Reading: Unintended Consequences

Robert is joined by Karl from InRange TV for a discussion and reading of the book, Unintended Consequences.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Oh, my goodness, gracious, it's the podcast Behind the Bastards
that this is that you're listening to right now on
the internet dot com. Sylvie, how was? How was that?
We're doing good? We're doing great. We're doing great. We're
doing good. Okay great? Well with me to help me
do great is my buddy Carl cassarda from Enranged TV. Carl,

(00:26):
are you doing I'm doing all right. I'm glad to
be here again, though I've really enjoyed our last collaboration,
and uh looking forward to the topic we have today.
Oh boy, today is gonna be a fun one. We're
doing another book episode. We're actually going to record hopefully
to today, although we generally just do one a week
because this this helps me get ahead for some travel

(00:46):
that I have planned. And my goodness, Carl, we have
quite a book uh for everyone today. So I received
in the mail from a fan a couple of weeks
ago a hard cover copy of a book called An
Tended Consequences. Now, Sophie, Carl knows this book. Everyone who's
in gun culture is aware of this book. You want

(01:07):
to you want to describe that that cover to our audience.
It's a I think I think it's the Declaration of
Independence on fire? Is that what I'm seeing? That's certainly
part of it. Yeah, I can only see the top
of it. Can you say, okay, one sec let me
get my let let me let me see if I
can properly here we go. So I'm just gonna google it.

(01:29):
Consequences book cover. Oh, I recommend people at home check
this one. I take it back because all I could
see was the top, which is the Declaration of Independence
on fire. But it looks like a soldier attacking a

(01:49):
topless woman with who's been blindfolded. Yeah. I think she's
a Lady Justice. You can see her scales, they're right. Yeah,
So it's it's like some sort of swat team operative
attack Lady Justice. And there's nipples you can see, like
it's full there's full frontal ludity on the cover of
John Ross's Unintended Consequences. Yeah, it's a super hot Lady

(02:09):
Justice getting the full Alien Gonzalez treatment with a full
swat team guy with an MP five. What a choice,
What a series of choices? Um? Yeah, and I think
he wrote this. When exactly was this published? Um? I
think actually so, yeah, this would have been right after

(02:31):
Elian Gonzalez, because I think you're right, Carl, they're very
clearly like doing because he's the cop on the front
has an MP five, which, if I'm not mistaken, is
with the cop who grabbed Elian Gonzalez and that famous
photo had and it's his his like body language is
not dissimilar, No, it isn't. But honestly, I think this
is one of those weird things where the alien Gonzalez
thing happened after they did the cover art, So it's

(02:53):
a weird thing where like actually simulated art. Yeah, that's interesting.
It's kind of weird. Yeah, So in that regard, I
guess they kind of ailed it, although it wasn't going
after Lady Justice of course. Yeah, it was going after
a well trying to escape. Yeah. And it's interesting because
I think the main influence behind this book and in

(03:15):
brief this is like a kind of fantasy about gun
confiscation leading to a civil war type scenario against like
the evil gun grabbing government. And I think it was
very directly inspired by Ruby rich Um, which is kind
of like a seminal moment for a lot of people
and is life is actually like just so we're clear

(03:36):
an example of the government doing a lot of really
fucked up things because they shot a child and his
mom to death in a raid gun horribly awry. Um
not to kind of like whitewash the some of the
sketchy ship that like their their father was doing, but
like it's definitely an example of government overreach. But that
Ruby Ridge kind of leads us into this kind of

(03:58):
explosion of action on behalf of the militia movement, which
culminates in a big way in the Oklahoma City bombing
after the Waco UH tragedy. So you've got like the
series of largely police overreaches with high body counts, and
it kind of ignites this militia movement and into that,

(04:18):
into that culture comes a guy named John ross Um.
Now John is an interesting guy. He calls himself he
was actually a Democratic UH congressional candidate in Missouri in
nine but he calls himself a pre Roosevelt Democrat, which
he defines as a Democrat without the socialism, which is
interesting because like it's not that far pre Roosevelt that

(04:40):
the Democrats were the party of slavery. Like, how how
pre are we going? John? Is a question I would
ask anyone to find themselves that way. What what is
your understanding of John Ross, because he's he's he's a
pretty interesting dude. Yeah, I don't know. I looked up
some stuff and some interviews with him, and it's very
clear that whatever he described was all as that. When
he wrote this book, he was promoting it very much

(05:02):
to the Republican side of things, um, even back in
the nineties and early two thousands, which is not surprised
at considering how firearms centric his content was. Right. Um,
I don't know a lot about him in individually, but
I do know quite a bit about the culture around
the book and the gun shows and the environment that
that was written. And if we get into that a
little bit, because that was going on then in the

(05:24):
gun community and now I would have to say it
it's hard to believe it's actually better now than it
was then, But back then it was it was a
pretty weird space. Yeah, And this is one of those
books you would not have found unintended consequences in like
Barnes and Noble, Like, it wasn't that kind of I
mean maybe now you can. I'm sure like places like
Powell's books that make a point of selling absolutely everything,

(05:47):
sell it. But this was a book that, like I
started to encounter in the early two thousands, like gun shows.
It's one of those. It's one of those books you
would find at gun shows. Um, And it's not it's
in a lot of people compare it to the Turner Diaries.
It is not a neo Nazi book, is my understanding. Um,
although there's some problematic shit in it, as I'm sure

(06:08):
we'll get into. But yeah, I mentioned, you mentioned that.
But when you go to the gun shows, like I mean,
gun shows now are still a thing, right, there's like
some weirdness there for sure. But back in the late
nineties early two thousands, a gun show was like this
kind of dark, denk, musty place with you first walk
in and there's the guy in the right corner, the
old man with his Nazi paraphernalia. On the left side
was the Confederate and paraphernalia, and then there was the

(06:28):
book vendor. But how'd all the occult knowledge about how
to make this thing full auto or how to make
booby traps? And right there next to that was this
book from John Ross, Unintended Consequences, And it was like,
I think a lot of people went to the gun
show not only for that, but to go pick up
those crazy books that have now of course been replaced
by the internet. But you come back and you could
have that feeling of being the guy in the know,
and you don't really see that as much at the

(06:49):
gun shows anymore. Yeah, it's in part because there's just
so much more money, not just in the gun part,
but the culture part of gun culture. Right, there's like
a whole media ecosystem. There's big name magazines, there's large
obviously large YouTube channels. Um there had there is like
it's it didn't feel in that there was that period
of the the late nineties early two thousands where gun culture

(07:11):
didn't really feel vibrant. It kind of felt like it
was it was something that was dying and not particularly healthy,
just in not even in like a not to get
into like a moral sense, but just in like the
it did not seem like something that had a bright
future for a while there. Yeah, this is a topic
for another day, but I actually feel I think that
the honestly, uh, the assault weapon ban of actually made

(07:35):
it more vibrant because it got people to uh, it
really woke up and maybe some good ways and in
some bad ways. Um uh, an interesting creation. It got
people involved in a way that I don't think people
were that concerned about before the a w B. And
I think that's one of the things that fired it
back up. It did, And I think you get you
get a lot of funding from politicians and from political

(07:56):
action groups and whatnot, from the industry that starts coming in,
which is responsible for like kind of revitalizing gun culture
in a lot of ways and moving it out of
this kind of you know, dank uh jim filled with
weirdos kind of space that you were describing. So what
is your understanding about like the overarching plot of unintended consequences?

(08:17):
Have you read this before? Yeah? I actually I was
one of those guys that picked that up off the
counter because I'm like, what the hell is this thing? Right?
And um and I mean the overarching plot as I
know it is a guy named Henry Bowman who's the
protagonist and in it fire call correctly, it's been decades
since I've read it. Um. It takes and builds up
an argument based on a number of relatively accurate historical

(08:38):
events like the breaking of the Bonus Marchers, the Ruby
Ridge Waco, amongst others, and then guides that up to
a position in which Henry Bowman gets involved in a
shooting and which he ends up killing some A t
F agents, which then he turns into a essentially counter
culture coup revolt to destroy the A t F. A

(08:58):
is there the reason, or at least one of the
reasons that this country is falling into tyranny? I mean,
that's a real simplistic summary, but that's the premise. And
that's interesting because I my my recollection, like this is
not an uncommon starting point for kind of novels in
this space that like the A t F there's some
big gun confiscation grab. This essentially how the Turner Diary starts.

(09:18):
But the Turner Diary starts with the assumption that like
it happened and everything's already been outlawed and uh like
that that's kind of like where it goes from there,
whereas this, I think is is kind of more of
a um, more of a slow burn to the start um.
And I just noticed that my copy from Accurate Press
is the publisher of this book, has has Mr Ross's

(09:40):
signature in it, so oh wow, uh huh, yeah, I
got a real, um, a real peach of a copy here,
so thinks I believe the hard copy version of that's
been out of print for a long time and is
relatively valuable. Actually, well there we go. Um, I'll take this.
Let's try to uh trade this for a man liquor
in ninety four or something like that. What this is

(10:04):
gonna be interesting conversation because, as I remember in the book,
this is a challenging piece of work because there's a
lot of problems here obviously, but there's also a lot
of stuff in it that's not necessarily incorrect. Yeah, he's
definitely not coming at it like, especially on a technical level.
I think he does know what he's talking about. Like
it's not one of these we've talked laughed about the
Ben Shapiro books and the things he gets wrong about guns.

(10:26):
I believe John Ross actually knows how firearms function. I do.
I agree with you, and I think he gets some
of the historical stuff true as correct as well. To
be honest, Yeah, he's a nerd about this, although I
should note so he had a regular Internet column for
for a long time. He's kind of an older dude now,
so I don't think it's still going. Um. But his
Wikipedia says that his column Ross and Range was where

(10:47):
he discussed topics that interest him. Quote a recurring theme
is understanding and coping with women. So and that was
my recollection of this book too, that like not a
lot of We're not going to find a lot of
well written male characters here. Um, but yeah, it notes
on the back here. John Ross is an investment broker
and financial advisor in St. Louis. He went to Amherst College,

(11:11):
which I think might surprise some people. Um, and he
was an early concealed carry advocate. So this is also
a thing like when you talk about sort of the
history of gun culture in this guy's roll in it,
there was this period of time like now most states
have some sort of concealed carry. A lot, even in
California is getting easier to get a concealed carry license.
I know someone in San Diego who just got their's,

(11:32):
which was like there's been a series of legal battles
around that, but it wasn't possible to legally concealed carry
in a lot of the country like thirty years ago.
Oh less than that, it wasn't that long A though
the concealed carry was considered like a pretty crazy concept,
and as one state after another started really changing to
the point where we see a number of states now
which don't even require permits anymore. They're called constitutional carry.

(11:53):
But twenty something years ago that wasn't the case, Like
you have to go through two days of training and
get a background for permit, and you have to apply
for this and have a background check. And that was
in a place that was permissive, like Arizona. Other places
it was considered impossible. But like you said, in California,
even there are certain counties that I think are kind
of shall issue now. Yeah, And it's one of those
things where even in like a place like Texas, which

(12:15):
has I think most people who kind of aren't super
aware of the history see is just like always this
fashion of gun rights, and like the nineties, you could
not carry a gun in Texas under very most circumstances.
And in fact, one of the things that changed that
I forget the exact year. You may know more about
this than I do, but there was a mass shooting
at a Louby's um where a guy killed a lot
of people and at least one of the people who

(12:37):
was in the Loubi's during the shooting, like had a
weapon in their car, but they couldn't bring it in,
and that kind of ignited the concealed carry uh movement
within sort of Texas. UM and John Ross was a
big part of that in Missouri and was like a
major advocate for it in Missouri. So that's kind of
the context of this, dude, and in which this book
is written. So there's a lot going on here. Um.

(12:58):
And now we're gonna We're gonna start this very small
print book. I should note this is a massive book.
This is like, this is like the size of the
first two Lord of the Rings books. Like, this is
a this is an enormous text. So heads up, I
don't think we're ever going to get through all of it,
but this is a this is an interesting piece of

(13:18):
history here for people who are we see how tiny
the font is. Oh yeah, Sophie, look at this. Oh
my god, I know this is this is There are
so many words in this book, so yeah, do we
have I'm going to look up the word count. Go ahead, Yeah, yeah,
you should do that. So it starts with present day.

(13:39):
It was late afternoon when he finally heard them coming
to kill him. The wind was blowing gently towards him,
and it carried the sound well two choppers, he judged
from the pitch of the engines, possibly three. Henry realized
that his first emotion upon hearing the sound of the
rudder blades approaching was an overwhelming sense of relief. The
waiting was over. His next thought concerned the relatives of
the men that were about to die. The widows will

(13:59):
never stand that their husbands died because the government got
a little too heavy handed after June of nineteen sixty.
He scanned the sky until he spotted the aircraft approaching
from the north. This isn't that isn't quite right. The
Kennedy and King killings weren't the first links in the
chain that dragged us here. No, the death sentence was
handed down before World War Two. So this guy is
getting ready to like murder a bunch of federal agents

(14:22):
coming to his house, and he's thinking about the March
of tyranny and like debating with himself whether or not
it started with the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King.
And he's shades of Waco too, because if you've ever
been to the Waco site. There's memorial stones. They're placed
by the Davidians, and they immoralized not only their own
lost people, but they memorialized each lost a t F agent,

(14:42):
which was sort of impressive to see. That is interesting.
I actually was unaware of that. Um huh, that's interesting.
They pretty much memorialize it as a tragedy all around.
And there's there's stones there for the government agents that died. Huh.
I I did not know that. That's certainly like more
nuanced then I think we're going to get on Waco here.
Although yeah, um so yeah, it's uh, what is a solo? Third,

(15:10):
I guess that's the gun he's got here. Yeah, that's
a I believe that's the same. Okay. So it's like
an anti anti yeah, a lotty Like it's an anti
vehicle weapon, like very big bullet twenty millimeter bullets is
like the size of a small person's forearm. Yeah that material. Yeah,
it's for shooting through armored vehicles. So he decides, after

(15:32):
like debating with himself while he's willing to kill his
waiting to kill these federal agents, that the thing that
ended started the end of liberty in the United States
was a Supreme Court case involving a Moonshiner who was
arrested in nineteen thirty eight. A federal district court had
thrown out the charges as being unconstitutional, and the government
had appealed. At the hearing, something very unusual had happened.
Neither the Moonshiner nor his lawyer had seen fit to

(15:53):
appear before the court to argue the case. They didn't
even bother to file a brief on the Moonshiner's behalf.
The court ruled for the government, radial precedent was set,
and the issue was never again heard by the Supreme Court.
The nineteen thirty nine ruling became the foundation upon which
many additional laws were constructed. The Supreme Court has been
ducking that issue ever since. Henry thought, is he strained
to hear a change in the approaching noise? Well, guys,

(16:15):
the time has turned. It's time you thugs had a
little history lesson. I don't suppose you're familiar with what
happened in the Warsaw Ghetto in nineteen forty three. So
you're seeing he's drawing like a line here between the
Nazis cracking down on the Warsaw Ghetto and massacreing Jewish people, um,
and charges against bootleggers during Uh, that's that's actually after

(16:37):
Prohibition nineteen thirty eight. That's interesting, Like this is this
is a weird opening. I'll give it. I'll give one
thing to him. He's definitely a better writer than Ben Shapiro,
like already, um, and if you read the book, he
knows more about sex in general too, even if his
even if the way he models his super low bar Robert,

(16:58):
I didn't find the a word count. But the this
book is like only has five star reviews. Yeah, that
makes well because the only people who read this than
like Carl and I right now are people who are
already primed to want to read this book. It's just
very interesting because normally when we do a book episode,

(17:18):
it's like the reviews are horrendous. I have not seen
a review. But isn't five stars? Yeah that makes sense.
There's five plus on Amazon and they're all five stars.
And like there's even like fan art in the room. Yeah,
oh boy, I'll bet you don't want to look at
that fan art, Sophie. You simply do not know. Yeah,

(17:41):
but so it's interesting. Is this what I was talking
is he does get into a lot of Actually he
does reference a lot of real history, like that US
versus Miller is that Supreme Court case, and in that
that moon that that bootlegger had a shotgun that was
below legal length I believe or something like that. Neither
of them showed. But the court ruled in an interesting
way that the gun that they were persecuting him for
wasn't useful as a militia weapon, therefore it didn't apply. Ah,

(18:05):
so this is like the start of kind of the probe.
That's that's where is that where the law against like
short barreled shotguns came. We're talking about the n f
A and shotguns. But the moonshiner had a shotgun that
was I believe was below legal length, and that's what
this was about. But then when the court ruled against him,
they didn't rule against him because of they ruled that

(18:26):
the shotgun really wasn't viable for militia use, Which that
opens up a weird door about does that mean specifically
that the that the Second Amendment applies only to guns
that are for militia martial use, like an r fIF
team for example. That's where you see this stuff and
these arguments come out of. That's interesting because with DC
versus Heller, like there's this kind of understanding. The current

(18:47):
Supreme Court understanding is that the Second Amenment does protect
an individual right to bear arms. And it seems like
in thirty eight they were saying that, like, this gun
is illegal because it is not something that would be
useful as part of a militia. And so were we like,
the individual does not have a right just to bear
arms for individual purposes, So then isn't legal if it's

(19:08):
not useful in a militia. So reading this, it says
the Supreme Court hinted that individual right might exist in
the concust of a common obligation to possess arms and
to cooperate in the work of defense, and that a
sought off shotgun the fire issue in this case, was
not protective because it had no reasonable relationship to the preservations, preservation,
or efficiency of a well regulated militia. Now that's a

(19:29):
fascinating ruling because I think basically everyone today would be
angry at it, Like if you're pro gun control, then
you're going to be angry that it's basically saying, like, well,
weapons that are useful in terms of like fighting in
part of a militia are legal, like an a R fifteen,
but like which I think pro gun control people generally
disagree with. And if your pro gun rights, you're like, well,

(19:50):
why why would I be able to have an a
R fifteen but not a much less deadly weapon as
sought off shotgun? That's like way less effective at killing people.
That doesn't make any sense either. It's a like it
is a pretty nonsensical ruling, I think by most standards.
I know there's more wrapped up in that, because I
think there was a lot of fear over specifically sought
off shotguns as a result of like the bootlegging era, right,

(20:12):
because that was like a famous crime gun um, even
though they're not not any deadlier than a lot of
other weapons that people had easy access to, like a
Thompson or something which would have been pretty widely available
in the mid thirties, although that was regulated by the
n f A too. Speaking of being regulated by the
n f A, it's time for adverbs. Yeah, you know
who's not regulated by the n f A is our

(20:34):
sponsor the mac ten um. If you want, if you
want a gun that will you can make out of
a single stamped piece of metal. That's that's gonna be
one of your better options. And they're super for a
gunfight on a phone booth. Oh my god. Yeah, good

(20:54):
to know. I'm thinking back. We're back from ads. I'm
thinking of my favorite movie gunfights. Have you ever seen
the movie? Uh? Gross, point blank, Carl, No, I actually
have it. Oh, it's got maybe the least accurate gunfight
where like, uh, what's his fucking name? Um, let's just

(21:18):
go with John Ritterter it he looks like John ridder Um,
John Cusack, it was. It's one of the John's. John
Cusack is in like a gunfight in a seven eleven
and he's taking he's he's he's dual wielding blocks which
he's firing blindly and taking cover behind the chip aisle
at a seven eleven, which provides excellent cover, can stand

(21:40):
goun rounds. It's one of my favorite movie gunfights. Um okay,
So started the book December eleventh, nineteen o six. Um, alright,
so we're we're starting with two guys firing there. Boy,
there's just a lot of I think one of the
reasons this is so popular is this is a lot

(22:01):
of just very technical gun stuff. Like the opening of
this chapter is him walking through like firing tens of
thousands of rounds with a Winchester Model nineteen o three, um,
which was an old twenty two semi automatic rifle. And
it's just kind of like discussing how the firearm works
and how the rules regarding like this early gun sport worked. Um,

(22:23):
which is a thing I think that if you're buying
this book at a gun store, you're probably interested in,
and but not a thing I think most readers are
going to be interested in. So so we're going to
skip ahead just a little bit here. Um. Yeah, this
is just a lot of oh wow, And now there's
a picture of a guy on top of a mountain
of are those skulls? Show us? Show us, show us.

(22:45):
I want to see standing here. I'm sad that we
can't see what you're seeing. Oh no, these are target blocks. Yeah.
So it's it's it's he's yeah, it's just kind of
uh nerdy gun stuff, like he's he's explained in the
like this guy, I'll read you a representative paragraph and

(23:05):
the San Antonio Fairgrounds closed in December fifteenth, nineteen o six.
Add topper Wine using three Semiato Winchester nineteen o three
rifles had shot seventy two thousand, five hundred wooden blocks
thrown in the air. He had missed nine. More than
a half century later, another man employed by Remington would
hit over a hundred thousand. His throwers, however, would stand
by his left shoulder and gently tossed the blocks straight
out along the same path the bullet would take. Tops

(23:27):
records shot under the rules laid out by another man
in the nineteenth century would never be broken. In nineteen
o six, skilled riflemen were universally admired. People like ad
and Plinky topper Wine spent much of their time urging
young boys and girls to earn gun safety and hone
their shooting skills. Um, okay, so he's talking about the
birth of the gun culture here. That's that's actually quite nice.
I was worried at first that this was because this

(23:48):
bears a resemblance to some of the photos you would
see of like frontier men standing on top of like
buffalo skulls. But it's just a guy standing on top
of a bunch of like blocks that he shot during
some time, a type of old timey shoot contest. Yeah,
we're going back to like the shooting these wooden blocks,
and then like Annie Oakley would shoot glass balls and
it was exhibition shooting, which was almost explicitly done with

(24:08):
twenty two rifles and it was kind of a cool
thing and people really did exhibit some amazing skills. Yeah,
and the next chapter is nineteen eighteen, and we're still
going into like the birth of gun culture. So he's
he's kind of framing like the idea of shooting sports
as a character in this book. Um, again, I get
why this is is popular among the specific people it is.
We're not It's not like the Turner Diaries where we

(24:30):
jump right into there's a civil war and like here's
my here's my like racist theories about whatever. Like we're
we're really talking kind of at length about the birth
of gun culture, um, the creation of the maximum gun,
but kind of stuff we talked about in our in
our Behind the Bastards episodes. Um. Now, I think this

(24:52):
is probably maybe not the best narratively to start with
you to start your fiction novel with a very long
but it does kind of, you know, it reminds me
a little bit of is like um, Michael Crichton, where
you've got these like books that have this this like
science fiction or whateverything. But the first like thirty pages
is him like vamping about chaos theory or whatever kind

(25:13):
of mathematical thing he's interested in instead of nature finding
the way, guns will find the way, peace will find
the way. Yeah. Yeah, But I think in nineteen eighteen
there and nineteen was at nineteen nineteen he gets into
like this is this book is really a difficult thing
to discuss because it's hard. It's so it's a bit schizophrenic, right,
There's this narrative in there of this revolt, but there's
a lot of actual real history in there. He gets

(25:35):
into the Bonus Marchers, which was a pretty fucked up thing, honestly,
and he pretty act July sixteenth, nineteen thirty two, we
get Smedley Butler as a character. Um. So yeah, and
he's talking about the Bonus Marchers here. Um. Although I
think it's interesting like the pieces of Smedley story that
he does take out here, Like the opening quote he
gives from Smedley here is take it from me. This

(25:58):
is the greatest demonstration of Americanism we've have or had.
Pure Americanism will need to take this beating as you've
taken at stand right and steady, you keep every law,
and why in the hell shouldn't you, Who in the
hell has done all the bleeding for this country and
this law and this constitution anyhow, but you fellows, which
is it's interesting because the thing they're taking, and this
is the period where for people who aren't aware, you've
got these World War One veterans when the economy collapses,

(26:20):
who are are owed a bonus that's being paid out
over a very long period of time, and because everyone
is in dire financial straits, they're like, we want the
money now. Can we just get the money that's owed
to us now? When they have a big march on
d c Um which is cracked down on via Douglas
MacArthur using tanks um and before it is cracked down

(26:41):
on Smedley Butler, who is, like I think still to
this day, the most highly decorated marine in history. He's
certainly like in the running for it. He had two
medals of honor um, which he had very mixed opinions of,
but he definitely earned them um. And he's he shows
up to like speak in defense of these men and
support their cause. And it's interesting because they're they're kind

(27:03):
of framing what Smedley is doing here is a defense
of kind of this idea you see Robert Heinlin talk
about a lot um. This is kind of the thing
that's come down to us and Starship Troopers. But it's
something Heinland played with a lot that, like, uh, this
idea of like the citizens soldier being the ideal kind
of building block of a free society. And I don't

(27:23):
think that's actually what Butler believed, obviously, because by the
end of his life, Butler had come around very much
against militarism and like I was saying things that like
I believe I've only ever been a gangster for capitalism.
So it's interesting that they've picked this specific time to
kind of hone in on Smedley Butler and and turn

(27:44):
him into a character in this book. Um, because I'll
check here, but I'm not sure if I think we're
going to get Butler stopping the business plot. Um. But
that said, this is a really valid piece of history.
And this is one of those things when we talk
about like areas where I think it's possible to get
people on the right kind of in line with some

(28:06):
of the things I believe. I think it's really useful
to talk about history, about things like the Bonus Marchers,
where it's like, well, you can't really trust the government
and when it comes down to who's going to violently
crack down on people standing in favor of their liberty,
Maybe it's these these police forces that you're continually trying
to like fund an arm heavily, and perhaps this is
a place where we could come together and discuss some

(28:28):
shared interests. Gee whiz, guys, maybe if we actually looked this,
you know, with clear eyes, we'd realize we kind of
had a mutual problem here, regardless of our particular peculiarities
as to why so we introduced this character, um cam
who's this veteran um and who's about to We're told
at the end of page twenty six cam Bowman did

(28:50):
not know that the government had its own agenda concerning
the Bonus Army. Cam Bowman had less than three weeks
left to live, and then in the next chapter we
have him getting more murder along with everybody else by
Um General Douglas MacArthur. Um. The soldiers had been instructed
by their commander to clear the bonus marchers out of
the area by striking them with the flats of their

(29:12):
sabers blades, not the cutting edge. And this was what
the cavalrymen did. It was like being struck by a
three foot steel bar, and Lieutenant Cameron Bowman's left wrist
was shattered like kindling. He did not cry out or
fall down. But when Bowman saw the soldier prepared to
deliver a second blow, he finally accepted his fate and
gave ground. As he made his way to the bridge,
his ruined wrist beginning to scream an agony, Bowman saw

(29:33):
three men leading the army troops, and he was stunned
by what he saw. He did not recognize the two
army majors, who would both later come to prominence. The
man in charge of leading the infantrymen, Cavalry and Tank Division, however,
was impossible to miss. The lesser ranked soldiers were Major
George S. Patton and Major Dwight D. Eisenhower. The senior
officer was the Chief of Staff of the United States
Armed Forces, General Douglas Smith MacArthur. And this is interesting, um,

(29:57):
because that's very accurate, that that's completely true. Um, it's
neat because these guys, all these these these figures, both
of whom would become generals, are all of whom would
be general. I mean MacArthur was a general when this happened.
Patton and obviously Dwight Eisenhower are going to be generals
very quickly, um in World War Two. And they are both,
I think today, broadly speaking, heroic figures for conservatives, UM,

(30:23):
particularly pattent. Eisenhower interestingly has a really mixed history there because, um,
you know, he he's who the John Birch Society focuses
on him as like a secret communist. So there is
this longstanding distrust of Eisenhower on the far right. But
MacArthur becomes a major far right figure, um, especially after

(30:45):
he gets fired by Truman during the Korean War. UM.
He's a big part of We just had an episode
on kind of some of the early like Christian conservative
movements in the United States and like the reforming of
the idea of the Fourth of July. He's a big
part of this. UM. So it's interesting to me that
Ross is kind of emphasizing his role here, which which

(31:05):
is a big one, UM, because I don't think that's
done a lot in uh, in conservative sort of uh
like far right propaganda these days, MacArthur because he was
such an anti communist, tends to be heralded. So at
least this guy so far seems to be pretty consistent. Yeah,
I don't know that how how that would have been
received now versus when it was actually published initially, Right,
we have a pretty different world from then. But it

(31:26):
is interesting to note that. Um, I don't know about
John Ross's thoughts on workers rights, but he's certainly concerned
with veterans rights because these Bonus Marchers is one of
the arguments he uses to portray the government is becoming
an authoritarian regime that doesn't seem to care about its people,
including its own veterans, and he uses the Bonus marchers
as or the breaking of the Bonus March as one
of those examples. And it's really compelling to me because

(31:49):
obviously that is a really valid point. The breaking of
the Bonus Army is totally an example of the government
becoming like doing an unhinged authoritarian thing. But he it's
also a choice, and John Ross, I feel like, just
based on what I'm reading here, knows too much history
for this not to have been a choice to not
discuss any other aspects of Butler's career or the business plot,

(32:12):
or kind of the elements of this that are the
government tilting its hand on the scale in favor of capital. Um.
And I think that's because obviously John Ross has his
own biases here. He's worried about communism. I I it's
fascinating to me that he seems to be tying the
destruction of the Bonus Army, the massacre of these soldiers

(32:33):
in with like the creeping socialism in the government, because
I I really don't see it that way. Um. And
I'm sure MacArthur wouldn't have seen it that way. Um.
But also I have to I have to respect the
fact that he is very astutely identifying MacArthur is like
part of the problem here. That's really interesting to me. Yeah.

(32:53):
And this is like the first example in the book.
And he goes through and I and each and every
one of these, like I said, he'll he'll get to
Ruby Ridge, you get to Waco, and he uses these
as an argument that slowly builds up to the culmination
of this this rebellion that that Henry Bowman actually engages in. Yeah.
I think part of what's fascinating to me about this
is it is I don't think John Ross and I

(33:15):
have a lot in common, and I don't think we
would agree on a lot. But up to this point
he's he's not wrong. I would argue that, like his
analysis of the building problems of authoritarianism in the U. S.
Government are incomplete, and he's leaving out some really important moments,
but he's not all. He's also not wrong. And I
have not noticed any like you know, uh, any racism

(33:37):
here so far, and I have not noticed. Um, he's
not inventing things out of whole cloth, which is like
what you see in the Turner Diaries, right. And I'm
not comparing these two because they're super similar. For one thing,
this is objectively a better written book, um. And for
another thing, the Turner Diaries, by page twenty eight you
have ingested enough racism to kill a large dog. And
we haven't really seen any yet out of this. So no,

(33:59):
I know, and I've been a long time since I've
read this, so I don't want to speak to the
nuance that might be in there. Of course, So this
is not a this is not a promotion for this,
but but like there's a. I found a interview with
John Ross later in which apparently Timothy McVeigh, of course
the bomber of Oklahoma City, said that he was inspired
by the Turner Diaries and Turner Diaries. It's a terrible, vitriolic, racist,

(34:21):
Nazi book. It is unreadable if you are not like
studying it as an academic or a Nazi. And Timothy
McVeigh said that if he had read Unattended Consequences, it
might have changed his approach to the problem. And that's
an interesting thing. So we have these people that of
course been become I don't know how to put it.
They got pushed further down the path of extreme, extreme
beliefs by things like the Turner Diaries. And it's weird

(34:42):
that Timothy McVeigh kind of argued that the Unattended Consequences
might have actually tempered him, which is a strange thing
to think, because this book is a revolutionary kind of book.
And I've come across that too, and I've always wondered
did McVeigh mean he might not have carried out an attack,
or that maybe he would have liked gone because like

(35:03):
the stuff Bowman does, the Turner Diaries obviously, like the
thing that inspired McVeigh as they blow up, I think
it it's literally the Pentagon or in its FBI headquarters.
They said, I like a big bomb and FBI headquarters,
which was was something he considered, and he picked the target.
He did the more about building an Oklahoma city because
it had a large FBI presence and that was really
who he was targeting as a result of Waco, although

(35:24):
he was obviously fine with the fact that it blew
up like a daycare and a bunch of other things besides. Um.
But I wonder if he's saying, I don't know that
maybe I would have liked organized with people as opposed
to like carrying out a bombing or is he saying
perhaps I would have liked done what Bowman does and
carried out like a series of armed attacks specifically on

(35:45):
federal agents, as opposed to like a bombing campaign that
was much less discriminate. Um. Like, I'm not sure McVeigh
saying I wouldn't have done a violent thing if I
had read this book. But it's also probably if if
he had patterned his attack off the kind of attacks
you see an undetendent consequences, probably wouldn't have blown up
a daycare. I think, Yeah, I agree, I'm not I'm

(36:07):
not trying to say that. I'm not trying to say
that this book would have turned Timothy McVeigh into putting
flowers into rifle bags, right, but but but it's it's
a it's an unclear quote. But it's an interesting thing
to note. Yeah, I'm not trying to like make a
broad moral point about like, well, it would have been
better if he'd been radicalized into just shooting some FEDS
is supposed to blowing up, Like I'm not. I'm really

(36:27):
not trying to get into the weeds there. But I
think if you are interested in like radicalism and what
causes people to do stuff like that, I don't think
I I think there might be a tendency to just
discount what the vey is saying. And I don't know
that we should because I think it is interesting that
like when different media radicalizes people, it radicalizes them to
take different actions. And that's not Um, this is not

(36:50):
the kind of like thought I would blast out on
Twitter because it's difficult to get out in two characters
and it's gonna seem like you're saying something different than
what you are. But I don't think that's not a
thing we should think about and study. Perhaps is where
I mean, it's like art is an interesting thing, and
books are an interesting and fiction is an interesting thing.
I mean, I think one of the most inspirational books
that the Uni bomb are referenced was by all Gore,

(37:11):
right right, Um. And Timothy McVeigh, just to go back
to him, was also heavily influenced by fucking Star Trek.
He was a huge fan of Star Trek and of
Star Wars. UM and so yeah, I mean, it's it's
just interesting to see that. And it's interesting, like the
different kind of because both Um Pierce, the author of
the Turner Diaries, and Ross, you can see broad similarities

(37:34):
in that they are both people who advocate for an
armed overthrow of the government. Now they're both arguing that
for different things, and I think they both see a
different world as desirable as a result of that. Um.
But it is compelling if you're someone who kind of
studies radicalization to see the different ways they go about it.
And Ross is really building a much slower case that

(37:57):
is based on real history about the necessity of a
revolt against the government. UM. And I think it's important
that we're like noting the things that he's leaving out.
But the choices he's making here are really interesting. And
you know who else makes interesting choices, Carl Monsanto? They
absolutely so. Carl. Have you ever been driving through like
a rural part of the country, seeing like beautiful fields

(38:20):
with corn and other crops, and going I wish those
farmers would get thrown in prison if the wind happened
to carry seeds from one field to the other that
didn't have the legal right to use those specific patented,
genetically modified seeds. Have you been thinking that, like just
driving through the country side, I really have. I really
think that all the food we eat needs more DRM
around it. Absolutely. That's the problem with food is that

(38:43):
it doesn't have digital rights management. And that's the beautiful
dream of Monsanto digital rights management for everything. Um I
I think that's a beautiful dream. Let's let's hear these ads. Ah,
we're back. So you're at him on Santo kick these days? Carl, Yeah,

(39:07):
I'm a big fan of it. You know, ready, round
up is pretty good on a salad. I do, I do?
Who was that was that the Monsanto guy that like
someone tried to get him to like drink weed killer
because that sounds vaguely familiar. It's so safe. Let me
chug this. Yeah, yeah, nothing like a Monsanto bong on
a Saturday night. Oh my gosh, that that does sound

(39:29):
fun because then also you know you're killing whatever insects
are on your weed. Nice and safe. Um all right,
So Carl, page twenty nine. We we are about what
there's so much history here. So we're nineteen thirty six now. Um,
we're talking to a woman named Zophia, who I am

(39:51):
guessing here is some sort of refugee from the bad
things that are happening in Europe. Um hm, yep, okay, yep,
that seems to be what's happening here. All right. So
we've got this lady talking with her mom, YadA, YadA, YadA. Um, oh,
I think we're okay. So she yeah, this is this

(40:13):
is uh, I think setting up one of our characters. Yeah,
she's marrying some guy named Irwin man Um who's also
a Jewish refugee, which is again, so that's a nice
bit of change from the Turner Diaries. It does seem
like a number of our heroes are going to be
Jewish people. So that's yeah, this speaking. This is one
of the character here. This is this character becomes, if

(40:34):
I recall correctly, one of the fighters in the war
saw got to uprising. And so he's using this character
to demonstrate the ability of the individual to fight the
government with small arms. Gotcha, Okay, well that makes sense. Um.
So nineteen thirty eight, we've got a treasury agent hiding
in the woods. Oh I think this is him writing
out the arrest of that moonshiner. Is that what's coming here? Yeah? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, cool, Um,

(41:00):
So that's fine. Um, let's you know, that's that's an
interesting note. I mean, I wouldn't say that you should
read this book like a history book, because that would
be that would be wildly inappropriate. However, if you wanted
to get like a basic bullet point timeline of things
that would be worth further investigation, this book is full
of that. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff to like
look into here. And again it's it's there's he's making

(41:25):
a very specific ideological case. So it's incomplete, as we
noted with like Smedley Butler, um, and probably incomplete as
we're talking about like gun control and prohibition, because he's
really focused on this thirty eight case, um, which is
kind of late in the history of like arms regular
like thirty four is when we get the n f A.
So it's interesting to me that he's not kind of

(41:46):
focusing on any I mean, I it makes sense based
on kind of the ruling here, but it is interesting
that that's kind of that seems to be where he's
starting in terms of gun control regulations as opposed to
going in anywhere earlier. Yeah, the watershed out of gun
controls considered nineteen thirty four, and then the second, the
second strike to the core or the heart of that
is the nineteen Gun Control Act, both of which are

(42:08):
heavily discussed in the book. Yeah, And I suspect he's
kind of going for this moment in thirty eight because
it's a little easier to to build sympathy for the
audience for this like small scale bootlegger rather than like
the thirty four gun control in thirty four was heavily
driven by you have like this this soaring rate of

(42:28):
organized crime, and you have like these really horrible murders
in the street. And uh, I think it's probably he's
probably making a choice as a writer here that like, well,
I'm gonna have to put in a lot more legwork
to get people on to to get people seeing the
government as the clear bad guy in that one than
I am. If I focus on this like small moonshiner,
who's got this sought off shotgun? And it makes this

(42:49):
easy case that like they're they're kind of making this
this ruling that I can claim is where like all
of this illegitimate stuff is descended from like he's making
he's giving you a very incomplete look at the history,
but he's making what I think is a pretty smart
editorial choice by face. He definitely was strategic and what
he did with that. And it is also interesting to
note that people that don't know this in the audience,

(43:10):
UM uh n f A. The National Firearms Act, which
was to regulate machine guns, short barreled rifle, shortbeled shotguns, suppressors.
UM isn't actually a gun law. It's a tax law.
It's actually done through the it's right and so it's UM.
What they do is they don't make it impossible to
own these things. But they regulated as a tax stamp,
which the time was two and was cost prohibited was

(43:32):
actually more than the value of the gun. But now
that we come to the future, you can't make more
machine guns, but you can still buy them, but it's
still the same two tax But it's very interesting that
it's a tax law not really unnecessarily a gun law. Yeah. Yeah,
that's really compelling. And again this is something that he's
kind of like skipping entirely over um And what he

(43:55):
does here in the next couple of chapters is interesting.
So after we're introduced to like these these moonshine owners
and we get like the start of the arrest that
leads to their case, we have a chapter uh that's
November nine, nineteen thirty eight in Germany where they're sending
a bunch of like we focus in on a Jewish family,
um and who they are sending to Dakow. Right, So

(44:15):
we've got like the Nazi sending guy to dak How
we get one page of that and then so that's
a one page chapter that literally um it ends with
the line he was going to dokaw um and it's
talking about like, okay, I'll read the last two lines
here the watchmakers share to fate with almost a quarter
million of his countrymen and every single one of his
relatives who was still in Germany as of November nine
night he was going to Dakow. And then the very

(44:39):
next chapter, after that one page chapter, we get a
district like the basically the minutes of a district court
meeting for this case United States versus Miller involving this bootlegger.
So he's really very kind of directly making a comparison
between the Nazis shipping people off to concentration camps and
this bootlegger going to court over an a legal short

(45:00):
barreled shotgun, which is definitely like, this is the most
problematic the book has gotten so far, at least since
they're over our reading of it um and you can
see what he's doing here, right, Like, this is not
particularly subtle, although it does, I think count is subtle
within this genre of literature. Yeah, he's setting up the
argument that gun control lends itself to what we saw

(45:21):
a Nazi Germany, which is general side, etcetera, which he's
drawing a direct comparison between the agents of the state
in both countries. And of course it's a much more
complex argument to that, but there is some historicity to
gun control leading itsself to that too. So he's not
entirely wrong, right, because a lot of earlier and this
it's interesting to me again in terms of like the
thing he thinks he does choose to read out this

(45:42):
is not so far an explicitly racist novel, But he's
making the choice to not lead at all with the
history of gun control as it involves the suppression of
black people's right to carry concealed handguns, which is a
big part of early laws against concealed handgun was to
stop black men in the reconstruction area from carrying concealed handguns,

(46:04):
which they did because people would try to murder them. Um.
And he's he's definitely leaving that out. He's also we
just did an episode on this with Margaret Killjoy leaving
out a decent chunk of like there were a number
of some of the first gun control laws in the
country were also passed in order to stop anarchists from
carrying handguns and as part of the labor movement. Um.

(46:28):
And so we're not really getting any of that. We are,
really he is making a really pointed choice by focusing
on Miller in nineteen thirty eight as kind of the
birth of all this gun control um. And that's interesting
to me because it does this is kind of We've
talked about how careful he's being, and he this is
a very careful book so far. He is not. It
is not like an unhinged screen at all, and it

(46:48):
does not read that way. Um. But he is making
some really distinct editorial choices about what he leaves out,
and I think that's really worth kind of highlighting. Yeah.
I don't disagree, and I don't recall all of it,
but I don't recall this book really getting into issues
like the panthers or um or or civil rights in
regards to firearms in their use, which of course is

(47:11):
a topic that has been so left off of the
American historical record that it's been intentionally ignored. It's like
I call it um uh, intentional um amnesia, where we
don't want to talk about those things where black people
use guns to defend themselves and the reason they still
exist is because they had a gun in their possession.
I don't remember that being in this book, and it
would It's interesting because that you're right, it lends It

(47:33):
would have lended itself even more credibility to his argument
if he had included it. Yeah, I mean it would
you you could have slotted that in here and it
would have like worked as part of the narrative progression
he's building. But I also think that would have really
turned off a decent chunk of who he knew was
kind of And it's also I'm sure this is this
is also based on like he didn't. I think it's
very possible Ross doesn't see that as part of really

(47:56):
the history of of unfair gun control in the United States.
I don't know the man um so I don't know
the degree to which that was a choice or that
was just stuff he was unaware of. But he seems
so knowledgeable that I do have trouble imagining he wouldn't
at least know about like the panthers and stuff which
perhaps we haven't gotten to. But again I don't recall
from an earlier reading of that book, this book, I

(48:17):
don't recall that being a part of this. If it's
in there, it's not heavily profiled at all. And I
think I would be more along the lines of thinking
that he knew the audience he was targeting and did
not want to alienate them, And that's one of the
things we've talked about in previous work together, is like,
you know, the community and the gun community is getting
is getting much more uh as much as it's becoming

(48:39):
a much larger tent, but it's still a big uphill fight.
And um that that level of acceptance definitely did not
exist in when this book was published. So by including
things like that, I think he would have lost his
core targeted audience, which is why we see those five
star reviews on this book, because it's very specifically read
only by the people that are going to like it. Yeah,

(49:00):
and the next like forty or so pages of this
are really heavily dealing with Irwin Mann and the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising. We're we're getting into a lot of World
War two stuff and it's going to be in here
that um I think it's is Bowman's dad that gets
introduced as a World War two veteran, right, um, because
he's start he comes in here, yeah, Walter Bowman. Um. Yeah.

(49:25):
So so by page ninety three is kind of when
we're introduced to the Bowman family, who's going to be
our protagonist family, and he comes into the story at
at at right after uh, the end of kind of
our chunk on the warsaw Get Out Uprising, um where
we have so so May six, nineteen forty five is

(49:45):
when we kind of meet the family of the guy
who's going to be our main character. And I think
we'll probably come back to that when we when we
deal with this again. But so that's that's the introduction
to this book is ninety two pages of what is
effectively like, um, the history of shooting sports and gun control.
Like this is a real slow burn of a starter,

(50:07):
UM And it's different from any other book with kind
of a broadly similar theme that I think I've gone through. UM.
I have to say it's probably one of the smarter
pieces of of of kind of right wing uh militant
like propaganda literature that I've seen. UM. And it is
something that if you're not of that ideology, there's even

(50:28):
aspects of this that you could enjoy, because there is
like quite a bit of history in here that that's interesting,
but as we've talked about, it's also very in complete history.
I do kind of find this fascinating in a way
that for example, Ben Shapiro isn't right, Like there's actually
a lot to say about this that's not mocking the writing.
In addition, like the writing is not it's not particularly

(50:48):
like inspired writing, Like I'm not going to call this guy. Uh,
this is not like a toured a force of narrative power. Um.
But it's not like there's nothing about it that's jumping
out to me is incompetent or bad at all. Like
it's just like, I mean, it's definitely like a slow burn,
but kind of in the same way. You know, I
get shades of Tom Clancy from this actually, oh I

(51:08):
would yeah. And and the writing is it's it is readable.
It's um, I don't know how where would I put
in terms of qualit like Tom clans is a good
unc channel pros Yeah, kind of like Stephen King. It's
it's it's it tells the story, but it's not necessarily Shakespeare.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Like it's certainly not You're not like
I can't think of any lines here that jumped out
to me is like particularly artful, but nothing like, you know,

(51:32):
nothing that made it difficult to read. It's just kind of, um,
it's if you're not interested in this history or in
the technical details. And this is something I know from
the book. He really loves getting into the technical details
about how all of his guns work and stuff, and um,
even if you like in a way that's very Tom Clancy.
So if that's your thing, you may find aspects of

(51:53):
that compelling. I tend to think, even as someone who
likes guns, that it can be a bit of a
slog at times. Well, you mentioned what you were a
page not D six when they just introduced his father.
I think this book is like five thirty pages, so
you're like, you're less than one fifth through the book
and that's just beginning to introduce the main characters for
the storyline. Yeah, so we'll we'll come back to this.
But I think it is interesting to talk about how

(52:15):
this guy chooses to introduce this book that has become
so influential in US gun culture because it's it's it's
a pretty He makes some pretty intelligent choices here, um
that I think are going to be surprising to people,
just based on the cover, which is not a subtle cover.
You don't you didn't see You don't see this much anymore.

(52:35):
But like in the in the early two thousand's, this
book was influential enough that the at the Gun shows
and on all a bunch of the cars at the
gun show, you'd see stickers that said Henry Bowman as
my President. Yeah. Yeah, and this book was a big deal. Yeah.
And it makes it makes sense that it is because
I think, number one, there's a lot of people who
are going to be attracted to some of the ideas

(52:56):
of like revolt against the government and like an armed
in urgency and seeing themselves as as members of that obviously, UM,
but aren't going to be drawn to the fact that
the for example, the Turner Diaries is just a piece
of genocidal propaganda and is very clearly that from the beginning, UM.
And it it makes total sense to me that this

(53:18):
book succeeded in drawing those people in and and providing
them something to identify with, because I really do get
why they find this to be an identifiable work. He
does some very smart work early on to make this
feel both intellectual to the kind of people who are
going to be drawn to it, um, and to be

(53:39):
to make it effectively radicalizing. I see why this is
is so effective, um. To the people it was effective,
And I see why a guy like McVeigh would read
this UM and even feel like, oh shit, I wish
I had come across this first. Yeah, no doubt. It's um.
It's uh. I think I said this earlier. It is um.
It's an. It's an. It's a very hard book to

(54:01):
put into a category because as as we were going
through just these nineties pages or whatever, there's real history
in there, and there are things that people may not
have ever been aware of that this government has been
culpable of and other governments have been culpable of that.
He did his cherry picking on to make his argument,
but by his cherry picking, um, it's not to say
that the things that he particularly picked are not true narratives,

(54:22):
like his discussion about the Bonus Marchers and later on
in the book other topics are real accurate things. And um,
a lot of that which I don't know if that's
for now or some other day, but a lot of
this falls under the terrible, the terrible regime of Janet
Reno and some of her actions, and a lot of
that's in this book. Yeah. Yeah, And and Janet Reno
definitely deserves to be a bad guy in your history books. Yeah, so,

(54:46):
I mean, he really does demonize some people that deserved it.
But you said it's not necessarily holistically inclusive, and that's
what's challenging about it. That's the thing too, is like
if you're um, if you're focusing on these people and
these moments is like horrible moments in these people, is
is in these trends as like negative, You're absolutely in
the right. But also when you when you make that

(55:08):
out to be the whole story, you're very clearly exercising
chunks of history and particularly like chunks of um history
of the oppression of black and Indigenous people that could
be a part of your argument if they were if
you were willing to include them as a part of
the aggrieved classes that you're speaking to. And I think
Ross clearly is not here. Um. But I you can

(55:32):
see how people would find this appealing and also be like, well,
I'm not a racist and and this isn't a racist book, um,
And and yeah, it makes sense that this has had
the impact that it's had. Yeah, it's fascinating. I UM,
I don't, UM, I don't know. I don't. I wonder
what its repercussions are until now, because it's been out
of print for a while, I don't know if it

(55:52):
ever came back into reprint there was supposed to be
a sequel. I don't think that ever came out. Um,
there was never a really bad B grade version of it,
like Left Behind it with Kirk like Kirk Cameron and
all that. There was never like there was never the
Left Behind movie of Unintended Consequences, Right, But I feel like, um,
I suspect that if that were, if that pump were
to be primed, I bet it would be successful still

(56:13):
to this day. Well, I think there is essentially a
reboot of Unintended Consequences written by a guy named Matt
Bracken who's a regular on Info Wars Enemies Foreign and Domestic.
Are you familiar with that? I've never read it? Yeah, um,
it says, yeah, I have not read that one, but

(56:34):
I know it. It's broadly speaking, kind of in the
same narrative terrain that we've talked about, where there's like
this kind of insurgency, uh, an overthrow of the evil
American police state that is, of course like a left
wing police state. They see it as. Um, yeah, I'll
read you the the Amazon for this. Bullets rained down

(56:58):
upon a packed put football stadium, killing dozens, triggering a
panic stampede, which leads to a thousand more deaths. A
police marksman kills the sniper, a mentally unbalanced desert storm
veteran holding a smoking assault rifle. It's an open and
shut case, or so America is led to believe in
the aftermath of the stadium massacre and outraged public demands
and into the threat posed by assault rifle. So yeah,
and then America passes gun control um and the yeah,

(57:22):
it it leads to a crackdown that leads to an uprising. Right,
that book was written before that event. But man, that
is shades of Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. And it's interesting
because Bracken frames it in his book apparently as like, well,
this is what leads to like this huge FBI cracked
down of the militia, and it's unjust, and the militia
has to find out the truth about this. What I'm

(57:43):
guessing is like this shooting that was engineered in order
to create gun control, when in reality we had an
almost identical shooting and the result was was nothing like
on a legislative level, I guess, I guess bump stocks. Yeah,
I think I think it was. It was Trump made
essentially a ruling that bump stops, but Eagle. But but
there's no assault weapons ban, not not from that event. No,

(58:04):
there wasn't. But it is interesting that all of these
books hinge themselves, that that the fight for the fight
against an authoritary and increasingly authoritarian American government is always
hinged on the loss of gun rights versus some amalgamation
of all sorts of horrible things that the government has done.
It's always that one thing, it's always that single platform
of it. It's the gun rights being lost that caused

(58:25):
us to revolt, versus here's gun rights amongst many other
problems that cause a revolt. Like that's interesting to me. Yeah,
they zero in so much and there's such certainty too.
And you can even see this in like some of
the Alex jones Um conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook, where
it's like just historically, looking at the last thirty years,

(58:46):
creating a false flag mash shooting is not a good
way to get gun control, because most mash shootings have
not resulted in gun control, right Yeah, I mean, I mean,
I think you see Columbine as being the one that did,
right did, which absolutely like Columbine did where it comes from, right, Yeah,
And so that the argument is that each and every
and and and and and sadly, so many of those

(59:08):
events have happened since Columbine, that each and everyone's going
to be the one that does that. Um. Historically excellent,
except for Columbine, that has not been the case. Yeah,
it really. I mean there have been again some like
state level laws that have been that have been come
in the result of like mass shootings, but even that's
not is not super common. Um. It is interesting that

(59:29):
like that that's still such a focus. UM. I think
there is probably you could probably make quite a good
living if you were to rewrite a variation of this
book that was a little bit smarter about your opening cause, um,
and that that steered more towards trying to reach some
of those people on the libertarian left as well as
the libertarian right. You could probably make a pretty good

(59:51):
living doing that. You might need to get better cover
art too than than John Ross picked, although his cover
art beats the hell out of Matt Brackens, which is
like a really ay uh uh this you know, I
kind of now I remember, I think I remember the
cover of that book. It's like it's like the don't
tread on me snake with a naifteen or something, right, Yeah, yeah,
it looks like it's like clip Yeah, it's clip art

(01:00:15):
paste together. You know what it looks like. It looks
what's the name of that that guy who was he
was in congress? He was like a TV host and
then he got in the Congress and then he had
to leave because he's sexually harassed somebody. What's his name?
I don't know, there's so many of those, Um, what's
what's his uh? Al something? You're talking about al Franken,

(01:00:35):
al Franken the cover people, right, Yeah, he grouped that
woman on that plane. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like the
cover of Enemies for in a Domestic It's like this,
this like lazy clip art of a snake cuddling a rifle.
It looks like the cover of like a left wing
book making fun of gun culture from like two thousand

(01:00:55):
and three. Like, it doesn't look like the kind of cover.
The only thing that to make that cover are better
or some googly eyes. Yeah, it's it's really a pretty
lazy cover. Like I wouldn't guess it was a pro
gun book by the cover art because it kind of
looks like it's making fun of the Gadsden flag as
opposed to an ironic, whereas, at least with Unintended Consequences,

(01:01:16):
there was no mistaking what kind of like ideological world
this book inhabits. So you said there was a sequel
to this enemy's foreign and domestic. I think there's like
five of them, Max, Oh my gosh, Um, I think
there's a ton of these books. Um, Matt Bracken Mason, Yeah,
there's at least so there's enemies foreign domestic. There's enemies
foreign domestic, the ricon Qui stuff, which I think is

(01:01:38):
about Mexicans taking over the Southwest. Uh, and then there's
foreign enemies and traders. So he's got at least three
of them. Yeah. Yeah, So this is the kind of
stuff that would be so pervasive, and maybe it still
is in some instances. At the gun show we talked
about at the beginning of this, I could walk in
there and there was that giant book section and it
was all sorts of this kind of stuff. And I

(01:01:58):
guess the best thing you could say about Unintended Consequences
is it was the best of its breed. It was
the most readable, probably the least shitty, if you want
to say, that of that stuff like, um, if I
mean on one on one end, you got the Turner Diaries,
which is like the most vile thing you can think of,
and then you've got Unattended Consequences, which is much more nuanced.

(01:02:18):
And then you had stuff like we're talking about now
somewhere in the middle mostly poorly written quality of a zine,
but Unintended Consequences had the polish of being a legitimate book. Yeah,
I would say this is the gold standard of this
kind of of this particular kind of narrative propaganda. Um.
It definitely seems to be, which which does not mean
I think most people reading it are going to enjoy it,

(01:02:40):
or that I think it's narratively a well constructed piece
of fiction, because again we're ninety three pages in and
we have not really gotten to the narrative yet, which
is a choice, um. But it's also kind of broadly
in line with This is being written in the period
when Michael Crichton is and um um uh Tom Clancy
are like the biggest authors in the United States, and

(01:03:02):
it does seem like very much in line with that. Um.
So yeah, you can't divorce it either from the time
it was written in what was popular. Then well, Carl,
I think that's gonna do us for for for at
least the first episode on Undintended Unintended Consequences will well,
will reconvene and see if we want to go more
into this or maybe look at what a Matt Bracken's books. Um,

(01:03:22):
I'm endlessly fascinated with this, this species of novel. There's
like eight hundred more pages of this book, Like literally,
there's so many more pages of this, and Enemies Foreign
Domestic is also five hundred and sixty eight pages. So
we're delving into Jesus a lot. Well, I think, I think,
I think that we only got this far into it
does speak to the density of what it is and

(01:03:42):
how complex a topic this book is. Like if you
wanted to describe the if you wanted to talk the
Turner Diaries, you could. You could summarize that in thirty seconds. Right,
it doesn't. It is not an intelligent work. Unintended Consequences is,
and that's what makes it interesting because, Um, whether or
not want to agree or disagree with any of the
content in it, anyone reading it, even if you're against

(01:04:04):
what it's about, will probably find something out in it
that they didn't know about. And I'm not trying to
promote anything. I'm just saying in that regard, it is
an interesting work because I'm going from the Bonus Marchers
to the Warsaw Ghetto to Ruby Ridge to Waco to
all of those things combined. There's a lot of nuance
and that like most people wouldn't you know about Us
versus Miller, that that Supreme Court ruling about that sought

(01:04:26):
off shotgun. There's all that's in there. And while it
is cherry picked, is done in a way that it's
there's there's there's content there above and beyond maybe it's
intended point yeah, yeah, And and certainly like it's it's
not a lazy example of what it is. It's it's
an exact like he put a lot of work into this,
and I think did so in a pretty intelligent way.

(01:04:48):
And that's that's interesting to study, just as someone who's
kind of um drawn into this this sort of thing
and is interested in its impact on the world. Like um,
it's it's meaningful and worth understanding that, Like he put
the work he did into this and it's had the
impact that it's had. Well, Carl, you want to plug
your plug doubles before we roll out. Sure, um, you

(01:05:10):
can find me an range dot tv. I create a
firearms history and other types of content. It's kind of
all over the place, but it's all somehow Lynch pinned
around the concept of firearms and and the history of
firearms or the civil rights associated issues around them, including
up until today. So if you want to check out
my video and some of other stuff, you can find
all of my distribution points at enranged dot tv. Yeah,

(01:05:32):
check out Carl, check out in range TV. Probably don't
check out Enemies Foreign and Domestic um. But you know
you can get a lot of the same things by
watching the documentary trimmers Um, which which is my manifestout.
Oh my god, that guy would have been a character

(01:05:52):
in this book definitely. Bert Comer is a character that
fell directly out of unintended consequences. It is worth it
doesn't really stand out in the movie, but it is
worth noting that he and his wife in thirty seconds
go from huddling in their basement to making pipe bombs
on the roof. Bert Comer has seven copies of Unintended Consequences,

(01:06:13):
all of them signed, one of them with some DNA
on it from John ross I guarantee you yeah this
maybe Bert Gummer's copy of Unintended Consequences. Um, all right,
thank you. Carl. Behind the Bastards is a production of

(01:06:33):
cool Zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit
our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
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