, like, your diploma. Yeah. Out of high school, you're now of age. You start claiming your benefits. You she's already got it all planned because what's her mother did? Her grandmother did generational.
Yeah. It's sad. The difficulty is with this thing. The difficulty is you want to you want to get rid of these weeds. But if you pull up the weeds carelessly, you will pull up the wheat as well. Mhmm. Unfortunately, it might hit the headlines and, you know, make the voters feel happy when you say I'm gonna go in with a sledgehammer and get rid of all this nonsense, but you hurt those who really need it. Right. Now the hard work is to differentiate and delineate between those who are genuine and those who are fake. And those who are genuine, but they're not there because they want to be. The system has pushed them that way. It makes more sense for them to claim the benefit than to go to work. My brother wrote an essay on this back in the nineteen nineties called, is about what we call in England the benefit trap.
It's just rational. Why should I go out and work? I can cut hair. I can mow mow a yard and or whatnot and get that money on the side, still be claiming benefits, and get all the benefits rather than take a regular job, leave the side gig and the benefits that I'm claiming, and now I can hardly even pay my rent. Right. So it's complicated, and I would say anybody who wants to go in there and make the changes has to think it through so you don't hurt those who really need it in a bid to get those who don't.
[01:06:01] Unknown:
Sorry. I I didn't realize that I didn't turn the, my phone on do not disturb, and I'm just buzzing like crazy. I hear it. Yeah. I know what. I was well, it's it's connected to my watch. My watch is going crazy and it's distracting me. Yeah. So I wanna make sure I shut I put the do not disturb on. But, I and I agree with you. It's it's the generational thing is the biggest problem. And the other problem too with, I think, government involvement in in things like health care is, you know, we all like to have the idea that the government's looking out for our best interest, the government wants to help us, and the government's government is benevolent and kind and all that stuff. But the government Yeah. Right. But the government Yeah. But the government is can also be easily weaponized.
You know, we we all we're all familiar with the term wrongthink. Right? You're familiar with that? Yep. So, you know, who's to say that, you know, this this, you know, program because once you control somebody's health care, you control them. You know? Okay. You need a bypass surgery? Well, I don't like what you posted on your Facebook page about the the the current, governor of your state, or or the mayor of your city, or the, the mayor in London, or your your MP, or whatever. And, if you want that surgery, then you're gonna have to, you know, fix that. Well, it's a hypothetical situation. Of course it is. Of course it is. Of course it is. But it doesn't happen. Well, who knows? You don't know that.
[01:07:21] Unknown:
I mean, I've been in the system for donkeys years. It doesn't happen. Well, what well, okay. Fine. But No. What what okay. You you there's interpersonal conflicts, and if you got a bad doctor, you've got a bad doctor. Of course, sir. That all that does happen. The fact that the doctor doesn't like you or your policies or whatnot, and it alters the way. Sometimes even sometimes even subconsciously, the way he treats you. Right. I knew about that. That happens. But systemically, if it can be proven that something was withheld from you, even though you needed it medically because of your political views, particularly when it concerns the government taxpayers money that should have been spent on you for your bypass surgery, for example Mhmm. But it wasn't done. And you can prove that the reason why was because this guy didn't like, oh my goodness. They will throw the book at him. This is America, man. Well, you would you would hope you would hope so. But
[01:08:11] Unknown:
Yeah. In in in a in a smaller microcosm of that, we we saw a lot of that take place with that type of censorship with around COVID nineteen. How many people got deplatformed, kicked off of social media, put in jail because they disagreed with the government narrative.
[01:08:29] Unknown:
You know? It was a crazy time. It was a crazy time. Oh, sure. Yeah. For sure. And look. America is a land of extremes, Joe. Oh, sure. I tell you this. I tell you this. It's odd that even in, I mean, in America, where the land of the free home of the brave and stuff like that, some of the positions they took were more extreme Mhmm. Than the positions that were being taken in The UK Yeah. Concerning vaccinations, concerning school closures, and things like that. There's a bit more nuance that was applied in Europe around these things. And even then, even though they they look back now and think they overdid it. But in America, it was like all or none. Shut everything down. Close everything down. Yeah. And then again, the backlash was open everything up. I'm gonna cough in your face and
[01:09:10] Unknown:
take my rifle into a subway. It's like well, I mean, it was Subway the store. You know? Yeah. I know what you meant. Yeah. I remember the I I know the story you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, come on. That was me. No. I'm kidding.
[01:09:21] Unknown:
I would have fully passed you, Joe. I wouldn't you must have thought you, the guy with the with the wooden m 60. With an m 60, it was made of wood.
[01:09:31] Unknown:
Oh, god. I I didn't laugh. No. But you have to, dude. You have to, dude.
[01:09:37] Unknown:
At least his mates had, you know, real firearms. Yeah. God. Anyway, so so so but the this what struck me was the extremes we went to. And I I can say this because from personal experience. COVID, for me, was a very, very trying time, the year 2020. I worked in Miami in the midst of, the worst of the worst. Saw people die Sure. To give people the bad news. It's it's even now, it's they're they're not good memories. We were worshiped as heroes in the first wave in the spring, of of of twenty twenty. Mhmm. But by the summer of twenty twenty, with all the riots going on or whatnot, the medical people have been trying to say, you're part of the conspiracy and no longer were no longer being admired. We're being vilified, and that went on to the end of twenty twenty, the elections, then the vaccine. That was just from one thing to another. It it it it was rough. It was a rough time. And, yes, I believe there was too much extreme, there's too much extreme positioning on both sides. I hate to use the term both sides. Oh, for sure. Oh, I agree with you. Yeah. Sides. Yeah. Yeah.
It was rough. We were just caught in between because we don't keep people alive. We're trying to do our best. And it it's hard, when you you you you come into a waiting room during the second wave. During the first wave in in in the spring, the first lockdowns, we have an ER department. It's technically the biggest hospital in The United States. We have an ER department that could hold about, I don't know, 40 people comfortably in the waiting room. Okay. Then they had a 114 Wow. On the computer in the waiting room. I don't where did they fit them? Because I got and this is during COVID. Sweaty, coughing, fevers, you name it. Waiting to see the doctor.
I had, I came in one shift, in the morning. There's a woman who'd been there, and she had HIV, Of course. Who had been there overnight for fourteen hours. Oh my gosh. Waiting in the waiting room. I said, where is she? And she's gone out to the McDonald's to go get some food. Couldn't even find her. Oh, wow. They finally brought her in and stuff like that. That was nothing. During the second wave in the summer when things really went crazy, I came in one morning shift. There'd been there was a man there who'd been there for thirty two hours, and he was nearly 80 years old. Thirty two hours in the waiting room using our bathroom, eating our cold turkey sandwiches for thirty two hours. Wow. I was the one who saw him when I came in on the morning shift. I saw the number on the computer because he got the the the time duration. Is this real? But, yeah, he'd been there. Old guy, nearly 80 years old. Jeez.
The the the system could not handle the number of people coming in. He didn't have COVID. Thank god. But the system couldn't handle the number of people coming in. Mhmm. And yet I leave a a twelve hour shift being slaughtered, wearing the n 95 mask throughout. You dare not take it off because you don't know what you're gonna breathe in in an environment like that. No vaccines. Nothing. What could you yeah. You step out from that, turn on the TV at home, and you get this talking head saying it's all fake. It's all this, all that. I want to smack the TV.
[01:12:44] Unknown:
But that was my emotion at the time. I hear you. I I, down here in Texas, I I work in a I work in a health care facility. I work in a nursing home. And, I do, I do, I'm the facility maintenance director and the life safety director. So, part of what I had to deal with was, like, biohazard materials and so on and so forth. Right. Right. Right. And, did you did you ever get COVID at all? Only the I never did. Okay. Even now. I had I I got it in the first round, the first wave. Oh. And, In in the spring of twenty twenty? Yeah. I actually got, I got sick in, the June, early July of twenty twenty.
[01:13:24] Unknown:
Oh. Right. So, oh, that was second wave. That was second wave? Yeah. There were three waves in 2020. Okay. There are three spikes. The first was one that took everybody by surprise when people were dying and the morgues were full in New York. That was the first one, New York and California. Okay. The second wave when the summer came, June yeah. That that that was that's where he came everywhere. Everybody was getting it was having their horror stories. Yeah. And yeah. I I got so so I got sick. And,
[01:13:47] Unknown:
you know, I knew I was sick. I I knew, you know, but, you know, stubborn stubborn Joe doesn't, he's gonna do his thing and and and because my my building needs me and and all that great stuff, and, you know, all that hero stuff, that crap. But, you know, but, I got sick, and, my doctor gave me, very unconventional treatment. He gave me the hydroxychloroquine.
[01:14:11] Unknown:
The hydroxychloroquine.
[01:14:12] Unknown:
The, the the the zinc and the steroids and all that stuff. Zinc I do take. And And all that. And you know something? The first before I got the medication, it was it was twenty four hours from the time that they diagnosed it, and the medications were available to me. I took I took the first I took the first dosage, and by the end of that day, I felt great. Mhmm. I was up. I was taking care of myself in the restroom, you know, I was able to get in the shower by myself. I had cleaned myself up and cleaned the bedroom, because of course I was isolated, you know? Isolated. Yeah. You know, I mean, I cleaned the bedroom. I got everything reorganized, and, you know, I sat there. I was watching Ghost Adventures and all that crap on TV, you know, and, you know, having conversations with the pillow. And, you know, so how are you today? I'm feeling better. How are you? Oh. You know? It was fun. And, then, I I didn't I didn't get sick after that, until about, I think, two years later.
I had a I had a stuffy nose, but what they were still doing at my facility is if if you had even the slightest stuffy nose or or sneezing, coughing, whatever, they they stuck that swab up your nose. And, yeah. Well, no. Actually, it wasn't that bad. It was it it it was just it was the Oh, they they they yeah. Later on, it became just you just twirl it a bit. Yeah. Yeah. When I got the test, they were just twirling your nose. But the initial ones is, like, jamming it into your brain. Well, that's I had to go through that because when I had got my my test done, it was they they were up there and I was like, wait. Did you get enough of my brain material in it or what? I mean, come on. Like, lobotomizing you. But the, but, the second time I got it, like, I had nothing. It's like I was fine. As a matter of fact, I had I had test kits at my house, and I I I remember the second time I started feeling sick. I I did the swab. I had gone to New York, to see my family, and, I came back. I got sick while I was up in New York.
Came back down here, I swabbed myself, so I had a positive result. So I took a picture of it, I sent it to my boss, and I was like, hey look, I'm sick. He was like, yeah, don't come back to work. Don't don't wait. That sounds so New York. Don't come back to work. Yeah. That's so New York. So I was like, alright, whatever. And so, so I'm I'm sitting around the house. The next day, I was like, you know what? I don't feel sick. What? I had a I had a stuffy nose. That was it. So I swabbed myself again. Negative.
[01:16:36] Unknown:
Okay. Positive, perhaps.
[01:16:38] Unknown:
Well, that's what I thought too. So so I waited. So I so I got they they want me out for the week. So Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So day three, I'm gonna try it one more time. I'm gonna see what I get. Swabbed again, day three, negative. Called my boss, I was like, alright look, I swabbed the first time, positive. I swabbed two negatives since then. So he's like, I don't know. Come back to come come come back and we'll we'll swab you here at the at the facility. Alright. Yeah. Fine. So I get to the facility, they swab me. No, you're positive. Oh my gosh. Really? Yeah. So I go I go back I go back to my house and I'm looking at the same exact test kit, you know, the whole the whole shebang, everything's the same.
Swab myself, negative. Take a picture of it. I was like, look, if you wanna keep paying me to not be at work, fine. I'm good. I I I'll see that I'll play with my podcast. I'll I'll be fine, you know. No. Yeah. That's funny thing. Some of the I mean, with some of the test kits,
[01:17:32] Unknown:
it and and that's another thing about medicine generally and the nuance in medicine. It's funny because I was talking about this, I think, with my daughter just a a few days ago or a couple of weeks ago about testing in medicine. It's not a black and white on or off most times for most things. Right. Even things like a test that look like a pregnancy test, either positive or negative, isn't it? You know? But the reality is, what it's showing you is the greatest possibility that this is what we think it is. Mhmm. As far as we know, The statistical likelihood that this is not what we think it is is really small. So he's not a 100% doctor. No. It never is. Okay. Okay. Neck pain, not a CT scan, not a biopsy.
You always have to have a what is what's known as the gold standard. Mhmm. That is essentially your 100%. Right. But it's never a 100%. Yeah. So there are many ways to test for, I don't know, say, a broken bone. A plain X-ray is what you normally use, but some fractures can be missed in a plain X-ray. Sure. A CAT scan gives you a lot more detail. An MRI may not give you all the details of the fracture because it can be a bit hazy. But even if a fracture line doesn't show, even in a CAT scan, an MRI, what's known as bone edema, the swelling in the bone. Right. And that tells you there must be a little fracture line there even though we can't see it on the X-ray. So you use that as your gold standard. But even that's not a 100% because it could've given you a wrong result.
But you've got to have a gold standard, and then you test everything else against the gold standard. But people don't often know that what doctors do is always a a a a balance of probabilities. Mhmm. So when you ask the doctor, so what do you think, doctor? It's likely this, but it could be this. I've seen this before. The book say this. The study say this. So we're gonna treat it with this, and we expect the best outcome. Most times, it's not that complicated. It's I'm coughing. I've got a fever. It hurts on this side of my chest. You do an x-ray. Boom. You've got pneumonia. Here, take some amoxicillin for fourteen days. You'll be fine. You're young. Right. And that's it. But when it comes to more complex conditions, testing, the series of tests you do, the order in which you do them, and how you interpret the results is a, a job all of its own. And the patient always wants to simply know, what is it, doctor? Tell me. But very often, the doctor can't never give you a clear answer. You you you know what was always in my life more accurate than any medical test I've ever been through? What was this? My dad.
If he said you're sick, you're sick. He said you're fine.
[01:20:08] Unknown:
Like, I I used to play I played three sports growing up. I played football, baseball, hockey. Alright? And in bet and in between all that, I was at a gym, I was working out, and, you know, just Oh, wow. To to lift like me then. To to lift the to, you know, to raise the weight for football and and for hockey, lower the weight for for baseball, you know, so in between all that stuff. And, I remember I was at the gym, and I and I was on a leg press machine. And my knee was bothering me, and, you know, I I had I had a lot of weight on the machine and I I did just a couple of reps. I I I I'm trying to remember. I think it was like five fifty on the on the leg press.
And, you know, my knee was killing me. And I had actually gotten hurt playing football. I I got up out of the huddle, I'm sorry, the huddle, off the pile, after a play, and the the guy the guy the lineman from the other team tripped, and he went sideways, and he went across my leg. And when he did that, I just felt everything go snap, crackle, pop. I crawled off the field, I sat out for one play, went back in, finished the game, finished the season, moved on to my weight training routine, you know, to get ready for hockey, and and yeah, and then start working out and all that stuff. I would go home and wonder why my knee was three times the size of my thighs put together, you know, but young and invincible. You know what I mean? So, did all that great stuff. And then one day my dad, I I was talking to him, and, I said, yeah, my knee's bothering me. It it wasn't swollen at that point or anything like that. I said, but it it hurts, you know, like like it's if I try to get up, if I get up too quick, like I feel like it's giving out, or if I'm walking it feels like there's somebody pushing, you know, behind my kneecap, you know, like pushing my leg forward.
So my dad was like, let me look at it. I would tease my, okay doc. Here you go. Take a look. You know? And, what he what he did is he closed fisted, punched the side of my knee. I jumped about 90 feet in the air. He goes, yeah, you you you tore your meniscus. And I was like, took the That's the test, but not that way. Yeah. Yeah. So so we took to so we went to You're right. Yeah. So we went to went to the doc went to a doctor, who I found out after the fact is actually the team physician for the New York Knicks at the time. Oh. And, he he comes in and he goes, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you have a a a torn medial meniscus.
He goes, you're gonna need surgery, and, it's gonna it's gonna sideline you for about six to eight weeks. Okay? He goes, but, he goes, you don't have to have the surgery if you if you wanna continue playing, and you wanna walk again, normally, yeah, you'll have the surgery, but if you don't want it, that's fine. He goes, you're young. I was 19 when this happened, you know. So, so he's like, you're young. You could you could actually work your way through this or have the surgery and get it done faster, so on and so forth. So, so I I ended up having the surgery, and, he told me that you're you're probably gonna need a a knee replacement by the time you're 50.
Alright. Well, I'm 54. I still have my original me, so I'm good. I'm not in any kind of discomfort whatsoever, but that was what my dad would do. I I went to my dad, I was playing football, and I got I I I jammed my fingers. My two because I because I was the I was the I was the center, so I would snap. So I I jammed my my two my two index figures. Actually, I don't know if you can see it, but it's twisted. Yeah. I can. Compared to the rest. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's that's thanks to my dad. Because because, I was telling him, I I was saying, dad, I don't know if I don't know if it's, if if I just jammed it or if it's or if it's broken or anything like that. And he looked at it, he grabbed it, he went like that. He goes, now you're fine.
[01:23:57] Unknown:
That was my dad. No x rays or anything? Nothing? No. No.
[01:24:01] Unknown:
Nothing like that. But he was old. But he but when I would go to the doctor later on and say, so I did this? He goes, yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. That's broken. You broke that. Well, obviously my dad broke it, I think. You know, but I mean, obviously, I'm not gonna say that because they would have had my dad arrested me. No. It it may not be that he it may have been broken before he yanked it. Oh, yeah. For sure. No. I know. I'm just being so I'm being facetious. I'm taking you too seriously, Joe. You can, bro. It's Friday. It's a Friday show. We don't we don't do things seriously on Friday yet. It's been a long day for me. It's been a long day. Yes. I know. And actually, you know what? I didn't realize it, but we're over the hour. We're at we're at 01:27 right now. I get Yeah. It looks like oh, yeah. Yep. That's right. I don't wanna let you go yet because if you if you got, like, maybe another ten minutes or so because I I really I wanted to ask you about your walk of faith. You know, we we talked a lot about medicine. We talked a lot about, you know, a bunch of laughs about things.
But one thing I do take very seriously is faith. And, I think I met I think I put it in in our our text message back and forth. You know, I am a I am a blood bought born again King James Bible believing Christian. You know? I saw all that and I thought, oh, gosh. Yeah. Here we go. One of those. Yes. One of those. Yeah. Pulpit pound ins. I'm an atheist by the way. I don't live in a Okay. Hey, look. It's You know what I tell people that that do that to say that to me? Hey, look. Are you a betting person? Me? No. Well, that's that's what I would ask them. I would say, sir, are you a betting person? Like like, would you go to a casino? Would you play play the slot machines and Yeah. Cards and all that stuff? Well, yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, fine. So then you understand that the you understand the concept of odds.
Odds. Mhmm. Right? Okay. So, if I'm wrong and there is no God, I've lived a clean life. I've I've I've lost I've lost nothing. I've absolutely nothing. But if if If you're wrong. If you're wrong, you're going to hell. You know? You don't say that. I do. No. I do. I'm I am very blunt. You would too, wouldn't you? I am very I am very blunt. I'm a Sicilian from New York, dude. Yeah. Yeah. You know? So I'm Nigerian, so I get you. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's it's all the same, bro. You know? It doesn't have in common is the the bluntness. Yep. Well, that's that's the whole thing. So, Even their arms are their feet. So that's the so that's the point. It was like, okay. So so so you gotta be you gotta acknowledge the odds. Alright? So Absolutely. If if I'm wrong, hey look, I lived a good life. I lived a clean life. I was respectful of people. I took care of people. I was charitable. I loved people. You know, no matter what they did, I turned the other cheek, all that stuff. And I was happy. I lived a good life.
Okay, fine. But if you're wrong If you're wrong. You're gonna you're gonna be burning in hell for the rest of eternity, you know? So it's like Pitch bolts and all that. Right? All of that. So you so play the odds, man. You know, what have you got to lose? Put your full faith, trust, and confidence in the lord Jesus Christ.
[01:26:45] Unknown:
That's it. That's it. I I I I got with the concept of of salvation, what it really meant Mhmm. Because I grew up in a Christian home, if you know what I mean. But the understanding that I couldn't save myself, and have an assurance of eternity, without the sacrifice that Christ had made on the cross, that understanding of that came to me when I was 12. Somebody in school was preaching to me. Mhmm. He was telling me what I'd heard before. I'd seen that they used to have tracks in those days. This is back in 1917. Tracks. I have tracks somewhere around here. You really used to call them? Yeah. So I'd seen stuff like that before and everything, but it never really kicked until this guy explained it to me, and that's when I made the decision. It was just before the summer holidays.
And then I remember, through the summer holidays, I went back home, played through the summer. I can remember the decision I'd made at the end of the term. Mhmm. And it seemed like so far away, and that was it. I went back to my normal life. I was going to, third form. What do you call that in America? That'd be oh, gosh. Is it six I can't even hear. I lost 30. Okay. So and then I thought, this thing I'd experienced at the end of last term, I'm gonna have to go back to it. I I it was too strong. I I would, but I never knew when I would. And I played played the fool, got into college, played in college and all whatnot. And it's when I was in college that, again, I caved into the pressure of somebody talking to me about Jesus and gave my life to God. This time, I stuck with it for a few months, and then my all my friends said this is not gonna last, and it didn't. So I was back to my usual ways.
It wasn't until my first, my first job as a as as an intern, you you it's you you call a houseman, the first year of residency as a physician Okay. After medical school. I read a book which a friend of mine had given me. I'd heard that he'd given his life to Christ, and I couldn't believe it because I knew how crazy he was in college and stuff. Yeah. I got that reaction too. Yeah. He gave me this book, if I watch my knee, and I already I think it was all I know that. Yeah. Morning, I woke up and I thought I'm I'm being a hypocrite in this book. I know what the truth is. And I fell on my knees, and I'm I mumbled some prayer to God that I'm coming back to you, Lord, and all whatnot. I left the room feeling so elated. You know? Then I had this sound in my this word in my ear for the next few days that this is not gonna last, Greg. You've been here before. Ask the devil getting at you, brother.
Oh, I tell you. That's what I I didn't realize it at the time until after a day or two, I realized that is just, like, a satanic voice taunting me. Say, oh, fair enough. I just like me talking to myself. You know? Listen. Alright. You're good. You're good for a day, two days a week. Let me give you a do you think in a year's time, you're still gonna be, like, carrying a bible? It's not gonna happen, Greg. And that scared me. I just felt so empty and hollow thinking that the warmth and the relationship I felt I now had with God was gonna go away because I was gonna backslide again or something like that. And then the voice I heard, a quiet gentle voice saying, just take it one day at a time. I'm gonna be a Christian tomorrow. And then tomorrow, I told her I'm gonna be a Christian tomorrow. I could only vouch for the next twenty four hours, and I did that for the next few weeks. And I don't know what point the fear and doubt left me. Yeah. I can't really say. But and it's been thirty five years. I've had ups and downs. That's true. I've had all kinds of things, challenges of faith. Of course. The church is doing all kinds of nonsense.
After thirty years, you've seen done it all well, not done it all, but seen it all, all sorts of atrocities and things like that. But I've come to, I think, understand God, obviously, you should better than I did way back then. I I believe I have a better relationship and understanding with God in spite of the fact that I'm still a scientist at heart, and I have no fear that my knowledge of science would make me discount the existence of God. In fact, it's the opposite. The more I see the discoveries that science leads leads us in that direction, the more it confirms that there's that which exists beyond the material world in which we live. Agreed. Totally agree. I have a relationship with him. One of the arguments that I've I always make is that when
[01:30:55] Unknown:
I I I hold I hold the Bible at at a very high standard. Alright? The word of God. I I believe that the King James Bible is God's word for us today in English. You know, you can read whatever you wanna read, NIV, ESV, RSV, ASV, whatever version you wanna read. Fine. You know, I'm not gonna beat you over the head with my book and say my book is is is better. It is. But Oh. Hit me. Hit me. Move over the head. I felt it. Well, the thing is is like, you know, it's like what I would tell people when I'd be preaching, because I because I used to I served as an associate pastor for a little while. I I did street Oh, wow. I did street preaching. Good to see you, man. Thank you, sir. I did, well, praise the Lord for it, to be honest, really. But, never thought I'd say that see the day where I'd see that little thing in front of my name saying Pastor Joe. You know? Yeah. Yeah. But, but, you know, praise the Lord for that.
But, you know, I I would just tell people, look, if, you know, if you're reading any other version, it's unfortunate because you're losing some very important doctrine. Because despite what people say, oh, Bible say anything. No. They don't. They really don't. You know, and, you know, as a matter of fact, I did a Bible study show a couple years ago where I I I did a side by side between the King James Bible and the NIV, and I showed you all the places where the NIV was changed, and how those simple little word changes changed doctrine.
Like, for just as an example, on top of my head, an easy one. Okay? In the NIV, it says, talking about, when when Jesus was a baby, and he was presented at the temple. It's the the, the the NIV says, the child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about him. Okay? The King James says the King James says, Joseph and his mother marveled at what was said about him. Okay? Very, very subtle difference. Very subtle. Alright? Who was Jesus's father?
[01:32:56] Unknown:
Well, his real father is God. Correct. Not the father. Correct.
[01:33:00] Unknown:
Joseph is his for all intents and purposes, was his stepfather. Right. Okay. So which one is right? Is if is Joseph and his mother marveled at what was said about him, or was the child's father and mother amazed at what was said about him? They're splitting hairs here, Joe. Mhmm. They're splitting hairs. But but it's an important one because if you take if you take that away, what are you changing? You're changing a doctrine. You're absolutely if you take it that way, you are absolutely changing a doctrine entirely. You're correct. Yes. You're quite correct. You're changing the deity of Christ. There's another verse too. It's in Colossians. I think it's Colossians one thirteen. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm going a little cold here. But, Colossians one thirteen in the King James Bible says, in whom we have redemption through his blood, The forgive Forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness of sin. The new versions take out through his blood.
They just say, in whom in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sin. Alright? It's the blood of Christ that cleansed you of your sin. So you're taking that word that one little thing changes a whole doctrine.
[01:34:16] Unknown:
A doctrine You're right. It changes that verse. Yeah. And However, I'd I'd be if I well, maybe I'd be be a blase if I say, no. What what did they say? No. No. No. No. No thing. No foul. Because that concept of the blood of Jesus paying for our sins exists in other scriptures in numerous places. Exactly. Exactly. And you find that consistent chain
[01:34:39] Unknown:
throughout the King James Bible. But in the modern vie Bibles, like the NIV, ESV, RSV, and so on and so forth, it's inconsistent. Yeah. It gives you a bit more work to do than anything. So what is it? Right. Well, and that's it too. Very good. Very good point. It's indicating that there's works involved because it's not through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. No. I don't mean that kind of work. I mean, just
[01:35:03] Unknown:
Listen. I'm I'm talking to you a pastor. This is a pastor speaking. There's a preacher's. I can hear it.
[01:35:09] Unknown:
Yeah. I I talked to Well, you got me there. You got me. You got me a 100%. Sometimes sometimes I get to preaching when I shouldn't. I'm trying to be a bit facetious, but you got me. No. I know. It's alright. It's like, yes. But that's the thing. So like I said, I hold the scripture to a very very high standard. And and to go to something else you said too about about, you know, when you when you first got saved. Right? Yeah. And I'm and I'm gonna agree with you on this one. When I first got saved, I got down on my knees on a pier in in Lower Manhattan. On I was on Pier 34 between Canal Street and West Street along the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan. I had complete chaos going on around me. Wow. Which I'll explain to you another time. It's just way too long to get into. But, but, I got down on my knees on that pier, and I and and I asked Jesus Christ to be my savior.
When I got up, I knew I was saved. Mhmm. I knew I knew something was different. But if you ask me, well, do you know Jesus Christ? No. I I just met him. You know? Wow. That's powerful. That is so well put. You know, I just met him. I don't know. I just met him. Right. So When you've met him. Exactly. When you knew you'd met him. Exactly. And, you know, it took I I like I say, I got saved February, so I'll be coming up on twenty five years that I'm saved. To this day to this day, I still, wherever I go, carry my bible.
That bible is right there with me wherever I go. Because I I I carry my Bible too. It's on the phone. Yeah. Well, you know what? And that that's that's great. That's a great point. But I actually carry the Bible with me. You know, the physical book because Oh, oh, the days. The good old days. Because I'll I'll be honest with you. There's my old Bibles from back then. Oh, so what? When I got saved, underlined, marked, and everything. Oh, yeah. Easy. In in the room across the way from me, I have a bookshelf with all of my study materials, Bibles, and so on and so forth. When I say Bibles, I'm talking through all of my I am talking the physical Bible, and I'm gonna tell you why. And you're gonna probably, you know, oh, God, you're one of those people. Because that digital book that you have on your phone, at some point, the government can turn around and say No. You you have to go there. Have to go there, brother. I have to go there. You know, at some point, they can just turn it off on you. They can take away the access to whatever it is. Whether it's your phone whether it's your bible, whether it's any book that you that you purchase through like Amazon, you know, books or whatever. And I don't I don't even know who's still out there that does this stuff. But, you know, those those Well, it's the what what you the price of convenience is that Yeah. You oftentimes lose control. Yeah. It's very convenient Yes. But you can lose control. So let let so let me I know what you said, it's always good to have a backup. Where's one of my wife's vipers will be here. So it's there's always Yeah. You have to. You have to. So, so you gave me your let me give let me give you mine really quickly. So, I grew up predominantly in a Roman Catholic family.
[01:38:03] Unknown:
Okay. Just like me. My, my uncle,
[01:38:06] Unknown:
who as a child, I idolized my uncle. I I mean, I everything he did, I wanted to do because I just I looked at him as like, he is got it all together, you know. He was the first person in our family to leave the family religion and go to another faith. Alright? And I didn't realize it at the time, but there were some doctrinal issues with the choice that he made, but I didn't see that because I was a child. I was I was going through Catholic catechism, you know. I was I was like, what, 12 maybe? In that. In that. In that. In that. In that. So so, what he would do is he would he would he he went to bible school for this, denomination that he became part of. And I'm not gonna say what it is, but he went to the to to bible school. He eventually went to seminary, became a pastor in that in that denomination.
And, you know, like I said, I idolized my uncle, and and I I would talk to him all the time about it. And, what he would do is he would come home from school on his breaks, and he would take all of my Catholic catechism books and rewrite them. Wow. Yeah. Like he would he would take pay he would he would put big red x's through pages. This is not how it happened, and he would staple an addendum to it. And then I wouldn't notice that until I get to catechism class. I open it up and there's the nun standing over my shoulder. She's like, what's that? What's that? You know? I I you know. I don't know how he got there. You know, I my my dog did it. You know? But
[01:39:36] Unknown:
but, I don't get my homework.
[01:39:38] Unknown:
But but but he would also leave his books, in textbooks, in his theology books. And at a very, very young age, I was reading them. I was just sucking it all in. I I was naturally curious about the whole thing. Well, fast forward a little bit to the time when you're supposed to take your first communion. Right. And you're supposed to go to the confessional and and and and tell the guy in there that, you know, all the stuff that you did wrong. And, you know, he's supposed to say, okay, you know, I absolve you. Well, I wouldn't go. And And I said, why am I gonna tell you what I've done wrong? You're worse than I am.
You know? And and he was like and and we debate it. Now, he's debating a 12 year old. You know? Oh. It's not like me. So he got so he got frustrated, and I'll I will never forget this. Okay. I'll never forget this, and I I wish my mom was still alive that she can corroborate my story. But he physically took me by the hand, pulled me out of the church, out of the classes, and handed me off to my mother who was waiting for me and said, we don't need his kind here. That's what that's what he said to my mother. And my mother was like, oh, really? Fine. You don't have to go back. Done. So I kind of wandered my way through my life, and I would tell people, well, you know, I I I I'm the Pope of the Worldwide Church of Joe. You know, I I believe what I believe. They preach what I preach.
Like it or leave it. It's up to you, you know. Orgy at my place next week. Bring bring the toga. You know, that type of it was it was stupid. I know. But, you know, that that's
[01:41:07] Unknown:
the way it was. That's what you do when you've got no connection to God in any other way. Exactly. Exactly. Through life. Right? Exactly. So,
[01:41:15] Unknown:
but I talked to my uncle and he was like, well, he goes, I can set you up with with some bible studies from, you know, from the church that he was part of and so on and so forth. And he would send me recordings of which kinda made me laugh later on when I learned more about the denomination that he was part of and some of the restrictions that they have and and all that fun stuff and well, if you're not supposed why recording things and never mind. Anyway, so, so, like I said, he became a pastor of that in that in that denomination. He was pastoring a church in Pennsylvania, and, you know, and it was great. But I love my uncle. I remember when I went to his ordination ceremony, I cried like a baby. Mhmm. You know, it it affected me. And, so one day, I got a little bit older. I had gone through a lot of the bible studies that he set me up with, and I went up to him and I said and his name is Joe also. I said, uncle Joe, I said, I wanna be I wanna I wanna be a part of your church. I wanna be what you are. Would would you would you help me and baptize me?
And my uncle looked me dead in the face and said, no. Why? He said, this isn't for you. Wow. What a letdown that was, you know?
[01:42:26] Unknown:
How? Why? Why did he think so?
[01:42:28] Unknown:
I didn't know it at the time. I found out later on, but there were some issues. The church the church, the denomination was part of was very, very legalistic. And he was starting to see how it how the legalism that they were teaching didn't really mesh up with what the Bible was teaching. Right. And he was starting to question a lot of it. Right. The straw that the straw that broke the camel's back for him was and I could talk about this because he doesn't like me anymore, so he doesn't watch my show. But, the straw that broke the camel's back for them was, they went food shopping, and, it was he and his wife, and they bumped into some some folks from the church, and they physically went through his shopping cart to make sure that he was purchasing things that were in accordance with the restrictions that that denomination had.
So, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, and he's like, we're done. This isn't right. Something's something's wrong here. It's wrong here. You know? So, and
[01:43:30] Unknown:
and I'm thankful now, of course, you know, that he didn't pull me in with him. Yeah. Because you you were so willing. You you would have gone through another well, you would have you wouldn't some like you probably wouldn't have lasted that long. Probably not. No. Your questioning
[01:43:41] Unknown:
spirit would have said, nah. Yeah. Exactly. Why? Yo. Not doing this. Exactly. So, again, I went through life, did my own thing. I I worked for New York City. I worked in law enforcement investigations, all that stuff. I got reassigned to a command in Lower Manhattan just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. So this is about maybe a year before the World Trade Center thing happened. And, so I got assigned there and, I went, you know, you know, before I reported for duty my first day, I had to go see meet the commanding officer who turned out to be a good friend of mine. He was actually one of my academy instructors when I went through the academy. And so he was thrilled to have me there. He was like, oh, dude, when I when I heard you were coming in, I I this was really great. I I need you here that you you're the kind of guy I need. I'm like, alright. Well, that's cool. What do you got for me? He goes, well, unfortunately though, I had to put you on the overnight. He goes, that's where I need the most help. I was like, alright. That's fine. No problem. I have no problem with that. Yeah. Not a problem with that at all.
Mostly because you make more money on the overnight, you get differentials. So, you know Yeah. The overnight same thing in medicine. Yeah. And and you don't everything too. And you don't deal with all the all the the stuff that the day shift deals with and the mid shifts deal with, you know, you you know, it's kinda quiet. So, so, and he goes, and one more thing. I was like, well, what's that? He goes, it's your turn. Since you're the new guy in the shift. My turn for what? Like, here we go. For what? He goes, you gotta ride with Gail. I'm like, alright. Who's Gail? Bill. Yeah. Tangier's Gail.
Okay? That doesn't help me either. Who is Tangier's Gail? She's one of those born again Christian types. She's gonna talk your ear off all night long. So, he goes, we've all been through it. It's your turn. I'm like, alright. So I kind of felt like, I I know enough. I I can hold my own. You know? I'm fine. So, I report I report to do my first shift. She comes out of the locker room. She looks me right in the face. She gets right in my right, like almost nose to nose. She goes, are you saved? I'm like, I'm like, I just got here. Okay? Calm down.
We'll get to that point. We got we got eight hours ahead of us. Let's Oh my gosh. Let's calm. No. Answer the question right now. Are you saved? So I I just I don't know what made me say it. I just turned around and said, look. At this time, I wish to assert my fifth amendment privilege as, guaranteed by the the United States Constitution against self incrimination. I don't have to tell you anything. I plead the fifth. Yeah. Plead the fifth here. So, so, you know, I I I got into uniform. We we left. We went on patrols. We hit our we hit our sector. And we're driving around, and we're talking, and and we are arguing. Not arguing like like like hostile or The debate. Debating. Yeah. Debating.
See I have to I have to explain that because there's a lot of people that are around me here that don't know the difference between arguing and arguing. Okay. So, you know, just a little slow. But,
[01:46:49] Unknown:
just say it like that. Don't worry, I do because I have to laugh when I Yeah. Well, you're educated. That's why. So because you understand. It it's not that. It's just I'm I'm just that vain. I make a lot of noise when I make my points. Yes, sir. I I get you. Alright.
[01:47:02] Unknown:
Okay. And you're educated. So, so the, so with with some, you know, going all of a sudden having these great debates back and forth, you you know. And it was really interesting, and that was really interesting what she was saying. And of course, you know, me being me being me, I'm antagonistic, you know. So I'm just like egging her on. I'm like doing whatever I can to kind of stir her up and and and all that stuff. And, like like one day one day I said to just randomly, I was I was driving and I was I came to a stoplight, and I'm sitting there. I said, hey, do you have you you think Jesus ever ate bacon? She was like, don't you blasphemy.
[01:47:38] Unknown:
She's like, don't you blasphemy. And I was like
[01:47:42] Unknown:
I'm just asking. Just a question. I was like I was like I was like Just a thought. And and she hated I I shortened her name. So her name was like I said Tangiers. Alright? And that's what she wanted to be called. I never called her. I called her Tangie. She hated it. It was just kinda draddler. I said, come on Tangie. I'm kidding around for crying out loud. Get over it. So, but we but we got very close, you know. And and we had a really good friendship. We had a good working relationship. She was just an overall, just a great person. Love her to death. And, you know, if if there was a way that I could track her down, because I know I know she moved long time ago. I would love just to say, how you doing? Harvey. You know?
But, so one night, we're getting off duty, and she says, you know, there's this Christian radio station on the AM channels up in New York. She was like, yeah, there's a Christian radio station. You might like it. Check it out. She gave me the the station ID. I was like, yeah, alright. I'll do that. So I left I left work. I turned on that that Christian radio station, and I heard a guy preaching or teaching really, the more bible study, by the name of J. Vernon McGee. I don't know if you ever heard Yeah. I got a name. I had no idea this man had been with the Lord for years. Even back then? That back then. And I had no idea, but everything that he was talking about, everything he was teaching just seemed so relevant to me and my life at that moment.
So, I was shocked when I found out that he was gone. Mhmm. So I would listen to every day. Every morning, I would I'd leave work, I'd put it on, I would purposely drive home slower just so I can hear the whole thing. You hear? Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and and the more I listened, the more hungry I got for more. And I remember I I I, I went back to I went back to my house and I I went to my attic and I started tearing my attic apart. And my wife at the time said, she was, what are you looking for? My bible. You have a bible?
Really? You lying. It's here somewhere. It's here. I have no idea. Yeah. So It's somewhere. So I found it, you know, and and and I I started reading the thing and, you know, I I I I tried reaching out to my uncle, but you know, he he he he never really got back to me on it until much much later on. But I tracked down addresses for bible studies and things like that, and I started doing all these bible studies on my own. I started buying books and and whatnot. And, just constantly reading, constantly reading. Just read, read, read, read, read. And then, long story short, fast forward to just one night, it was July 17.
July 16, seventeenth, somewhere around there. I was getting ready to go to work. It was a Sunday night. And, I was like, you know, I always listen to the traffic reports. It's always the same mess, the same traffic, the same route, all that stuff. Let me let let me see what's on that Christian station tonight. So I put it on, and there was a guy in there. It was a it was a it was a it was like a bible study show. It was a live show, and he was taking questions. He would he would preach, teach a little bit, then he would stop, answer phone calls, take questions, pray with people, you know. He would try to keep he would try to keep the questions to the context of the show, but you know, people would call all kinds of crazy questions, and he would answer them. He would take his time and and and talk to them about it. And I was like, wow this is great, man. I'm listening to this. And it was at one point, I got really spooked out.
Because like you said before, that still soft voice.
[01:51:04] Unknown:
That's it. Right?
[01:51:06] Unknown:
I was sitting at a traffic light, and the subject of the bible study was hell and who's going there.
[01:51:13] Unknown:
Oh my gosh.
[01:51:14] Unknown:
Okay. Really heavy. Are you okay? Really heavy really heavy stuff. Okay? And and I'm not saying that I'm not being sarcastic. It was really heavy, like he was not holding back. He was saying it like it was. And, but the thing was that it just seemed like at the end of every sentence, it was, did you get that, Joe? I'm talking to you. This is for you, Joe.
[01:51:38] Unknown:
Oh, gosh.
[01:51:39] Unknown:
Scare literally when I say literally scared the hell out of me, it literally scared the hell out of me. Literally? Literally. Okay. Out of me. So I I I I so I wrote down the phone number, because I was gonna call, you know. But, by the time I got to to to a phone that I could call, the show was over. And besides, I I was gonna chicken out anyway. I was really gonna do it. You just didn't think you'd be able to go through it. Yeah. No. I I just I I I chickened out. But what I did is I I wrote down the phone number to the church that that was sponsoring the show, and I called the next day. And I I must have sounded like an idiot. Hey, I heard you on the radio. You know, I'm a big fan.
But, I called and of course, I got his voicemail, which terrified me even more. I'm like, oh, this is prolonging the whole thing. You know, and then Until he called you back? Five minutes later, dude. Five minutes later, he called me back. And we we were on the phone for about an hour. And he was like Wow. He was like, why don't you come to church Sunday? I was like, yeah. No. I'm not coming to church. Are you out of your mind, man? I said, I'll I said, you I I said, I'm sure you have a very nice church building, but if you wanted to remain standing, I'm not coming to church Sunday.
[01:52:45] Unknown:
Alright? That lightning bolt. It's it's lightning
[01:52:49] Unknown:
bolt. It's following me, man. It's just waiting for that moment. You know? Where where where do you think you're going?
[01:52:57] Unknown:
I don't, you know, I'm afraid, but just to interject, he used that lightning bolt joke a lot because he used to be born again, I think when in his high school days, and we're in college acting crazy. And if anybody said anything that was really sacrilegious, he would make the joke look I'm gonna stand aside because I can stand the bolt light is coming. I don't wanna get hit when it hits you. Yeah. I know. Yeah. So,
[01:53:20] Unknown:
so he was like, well, he goes, well, so I said to him, I said, how about this? How about, if you have time during the week, I'll come by your office, and we'll sit down, we'll talk. He goes, well, you know, we he goes, we rent space at a community school in Lower Manhattan, so I don't really have office space. And I I didn't I didn't realize how common that really was, that a church would rent space like that. So I thought then you the church to you was always this church building with people and all that. Exactly. So I I was kinda like leery when he said that. I was like, oh, oh, okay. Okay. So I said, so, where is this place that you meet? So he gave me the address. I said, you gotta be kidding me. He said, that's right across the street from where I work. Wow. It's like it's like a like like not even a block away from where I work. So he was like, well, you see, God works things out, so you can come to church. I'm like, yeah, I'm not.
Well, I'll meet you some place, you know, we'll we'll we'll So we ended up meeting for dinner. And, man, I came I came ready to bear dude. I I had this big red duffle bag. I loaded every book that I had into that bag. And I carried that thing with me into the city, and I met I met up with him. And it was weird too because I there were no pictures of him anywhere. Like I I didn't know what he looked like, but when I saw him when I saw him, I knew that that was the guy I was going The guy I'd be talking to on the phone. This is him. Yeah. Exactly. And he and actually, he said the same thing, and he actually wrote a book, and he included this whole story in his book. It's like one chapter in his book. So Wow. Yeah. I know. It's crazy. So, so, we go to this we go to this restaurant, and we're sitting there, we're talking, just having a conversation. And, he goes, well, I don't think we just came here for the food, so what's on your mind? I said, well, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm dealing with, this is what I'm thinking about, this is what I, you know, it's been on my mind, and this is what I've been doing. Took the bag and I dumped it. I literally opened it. I dumped everything out on the table, and all he did was this, is he kinda craned his neck. He looked at it. He goes, okay. And he took his arm, he just pushed everything off the tabletop.
Took his King James Bible, put it on the table, he goes, this is all you need. Dude, I was hooked right there. As soon as he said, he was so confident and so matter of fact, you don't need that. This is all you need right here. What do you need? You know, and Brilliant. And so I Brilliant. So and I do I I literally did this. Talk to me. Sayon, brother. Sayon. Yeah. And, My goodness. And he did. He started showing me scripture. We started talking about stuff. And, you know, he answered he was so patient with me. I don't know how he did it, but he was so patient with me that that he answered almost every question, like, instantly. Like like, no pause. Nothing. He didn't say, well, nothing.
I asked a question, boom. He had an answer and scripture. Answer and scripture. Answer in every question I had. And he said something to me that actually stayed with me from from that day to today, and I use it all the time. He said, that book has the answers to every single question you have in life In life. And eternity. He goes, now, ask me where they all are. I don't know. I don't know. But it's there somewhere. But it's but but they're there, and God gave us the book so we can find it. That stayed with me. And that's exactly how he said it, and I use that regularly when I talk to people about this stuff. Well, how do you know? Because I believe that it's all there. I just gotta find it. If I take the time, listen to the Lord, listen to the Holy Spirit, let him guide me, I will find it. It may take me a day, it may take me a year. I don't know, but I'll find it.
So, anyway. Just a brilliant story though. So we so we finished we finished our lunch, our dinner, And, he was he was like, so you have to you have to get to work. Right? Yeah. I got I got roll call in about forty five minutes, so I gotta go. So he was like, alright. So I'll walk back with you. So we're we're walking, we're talking, all that stuff. And we come across this we come right to the front of my of my command. And, he was like, do you have ten minutes? Just ten more minutes. I just wanted to I I because I really wanna show you just a couple more things. I don't think that the Lord brought us together here just to have a dinner and a conversation. This is more important. Okay.
So he went out onto the onto Pier 34 Of A West Street in Canal Street, second bench from the gate. Sat there, he opened up the bible, he started taking me down with the what's what's called the Romans Road. Now I'm sure you're familiar with that. Yep. Yep. So as he's doing that, and this is all in his book by the way. As he's doing that, some guy comes around on a bicycle, and he's riding in circles around the bench that we're sitting on. And while he's giving me scripture, this guy is riding around cursing at us, spitting at us, cursing at us, and all that stuff. Until at some point, I don't know what he hit, but he hit something on that deck that flipped him over the handlebars.
Wow. And literally cut, literally busted his skull open. I mean, blood everywhere. I mean, I know I know when you cut your head, you you bleed more, you know. It looked it looked nasty. It looks worse than what it is, but this was bad because it actually fractured his skull. Woah. So, so, you know, I I it's what I do, you know. It's I I law enforcement. I I I help people. So I jumped up. I started, you know, making calls. Hey, I need we need to get a bus down. In New York, we call them buses, the ambulance. Call them the bus. I need a bus down here. I got I got the guys from my command came down and, you know, the the bus shows up, they start working on them, and, while they're working on them, this pastor, he's kneeling down with there with the guy that was just cursing at him, spitting at him, asking him if he can pray for him. Some lady comes running over, claims to be his girlfriends cursing out the pastor, telling him to get the f away and all that stuff.
And so, he backs away. I'm still here because that's what I do. I'm directing the scene. And he very very gently takes me by the arm, like he just taps my my elbow. And he goes, come on. He goes, they're trying to save his life. We're doing something more important. We're trying to save your soul. Led I was like, okay. Yeah. Just we walked we walked away. He had all the right words, didn't he? Oh, man. He was amazing. I love I love the man. I really do. He he's he's such a great friend. You know, I still hear from him every now and then. You know, time and distance, it makes it hard, but, you know, it's, what a great man. Incredible preacher, incredible teacher. I mean, I amazing. Just a God has definitely touched this man. Mhmm.
So he leads me away, says what he says, he says a quick prayer for them. And in the middle of all of that chaos, the sirens, the the the the the flashing lights, the yelling, the screaming, the crying, all that stuff, The word of God just penetrated into my heart. I'm starting to crack up here a little bit. The word of God penetrated into my heart. I got down on my knees right there, and I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to save me. Wow. And it didn't really hit me that that what had just happened until when I got up, and I looked up, and I saw that pastor standing in front of me with his hand out saying, come on brother. The first time he called me brother, dude, man, I I lost it.
I lost it. Amazing. You know? And then Amazing. And then right after that, you know, we we parted ways, and I was like, I will be in church on Sunday. That's it. And he was like, great. He'll be waiting for you. Went to went to work. Now I Now remember Tangiers. Alright? Never told her any of this stuff was going on, what I was talking about, and I was even meeting this guy. I go up to the command, she comes walking out of the locker room, she looks me dead in the face, and she goes, you got saved. Wow. And I was like, what are you talking about? She goes, uh-uh. Don't start your new life with a lie.
[02:01:16] Unknown:
What
[02:01:18] Unknown:
did she see? She she said that I looked like I was glowing. Like there was just this radiance coming off of me that she had not seen before in me. And she goes, you got saved. And we spent the whole night driving around. I don't I don't even think we did anything related to the work. That's full scripture of bible and everything. All we did all night was just go over the story, over the story, over the story, over the story. It was is the probably the most incredible experience in my life. You know, it was the day that I got saved. And then, and then nine eleven took place.
I I I I worked on the pile for for a few months. It was right down the street from my command. Did rescue, did some recovery, did, security post, building sweeps, you know, all that stuff. And then, but related to the spiritual side of it, when I got saved, I immediately wanted to preach. I wanted to teach. So when I the first day I went to church, I didn't say anything to the pastor about it. But he comes up to me, he goes, Joe, if you're interested, I have a discipleship institute, and we're starting up a class on on bible teaching and bible preaching. Would you be interested in signing up for it? He goes, I won't there's no charge for you, you know. Normally, it's like a donation, whatever you wanna give. He goes, I don't want I don't want money from you. I just want you to take the class. I want you to get involved.
Okay. I did. And that so that was in July. And in December, I preached my first message. So it was it was horrible. But you know what? You have a recording of it even now? No. Thank God. No. No. You should keep these. No. No. No. No. No. But, but, yeah. No. And and from that point on and shortly after that, strange, I got I got an invitation to from a from a church in Upstate New York, contacted my church in downstate about a church in Washington state that wanted somebody to come that had some, involvement with the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center, and, because they were doing some kind of like a memorial, services for it. Yeah. And, my pastor asked me, he goes, would you be willing to go?
Uh-oh. Well, the devil doesn't want us talking about this, brother. That was a quick switch. Well, yeah. Well, I don't I I that it said I needed a refresh. I got I got, I got kicked out. But see, the devil doesn't want me talking about this. So,
[02:03:57] Unknown:
so You look a lot clearer in this shot than you did in the last one. Yeah. I think,
[02:04:02] Unknown:
my my my and I'm having a problem with the, the studio that I use. So I'm I'm trying to work towards getting away from the browser studio to an OBS with the stream deck and all that stuff. Right. Right. But it takes takes some money to do it. So, but we're working on it. We're working on it. So at any rate, the, so so the invitations went all around and I this this church I lost you now. I'm back. I see. Okay. Now you're back you're back where you belong.
[02:04:35] Unknown:
Let's see. Turn on camera and join the stage. Come on. There you go. Perfect.
[02:04:40] Unknown:
Yeah. So, yeah. That that's that's the cutest time to shut up. So, we'll, I'll I'll just say this and wrap it up quick. So, I got, so I got this invitation. I went out to Washington state, and I got to to preach to 400 lumberjacks. What? Which was an incredibly interesting experience. And, I gotta do this. Hold on. Sorry. Alright. If you're looking for a great place online for news and discussion and entertainment, then you need to check out Truth Social, Donald Trump's social media website. You'll get breaking news stories and commentary from top media figures. If you wanna see Trump's legendary Truth Social posts, then get on Truth Social today. I've told you folks many, many times, if you really wanna follow what this administration is doing, get on Truth Social because he posts it there first, if anywhere else.
Join a growing community of patriots on a free speech platform designed to avoid censorship and cancellation by big tech. Make your voice heard, join the movement, join Truth Social, and make sure you follow me there at joe roos.
[02:05:49] Unknown:
Alright. Done. Done.
[02:05:52] Unknown:
Gotta pay the bills. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All all how much? 12¢. Alright. So,
[02:05:59] Unknown:
Is it that bad? 12¢.
[02:06:01] Unknown:
Take what you can get. It all adds up. It all adds up. Well, actually actually, the the payout for the, for the, prescription thing that I read was considerably more than that. It was weird. But, anyway. So I went up there. I preached to these guys. It was a great experience. Came back, man. I was just on fire, you know. And I came back and the the pastor said, hey, listen. I'm gonna be out going on vacation. He goes, I want you to preach a Sunday service for me, like a main service. I was like, what do you mean? Yeah. Okay. Sure. Well, when you picked a 400 lumberjack, why not? Well, yeah. That was like my test. That was my trial run. So so I did that and then, you know, I just everything just started moving and going and and just just moving at a fast pace. And then fast forward, a few years later, I had to I had to leave that church because they moved further into Manhattan, and it was becoming a difficult because I was getting out of work, had to drive all the way back to where I lived, which was like forty five minutes away, and then, you know, then turn around, come back, you know, forty five minutes, and then traffic and all that mess. It was just it was just very, very hard. So, so I found this little, independent Baptist church up in, where I lived on Staten Island, and, started going there. And about after a year of that, the pastor of that church came to me and he said, listen, you know, Joe, I I because, you know, I the the Lord's definitely touched you. You have a you have a a real knack for for the word of God and for handling scripture. He goes, I don't know if you know or not, but I'm sick. I have this, this, this, and this.
It's not looking very good. Mhmm. So I need somebody to kinda just fill the pulpit for me from time to time, and so on and so forth, and so I did. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. I'll help you out wherever. Well, at the following business meeting, he informed the church that he was putting my name forward to be the associate pastor of the church.
[02:07:44] Unknown:
Did he tell you that first? No.
[02:07:46] Unknown:
No. But I I told him, I said, look, I, you know, I I wish you would have told me, you know, but, you know, if if I said, as long as long as it's a a unanimous decision in favor, that's the only way I'll do it. If there's one dissent, I'm not gonna do it. I'm out. Yeah. And it was unanimous. So That was it. Yep. And then when that happened, my first wife decided she didn't wanna be married to a pastor or preacher. Oh. Yeah. So after a year in serving that, we split. And, I didn't have to step down because I didn't do anything to need to step down, like it wasn't any immorality or anything like that. There was no cheating involved. There was no money problem, nothing like that. It's just it had basically, I guess, ran its course. So so, so so I had to step down from the pastorate there, and then, you know, ended up getting divorced finally.
And then and then I met my second wife, and, moved out here to Texas after I retired, and that's how I'm here in Texas. But I I I still teach. I still preach at my local church here, at the great church. I love it. It's a great bunch of people.
[02:08:58] Unknown:
Yeah. It's a gift, isn't it? So it's not gonna go away. The gifts and the calling are without repentance. So, yep. Yeah. And then It's yours. And then I did a a Bible study podcast for three years,
[02:09:08] Unknown:
and, that was a lot of fun. And, and and actually with this podcast too, I just recently started a, started teaching doing a bible study on Sundays, as part of this show. And, so that's been pretty good. Got a couple in there. But I can't stay away from the politics either because, you know, so far so far, I'd say I did I did a Father's Day message, and then the the the the following two shows, one was a, a, politics in the bible, and, the one I did last Sunday was the Christian's bill of rights.
[02:09:39] Unknown:
Oh my gosh. And then I've got to say this at this point that, I'm so glad that I've come on to this this show and done this because, as much as I would I've been doing this way. This is the first time I've been on what is traditionally referred to as talk radio. Mhmm. I mean, it's Long form. Yeah. Video same similar. And maybe it was a good thing that you maybe didn't dig too far into my background spiritually. All you found was a believer. Mhmm. It's common believer. Oh, well, let's get him in. Because you may not have wanted me. You'd have thought, nah. He wouldn't want to listen to what I have to say.
But it was nice to hear what you had to say. I felt very welcomed. I appreciate it. I felt ex accepted, and, and I felt appreciated. Of course. Even though some of the things you said that I disagreed with were able to have a bit of banter without coming at each other. Right. And there's so much of that, in the world today, in America, and even in the church, and that's just so sad. Yeah. But but the fact that I could be on your show and I know I'm I'm not a lefty liberal extremist anyway, but there are many people, from I mean, your audience
[02:10:55] Unknown:
who would look at me and hear what I have to say about health care, for example, and say, oh, no. We don't wanna listen to him. But I felt welcome here, and I'm and I'm glad for the opportunity I had. Well, listen, brother. Anytime you wanna come on the show, you just let me know. We we can we'll definitely get you in here. I mean, I I I really enjoyed our conversation. I was and, you know, it's funny too because, you know, sometimes you look, you you you get these you you get these profiles that you look at for guests and and such, and it's like sometimes you look at someone and say, I don't know. I don't think so.
But there was some when when I when your profile came up, it it was just like you said, yeah, I wanna I wanna talk to him. I wanna go I wanna have him come on, you know. And, and it was a blessing for me, and I really do appreciate it. And and and I know we we talked to me somewhere, I'm gonna stay off for an hour, and it's two hours fifteen minutes. You know? Oh, you got to pay me for this. Is it two Yeah. Two yeah. I can see that. Yep. You you owe me now, Joe. You owe me. Consultation fee. You read my profile, and you saw
[02:11:48] Unknown:
words like scientist and Mhmm. You know, the scientific method. And even though I talked about him, I'm proud about my Christianity and my my my following of Christ, but I did mention my attitude to health and health care. Mhmm. I know the sort of arguments I get in with people in church who believe that any kind of government involvement in health care is wrong and it's socialism and stuff like that. Mhmm. And yet you still decided to have me on. I'm I'm kudos to you. You know? That but that but that's the whole thing too. It's it's dialogue. You know? You we Dialogue. You Dialogue. You have to keep talking about things. You can't you can't just push somebody to the side and say, well, you know what?
[02:12:26] Unknown:
He doesn't believe what I believe. I'm not gonna talk to him about this stuff. I'm sure. Yeah. Or and the other way around. No. You have to. That's the whole that's that's what makes society work. Is the ability to sit down and have a conversation. Have a conversation. Maybe have disagreements Yeah. And then work your way through it. And work your way through them. We laughed our way through the conversations that we disagreed with, you know. And that's that's the thing. And then on top of that, when it comes to faith and and and and, you know, your relationship with the Lord Look, your relationship with the Lord is your relationship with the Lord. Mine is mine. I can't make you accept mine. You can't make me accept yours. You may not agree with everything that I stand on. I may not agree with everything you stand on, but but there's one thing, one very, very important thing.
You believe that salvation is through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. That's it. And that the gospel message the gospel message is first Corinthians fifteen one through three. The death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yep. And that Jesus Christ is the son of God. You got those things? That's it. We have fellowship.
[02:13:32] Unknown:
We have fellowship. As Everything else is secondary. The brethren told you the chap told you, and he said, hello. Get up, brother. What was the expression? He called you a brother Yep. After he had led you to the Lord, and that's the most important thing and very few anything else matters beyond that. Unfortunately, we fight over the smallest thing The most inconsequential
[02:13:53] Unknown:
things ever. And you know what it also is too, is that a lot of Christians and I I know I'm gonna get flack for this, but I don't really care because I'm just gonna say the truth. A lot of a lot of Christians, and I've come across this in churches, ones that I visited, churches that I've attended, You could be saved for fifty years and still be a child. Have no growth whatsoever in in your faith. None whatsoever. We are not meant to be on the sincere milk of the word all of our life.
[02:14:31] Unknown:
The book of Hebrews time for meat. There's a time for crackers bones. Correct. We've got to grow into that. Correct.
[02:14:37] Unknown:
And if you are if you if you come to me and say, well, I've been saved fifty years and you're still acting like a child in the faith. Well, you know what? It doesn't matter how long you've been saved. That's yeah. That that's a that's a problem. That's something you have to work on with the Lord. I'm not I can't help you with that. You have Maturity. We have to be able to sit down and talk to each other. And again, if we could fellowship around the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ Mhmm. And that he is the only way to salvation, the only way to heaven, then we have fellowship. Everything else is everything else is inconsequential.
We can disagree on the preservation and and the inspiration of scripture. That's fine. It's okay. You believe in Jesus Christ as your personal savior? That's all that matters. That's all that matters. No. We could agree. We we could disagree on baptism.
[02:15:21] Unknown:
Alright? Some And they have. Yeah. Fought and died over baptism. Right. You know The woman preached. Do you know what? Cover their cover their hair. It's the church is split and split and split and split over centuries. Look, I'm a Baptist by denomination. Alright? I mean, I tell I'm a born again Christian. You know, that that's first and foremost. Mhmm. But denominationally,
[02:15:38] Unknown:
I'm a Baptist. And I will be the I will be the first one to tell you Baptists don't believe that baptism saves you. Alright? The most baptism does is get you wet. It's all it is. Gets you wet. It's an outward display of a change that has taken place internally. Exactly. Yeah. That's all it is. That's right. You know, and some people go as far as saying, well, it's a step of obedience. You know, Jesus Christ himself, God himself manifest in the flesh, submitted himself the way by doing it. He did it. Submitted himself to baptism. We should do it too. Perfect. I love that. That's a great answer. I love that. Yeah. It's because it's right. He did. He submitted himself to the to the law and got baptized.
[02:16:20] Unknown:
Okay. To show what men ought to do because Correct. That was God acting as a man. So everything he did was an example. Well, not every most things he did was an example of what we ought to do, and baptism was certainly one of them. Absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. You will. And so,
[02:16:37] Unknown:
you, you know, you should be growing in your faith. And if you're gonna bicker and nitpick over the smallest little details, that's not growing in your faith. I thought growing in your faith. No. That's legalism. That's that's that's that's stagnant. If I could find a if I can find a good word for that, that that's a stagnant faith. That's a nice polite word for it. I'll I'll accept stagnant. Yeah. So there you go. Alright. Well Paul was a bit more harsh in some of the week. Yeah. Yeah. He was well, I'm Stagnant. You know, I'm I'm trying. I'm trying. You you have you have not seen me street preach, so you have no idea.
Just imagine. Oh, gosh. Hey, you. You're tone of hell. Come over here. I I'd be the one saying it would not calm down. Calm down. Right. Hey. You. Hey. Yeah. Yeah. I'm you. Come here. You're going to hell. Come over here. I wanna talk to you. I was like, he doesn't really mean it like that. Jesus loves you. He because Jesus loves you, but you're going to hell. Come over here. You're going to hell regardless. It was like so It was like, I had a member of the church back in New York come up to me one day. He was like, he goes, hey hey hey, brother Joe, I wanna ask you a question. I was like, sure. He goes, I am struggling with something. Yeah. What's up? Smoking.
Well, what about it? Well, I I I I know I shouldn't be doing it. I I know I have to stop. I know it's a sin. Okay. I I don't recall seeing thou shall not smoke in the bible. You know? Don't get controversial. This is about to wrap the show up. You know? So so I said, alright. I said, well, look. I said, and his name is Joe too. Look, we're in New York. Everybody's name is Joe. Nobody's Joe in New York. Joe Joe, Anthony, or Dominic. It's it's it's just the way, especially in an Italian community. It's all it is, you know. Everybody's Joe. Everybody's Joe, Anthony, or Dominic.
[02:18:25] Unknown:
Tony. Yeah. Joe, Tony.
[02:18:27] Unknown:
Yeah. There you go. So, you know, so I said to him, I said I said, Joe, look. You have a you have liberty in Christ. Okay? You can do anything you want to do in Christ. Okay? As a as a believer, as someone who's saved. Should you do it? Should you do it? No. It's not a good testimony. But the only thing about smoking is not gonna send you to hell, it's just gonna make you smell like you've been there. Alright? So what you need I said, what you need to do is you take baby steps. You know what? You have a cigarette. Lord, give me the strength. Give me the grace.
Give me the mercy to go Overcome. To go an hour without another cigarette. Yeah. Just You know? When that hour comes, when that on. Yeah. When that hour's up, when you feel that the urge is coming, you you gonna smoke again? Lord, you've got me through an hour, please. By your grace, by your mercy, give me another hour. Give me fifteen minutes. Give me half an hour. You keep doing that step by step by step by step, but don't you think that the prodigal son did that when he was making his way back from the pig pen to his father's place? He had no clothes. He was walking barefoot across the desert. He had no food, no water as far as we know according to what, you know, I mean, that's preaching between the lines, I think. But Well, that's the story Jesus told. He said, yeah. We we we get the picture. Right? Step by step. Step by step. You know? Father sees him, runs out to him, meets him halfway, and brings him in. Exactly. You know, step by step. Just one step. I can't make it all the way. In this first shot, I'm gonna get to that tree right there. Mhmm. Get to the tree. I'm gonna sit here for a minute, and I'm gonna go to that tree over there. That's I'm convinced that that's probably the way he did it, to work his way back, and then his father sees him afar off and goes out and gets him and brings him in, puts him on the best robe, and the ring back on his finger, and orders up the do the triathlon. He wasn't at running. I'm gonna run 30 miles and make it home. The Christian walk the Christian the Christian walk in life is not a sprint. It's a it's a long running race. That's why the that's why the apostle Paul used that illustration in Philippians, and used it again in, the second Corinthians, I think it was, or or Colossians.
He he used that example many, many times that it's a race. You're running a race. Running a race. It's not a sprint. Not a sprint. Long distance, long haul. And you don't look back. Step by step. You don't you don't look back. You keep your eyes forward. That's why he said, I keep pressing toward the mark. What that means in modern English is I'm looking straight ahead. I'm not I don't care what happened behind me. Yeah. That's in the past. That's under the blood of Christ. I'm looking straight ahead, and I'm gonna get there. That's what it is. That'll preach. That'll preach. Amen. Amen. I know because I preach it too.
Thank you so much, Joe. It's been fantastic. Oh, I'm, brother, I'm so glad we did this. And let and I meant what I said, if anytime you wanna come back on the show, because I would love to talk to you more about your faith and and how it impacts, you know, your work as in in the medical field as a scientist, because there are, you know, people who are skeptical of that stuff. You know, how could you be a scientist? So, but, Yeah. That's true. Unfortunately, yeah, there is. But, you you know, like that great book says, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. You know, and the and the Fantastic title, wasn't it? Yeah. Fantastic title. And the more and the more you the more Yeah. And and like you said also earlier, the more you look at the discoveries that were that that are made in science, you cannot you can't attribute this just just the cellular structure itself.
Mhmm. How could you possibly say that that thing was a result of some kind of cosmic bang billions of years ago, and and out of chaos came order? That doesn't work.
[02:22:16] Unknown:
That's one of the linchpins. Out of chaos came order. Or starting something else. European and then close system and all that. But the reality is it's it's the other way around. Yeah. In the universe, and I think this all results from the fall of Adam, from the universe,
[02:22:30] Unknown:
Everything is slowly in decay. It's going the other direction, not that direction. Whatever that's a whole other Yeah. Everything. It's like an example I used on a message I preached not too long ago. That is, I took this watch. Right? Alright. My my my Samsung Galaxy whatever number it is watch. Okay. Well, the example I use when I was preaching this was, I said, so here I am, I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm and I'm, you know, I'm working on my I'm working on my show notes, and and all of a sudden I see this movement out of the corner of my eye, and I see all these bits and pieces coming sliding onto the door, and they're working their way, they're crawling their way up over here, and they crawled up on my desk.
They wrapped themselves around my arm, and somehow, someway, all of that became a watch that works perfectly. Do you believe that could possibly happen?
[02:23:20] Unknown:
No. I hope not. I hope not. That's maybe you need to leave my office. But yeah. But they would say given enough time and enough chance, the molecules will work their way. It it's as I said, it's it's talk for an entire another two hour show. Sure. Yeah. But I I do create an apologetics, and, I I know you can't win people over by force of argument No. Rationality. But when asked to give a defense for the things that I believe in, I I and I'm able to say these things because I think it's relevant, the the the what time and chance can do and can't do, what we have learned from science that explains, as I said earlier, that there is that which exists beyond the material world in which we live. That's correct. We know that now for a fact. Even if science can't tell you what it is, it can at least tell you that it's there. Yeah. I yeah. I know. I and I agree with that 100%. That's absolutely right. That's fantastic. Alright. So, here's what we'll do.
[02:24:18] Unknown:
I will message you after the show. I need your shirt sizes and an address. I'm gonna send you some t shirts.
[02:24:25] Unknown:
You're joking.
[02:24:26] Unknown:
No. You don't want one of our world famous Joe Russo Podcast t shirts? Why would I wanna wear that? I don't know. I don't know. Well, you could wear it to church. Advertise for and I'm most I'm gonna send you this one, and the other one that we have available right now. The one that says, I have rabies. Gonna send that one to you too. Why rabies? Well, it it it stems from a joke that I made very early on in one of the early early episodes of the show. It's like, I was I was I was talking about how much I really despise going into a crowded supermarket, and like I wish I had I have rabies. Everybody runs away from me. Exactly. They'll they'll they'll part the way. Like like Moses, you know, part in the Red Sea. They'll leave me alone.
You know? Oh, no. So I so I printed the shirt and said, I have rabies.
[02:25:08] Unknown:
You're impossible.
[02:25:09] Unknown:
You're impossible. But I thank you for that. I thank you for the gift, honestly. Oh, yeah. No problem. No. That's a plan. I I would love to do that. So if if you if you want that, I'll send you, you just send me your address or an address I can send it to and the sizes you need. No problem. And I'll I'll get that out to you right away, sir. Alright. Well, if you wanna stick around for a second, I'm just gonna close this thing up here. It'll just take a second. Okay. And then, we'll we'll we'll, we'll, oh, man. I'm falling asleep.
Alright. Let's, let's do this. Alright. Alright, folks. Well, this has been a great two hour conversation two and a half hour conversation with, my brother Gregory here. So we really do appreciate that. So, folks, don't forget. Head over to our web site, joerouge.com, open the contact form, send us over any questions, comments, cares, concerns you have, any suggestions. And then also, don't forget our shout outs. Thank you to our executive producers, Wayne and Rosanna Rankin. Thank you to executive producer Carolina Jimenez. I know I said it wrong, don't yell at me. And our and our producer, anonymous Angela, thank you all so much for all the work that you do to help us out and your support.
Alright, folks. We will see you tomorrow on the show for the, spotlight show, Saturday spotlight. And then don't forget Bible study Sunday, 6PM central time right here on Rumble. Alright, folks. Make Texas independent again. Go podcasting. Keep a steady stride. Good night. Goodbye.
[02:26:34] Unknown:
How about I said?
Introduction and Independence Day
America's Christian Heritage
Interview with Dr. Gregory Adaka
Comparative Healthcare Systems
Managing Health and Lifestyle
Healthcare Industrial Complex
COVID-19 Experiences
Faith and Personal Testimonies
The Role of Faith in Science
