April 14, 2026 • 57 mins
In this week's Classic episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore some extremely weird dudes known as the Founding Fathers of the United States. They're memorialized in monuments, museums, currency, holidays -- the list goes on. For more than a century they were deified, held up as paragons of statecraft. Yet the way they've been portrayed in textbooks often skips over details that ran counter to the shining image sold to generations of school children. You see, the Founding Fathers had secrets... so many, in fact, that we had to make this a two-part episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You often hear us refer to a little bit of
a click. Some call them freedom fighters, the Brits call
them terrorists. We call them the founding Fathers of the
United States. Imperfect, ambitious, weird, fashion sense, very weird people,
(00:21):
as it turns out, need we say more?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Every time I imagine the Founding Fathers, now, I see Nate Bargatzi,
and I see him either in a canoe or around
a fire, just talking about his vision of the United States.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Only glamour, yes, which is probably one of the best
sketches that Saturday Night Live has released, at least statistically
in the past five years minimum.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Oh yeah, just Nate, completely ignoring Keenan's questions. They're very
pertinently where all men will.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Be free, right, little shoulder pat temperature will be mentioned.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Ben, You've also.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Taken a turn as a founding father on the internet,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Oh gosh, oh well, we forgot about that one. Check
out our instagram if you want to see our ten
ten absolutely True documentary where in Noel and Matt meet
George Washington who has traveled through Toime and.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
He gets freaked out by all kinds of modern occurrences
like so say.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We all.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Right, so you know, the Founding Fathers are are mythologized
here in the United States, There's no way around it.
They've got a lot of ugly secrets. They've got a
lot of just plain old, weird secrets that didn't make
it into the history books. And as we'll see in
at least part of this series, a lot amazons. Nothing
(01:57):
wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, no, no, no, no no, especially early on, we just
say it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
A lot of Masons. Oh man, how do we go
to the ads from this one?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, there were a lot of things that need to
be built out of stone as Washington, DC is becoming.
You know what, do you you need Masons? Yeah, you do.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Can't form a government for the people without secret societies, guys,
right overthrow.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
The United Kingdom without a little help from your friends,
the best kind.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
With a little help from Tennessee and the magic of editing,
we proudly introduce Secrets of the Founding Fathers, Part one.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know, a
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is matt
Our colleague nol Is on an adventure today.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission Control decands, most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We've got a special two part
episode today, folks, if everything works out, and as always,
knock on wood if we do not finally get black
(03:37):
bagged for all of the things we have explored over
the past few years.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Mattney spears like Shakespeare's.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Or you know, really, I now he is listening back
to the Putin episode that we just did recently, and folks,
you may have noticed my voice sounded a little bit
like it was accompanied by a snare drum effect. That
was a tech that was a tech misstep on my end,
which the one and only Mission Control was able to save.
(04:05):
So if you like that episode, thank him specifically for
making it less unlistenable.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well, Paul does that for every episode for all of us.
The amount of popped peas that occur in this microphone,
I'm so sorry, Paul, yeah. It is.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Also what you're hearing are not our real voices. You're
hearing something run through a filter to remove our incredibly
thick British and Scottish accents.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yes, and the demonic, the weird demonic tones that come
out every once in a while. That's not our fault,
it's just how we are made.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Guys and props are videographer and YouTube mastermind James. He
goes through in every clip you see and he photo
shops in these human looking eyes. The pupil in the sclare.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, rotoscoping at the highest levels. See how he's tracking
them right now. Pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And so with that, with those thanks and a few
behind the scenes secrets, we want to thank you again
for joining us in an episode that we've always wanted
to do. We've done some things about this around this
in the past. What we're going to do today is
explore some of the original celebrities of the United States,
(05:27):
the original heroes and the villains of the country in
which we record today's show. Who are we talking about.
We're talking about the founding Fathers. Yes, yeah, two capital f's,
double f's for those guys. Matt, what do you think
of when you hear the phrase founding fathers.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
M I think about the ten dollars founding father without
a father, got a lot farther by working a lot harder,
being a self starter, being a lot. By fourteen, they
placed him in charge of a trading charter. I don't know.
For some reason, that's what happens in my head when
I think about that every day.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right, Yes, we're we're eluding, of course, the Hamilton. You know,
as a kid, I naturally always thought of Benjamin Franklin
because there aren't a bunch of there. There aren't a
ton of Benjamin's in a lot of office right, or
in a lot of history books. So so I always
(06:27):
thought about that guy. I had a fascination with him
entirely based on the name. And you and I found
in an earlier exploration that he was once suspected of
being a serial killer.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So well, yeah, or at least after the fact, it
was an odd thing, right, it was kind of people
discovered that there were bones in this in the basement
area of this one house where he lived at one point.
Weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And if you want to know why we're being careful
with how they how we phrase that, that's because we
have an episode you should check out if you haven't yet.
Was Benjamin Franklin a serial killer? Not going to spoil
it for you here, but he was. This was only
one weird story about the Founding Fathers of the United States.
So let's kick off part one of this episode by
(07:15):
answering the basic questions. We can't assume that everybody automatically
thinks of Ben Franklin or Alexander Hamilton when they hear
that phrase. We have a lot of listeners who are
not in the US. So here are the facts, Matt.
The Founding Fathers what who?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, they're not just all older white men with white
fake whigs standing around, though some of them did look
that way when they were around. It's really the Founding
Fathers is just a term for the group of people
that were instrumental informing what became the United States of America,
(07:54):
the country the documents that would really just guide what
this country would become, the United States, the one in
which Ben and Nolan, Paul and I live, and you
know it is it. Really, they're the people who formed
the current United States government. Really, it's just an evolution
(08:15):
from the thing that the seed that they planted And
you know, a lot of historians are going to differ
if you look to the writing and the research that's
occurred since the seventeen hundreds on the they're going to
differ on the specifics about some of these people. And
you really have to think about it this way. You've
(08:35):
got all these documents, right, the Declaration of Independence, the
document that declared that the United States was going to
be a new thing and separate from from England. Right,
Are all of those people who signed that document a
founding father or a founding person? In this case, it
(08:56):
is the founding fathers because they were all male, And
that's something we can address. But that's the fact of
the matter. And you know, that's one set of people,
and it's a fairly small number of human beings that
actually signed that document, fairly, But then there are a
lot of people who are actually there at the seventeen
(09:16):
eighty seven Constitutional Convention because those people were also extremely
instrumental in shaping like how you actually put into action
the words that are on these documents. Yeah, are they
all founding fathers? Is it?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Is it like fifty something people or is it more
like seven or eight? Because the lists can vary, you know,
And we also have to point out that this this
concept or this group term was generated after the actions
that led to the revolution in the formation of the country.
(09:53):
So if we wanted to go like MCU style or
Superhero movie style, or even Ocean's eleven style, let's call
it a heist.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
In many ways.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
It was a heist if you ask the people who
lived here before the Europeans came. But here's what we
think of. If we think of that as like an
ensemble cast, then we're really looking at less than ten people,
maybe seven or eight people who are sort of the
core avengers of this weird universe. We're building their folks
(10:27):
like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton. Of course Matt
I will not let him not get the shout out,
John Jay Thomas, Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
These are the people that were in the room when
it happened, for sure, yes, and.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
They each played, as individuals, a tremendous role in various
aspects of this country's history. But there are other people
that sometimes get added to the group, like Revere, one
of several people who warned that the British were coming
in a midnight ride. Were people like George Mason responsible
for the Bill of Rights, played a heavy role in
(11:11):
the creation of the Constitution, and then I believe refused
to sign it.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, and think of the countless number of humans that
fought in the Revolutionary War, who are all fighting for
the same thing, ostensibly or essentially, the independence of this
thing that would become the United States of America. I mean,
are are they founding fathers like any general or anyone
above what would be just considered a soldier or even
(11:39):
a soldier.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I mean, what about what about the what about the
non dudes who were instrumental and found in the country.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
One hundred percent, one hundred percent, And you know it
is it's nice to be able to think about it
with seven or eight people, like you said, like the
ensemble Marvel version of the Founding Fathers, because you especially
if you're in class, you only have to memorize facts
about you know, a few individuals. But you know, as
(12:10):
an ensemble cast, this really is it's way, it's way
more people who would be considered Founding fathers out And
unless you're I guess we're just looking at the intellectual fathers,
which I really don't like this terminology. The intellectual I
don't know, creators, the George Lucases. I guess so they're Yeah,
(12:36):
they're They're the ideators. They're the people who had revolutionary
thought and put.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It into action and came from came often from places
of privilege such that they could enact those ideals and
pursue those ambitions. But what did they do well? In short,
A lot, a lot of stuff, like tons of that
would be the short answer. They did not always get along,
(13:03):
to say the least. There is a notable duel that
most Americans are aware about now because it plays a
big role in a musical that that Paul and Matt
and I love. I don't know, Paul, do you do
you like Hamilton? Oh so, Paul, Paul Michigan control Deck.
(13:25):
It just just told us he has in fact never
seen or heard Hamilton. Paul. I would love to travel
up to your neck of the woods when this pandemic
is over and go see the show with you and Matt.
I don't think a fit it in your schedule. Would
you be down to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
To actually see it like in person? Yeah? You guys,
you can get a trial of Disney Plus I think,
and watch it right now if you want to. And
it's great and it's the original cast.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, and they and they do great work with the
cameras and the cinematography as well, so it's not just
a stationary camera in a mid mid tier seat or something.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
By the way, Paul in New York, you can be
a new man, just so you know, you can be
a new man. You can.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Now I understand why none of these references are making
any sense to Paul, you know what I mean. So
Paul just told us even if he doesn't get it,
he can tell it's something from Hamilton, which gives Hamilton
the mark of a classic according to some literary critics.
But you know, Paul is currently kind of in the
(14:34):
eye of a hurricane culturally with Hamilton. You know, there's
quiet for a moment. But this, this is true. These
folks did a lot of stuff. They did not get along.
There's a very diplomatic way to put it. They did
not always brow up one hundred percent. They had some
beef points, and despite there at times profound differences in
(14:58):
opinions or motivations, they created the basis for the US.
They also created the institutions that were meant to propel
this nation forward. But if we're being realistic, what they
were really trying to do was their level best to
stop it from collapsing, because you know, like you said, Matt,
there's a benefit of retrospect that we have looking back
(15:21):
on these folks, and they had a benefit of retrospect
looking back on other folks, specifically empires that fell, and
they were like, Okay, this is what we we need
to avoid. And they also had some real hutsba about
this because we have to remember the grand experiments they
embarked upon, which continues today, had never been tried and
(15:43):
quite this way before. You know, it's like the first
person who put potato chips in a sandwich. Do we
dare disturb the universe?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
But that's a little exactly what.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
They're like.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, we got a good sandwich going on here,
but really we need a crunch Wait a second, and
then America was formed? In America was formed?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
But how like that's the thing. Though history is a conversation,
it's not a series of discrete events occurring in a vacuum.
So these folks, regardless of how you feel. I mean,
I would say, regardless of whether you live in the US,
their actions affect you today in profound ways. The Constitution
and the institutions they created survive in heavily amended forms.
(16:33):
You see their faces on money. That's how you know
you made it. Man, when you get when your face
is on the money.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Oh yeah, hmm. You don't have to be a queen,
you could be a founding father. Sorry, I was just
thinking about is the queen still on the pound? Is
that still a thing? I haven't seen an actual physical
pound in quite a while.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yes, yes, that is correct, Matt. The queen is on
the definitely on the British coin, on the one pound
British coin. Well also have There's an interesting law across
the pond about this because upon the death of the
current queen, her picture will be removed from the currency.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Really and then the king, the king goes on there
just or if that's what actually happens.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, if there's a successful you know, peaceful transfer power,
which is never given, then whoever becomes the monarch gets
their face on the money at least maybe. I mean,
things can change pretty quickly. The current queen has been
the current queen for quite a long time. But that's
(17:46):
monarchies are going to play a big part today's episode.
For many years, the Founding Fathers were somewhat deified, right,
And you, if you are a certain age, you remember
the history books with these fantastic paintings of these bewigged
(18:08):
bestocking men who were you know, like politely and studiously
agree to something that everybody thought was a great idea
and everybody was happy about. That remains true to a
degree today, and it's unfair to the actual people not
to mention the students learning this. Modern historians are a
(18:29):
little bit more accurate about the problematic nature of some
of these founders and also those somewhat airbrushed stories we
hear many parts of them are true, but they were
often not the story entire So today that is what
we're tackling, you see, fellow conspiracy realist, These Founding Fathers
(18:55):
had a ton of acknowledged successes, but they also had
a ton of secrets. Some yeah, yeah, some are more
well known than others. And some of the truest ones
are the strangest ones and the ones that you should
bother you the most. So we're gonna pause for a moment,
for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive in.
(19:23):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So we're talking about the secrets of the founding fathers,
the acknowledged and unacknowledged things that kind of sully the
pristine reputations that many of us, including Ben and myself,
grew up with when we read about or talked about
the founding fathers of the United States. And the first
one it should be pretty obvious to everyone here, and
(19:48):
that is slavery. Yeah, and really all you have to
think about are the words that were in the Declaration
of Independence, the words that were in the Constitution, and
then how do you square all of that knowing that
chattel slavery was very much a thing when the United
States was founded, and it continued on for a long
(20:09):
time afterwards.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right, there's not a good analog for this, because this
is the enslavement of human beings by the people who
said that human beings should be free. So just a
one piece, a snapshot of the hypocrisy there is. Imagine
that you have passed it's like any it's it's like
(20:33):
any vice law. Imagine you have passed a law where
you say Okay, no one in the Kingdom of Polandia
or in the Decand Republic can drink drink booze or
I don't know, do queludes or something. And and while
(20:54):
there while, while the rulers of Polandi are making this law,
they are off their gills on booze and pills and
they're still making these laws. The hypocrisy is avocracy. Doesn't
even describe how profoundly messed up this is. To be fair,
(21:15):
not all Founding fathers owned slaves. One founding father, notably
George Washington, owned slaves and later went on to manument
or free some of these, again human beings, but other
people like James Madison owned slaves. Didn't really seem soups
conflicted about it because they when they said all men
(21:38):
are created equal. Is misleading to not point out that
several of those folks in that room where it happened
did not think of all human beings as human beings.
So to them, this is more of a livestock situation.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
You know, We'll talk about a lot of the other stuff,
but the yeah, human beings are created equal based on
their skin as well as based on their gender. And
that is another major thing that you know, just has
to be addressed. It does say all men in there,
oh yeah, and it doesn't. It doesn't. I can't go
(22:15):
back and talk to James Madison or any of these
other people and say, well, did you meant all human
beings or because it really does feel like the way
the laws are being set up where you have to
be a male and own property and some of these
things feels like you're being specific as hell here.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Writing Take a take a page from Putin, write it
like any former Russian president, whoever.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
That might be. And you know, we're talking about these
founding fathers. There's one that you've probably heard a lot
about with reference to how he treated his slaves in
very specific ways, mister Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yes, Thomas Jefferson. I've got a quotation, might enjoy here.
People loved his peers, A lot of them loved Thomas Jefferson.
He definitely had some fans, he definitely had some enemies, obviously.
But there's a quote from John Quincy Adams in his
(23:15):
diary in seventeen eighty five. He writes, spent the evening
with mister Jefferson, whom.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I love to be with.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You can never be an hour in this man's company
without something of the marvelous Abigail Adams also described Jefferson
as one of the choice ones of the earth. He
was wealthy, he was well educated. He was a tremendous hypocrite,
because you see, he had a longstanding intimate relationship with
(23:48):
one Sally Hemings, who was at the time enslaved on
his estate. And if you have listened to any work
on ethics or the nature of m to consent, you
know that consent is impossible in that situation. For a
long time, the Jefferson estate and some other interested parties
(24:10):
fought against this story and said it was just a
rumor or besmirching the character of a man who was
so tremendously influential in this country's early history until the
advent of DNA testing, at which point there was a
very much there was very much a you are the
father moment with the descendants of Hemming and Jefferson. So
(24:34):
he wrote prolifically about a lot of noble ideas, a
lot of like lofty, beautiful things. Schnoi didn't write about Matt.
He didn't write about the mother of several of his children.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Ah Yeah, Sally Hemmings didn't make it into a lot
of that and to a lot of the ink there.
You know, it's really unfortunate. We just to continuous slavery
for a moment. We have spoken in the past about
large civilizations and anytime there are significant movements and increases
(25:12):
in like, let's say, a city and then expansion of
you know, an empire or something, slavery very often over
the course of history has played a crucial role in
doing those things because there are very few individuals who
are the intellectuals pushing forward on what should happen. But
(25:34):
then you need lots and lots and lots of manpower
to do extremely difficult grueling, a lot of times fatal work.
And you know, this is the case of the forming
of the United States and the expansion you know, westward,
as well as just the expansion in general of cities
(25:57):
and places to hold enough peoples as the states grew.
And it is really likes, it's messed up to think
about that, to think that, you you know, it's very
difficult to pay everybody at a great wage and to
you know, keep everybody happy while you're you're doing the
kind of things that they are doing, and it's a
(26:17):
really troubling thing to think about. And my five year
old son is here. I bought my son these many
A and W root beers because he tried I had
one a while ago. I hate to put a brand
out there, but I tried one a little while ago
and he wanted to take a sip and he thought
it was the best thing beer. Yeah. So now he's
(26:39):
brought he's bringing in a mini an W root Beer.
So hey, if you guys want to give us a sponsorship,
A and W root Beer many many cans. They're delicious.
It's made with aged vanilla and no caffeine.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I gotta be honest with you, you know, whenever I
get a whenever I run into root beer in the wild,
from now on, I am going to give it to
your kid, or do you? Because I can't abide root beer. Man,
it's too many, too many things going on.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's that's crazy. That's a that's a very I don't
really understand Rutier. I don't understand a lot of things.
But uh, but yeah, if you're a fan of that,
what is okay? What is root beer?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Root beer is oh what? I just lost the word
for it, what it actually is, what's there? What's the
actual route that's in there? Paul is a sasparilla. Sasparilla
was what sassafras? I think it's sasparilla, and that's a
type like an early version of root beer, and then
it became something.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Else and it's been made since the colonial era. Yes again,
I know we've got a lot of root beer fans
in the audience. It fits with the Today's show because
it is very much a North American drink. But maybe
I'm just yeah, it just doesn't click with me. I mean,
but there are a lot of things I just don't get.
(28:07):
It can't be everything, can't be for everyone.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Right, that makes sense, I understand, which.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Is what Jefferson must have thought segue when he lay
awake at night wondering about his rank hypocrisy.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's it. I'm sure it just gave
him nightmares.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, here's the thing is interesting. Apart mett So, Sally
Hemings worked as a maid in the Jefferson household for
two and a half years in Paris, and when she
was in Paris, France, that meant she was free. So
while she was free, the story goes. She negotiated with
(28:48):
Jefferson and said, not only will I return with you
to Monticello, but I will return to enslavement in exchange
for extraordinary privileges as they were called for herself and
freedom for her children, her unborn children. And so decades later,
Jefferson did free all of Heming's children.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Well that's nice, is it, because he.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Didn't do that for any other family unit of people
he enslaved.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, no, I agree. I'm saying that that is one
act that could be considered good.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And so there we go.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I mean, I know it's a little depressing, but yes, yes, slavery.
A lot of Founding fathers were totally into it because
to your point, Matt, it was seen as an economic necessity, right,
no matter how else they dressed it up. And now
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, who
I don't think is Illumination Global Unlimited, but you never know,
(29:48):
and then we'll be back to explore something that we've
touched on a little bit in the past. It's something
that was probably on all of our minds as soon
as we saw the title of this episode.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And we're back. Okay, everyone, if you live in the
United States or many other parts of the world. You
may have been driving around in your local town, maybe
early on when you started driving, or when you really
started noticing things out the window as a kid, and
you probably saw a couple buildings, maybe one building in
(30:26):
your small town wherever you live, that had kind of
a strange symbol on it. You're not really sure what
it is. It's definitely a symbol, though, and there's not
a lot of words on it except for this one,
and it's Mason or free Mason or free masonry. And
maybe that led you down a curious path for the
(30:48):
rest of your life trying to figure out what that
was and what it is and what kind of control
it has over you and the surrounding world. And then
you realized one day, king about myself and all of
this by the way, you realize, oh wait, does this
have anything to do with the founding of this country
of the United States of America? Well, I love I
(31:11):
love this setup. Well yes, I'm really going on a
long walk here, but yes, yes it does. Because many
of the founding fathers that we've been speaking about this
whole episode were in fact free Masons or members of
the Free and Accepted Masons, or some version of the
Scottish Rite or some other sect within Masonry.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin, shout out to you, Bennie F James Monroe,
George Washington, many more. This is not a conspiracy theory.
This is just these are facts. Longtime listeners or anybody
who enjoys our YouTube page, you may recall the time
(31:55):
that Matt and I traveled to DC to check out
some of the theories or the claims for ourselfs, and
we found that there were there were a lot of
things that at least had the germ of truth, right, Like,
if a conspiracy theory is a pearl, then there is
a grain of sand that this pearl grew around. So
(32:20):
one of the weirdest examples would probably be the Washington Monument.
I think that I hope you didn't get tired of
me saying it when we were up there, Matt, But
one of the things that kept blowing my mind, it's
like who goes immediately to an obelisk? They're like, what
what do you think of? You know, they're pitching ideas,
and they're like, what do you think of when you
(32:40):
think of George Washington? And then there's like silence in
the room.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And yeah, god it it just keeps going.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Somebody raises their hands like that.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
They're like you have a question, and they're like, no, no,
I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Build this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
What we learned when we made that video is that
the the obelisk was not the first thing they thought
about when they were going to create that monument. They
were going for a bit of a pantheon situation early,
with all of the Founding Fathers essentially enshrined in stone
together in this one thing that they were going to
(33:16):
call the Washington Monument. It was a bit of an
odd idea. It could have been cool. It's kind of
reminiscent if you've ever seen the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
If it's reminiscent of that. When you imagine a single
Founding father like Lincoln in stone just there as an
embodiment of that character, really not so much the man,
(33:37):
but the character from history of one of these Founding fathers,
and you just imagine that in a big circle, like
giant stone versions of the Founding Fathers in a big
circle out in the middle of the National Mall there.
That's what it could have been. But it was not.
It was an obelisk instead.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, due to budgetary constraints mainly, which is, you know,
something that's common in the government. But it looks, it
looks neat. It's clearly Greco Roman inspired. It's we should
emphasize though, the original design still did have an obelisk,
so whomever was in that room pitching these designs was
(34:20):
definitely like they were obelisk oriented to begin with. But
the other stuff we saw did prove that the ideals
of values of Masonry would have been common knowledge to
the founders of this country. This stuff has proven. It
(34:41):
only really verges into conspiracy when we explore the degree
to which people claim Masonic membership may or may not
have influenced the formation of the United States. And the
truth is probably best put this way. Did individual Freemason's
play a role in the Revolution and the creation of
(35:04):
the States, Absolutely clearly. But Masonry as an institution was
not some vast secret society. To go with the superhero comparison,
It's not as if Ben Franklin and George Washington were
shaking hands and leaning in and going HELI you know
(35:24):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
But they could have been doing secret handshakes. Oh, they
were definitely.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
No, the handshakes are like one of the funnest parts.
You can't skip the handshakes.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But doesn't that just knowing that, doesn't that feel a
little weird?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah? Maybe I'm maybe I'm blind, Maybe I've got a
blind spot here.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
No, no, you know, and I'm I completely understand what
you're saying, Ben, and you're correct. It's just at the
same time, I don't know, it gives me this weird
feeling knowing that a lot of the people who decided
to go in this very divergent route from the way
(36:03):
history was going from, you know, breaking out from their place.
I'm doing quotations here in the world and having this revolution,
this revolutionary set of ideas and ideals like this group
of people were also a part of this club that
has you know, it puts forward a lot of values
(36:27):
that feel similar. I would just say.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yet, that's the thing though, That's what makes this so tantalizing, Right,
It's it's got that, it's got that umami. And also,
look at the French Revolution. It's it's a little it's
a little over simplistic to say that the French Revolution
was entirely the result of Freemasonry. But there were Freemasons who,
again as individuals, were active and in profoundly influencing society.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
You know. So this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
The Founding Fathers were not a Masonic cabal by any means.
Thomas Jefferson, not a freemason. Alexander Hamilton, not a Freemason,
would have made it into the musical.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I'm sure Alexander Hamilton not a Freemason.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I guess, yes, there it is.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
That's the one.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's probably on the Hamilton mixtape. But but but when
we think about this, so one thing that we've been
really grateful for as a show is that we have
had a lot of our fellow listeners right into us
who are active members of a lodge or were Masons
for some time. And the feedback we got to that
(37:43):
one question, which is like what do you what do
you have to do to get kicked out, was that
it was very reasonable. And this the reason I'm saying
this is that we have to understand back in this
time and era, masonry was maybe the ideals, the goals
(38:04):
of Masonry were things that the Founding Fathers would have
already been down with, you know, and some of the
people who are described as founding fathers or influential actors
in the revolution, some of those who are described as
being Masons. Also, that's a little misleading because several of
(38:27):
them did not go on to join Freemasonry until well
after the revolution, so they weren't part of some conspiracy.
But that's the thing, Okay, So Masonry holds values that
Founding Fathers themselves already were super down with self determination,
the right for groups of people to peaceably assemble, freedom
(38:49):
of the press, and of course the controversial would freedom
of religion, Believe what you want. These are all incredibly
radical ideas. They are anathema to the governing structure of
continental Europe. You could say that monarchies were anti Masonic
because the values of Masonry threatened their own very real,
(39:12):
pre existing conspiracy, which is how to control people and
keep yourself at the top.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Right, Yeah, top down control versus control by the of
the individual or control control of the group by the
individuals within the group. Oh, fascinating stuff. When you really
start to break down, like exactly what that means to
you have a republic or a democratic republic versus a monarchy,
(39:43):
but doesn't all that stuff sound like the Bill of
Rights been.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Right, right, and liberty equality and so on. Yeah, yeah,
they have a lot in common, you know what I mean?
And I is it do At what point does inspiration
become plagiaris? That's another question. But I want to go
into the concept here of the monarchy seen as a
(40:08):
conspiracy and why monarchies were often in several countries in
continental Europe against the propagation or the existence of masonry.
So monarchies did something incredibly clever, just objectively clever. They said, look,
we have to convince a group of people that vastly
(40:30):
outnumbers us that we are deserving of our privileged position.
If we are the be all and all authority, then
of course someone else will eventually want to topple us,
and they'll ask why. So let's not be quite the top.
(40:51):
Let's be kind of the middle management. Let's think of
earth or our country as like a call center, right
or cuticles, and we're in charge of the call center.
We're the boss of the earthly things. But we're only
the boss because the real boss is God. And the
(41:14):
real boss will get mad at you if you don't
do what we say. So they did like this really
clever middle management thing before that was really middle management.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
And uh, that's interesting to think about it that way.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And then they you know, you have to It doesn't
matter if you physically outnumber this privileged class, because what
really matters is that when you die, no matter how
you die, you will have to talk to the boss's boss,
and if the boss's boss finds out you weren't good
to your supervisor, then you'll be in trouble forever.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I thought it was very clever.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
No, it's extremely clever.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
I didn't mean to discount by using the C word there.
I just, uh, it's a thought I haven't had before.
Using God as you know, whether you believe it or not,
as the as the your boss, as the boss that
(42:13):
is God. That's fascinating. Well okay, okay, I'll go with
you there. And I think that's really clever if that's
really what it was for. And again, that's the way
it feels right looking back from forty thousand feet the
way we can now, it feels as though a monarchy,
if even if it wasn't purposefully done in a conspiratorial
(42:36):
way to convince the masses that they're that, you know,
the monarchy's power was real and worth it and not
worth fighting against because of God. Even if that, even
if that wasn't a conspiracy to get you to believe that,
they still really did use it effectively in that way.
Didn't they any any and all monarchies or you know,
supreme leaders of any sort? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I mean, because like the the closest modern evolution or
analog we would have to something like that would be
an olagarchy or a technocracy.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
But the thing with the monarch system, the system of monarchy,
is that spiritual belief is a control mechanism doesn't really
require the people profiting from that belief to believe in
it themselves. You know. That's not to say these folks exactly.
(43:29):
I love your point, because we're not saying that these
folks were intentionally and cynically doing this. You know, if
you are if you were born into a system that
teaches you that you're better than other people, and you're
supposed to be better than other people, and psychology proves
you have a very high likelihood of just accepting that,
(43:50):
it makes sense, you know what I mean. I always
think about that monopoly study, right, Remember that.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yeah, I do. I do. Remember that when you're winning,
it feels like you you did all this stuff to win.
You deserve it all because you're working really hard and
you're doing great. And the more the more wealthy you
are and better off you are, the more you feel
like you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Mm hmmm, yep. Tour our earlier work on we just
phrased it as a very simple question, just to be wealthy.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Make you a horrible person something.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
That yes, the answer is, it makes it easy to
be a horrible person for sure. Just for background on
that real quick. The experiment, which was conducted at UC
Berkeley as a series of experiments, involved having people play
rigged games of monopoly. Monopoly is already a broken version
of something called the landlord game, right, the Landlord's game,
(44:44):
mind you.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
So that's that's just where you collect rent from everybody
and you make all the money.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Right, It's it's the original version of monopoly that had
a third round that was all about teaching people the
dangers of unrestrained capitalism. Right, And so when it was
stolen from the lady who invented it, the business that
propagated it just removed that last.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Round and you'll learn anything now, it's just you went.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Right exactly so Monopoly. Here's how the experiment went. It
would have groups of people, random people didn't really know
each other, playing games of Monopoly together, and one randomly
chosen player in a game would be given some advantages
twice as much money to start out, with more than
(45:41):
two dice to roll, with, more access to resources, so
you'd get more bonus points for passing go. Instead two
hundred dollars, you get like four hundred or five hundred
or something. And the goal was to study how people
behaved in these games. Here's what they found. They found
that actually, most people who got these uh these these
(46:03):
cheat codes early on, they won. They won the game.
It would be difficult for them to lose the game.
And the weird part is when they asked these people
after the game, they asked them, Hey, why do you
think you won? Do you think it had anything to
do with the way the game was rigged in your favor?
They said, well, you know, maybe that had a little
(46:26):
bit to do it. Maybe it had a little bit
to do with it. But uh, turns out I'm an
expert at monopoly. I am just super super good at it.
And I've played it before and this is just my experience,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
The game is the game.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
I don't I don't make the rules.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Park places just landed in my lap. It's not my fault.
I mean, I just got there pretty easily and I
had the funds.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Why don't why don't these other people just not be
poor at the beginning of the game. That's what I
would have done. That's like, that's that's literally the reasoning.
This is a very interesting study. I know we're getting
off topic, but we're saying the same kind of psychology applies,
and so if you are in a situation this is
of course. Look, members of monarchies are not necessarily bad people.
(47:16):
They're humans, just like anybody else for the most part.
And of course they're going to be threatened by something,
any kind of organization that proposes to change the status quo.
If the status quo is profitable for them, that just
makes sense. So that's why Masonry was being intact. We
have to remember that the idea of attacking groups that
(47:39):
were a little more secular or addressed religion and spirituality
in a different way. They were being attacked sure because
it was seen as sort of a heretical stance, but
it was a heretical stance because it was threatening the
economic benefit of the people who who profited from that
(48:02):
current concept of God. So yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah, it does. I'm trying to think of it on
the individual level though, and it totally doesn't make sense
what you're saying, man, where there's a reason for the
status quota fight back against something like freemasonry. But you know,
on the religious side, I think the individual person is
(48:28):
going to also fight back against it for that heretical
stance or from that heretical stance, because it's different, right,
And anytime you've got something that is different outside of
the normal or what is considered to be normal, you're
going to have some kind of initial reaction at least
of aversion to it because it's you know, that's not
(48:50):
what we're supposed to do. I'm not supposed to do that. Well,
why do you get to do that? And why are
you doing that? I just think that's also very human
and natural in this case. When we're talking about freemasonry.
In any secret society or any club, private club for
that matter, there is this thing that comes along with it,
(49:14):
which is connection. Which is socializing, which is having that
secret handshake together that we were talking about, which is,
you know, even if we're just talking about congress or
you know, people who are trying to form a congress
or a new country or something, if you are able
to go up to that person and have that secret
handshake to let them know, oh, we have shared common values.
(49:36):
We you know, know a lot of the same people.
I can probably make another connection for you, or we
can make these other connections and get things done. Really,
that's what it means. I can go directly to someone
who is also probably wealthy and influential, just like you can,
and we can together gather enough forces, enough people, enough
(49:58):
intellectual and wa wealth power to take action. And that's
why it feels like freemasonry played a perhaps bigger part
in the formation of the United States than it did,
even though it did play a part it did.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Yeah, and I think that's very well put. Also, I'm
a little biased because I have some fairly strong opinions
about the dangers of nepotism, which you know we've talked
about in previous episodes. But one thing you say that
really caught my attention, Matt, is the idea of society
(50:36):
of communication. You know a lot of people love that, right.
We have to remember these folks existed in a time
before social media. Your dank memes page is in a
way a lodge. You meet with people, You communicate in
a language that you and your fellows have evolved and understand,
(50:57):
and you have a common currency of what you consider
to be good ideas, right or funny means. I guess Look,
nobody go too deep into this comparison. I'm not saying
I'm not saying that the founding fathers would have just
sat around on meme pages if Facebook or Reddit was
around at the time. But this gave them a place
to hang out in chat. So it's they're not They're
(51:20):
not completely that different. And then you know, are the
values of masonry is there espoused? Are they bad? Is
there anyone who's going to read something like that and say, well,
I don't want I don't want people to assemble in
groups peacefully. It should only be violent.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well you're getting together, it's get
there's got to be pitchforks involved. To me, it's it's
very akin to LinkedIn or something where it really is
about having that close connection to somebody in a completely
different field in an industry who was also maybe a
captain of that industry that you you you essentially have
(52:00):
at your disposal a bunch of leavers of influence that
you can pull just because of your association in that group,
which isn't necessarily how it's always used, but it's a
it's the potential is there.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
And again we want to point out modern masonry does
tremendous charitable work. Yeah, they they are literally saving people's lives.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
So all of these clubs do Quanus Club, all of
these that where you have to become a member and
you join for one reason or another club.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Won't let you in without.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
A membership, also doing doing tremendous work. Sam's Club. No.
But but really there's there's no denying the good that
a lot of these groups do. But but there's also
no denying the you know, and I'm sorry anyone who
is a member of the Masons right now or any
(52:55):
of these other clubs, there is a creepy factor for
anyone outside of the club just because of the secrecy involved.
And we've talked about that numerous times on this show,
and it will always be that way as long as
there is secrecy involved in enjoining and what happens behind
the doors.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, yeah, the rumor it happens. Without transparency, speculation thrives,
and there are a lot of commonalities. It would be
it would be naive to actually wouldn't even be naive.
It would be dishonest to look at the values proposed
by the Founding Fathers and the values espoused by Masonry
(53:34):
and say that there was zero overlap. That would just
be that's a that's a shell game. But off the bat,
we were reaching the end of part one of our
Secrets of the Founding Fathers, and off the bat, so
far we just talked about two absolutely true, incredibly crazy,
(53:54):
somewhat disturbing aspects of this group. Tune in for our
follow up episode later this week, where we dive into
even stranger seas we spill the tea.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Don't don't spill the tea. It took a long time
for that to steep. I can hear my dog in
the background as well. Wow, just lots of things happening
in my background today. And we very much look forward
to hearing what you out there have to say about this,
what you think about everything we've discussed in today's episode,
and we also, you know, hope you'll hang in there
(54:31):
for next week when we go deeper and deeper into
this sea has been put it of conspira ce crazy.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Okay, this is really weird stuff though, so so do
tune in and as Matt said, let us know what
you think. You can find us all over the place,
you know, crossroads at midnight, say the right words into
a mirror in the dart or find us on Facebook, Twitter,
or Instagram, you know, whichever of those is easiest for you.
(55:02):
I've got a great page called Here's Where it Gets Crazy,
where you can hang out with the best part of
this show or fellow listeners.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
If you hate.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Sipping the social needs, if it's if it's too if
social media itself is too much of a conspiracy for you,
then we have another way you can contact us.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
That's correct. I've never been a big fan of the
social meds. I always feel like it's too sweet. It's
just not it doesn't really it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, you're not a You're not an ice sweet meads
a guy unsweet meads, unsweet social needs.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Yeah, yeah, I'm done with the unsweet social needs. But
also the honey involved in what you know? Anytime you're
gonna make an alcoholic beverage out of honey, I don't know.
I just let's not do it.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
You're a root beer guy. This has been established there we.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Go sasparilla all day over. Whatever the stuff is that
you make a root beer out of h Yeah, you
you can call us. We have a number. It is
one eight three three st d w y t K.
You will hear Ben and then he will say here's
where it gets crazy. And then you can leave your message.
And when you leave that message, please tell us whether
(56:13):
or not you're okay with us using that message in
one of our listener mail episodes. And make sure you
tell us if we can use your name or not.
Just your first name generally is probably the right way
to go.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
And then if you've got a nickname that we think
is cool, then we'll we'll give you a shout out
for it.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
Don't be afraid to get weird with it.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
My favorite one still is our trucker friend who is
just howling with laughter as he was asking us these questions. Dude,
if you are out there, thank you. I still I
regularly listen to that one.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
He's got a couple now that we've got and they're wonderful,
So yeah, thank you. Please continue to do that. If
you want to become a character that leaves messages on
a frequent basis, that's fun too. We're into it.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
And if none of that quite founds your fathers, then
we have one other way. You can always contact us,
regardless of time, space or place. That is our email
address where we.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want
(57:38):
you to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
You often hear us refer to a little bit of
a click. Some call them freedom fighters, the Brits call
them terrorists. We call them the founding Fathers of the
United States. Imperfect, ambitious, weird, fashion sense, very weird people,
(00:21):
as it turns out, need we say more?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Every time I imagine the Founding Fathers, now, I see Nate Bargatzi,
and I see him either in a canoe or around
a fire, just talking about his vision of the United States.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Only glamour, yes, which is probably one of the best
sketches that Saturday Night Live has released, at least statistically
in the past five years minimum.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Oh yeah, just Nate, completely ignoring Keenan's questions. They're very
pertinently where all men will.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Be free, right, little shoulder pat temperature will be mentioned.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Ben, You've also.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Taken a turn as a founding father on the internet,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Oh gosh, oh well, we forgot about that one. Check
out our instagram if you want to see our ten
ten absolutely True documentary where in Noel and Matt meet
George Washington who has traveled through Toime and.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
He gets freaked out by all kinds of modern occurrences
like so say.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
We all.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Right, so you know, the Founding Fathers are are mythologized
here in the United States, There's no way around it.
They've got a lot of ugly secrets. They've got a
lot of just plain old, weird secrets that didn't make
it into the history books. And as we'll see in
at least part of this series, a lot amazons. Nothing
(01:57):
wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, no, no, no, no no, especially early on, we just
say it.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
A lot of Masons. Oh man, how do we go
to the ads from this one?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Well, there were a lot of things that need to
be built out of stone as Washington, DC is becoming.
You know what, do you you need Masons? Yeah, you do.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
It.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Can't form a government for the people without secret societies, guys,
right overthrow.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
The United Kingdom without a little help from your friends,
the best kind.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
With a little help from Tennessee and the magic of editing,
we proudly introduce Secrets of the Founding Fathers, Part one.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know, a
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is matt
Our colleague nol Is on an adventure today.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul. Mission Control decands, most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We've got a special two part
episode today, folks, if everything works out, and as always,
knock on wood if we do not finally get black
(03:37):
bagged for all of the things we have explored over
the past few years.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Mattney spears like Shakespeare's.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Or you know, really, I now he is listening back
to the Putin episode that we just did recently, and folks,
you may have noticed my voice sounded a little bit
like it was accompanied by a snare drum effect. That
was a tech that was a tech misstep on my end,
which the one and only Mission Control was able to save.
(04:05):
So if you like that episode, thank him specifically for
making it less unlistenable.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well, Paul does that for every episode for all of us.
The amount of popped peas that occur in this microphone,
I'm so sorry, Paul, yeah. It is.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Also what you're hearing are not our real voices. You're
hearing something run through a filter to remove our incredibly
thick British and Scottish accents.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yes, and the demonic, the weird demonic tones that come
out every once in a while. That's not our fault,
it's just how we are made.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Guys and props are videographer and YouTube mastermind James. He
goes through in every clip you see and he photo
shops in these human looking eyes. The pupil in the sclare.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, rotoscoping at the highest levels. See how he's tracking
them right now. Pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And so with that, with those thanks and a few
behind the scenes secrets, we want to thank you again
for joining us in an episode that we've always wanted
to do. We've done some things about this around this
in the past. What we're going to do today is
explore some of the original celebrities of the United States,
(05:27):
the original heroes and the villains of the country in
which we record today's show. Who are we talking about.
We're talking about the founding Fathers. Yes, yeah, two capital f's,
double f's for those guys. Matt, what do you think
of when you hear the phrase founding fathers.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
M I think about the ten dollars founding father without
a father, got a lot farther by working a lot harder,
being a self starter, being a lot. By fourteen, they
placed him in charge of a trading charter. I don't know.
For some reason, that's what happens in my head when
I think about that every day.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Right, Yes, we're we're eluding, of course, the Hamilton. You know,
as a kid, I naturally always thought of Benjamin Franklin
because there aren't a bunch of there. There aren't a
ton of Benjamin's in a lot of office right, or
in a lot of history books. So so I always
(06:27):
thought about that guy. I had a fascination with him
entirely based on the name. And you and I found
in an earlier exploration that he was once suspected of
being a serial killer.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
So well, yeah, or at least after the fact, it
was an odd thing, right, it was kind of people
discovered that there were bones in this in the basement
area of this one house where he lived at one point.
Weird stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And if you want to know why we're being careful
with how they how we phrase that, that's because we
have an episode you should check out if you haven't yet.
Was Benjamin Franklin a serial killer? Not going to spoil
it for you here, but he was. This was only
one weird story about the Founding Fathers of the United States.
So let's kick off part one of this episode by
(07:15):
answering the basic questions. We can't assume that everybody automatically
thinks of Ben Franklin or Alexander Hamilton when they hear
that phrase. We have a lot of listeners who are
not in the US. So here are the facts, Matt.
The Founding Fathers what who?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, they're not just all older white men with white
fake whigs standing around, though some of them did look
that way when they were around. It's really the Founding
Fathers is just a term for the group of people
that were instrumental informing what became the United States of America,
(07:54):
the country the documents that would really just guide what
this country would become, the United States, the one in
which Ben and Nolan, Paul and I live, and you
know it is it. Really, they're the people who formed
the current United States government. Really, it's just an evolution
(08:15):
from the thing that the seed that they planted And
you know, a lot of historians are going to differ
if you look to the writing and the research that's
occurred since the seventeen hundreds on the they're going to
differ on the specifics about some of these people. And
you really have to think about it this way. You've
(08:35):
got all these documents, right, the Declaration of Independence, the
document that declared that the United States was going to
be a new thing and separate from from England. Right,
Are all of those people who signed that document a
founding father or a founding person? In this case, it
(08:56):
is the founding fathers because they were all male, And
that's something we can address. But that's the fact of
the matter. And you know, that's one set of people,
and it's a fairly small number of human beings that
actually signed that document, fairly, But then there are a
lot of people who are actually there at the seventeen
(09:16):
eighty seven Constitutional Convention because those people were also extremely
instrumental in shaping like how you actually put into action
the words that are on these documents. Yeah, are they
all founding fathers? Is it?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Is it like fifty something people or is it more
like seven or eight? Because the lists can vary, you know,
And we also have to point out that this this
concept or this group term was generated after the actions
that led to the revolution in the formation of the country.
(09:53):
So if we wanted to go like MCU style or
Superhero movie style, or even Ocean's eleven style, let's call
it a heist.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
In many ways.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
It was a heist if you ask the people who
lived here before the Europeans came. But here's what we
think of. If we think of that as like an
ensemble cast, then we're really looking at less than ten people,
maybe seven or eight people who are sort of the
core avengers of this weird universe. We're building their folks
(10:27):
like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton. Of course Matt
I will not let him not get the shout out,
John Jay Thomas, Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
These are the people that were in the room when
it happened, for sure, yes, and.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
They each played, as individuals, a tremendous role in various
aspects of this country's history. But there are other people
that sometimes get added to the group, like Revere, one
of several people who warned that the British were coming
in a midnight ride. Were people like George Mason responsible
for the Bill of Rights, played a heavy role in
(11:11):
the creation of the Constitution, and then I believe refused
to sign it.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, and think of the countless number of humans that
fought in the Revolutionary War, who are all fighting for
the same thing, ostensibly or essentially, the independence of this
thing that would become the United States of America. I mean,
are are they founding fathers like any general or anyone
above what would be just considered a soldier or even
(11:39):
a soldier.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I mean, what about what about the what about the
non dudes who were instrumental and found in the country.
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
One hundred percent, one hundred percent, And you know it
is it's nice to be able to think about it
with seven or eight people, like you said, like the
ensemble Marvel version of the Founding Fathers, because you especially
if you're in class, you only have to memorize facts
about you know, a few individuals. But you know, as
(12:10):
an ensemble cast, this really is it's way, it's way
more people who would be considered Founding fathers out And
unless you're I guess we're just looking at the intellectual fathers,
which I really don't like this terminology. The intellectual I
don't know, creators, the George Lucases. I guess so they're Yeah,
(12:36):
they're They're the ideators. They're the people who had revolutionary
thought and put.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It into action and came from came often from places
of privilege such that they could enact those ideals and
pursue those ambitions. But what did they do well? In short,
A lot, a lot of stuff, like tons of that
would be the short answer. They did not always get along,
(13:03):
to say the least. There is a notable duel that
most Americans are aware about now because it plays a
big role in a musical that that Paul and Matt
and I love. I don't know, Paul, do you do
you like Hamilton? Oh so, Paul, Paul Michigan control Deck.
(13:25):
It just just told us he has in fact never
seen or heard Hamilton. Paul. I would love to travel
up to your neck of the woods when this pandemic
is over and go see the show with you and Matt.
I don't think a fit it in your schedule. Would
you be down to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
To actually see it like in person? Yeah? You guys,
you can get a trial of Disney Plus I think,
and watch it right now if you want to. And
it's great and it's the original cast.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Yeah, and they and they do great work with the
cameras and the cinematography as well, so it's not just
a stationary camera in a mid mid tier seat or something.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
By the way, Paul in New York, you can be
a new man, just so you know, you can be
a new man. You can.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Now I understand why none of these references are making
any sense to Paul, you know what I mean. So
Paul just told us even if he doesn't get it,
he can tell it's something from Hamilton, which gives Hamilton
the mark of a classic according to some literary critics.
But you know, Paul is currently kind of in the
(14:34):
eye of a hurricane culturally with Hamilton. You know, there's
quiet for a moment. But this, this is true. These
folks did a lot of stuff. They did not get along.
There's a very diplomatic way to put it. They did
not always brow up one hundred percent. They had some
beef points, and despite there at times profound differences in
(14:58):
opinions or motivations, they created the basis for the US.
They also created the institutions that were meant to propel
this nation forward. But if we're being realistic, what they
were really trying to do was their level best to
stop it from collapsing, because you know, like you said, Matt,
there's a benefit of retrospect that we have looking back
(15:21):
on these folks, and they had a benefit of retrospect
looking back on other folks, specifically empires that fell, and
they were like, Okay, this is what we we need
to avoid. And they also had some real hutsba about
this because we have to remember the grand experiments they
embarked upon, which continues today, had never been tried and
(15:43):
quite this way before. You know, it's like the first
person who put potato chips in a sandwich. Do we
dare disturb the universe?
Speaker 3 (15:52):
But that's a little exactly what.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
They're like.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
You know, we got a good sandwich going on here,
but really we need a crunch Wait a second, and
then America was formed? In America was formed?
Speaker 2 (16:08):
But how like that's the thing. Though history is a conversation,
it's not a series of discrete events occurring in a vacuum.
So these folks, regardless of how you feel. I mean,
I would say, regardless of whether you live in the US,
their actions affect you today in profound ways. The Constitution
and the institutions they created survive in heavily amended forms.
(16:33):
You see their faces on money. That's how you know
you made it. Man, when you get when your face
is on the money.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Oh yeah, hmm. You don't have to be a queen,
you could be a founding father. Sorry, I was just
thinking about is the queen still on the pound? Is
that still a thing? I haven't seen an actual physical
pound in quite a while.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yes, yes, that is correct, Matt. The queen is on
the definitely on the British coin, on the one pound
British coin. Well also have There's an interesting law across
the pond about this because upon the death of the
current queen, her picture will be removed from the currency.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Really and then the king, the king goes on there
just or if that's what actually happens.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, if there's a successful you know, peaceful transfer power,
which is never given, then whoever becomes the monarch gets
their face on the money at least maybe. I mean,
things can change pretty quickly. The current queen has been
the current queen for quite a long time. But that's
(17:46):
monarchies are going to play a big part today's episode.
For many years, the Founding Fathers were somewhat deified, right,
And you, if you are a certain age, you remember
the history books with these fantastic paintings of these bewigged
(18:08):
bestocking men who were you know, like politely and studiously
agree to something that everybody thought was a great idea
and everybody was happy about. That remains true to a
degree today, and it's unfair to the actual people not
to mention the students learning this. Modern historians are a
(18:29):
little bit more accurate about the problematic nature of some
of these founders and also those somewhat airbrushed stories we
hear many parts of them are true, but they were
often not the story entire So today that is what
we're tackling, you see, fellow conspiracy realist, These Founding Fathers
(18:55):
had a ton of acknowledged successes, but they also had
a ton of secrets. Some yeah, yeah, some are more
well known than others. And some of the truest ones
are the strangest ones and the ones that you should
bother you the most. So we're gonna pause for a moment,
for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll dive in.
(19:23):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So we're talking about the secrets of the founding fathers,
the acknowledged and unacknowledged things that kind of sully the
pristine reputations that many of us, including Ben and myself,
grew up with when we read about or talked about
the founding fathers of the United States. And the first
one it should be pretty obvious to everyone here, and
(19:48):
that is slavery. Yeah, and really all you have to
think about are the words that were in the Declaration
of Independence, the words that were in the Constitution, and
then how do you square all of that knowing that
chattel slavery was very much a thing when the United
States was founded, and it continued on for a long
(20:09):
time afterwards.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Right, there's not a good analog for this, because this
is the enslavement of human beings by the people who
said that human beings should be free. So just a
one piece, a snapshot of the hypocrisy there is. Imagine
that you have passed it's like any it's it's like
(20:33):
any vice law. Imagine you have passed a law where
you say Okay, no one in the Kingdom of Polandia
or in the Decand Republic can drink drink booze or
I don't know, do queludes or something. And and while
(20:54):
there while, while the rulers of Polandi are making this law,
they are off their gills on booze and pills and
they're still making these laws. The hypocrisy is avocracy. Doesn't
even describe how profoundly messed up this is. To be fair,
(21:15):
not all Founding fathers owned slaves. One founding father, notably
George Washington, owned slaves and later went on to manument
or free some of these, again human beings, but other
people like James Madison owned slaves. Didn't really seem soups
conflicted about it because they when they said all men
(21:38):
are created equal. Is misleading to not point out that
several of those folks in that room where it happened
did not think of all human beings as human beings.
So to them, this is more of a livestock situation.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
You know, We'll talk about a lot of the other stuff,
but the yeah, human beings are created equal based on
their skin as well as based on their gender. And
that is another major thing that you know, just has
to be addressed. It does say all men in there,
oh yeah, and it doesn't. It doesn't. I can't go
(22:15):
back and talk to James Madison or any of these
other people and say, well, did you meant all human
beings or because it really does feel like the way
the laws are being set up where you have to
be a male and own property and some of these
things feels like you're being specific as hell here.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Writing Take a take a page from Putin, write it
like any former Russian president, whoever.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
That might be. And you know, we're talking about these
founding fathers. There's one that you've probably heard a lot
about with reference to how he treated his slaves in
very specific ways, mister Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yes, Thomas Jefferson. I've got a quotation, might enjoy here.
People loved his peers, A lot of them loved Thomas Jefferson.
He definitely had some fans, he definitely had some enemies, obviously.
But there's a quote from John Quincy Adams in his
(23:15):
diary in seventeen eighty five. He writes, spent the evening
with mister Jefferson, whom.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I love to be with.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You can never be an hour in this man's company
without something of the marvelous Abigail Adams also described Jefferson
as one of the choice ones of the earth. He
was wealthy, he was well educated. He was a tremendous hypocrite,
because you see, he had a longstanding intimate relationship with
(23:48):
one Sally Hemings, who was at the time enslaved on
his estate. And if you have listened to any work
on ethics or the nature of m to consent, you
know that consent is impossible in that situation. For a
long time, the Jefferson estate and some other interested parties
(24:10):
fought against this story and said it was just a
rumor or besmirching the character of a man who was
so tremendously influential in this country's early history until the
advent of DNA testing, at which point there was a
very much there was very much a you are the
father moment with the descendants of Hemming and Jefferson. So
(24:34):
he wrote prolifically about a lot of noble ideas, a
lot of like lofty, beautiful things. Schnoi didn't write about Matt.
He didn't write about the mother of several of his children.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Ah Yeah, Sally Hemmings didn't make it into a lot
of that and to a lot of the ink there.
You know, it's really unfortunate. We just to continuous slavery
for a moment. We have spoken in the past about
large civilizations and anytime there are significant movements and increases
(25:12):
in like, let's say, a city and then expansion of
you know, an empire or something, slavery very often over
the course of history has played a crucial role in
doing those things because there are very few individuals who
are the intellectuals pushing forward on what should happen. But
(25:34):
then you need lots and lots and lots of manpower
to do extremely difficult grueling, a lot of times fatal work.
And you know, this is the case of the forming
of the United States and the expansion you know, westward,
as well as just the expansion in general of cities
(25:57):
and places to hold enough peoples as the states grew.
And it is really likes, it's messed up to think
about that, to think that, you you know, it's very
difficult to pay everybody at a great wage and to
you know, keep everybody happy while you're you're doing the
kind of things that they are doing, and it's a
(26:17):
really troubling thing to think about. And my five year
old son is here. I bought my son these many
A and W root beers because he tried I had
one a while ago. I hate to put a brand
out there, but I tried one a little while ago
and he wanted to take a sip and he thought
it was the best thing beer. Yeah. So now he's
(26:39):
brought he's bringing in a mini an W root Beer.
So hey, if you guys want to give us a sponsorship,
A and W root Beer many many cans. They're delicious.
It's made with aged vanilla and no caffeine.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I gotta be honest with you, you know, whenever I
get a whenever I run into root beer in the wild,
from now on, I am going to give it to
your kid, or do you? Because I can't abide root beer. Man,
it's too many, too many things going on.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
That's that's crazy. That's a that's a very I don't
really understand Rutier. I don't understand a lot of things.
But uh, but yeah, if you're a fan of that,
what is okay? What is root beer?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Root beer is oh what? I just lost the word
for it, what it actually is, what's there? What's the
actual route that's in there? Paul is a sasparilla. Sasparilla
was what sassafras? I think it's sasparilla, and that's a
type like an early version of root beer, and then
it became something.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Else and it's been made since the colonial era. Yes again,
I know we've got a lot of root beer fans
in the audience. It fits with the Today's show because
it is very much a North American drink. But maybe
I'm just yeah, it just doesn't click with me. I mean,
but there are a lot of things I just don't get.
(28:07):
It can't be everything, can't be for everyone.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Right, that makes sense, I understand, which.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Is what Jefferson must have thought segue when he lay
awake at night wondering about his rank hypocrisy.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's it. I'm sure it just gave
him nightmares.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Well, here's the thing is interesting. Apart mett So, Sally
Hemings worked as a maid in the Jefferson household for
two and a half years in Paris, and when she
was in Paris, France, that meant she was free. So
while she was free, the story goes. She negotiated with
(28:48):
Jefferson and said, not only will I return with you
to Monticello, but I will return to enslavement in exchange
for extraordinary privileges as they were called for herself and
freedom for her children, her unborn children. And so decades later,
Jefferson did free all of Heming's children.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Well that's nice, is it, because he.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Didn't do that for any other family unit of people
he enslaved.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, no, I agree. I'm saying that that is one
act that could be considered good.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
And so there we go.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I mean, I know it's a little depressing, but yes, yes, slavery.
A lot of Founding fathers were totally into it because
to your point, Matt, it was seen as an economic necessity, right,
no matter how else they dressed it up. And now
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor, who
I don't think is Illumination Global Unlimited, but you never know,
(29:48):
and then we'll be back to explore something that we've
touched on a little bit in the past. It's something
that was probably on all of our minds as soon
as we saw the title of this episode.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
And we're back. Okay, everyone, if you live in the
United States or many other parts of the world. You
may have been driving around in your local town, maybe
early on when you started driving, or when you really
started noticing things out the window as a kid, and
you probably saw a couple buildings, maybe one building in
(30:26):
your small town wherever you live, that had kind of
a strange symbol on it. You're not really sure what
it is. It's definitely a symbol, though, and there's not
a lot of words on it except for this one,
and it's Mason or free Mason or free masonry. And
maybe that led you down a curious path for the
(30:48):
rest of your life trying to figure out what that
was and what it is and what kind of control
it has over you and the surrounding world. And then
you realized one day, king about myself and all of
this by the way, you realize, oh wait, does this
have anything to do with the founding of this country
of the United States of America? Well, I love I
(31:11):
love this setup. Well yes, I'm really going on a
long walk here, but yes, yes it does. Because many
of the founding fathers that we've been speaking about this
whole episode were in fact free Masons or members of
the Free and Accepted Masons, or some version of the
Scottish Rite or some other sect within Masonry.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin, shout out to you, Bennie F James Monroe,
George Washington, many more. This is not a conspiracy theory.
This is just these are facts. Longtime listeners or anybody
who enjoys our YouTube page, you may recall the time
(31:55):
that Matt and I traveled to DC to check out
some of the theories or the claims for ourselfs, and
we found that there were there were a lot of
things that at least had the germ of truth, right, Like,
if a conspiracy theory is a pearl, then there is
a grain of sand that this pearl grew around. So
(32:20):
one of the weirdest examples would probably be the Washington Monument.
I think that I hope you didn't get tired of
me saying it when we were up there, Matt, But
one of the things that kept blowing my mind, it's
like who goes immediately to an obelisk? They're like, what
what do you think of? You know, they're pitching ideas,
and they're like, what do you think of when you
(32:40):
think of George Washington? And then there's like silence in
the room.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
And yeah, god it it just keeps going.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Somebody raises their hands like that.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
They're like you have a question, and they're like, no, no,
I'm doing this.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Build this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
What we learned when we made that video is that
the the obelisk was not the first thing they thought
about when they were going to create that monument. They
were going for a bit of a pantheon situation early,
with all of the Founding Fathers essentially enshrined in stone
together in this one thing that they were going to
(33:16):
call the Washington Monument. It was a bit of an
odd idea. It could have been cool. It's kind of
reminiscent if you've ever seen the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
If it's reminiscent of that. When you imagine a single
Founding father like Lincoln in stone just there as an
embodiment of that character, really not so much the man,
(33:37):
but the character from history of one of these Founding fathers,
and you just imagine that in a big circle, like
giant stone versions of the Founding Fathers in a big
circle out in the middle of the National Mall there.
That's what it could have been. But it was not.
It was an obelisk instead.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, due to budgetary constraints mainly, which is, you know,
something that's common in the government. But it looks, it
looks neat. It's clearly Greco Roman inspired. It's we should
emphasize though, the original design still did have an obelisk,
so whomever was in that room pitching these designs was
(34:20):
definitely like they were obelisk oriented to begin with. But
the other stuff we saw did prove that the ideals
of values of Masonry would have been common knowledge to
the founders of this country. This stuff has proven. It
(34:41):
only really verges into conspiracy when we explore the degree
to which people claim Masonic membership may or may not
have influenced the formation of the United States. And the
truth is probably best put this way. Did individual Freemason's
play a role in the Revolution and the creation of
(35:04):
the States, Absolutely clearly. But Masonry as an institution was
not some vast secret society. To go with the superhero comparison,
It's not as if Ben Franklin and George Washington were
shaking hands and leaning in and going HELI you know
(35:24):
what I mean.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
But they could have been doing secret handshakes. Oh, they
were definitely.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
No, the handshakes are like one of the funnest parts.
You can't skip the handshakes.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
But doesn't that just knowing that, doesn't that feel a
little weird?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah? Maybe I'm maybe I'm blind, Maybe I've got a
blind spot here.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
No, no, you know, and I'm I completely understand what
you're saying, Ben, and you're correct. It's just at the
same time, I don't know, it gives me this weird
feeling knowing that a lot of the people who decided
to go in this very divergent route from the way
(36:03):
history was going from, you know, breaking out from their place.
I'm doing quotations here in the world and having this revolution,
this revolutionary set of ideas and ideals like this group
of people were also a part of this club that
has you know, it puts forward a lot of values
(36:27):
that feel similar. I would just say.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yet, that's the thing though, That's what makes this so tantalizing, Right,
It's it's got that, it's got that umami. And also,
look at the French Revolution. It's it's a little it's
a little over simplistic to say that the French Revolution
was entirely the result of Freemasonry. But there were Freemasons who,
again as individuals, were active and in profoundly influencing society.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
You know. So this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
The Founding Fathers were not a Masonic cabal by any means.
Thomas Jefferson, not a freemason. Alexander Hamilton, not a Freemason,
would have made it into the musical.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
I'm sure Alexander Hamilton not a Freemason.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
I guess, yes, there it is.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
That's the one.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's probably on the Hamilton mixtape. But but but when
we think about this, so one thing that we've been
really grateful for as a show is that we have
had a lot of our fellow listeners right into us
who are active members of a lodge or were Masons
for some time. And the feedback we got to that
(37:43):
one question, which is like what do you what do
you have to do to get kicked out, was that
it was very reasonable. And this the reason I'm saying
this is that we have to understand back in this
time and era, masonry was maybe the ideals, the goals
(38:04):
of Masonry were things that the Founding Fathers would have
already been down with, you know, and some of the
people who are described as founding fathers or influential actors
in the revolution, some of those who are described as
being Masons. Also, that's a little misleading because several of
(38:27):
them did not go on to join Freemasonry until well
after the revolution, so they weren't part of some conspiracy.
But that's the thing, Okay, So Masonry holds values that
Founding Fathers themselves already were super down with self determination,
the right for groups of people to peaceably assemble, freedom
(38:49):
of the press, and of course the controversial would freedom
of religion, Believe what you want. These are all incredibly
radical ideas. They are anathema to the governing structure of
continental Europe. You could say that monarchies were anti Masonic
because the values of Masonry threatened their own very real,
(39:12):
pre existing conspiracy, which is how to control people and
keep yourself at the top.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Right, Yeah, top down control versus control by the of
the individual or control control of the group by the
individuals within the group. Oh, fascinating stuff. When you really
start to break down, like exactly what that means to
you have a republic or a democratic republic versus a monarchy,
(39:43):
but doesn't all that stuff sound like the Bill of
Rights been.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Right, right, and liberty equality and so on. Yeah, yeah,
they have a lot in common, you know what I mean?
And I is it do At what point does inspiration
become plagiaris? That's another question. But I want to go
into the concept here of the monarchy seen as a
(40:08):
conspiracy and why monarchies were often in several countries in
continental Europe against the propagation or the existence of masonry.
So monarchies did something incredibly clever, just objectively clever. They said, look,
we have to convince a group of people that vastly
(40:30):
outnumbers us that we are deserving of our privileged position.
If we are the be all and all authority, then
of course someone else will eventually want to topple us,
and they'll ask why. So let's not be quite the top.
(40:51):
Let's be kind of the middle management. Let's think of
earth or our country as like a call center, right
or cuticles, and we're in charge of the call center.
We're the boss of the earthly things. But we're only
the boss because the real boss is God. And the
(41:14):
real boss will get mad at you if you don't
do what we say. So they did like this really
clever middle management thing before that was really middle management.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
And uh, that's interesting to think about it that way.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And then they you know, you have to It doesn't
matter if you physically outnumber this privileged class, because what
really matters is that when you die, no matter how
you die, you will have to talk to the boss's boss,
and if the boss's boss finds out you weren't good
to your supervisor, then you'll be in trouble forever.
Speaker 3 (41:46):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I thought it was very clever.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
No, it's extremely clever.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
I didn't mean to discount by using the C word there.
I just, uh, it's a thought I haven't had before.
Using God as you know, whether you believe it or not,
as the as the your boss, as the boss that
(42:13):
is God. That's fascinating. Well okay, okay, I'll go with
you there. And I think that's really clever if that's
really what it was for. And again, that's the way
it feels right looking back from forty thousand feet the
way we can now, it feels as though a monarchy,
if even if it wasn't purposefully done in a conspiratorial
(42:36):
way to convince the masses that they're that, you know,
the monarchy's power was real and worth it and not
worth fighting against because of God. Even if that, even
if that wasn't a conspiracy to get you to believe that,
they still really did use it effectively in that way.
Didn't they any any and all monarchies or you know,
supreme leaders of any sort? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
I mean, because like the the closest modern evolution or
analog we would have to something like that would be
an olagarchy or a technocracy.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
But the thing with the monarch system, the system of monarchy,
is that spiritual belief is a control mechanism doesn't really
require the people profiting from that belief to believe in
it themselves. You know. That's not to say these folks exactly.
(43:29):
I love your point, because we're not saying that these
folks were intentionally and cynically doing this. You know, if
you are if you were born into a system that
teaches you that you're better than other people, and you're
supposed to be better than other people, and psychology proves
you have a very high likelihood of just accepting that,
(43:50):
it makes sense, you know what I mean. I always
think about that monopoly study, right, Remember that.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yeah, I do. I do. Remember that when you're winning,
it feels like you you did all this stuff to win.
You deserve it all because you're working really hard and
you're doing great. And the more the more wealthy you
are and better off you are, the more you feel
like you deserve it.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Mm hmmm, yep. Tour our earlier work on we just
phrased it as a very simple question, just to be wealthy.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Make you a horrible person something.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
That yes, the answer is, it makes it easy to
be a horrible person for sure. Just for background on
that real quick. The experiment, which was conducted at UC
Berkeley as a series of experiments, involved having people play
rigged games of monopoly. Monopoly is already a broken version
of something called the landlord game, right, the Landlord's game,
(44:44):
mind you.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
So that's that's just where you collect rent from everybody
and you make all the money.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Right, It's it's the original version of monopoly that had
a third round that was all about teaching people the
dangers of unrestrained capitalism. Right, And so when it was
stolen from the lady who invented it, the business that
propagated it just removed that last.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Round and you'll learn anything now, it's just you went.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Right exactly so Monopoly. Here's how the experiment went. It
would have groups of people, random people didn't really know
each other, playing games of Monopoly together, and one randomly
chosen player in a game would be given some advantages
twice as much money to start out, with more than
(45:41):
two dice to roll, with, more access to resources, so
you'd get more bonus points for passing go. Instead two
hundred dollars, you get like four hundred or five hundred
or something. And the goal was to study how people
behaved in these games. Here's what they found. They found
that actually, most people who got these uh these these
(46:03):
cheat codes early on, they won. They won the game.
It would be difficult for them to lose the game.
And the weird part is when they asked these people
after the game, they asked them, Hey, why do you
think you won? Do you think it had anything to
do with the way the game was rigged in your favor?
They said, well, you know, maybe that had a little
(46:26):
bit to do it. Maybe it had a little bit
to do with it. But uh, turns out I'm an
expert at monopoly. I am just super super good at it.
And I've played it before and this is just my experience,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
The game is the game.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
I don't I don't make the rules.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
Park places just landed in my lap. It's not my fault.
I mean, I just got there pretty easily and I
had the funds.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Why don't why don't these other people just not be
poor at the beginning of the game. That's what I
would have done. That's like, that's that's literally the reasoning.
This is a very interesting study. I know we're getting
off topic, but we're saying the same kind of psychology applies,
and so if you are in a situation this is
of course. Look, members of monarchies are not necessarily bad people.
(47:16):
They're humans, just like anybody else for the most part.
And of course they're going to be threatened by something,
any kind of organization that proposes to change the status quo.
If the status quo is profitable for them, that just
makes sense. So that's why Masonry was being intact. We
have to remember that the idea of attacking groups that
(47:39):
were a little more secular or addressed religion and spirituality
in a different way. They were being attacked sure because
it was seen as sort of a heretical stance, but
it was a heretical stance because it was threatening the
economic benefit of the people who who profited from that
(48:02):
current concept of God. So yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah, it does. I'm trying to think of it on
the individual level though, and it totally doesn't make sense
what you're saying, man, where there's a reason for the
status quota fight back against something like freemasonry. But you know,
on the religious side, I think the individual person is
(48:28):
going to also fight back against it for that heretical
stance or from that heretical stance, because it's different, right,
And anytime you've got something that is different outside of
the normal or what is considered to be normal, you're
going to have some kind of initial reaction at least
of aversion to it because it's you know, that's not
(48:50):
what we're supposed to do. I'm not supposed to do that. Well,
why do you get to do that? And why are
you doing that? I just think that's also very human
and natural in this case. When we're talking about freemasonry.
In any secret society or any club, private club for
that matter, there is this thing that comes along with it,
(49:14):
which is connection. Which is socializing, which is having that
secret handshake together that we were talking about, which is,
you know, even if we're just talking about congress or
you know, people who are trying to form a congress
or a new country or something, if you are able
to go up to that person and have that secret
handshake to let them know, oh, we have shared common values.
(49:36):
We you know, know a lot of the same people.
I can probably make another connection for you, or we
can make these other connections and get things done. Really,
that's what it means. I can go directly to someone
who is also probably wealthy and influential, just like you can,
and we can together gather enough forces, enough people, enough
(49:58):
intellectual and wa wealth power to take action. And that's
why it feels like freemasonry played a perhaps bigger part
in the formation of the United States than it did,
even though it did play a part it did.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
Yeah, and I think that's very well put. Also, I'm
a little biased because I have some fairly strong opinions
about the dangers of nepotism, which you know we've talked
about in previous episodes. But one thing you say that
really caught my attention, Matt, is the idea of society
(50:36):
of communication. You know a lot of people love that, right.
We have to remember these folks existed in a time
before social media. Your dank memes page is in a
way a lodge. You meet with people, You communicate in
a language that you and your fellows have evolved and understand,
(50:57):
and you have a common currency of what you consider
to be good ideas, right or funny means. I guess Look,
nobody go too deep into this comparison. I'm not saying
I'm not saying that the founding fathers would have just
sat around on meme pages if Facebook or Reddit was
around at the time. But this gave them a place
to hang out in chat. So it's they're not They're
(51:20):
not completely that different. And then you know, are the
values of masonry is there espoused? Are they bad? Is
there anyone who's going to read something like that and say, well,
I don't want I don't want people to assemble in
groups peacefully. It should only be violent.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well you're getting together, it's get
there's got to be pitchforks involved. To me, it's it's
very akin to LinkedIn or something where it really is
about having that close connection to somebody in a completely
different field in an industry who was also maybe a
captain of that industry that you you you essentially have
(52:00):
at your disposal a bunch of leavers of influence that
you can pull just because of your association in that group,
which isn't necessarily how it's always used, but it's a
it's the potential is there.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
And again we want to point out modern masonry does
tremendous charitable work. Yeah, they they are literally saving people's lives.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
So all of these clubs do Quanus Club, all of
these that where you have to become a member and
you join for one reason or another club.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
Won't let you in without.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
A membership, also doing doing tremendous work. Sam's Club. No.
But but really there's there's no denying the good that
a lot of these groups do. But but there's also
no denying the you know, and I'm sorry anyone who
is a member of the Masons right now or any
(52:55):
of these other clubs, there is a creepy factor for
anyone outside of the club just because of the secrecy involved.
And we've talked about that numerous times on this show,
and it will always be that way as long as
there is secrecy involved in enjoining and what happens behind
the doors.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Yeah, yeah, the rumor it happens. Without transparency, speculation thrives,
and there are a lot of commonalities. It would be
it would be naive to actually wouldn't even be naive.
It would be dishonest to look at the values proposed
by the Founding Fathers and the values espoused by Masonry
(53:34):
and say that there was zero overlap. That would just
be that's a that's a shell game. But off the bat,
we were reaching the end of part one of our
Secrets of the Founding Fathers, and off the bat, so
far we just talked about two absolutely true, incredibly crazy,
(53:54):
somewhat disturbing aspects of this group. Tune in for our
follow up episode later this week, where we dive into
even stranger seas we spill the tea.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Don't don't spill the tea. It took a long time
for that to steep. I can hear my dog in
the background as well. Wow, just lots of things happening
in my background today. And we very much look forward
to hearing what you out there have to say about this,
what you think about everything we've discussed in today's episode,
and we also, you know, hope you'll hang in there
(54:31):
for next week when we go deeper and deeper into
this sea has been put it of conspira ce crazy.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Okay, this is really weird stuff though, so so do
tune in and as Matt said, let us know what
you think. You can find us all over the place,
you know, crossroads at midnight, say the right words into
a mirror in the dart or find us on Facebook, Twitter,
or Instagram, you know, whichever of those is easiest for you.
(55:02):
I've got a great page called Here's Where it Gets Crazy,
where you can hang out with the best part of
this show or fellow listeners.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
If you hate.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Sipping the social needs, if it's if it's too if
social media itself is too much of a conspiracy for you,
then we have another way you can contact us.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
That's correct. I've never been a big fan of the
social meds. I always feel like it's too sweet. It's
just not it doesn't really it's not the same.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, you're not a You're not an ice sweet meads
a guy unsweet meads, unsweet social needs.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Yeah, yeah, I'm done with the unsweet social needs. But
also the honey involved in what you know? Anytime you're
gonna make an alcoholic beverage out of honey, I don't know.
I just let's not do it.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
You're a root beer guy. This has been established there we.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
Go sasparilla all day over. Whatever the stuff is that
you make a root beer out of h Yeah, you
you can call us. We have a number. It is
one eight three three st d w y t K.
You will hear Ben and then he will say here's
where it gets crazy. And then you can leave your message.
And when you leave that message, please tell us whether
(56:13):
or not you're okay with us using that message in
one of our listener mail episodes. And make sure you
tell us if we can use your name or not.
Just your first name generally is probably the right way
to go.
Speaker 2 (56:25):
And then if you've got a nickname that we think
is cool, then we'll we'll give you a shout out
for it.
Speaker 1 (56:31):
Don't be afraid to get weird with it.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
My favorite one still is our trucker friend who is
just howling with laughter as he was asking us these questions. Dude,
if you are out there, thank you. I still I
regularly listen to that one.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
He's got a couple now that we've got and they're wonderful,
So yeah, thank you. Please continue to do that. If
you want to become a character that leaves messages on
a frequent basis, that's fun too. We're into it.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
And if none of that quite founds your fathers, then
we have one other way. You can always contact us,
regardless of time, space or place. That is our email
address where we.
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want
(57:38):
you to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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