One listener explains ways to communicate about QAnon with relatives and friends. Another writes in to explore the difference between private contractors and US soldiers. And someone finally asks a question that's bugged the guys for years: Why are there so many Mattress Firms? All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Knowled. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It is time for our listener
mail segment of the week, and we have some doozies
(00:50):
for you. We've actually, we've been getting so much voicemail
recently that we before we got started today, we talked
a little bit about how we're going to tackle uh.
Were still uh, we're we're working on We're working on
the nevil list. We're checking it twice today. We've got
some amazing rabbit hole emails. And as we've been doing
(01:13):
with some of these segments in the past, uh, what
one of us picked something a little bit lighter, as
a bit of a breaker, a palate cleanser because the
other stuff is so heavy. Uh. We have people who
find themselves struggling with the belief system currently known as
Q and on. We have people asking questions about what
(01:37):
happens when you leave the US military but you're still
not retirement age and you have what Liam Neeson would
call a certain set of skills. And then we have
a another question that I think I don't know about
you guys, but it's been bugging me personally for a
number of years. Uh, it's about mattresses. But but new spoilers,
(01:59):
those spoilers. I do think these are three incredibly important topics.
Maybe the mattress one is not as important, but just
we're gonna do it anyway. Just roll with it, this
this thing that's happening right now. No, you have found
a wonderful email that pertains to something on everybody's mind recently,
(02:22):
Q and on. And I think both Matt and I
have had some personal experience with some of this stuff. Yeah,
as have I. I I think I think it's something that's
touched a lot of people, and it's so unexpected because
I think when we all first heard about this, it
just seemed like the fringe eest of the fringe, you know.
It really did not strike me personally anyway as something
that would take hold and get mainstream so much. But
(02:44):
as we learned from our fantastic discussion with Jake Hanrahan
about his amazing podcast Q Clearance, that goes into a
lot of this. It is I think a combination of
almost like a perfect storm of circumstances lead to Q
and On being so mainstream. Uh. First and foremost being
the way it was handled by the Trump administration and
(03:07):
not condemning it um, but also what led it to
even pick up the kind of critical mass that it did.
I think a lot a lot of it had to
do with people being really isolated and looking for answers
and literally being stuck in their homes because of of
COVID and quarantine and and it really does give you
kind of some pretty fascinating rabbit holes to go down
(03:27):
until you kind of look at it all from a
distance a bit more of a remove and realize that
a lot of stuff that goes into it just makes
absolutely no sense just on a functional just on like
a you know, consistency level, but also the notion that
you know, democrats are part of a elite cabal of
of pedophiles and murderers and cannibals. Uh, It's just you know,
(03:51):
it requires some pretty serious suspension of disbelief. So the
email that we got was from Valerie. He says, Hey, guys,
my husband and I to coverage your show last year
and have been completely hooked ever since. I was browsing
Reddit uh tonight and came across an a m A
thread from an x q and on believer. I was
fascinated by the thread and the discussion about the psychology
(04:13):
and tactics of cults. Because let's make no mistake, Um,
while you can't necessarily point to a leader, I mean
maybe this Q figure you could consider to be the leader,
but not in the same way traditional cults have a
single human being that is the figurehead at the four
of the movement. Um. You know, Q and On is
a basically decentralized Internet based cult. Uh. So Valerie goes
(04:36):
on to say, I thought I'd passed along the thread.
It would be super awesome if you got the redditor
on the show to talk about his experience. If not,
maybe just an episode or segment about x Q and honors.
I'm sure there are some folks talking about it. Boy,
are there ever? And yeah, this Reddit thread is it
actually was locked because of a lot of you know,
(04:57):
divisive chatter on it, and some of abuse of folks
that were you know, coming in here and kind of
hijacking the threat, etcetera, as you know the internet is
want to do. But um, I think the most interesting
thing to me about this was the recommendations this person,
having been on the inside, made for folks who are
trying to reach people, loved ones perhaps that have been
(05:20):
kind of sucked into this, uh, this situation. UM. I
think an initial reaction for some would be kind of
throwing your hands up and being really angry and disappointed
that someone that you know would would be taken in
by this. But oftentimes that kind of behavior and that
kind of you know, judgment just causes people to double
(05:40):
down more. And I think we've got some stories, you know,
from personal experiences of that very thing. Um. But this
is one of the most I think interesting takeaways from
the from the A m A uh realize you likely
can't argue your queue out of their beliefs. This is
the hardest thing to admit. Cults, harmful religions and ct
(06:00):
S been a a CT stand for I've been seeing
all over this post conspiracy theory or for c N
space T is another abbreviation. This is common to I think,
as we mentioned an earlier thing, a common way to
uh get people committed to a cult like belief is
to have exclusivity and terminology. You're absolutely right. You can
(06:23):
also stand for theorists. Yes, for sure. Thank you for clarifying. So, cults,
harmful religions, and ct s are all inclusive belief systems.
Often they provide us them narrative of the world with
good guys, bad guys, sheeple and enlightened. Uh. They provide
a sort of moral framework. Uh. They provide meaning, community belonging,
(06:44):
ego boosting, and answers to sometimes good questions. They are
a sort of mega belief that rests on multiple separate pillars. Thus,
no one single pillar falling is enough to topple it.
It's a fabulous point. Attacking a ct S belief head
on will be met with excuses and rationalizations, but likely
not honest introspection. I think we've seen this time and
(07:07):
time again with with cults throughout history. Uh. Try out
this is a really great point here made by the poster.
Try out street epistemology and learn about critical thinking, cult behavior,
and the psychology behind these things. I mentioned Peter Bogojin.
He has a neat, non threatening way of exploring and
unpacking people's beliefs. I have no idea how successful they
(07:29):
would be with ct s QUES, but the concept seems
promising to me. The bite cult model b I T.
Stories of people who left Westboro, Baptist Scientology, Mormonism, etcetera.
Might shed light on the sorts of factors that result
in people escaping harmful ideologies. Realize that cult stuff like
Q is a sort of mind virus. They have been programmed,
(07:51):
and deep programming is not easy. Rick Alan Ross seems
like a good source of info on this stuff, though
I don't have a lot of experience with him. Uh
some really good you know reading materials here, advice coming
from someone who was inside of this kind of belief
system and was able to escape it mentally. And I mean,
is this is a mental thing entirely. It's interesting. You're
(08:13):
not like going to a place, You're not living in
a compound, but the compound is like all of the Internet,
you know, and and and it's it's it's probably the
easiest most low level by in of a cult is
just having to log on and and click on things
on the internet as opposed to having to show up
perhaps do rituals, you know, live among your fellow cult members. Um,
(08:37):
but this, you know, I'd love to hear Ben and
Matt your your thoughts on this and and any stories
of individuals that you've come across you maybe are are
still in this or have have have kind of found
their way through it. I'll just have a quick story here.
The other day I was being a dad and hanging
(08:57):
with other dads at the park with our children and
met a new person named Rich. I will just call
him Rich for this. He runs in Atlanta bitcoin meet
up and it's fascinating dude into cryptocurrency, very intelligent and
doing very well for himself. And he was describing some
(09:19):
of at some of these meetups, there would every once
in a while be a person who would describe themselves
as you know, a Q and on believer or a
QUE And he just had a particular interaction with this
person where it seemed as though he was just attempting
to not bring him out of the Q thing, but
(09:39):
you know, just talk with him rationally about it. And
he was having difficulty with this person using thought terminating cliche.
It's something we've mentioned before a lot on the show.
And one thing that this post mentions at the bottom
down it's an edit down to the bottom of this
Reddit thread where he's saying that you know, colts use
these and he uses the phrase thought to eminating cliches,
(10:01):
and the one that Q and On uses is quote
trust the Plan, which is very similar to a lot
of religions phrase that you would use. Um, the Lord
works in mysterious way. Is this kind of thing where
it's just like, don't worry, it's gonna you know, you
don't have to understand everything. It's it's you know, there's
a there's reason behind all of this. I love this
(10:21):
one from Mormonism mat that I've never heard before. Doubt
your doubt. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a good one. Um.
The only reason why I bring up rich is that,
you know, the people that meet up with him in
these things are a lot of times a bit quiet,
so a lot of times keep to themselves, but are
also doing very well financially. And it's interesting to me that, um,
(10:46):
just how we as humans can operate and you know,
have such varying beliefs and why widely different beliefs but
also still be very successful, also still be very um. Yeah,
the whole point they're in springing up this interaction that
I had is that this person that I just met
said he had just met this new person and he
(11:08):
identified that immediately. And to me, the group of people
that he meets up with are all interested in cryptocurrency
and specifically in trading and watching you know, the trends
and buying and selling in the markets, and you have
to be intelligent to understand how those markets work and
to be successful within them. And it doesn't matter how
(11:33):
quote educated you are or intelligent you are. This kind
of thinking can sweep up at anybody, especially when it's uh,
when it creates a feedback loop of irrepressible self validation.
It's such a pet peeve of mine when people conflate
intelligence with some sort of immunity to UH. Two fallacies.
(11:58):
I mean, don't forget a ton of people who graduated Harvard.
We're racist when they came in, and they were racist
when they left. That is that is also a logical fallacy.
I would say, what makes Q and on and easy
buying comparatively is um not just not just the cult
like practices which we outlined in earlier video, but also
(12:20):
the a R gamification aspect of it. We've had a
lot of game designers come in and say like, well,
this is how I would have hooked people, this is
how I would make kind of a slot machine of
the mind that's always paying off a little bit and
a little bit and a little bit and getting you
into sunk cost on a deeper mode of level. And then,
(12:43):
of course, I think anybody outside of this when reading
the Q and On lore, which you can call it
lawre now, um, I think I can't be the only
person who read this and thought, whoa big failed screenwriter
energy here bub It did also turn out by the
A that one major Q and On influencer was identified
(13:06):
just what January as a writer, a failed screenwriter named
Robert Cornero Jr. Or if I want I need to
be more fair and aspiring screenwriter, it's it's uncol to
call it failed. But but with this in mind, um,
I would just like to read I want to be
(13:26):
careful for anonymity. I would like to read some statements
I found from people who doubled down post election on
Q and on. Uh let's see leading up to Q
and on and to keep this person. Uh, I mean
to keep this person as anonymous as possible. Going to
read this and get you guys reaction. Did you see
(13:47):
all the executive orders Trump put out today on January eighteenth.
He's not fighting for a job. President Trump has invested
everything in you and me. He's not going to concede
in two days. Do you hear me. He's allowed this
to play out because he's protecting us as an incredible leader.
He's not about to quit on us. He's a genius,
a master chess player. This is all according to plan.
(14:08):
God bless America, and that's the plan. Uh. The same
person after the election, UM went a little bit nuts, saying, see,
it's all part of the plan. Don't lose your faith.
Don't believe everything you see in here today. It's all
in motion behind the scenes. He won't let us down.
It might take some time. The best is yet to come.
(14:29):
God Spread, God Spread JFK Jr. I think that might
be a type of but as you guys know, JFK Jr.
Is a is a big figure in in the lore here. Um.
I love the point, No, I love love love the
point that Um, this poster makes on Reddit. Uh, it
(14:49):
is tempting to try to bully people to change their beliefs.
It's tempting to yell at them because really what you're
doing is just sort of mentally pleasuring yourself by making
yourself feel like you're even more righteous and validated. You're
not helping that person. And I would argue that most
people who are yelling at somebody let's to try and
(15:10):
get them to change their beliefs, aren't really trying to
change their beliefs. They're just trying to yell at someone. Street.
Epistemology is a cool name. It's also a Socratic method.
Listen to someone, hear them out, phrase things as questions
you know um, and and participate in active listening because
God knows, we are surrounded by thought terminating cliches every
(15:34):
single moment of the day. No one is any better
in that regard, I think. I think another really valuable
takeaway from this Reddit post is the idea of taking
care of yourself as well. When when you're trying to
not rescue somebody but make somebody see the light like
you have, there have to be boundaries that you set
for yourself, whether it's a family member, a loved one
(15:56):
or just a friend. Um, because this stuff is toxic.
And if you keep putting yourself out there time and
time again and the person keeps, you know, pushing the
stuff on you and not respecting those boundaries, there comes
a point where you do have to just say, Okay,
well I tried, I did my best, and it's not
your responsibility to save everybody. Uh. They say this person says,
(16:18):
love them, be there for them, but set boundaries. If
nothing above works, you need to protect yourself and manage
the potential damage and fall out on the relationship. Luckily,
I didn't hurt my family much because they mostly ignored
my rants and ramblings. If it's taking a toll on you,
you may need to make it clear that you just
can't engage with them about this anymore. And you know,
(16:38):
I'm gonna be completely candid. Uh. You know, my mother
isn't a Q and non person, but there are certain
things that she believes that I've had to draw a
line in the sand and just say I respectfully ask
that we not discuss this because I just it's it's
difficult for me to engage. Uh. And that's on me
(16:59):
on like like reading this, it almost makes me feel
like that was a cop out on my part because
I have taken the attack more of getting upset and
and and not treating her like with you know, it's
so easy to just, you know, condemn somebody for their beliefs,
as opposed to trying to hear them out and not
hear them out like, oh I, I maybe you can
(17:21):
convince me, because at least at least thinking that to me,
some of these these things are just lines in the sand.
Uh so often, but um, there are some other tactics
that I think are important. Explore their doubts. The poster says,
maybe there's something that your Q doesn't understand or doesn't
make sense. What is it? Asking questions is not the
same as confronting, and if done well, might have a
(17:43):
chance to crack some of their ideas or find out
if there are any conspiracies they don't believe. I hated
flat earthers and lizard folk while fully convinced we were
being visited by aliens and Democrats were eating babies. Maybe
if I had been encouraged to explore that discrepancy, I
would have flexed my atrophied critical thinking muscle, because again,
(18:04):
a big part about those thought terrainning cliches is to
shut down critical thinking. Sure, yeah, and the and the
the dilemma about that is that thought terminating cliches are
to a degree necessary for the type of abbreviated, dense
communication that we use in the current era. We don't
(18:25):
have a lot of deep learning, and frankly, there's often
not time for deep conversations in most people's lives. But
it can go too far. Just like you know, carrots
are great for you, but you can eat too many carrots,
which is not not my best analogy, but we sell
more time to have a good one. Uh. The issue
(18:46):
on the table is one of sunk cost fallacy. It's
also one of I would say pitchforking, because you have
to remember when people are confronted. This goes back into
our earlier episode on why you can't win an argument online.
When people are confronted and what they feel is a
(19:08):
belligerent way about something they believe or a hold to
be true, neurochemical research shows that they will double down.
The part of your brain sometimes called the reptilian brain
that has the anger and of ad stuff and the
killer be killed things. That is activity spikes there when
(19:28):
people are confronted, especially if they feel confronted, and it
doesn't matter whether or not there are facts involved in
that case, because then, um. The one of the reasons
people climber read this threat, but one of the reasons
people can sometimes fall into demonstrable untrue conspiracy theories is
(19:51):
because if there is a seed of truth to it,
it feels like critical thinking. It feels very much the same,
and to our brain sometimes the way that your brain
cannot recognize the difference between fake laughter and real laughter.
To our brain, this process of synthesis and analysis feels
(20:12):
the same whether we're looking at something that is actually
true or is just something we believe to be true. Uh.
In this case, it's a little different though, because they
did they did have foreign assistance, like the Q and
On movement had foreign dis info assistance, but maybe not
as much as people would like to think. A lot
(20:33):
of the seeds for this were home grown. And we're there,
you know what I mean. The car parts were already
there at one point or another. Someone was bound to
build the actual car and drive it. Uh. I don't know. See,
I I see some EXQ stuff happening, but I also
see this evolving over time, maybe maybe just something different.
(20:55):
The the beautiful insidious thing about trust the plan is
that the plan always changes, right, Like the predictions have
been wrong on the Q clock. Uh, the predictions have
been wrong regarding policy. Uh. The most recent I think,
(21:16):
perhaps the most shrill arguments leading up to the election
were incorrect in that they also cited things that just
don't happen in government. It's not as if the US
government has had for more than two centuries some kind
of secret plan for secret you know, legal mechanism that
(21:37):
they just never happened to use, you know what I mean.
It just it doesn't bear up to scrutiny. But that
doesn't mean the person who believes that should be anathema.
You know, it's not. It's not worth it's not worth
losing a real relationship with a loved one. If there
(21:59):
is a vie double alternative, which is hearing them out,
you know, listening more than we speak and asking well
intentioned questions, no gotcha questions. I just feel like, Okay, well,
what do you think about blah blah blah? Well who
do you think Q is? Well, Um, that's interesting. Why
do you think that that kind of stuff. You know,
Socrates had it right, I think that's very good man.
(22:21):
Scredit method all day. You know, it's not easy to
live with a conspiracy realist or a conspiracy theorist. Just
ask my wife, and uh, you know it's it's sorry,
so any and all loved ones out there, but hopefully, hopefully,
hopefully it's a mixture of good and bad, because that's
(22:44):
what we you know, this is the line that we
explore on the show, right, That's that's why this show exists,
that line between what is real and what is not
and how do we navigate that and let's do it together.
So I just want to say thank you so much
for writing in. Oh and last point to um, it's
pretty clear that I believe that Noel, Matt and I
(23:07):
do not subscribe two and have not subscribed to the
set of beliefs or allegations or claims to made by
Q and on. But if you do, in particular, then
please don't be afraid to write in. You know, I
want to hear you out. I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna instantly say you know, that's hogwash. I'm gonna listen
to what people are saying and the thing is that
(23:29):
I we did not find any of those predictions that
came true, and we got dunked on pretty hard by
some some listeners who very much did believe in Q
and On and very much did think we were giving
it short shrift. But we did our due diligence, I
would say, and we just we couldn't find anything anything
provable about it. But the important part of this sort
(23:53):
of reasoning is to put the truth over the opinion
or the comfort level. So don't be afraid and don't
feel like weirded out. No one's gonna no one's gonna
mock you or just send you some kind of egregious meme.
We want to hear from you. Although I am a
fan of an egregious meme, I'm not gonna lie. But
absolutely so, whether or not you've you know, you've found
(24:15):
your way in it, or you're in the thick of it, uh,
send us your stories. Uh. And I completely I'm on
board with you, Ben. I mean, I do not subscribe
to any of this, and I think a lot of
it is pretty toxic and dangerous. But I am absolutely
uh here with an open mind to have a conversation
about it with anyone, well said, And with that, thanks
(24:37):
again to our listener. We're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back with something completely different,
something that may also be conspiracy. Okay, I can't do
the Eddie Murphy thing and start laughing at jokes before
I make them. Anyway, sponsors, and we are back. We
(25:01):
received a wonderful email from Bridget. G Uh here's what
you said. Bridget. Bridget said, Hi, guys, I love your podcast.
It's interesting and entertaining. They call me a paranoid Cliff
Claven ha ha, all in fun. I have this curiosity
that has got me wondering for some time now. I
(25:21):
don't know if this is common in other states, but
in Minnesota we have so so many RV dealers, acres
of them, and hundreds of mattress stores. I did a
quick search on the r vs and there was eight
four seven in my little hometown alone. The mattress stores
are endless, so what the heck? Most people buy maybe
(25:44):
three mattresses in their adult life, and then r vs.
Who's buying all of these? The math doesn't add up.
Are these legit businesses or fronts for something? Money laundering?
Some kind of corporate tax fraud. Can you guys help
me out? Can you kill my curiosity? Thanks Bridget, Well,
thank you bridget First off, no, we're never going to
(26:06):
kill your curiosity. Our show depends upon people having curiosity,
so we can't We can't help you there, but we
can try to answer at least a couple of these questions.
Because it turns out that Matt Noel and I, along
with along with Mission Control and several of our colleagues,
we have we've talked about the weird thing with mattress
(26:29):
stores often sometimes sometimes over a few drinks, I'll admit,
because we're baffled just down the street from our hallowed studios.
Conspiracy HQ. We just decided to call it. Apparently in Atlanta, Georgia,
there are the meme is true. On the streets. There
(26:51):
are two mattress firms directly across from one another on
a street called Moorland. And these uh, these match as
firms are not different in any way other than their
physical location. Yeah, other than one's easier to get to
going in one direction, the other is easier to get
to going in the other direction. Demand is that high? Yeah?
I mean, what is going on? Maybe there's like, maybe
(27:15):
there's a subterranean passage linking them and it's all just
the same mattress store the way that uh, quaking Aspen
appears to be a bunch of different trees, but it's
one gigantic organism. Maybe all mattress firms are quaking Aspen style.
I don't really. These mattresses are stuffed with all manner
of illicit products, right right, right, Maybe there's some maybe
(27:38):
there's some code, you know what I mean, like you
ask for the footless mattress, like I'll have the hands
free mattress from the back. Uh, I don't understand. Uh, yes,
so this is so this is an interesting question. There
are a couple of ways to tackle it. R VS.
I'll be kind of a separate thing. But the mattresses.
(28:01):
First off, I was so clueless on this. I think
I may have mentioned it on the show before. I
drove past multiple mattress firms for years and years and years,
and it wasn't until a couple of years back that
I realized it's supposed to be some sort of pun.
I thought it just meant mattress organization, you know, like
(28:22):
I mean, you know, technically you want your mattress to
have just the rights amount of sync, just the right
amount of bounce, not too firm, not too soft. You
know what I mean? That goldilocks out is what you want.
It's up there with the time that I realized the
primary ingredient in traditional soy sauces, you know soy uh So. Look,
(28:45):
even if you overthink things, you're gonna miss some stuff.
So with this, there are a couple of answers. There
are a couple of possibilities. One you probably the most boring,
the most mundane, is at a store like a matress
store doesn't actually have to sell that many mattresses to
make their rent and some profit every month, right like you,
(29:08):
a mattress isn't particularly cheap unless you buy a used
one off Craigslist. It's true. It depends on how many
employees you have, you know, you know, another cost like
electricity and all these other things. Because I can imagine
it is true, you sell a couple of mattresses, you're
good to have a couple of people work in the store.
I went into one not long ago and there was
a single employee in there, and I actually made a
(29:32):
purchase in a mattress firm, you guys, So I'm I'm
maybe contributing to this whole problem. It was just a
bad frame, but still it was like to or something,
so it wasn't a cheap buy. Well, it's especially with
you know, obviously in the podcast business. We're we Will
you know, worked very closely with Casper and Purple and
(29:54):
all of these like online you know, way Farrell Cindy
a mattress, you can get the bargain Basement one off
of Amazon. Uh and and living in a society of
increasingly kind of issues going into brick and mortar show rooms,
you know, because we don't want to like talk to humans.
I guess, um, it's very interesting that these things are
still around. And I guess to to your point band
(30:14):
of the fact they can be kind of skeleton crude,
I still don't quite get it because they have to
pay commissions, you know as well. I mean that's the
only way that folks that sell them probably make money. Right,
it's a commission based thing if you're actually working in
a showroom. I imagine maybe if we break it down
by month, right, let's say, just picking numbers out of
the air, Let's say a store pays ten k a
(30:36):
month in rent. That's pretty high right in most parts
of the world. Uh. So let's say their margin profit
is like fifty and they're selling mattresses, uh for a
grand very expensive mattresses. Then I'm doing this just to
make very easy math. If you sell one mattress per
(30:59):
day in twenty days, you've made rent, and the rest
of those ten days that's all profit. That's that's everything
else you need, right, I guess you would say rent.
Let's say that's rent and utilities uh and insurance, operating costs, whatever.
So it could be possible that it's just very easy
to make money off of a mattress store, or it
(31:22):
was because to your point and all the rise of
online mattress ordering. Um, you know, it's probably probably a
huge disruptor for this. So that's like the that's like
the borrying, mundane answer, and it's probably true in many
situations the math might just work out. But again, there
are problems there. There there are problems, and then before
(31:46):
we get to those, just want to say one last
thing in support of this business model. You could argue
too that having a showroom is so rare these days
that it's almost like having advertising It's almost like having
like a very expensive billboard that you and walk into.
You know, because you can still order k order of
mattress firm stuff through a website as well, or they
(32:06):
exclusively work out of showrooms. I'm not familiar with the
workings of the firm. I know you can call them
and they'll have it ready for you when you pick
it up. We also have to point out that the conspiracy,
the conspiratorial aspect, the idea that there was money laundering
involved a lot of times when someone is trying to
(32:27):
launder money, people will have store fronts that are just
operations to clean dirty money. But often those are gonna
be things where a lot of cash transactions occur, like
casinos or car washes as breaking bad presented or parking lot. Yeah,
that's a great example. It's gonna say very very high
(32:48):
volume laundromat, but they would have to be washing a
lot of underwear or mattress sheets, yes, okay, to keep
things thematic. So this if somebody is laundry money through
a mattress store, it may not be their best choice
except for one thing. There is one real conspiracy that
(33:11):
happened in the world of mattress manufacturing. And it is this.
Mattresses used to be much more expensive to manufacture. The
margin on a mattress used to be lower, slimmer, smaller.
As the cost of manufacturing mattresses went down, Blame it
(33:34):
on outsourcing, blame it on better production methods, etcetera, the
retail price stayed approximately the same. So that margin get
biggers on Cameron cases YouTube, so that margin goes from
like a teeny bit here to a much higher proportion.
They're still not as large a margin as say a
(33:55):
pizza joint or popcorn at the movie theater, but now
you're making money that feels like hidden money. So now
maybe if you wanted to, if we wanted to launder
money through a mattress store, which is of course the
original dream the four of us have before we started podcast, uh,
then what you would do is this, you would start
(34:18):
cooking the books, not necessarily on the customer facing end,
you would start cooking the books internally on your internal cost.
And so now instead of paying uh, I don't know,
two hundred bucks cost for a mattress that you sell
for like eight hundred bucks, you say that you're buying
(34:40):
it for six hundred bucks and that your mark up
it is only two d dollars, and then now you
have an opportunity. There's something there at freeze. They kind
of backwards, but you can you can cease the gist here, right,
especially for the supplier you say you're selling at six hundred,
but you're really selling it two hundred. Then you get
(35:00):
he gets a wiggle route, right, he got some latitude.
You can make the big work in your direction. So
that that's a real thing that happened. But as far
as why there's so many, the primary argument against it
being a common money laundering scheme is just that there
are so many. Well, yeah, did you see what they did?
(35:20):
That this was a market strategy apparently that that mattress
firm started doing where they were buying up smaller chains.
As they would buy those up, they would end up
having a mattress firm right next to a mattress firm,
because mattress firm previously would move into territory where there
was already a local chain trying to sell mattresses and
(35:41):
put it across the street to be like, what's up
mattress firms here? How are you doing? What are you
gonna do? What are you gonna do sorry, little chain,
and then they buy that little chain, and now there
are two mattress firms looking at each other across Monroe
or which one is it? Morland? And you know that
this article has some interesting exerpts from a discussion on Reddit.
(36:04):
What what conspiracy theory buy into and why um and
other people from other parts of the country are pointing
out the exact same thing I remember seeing. This is
a quote. I remember seeing four mattress firms all on
each corner of an intersection once there is no way
there is such a demand for mattresses. Uh. And then
there's an edit. A few people seem confused. I'm talking
about multiple of the same mattress store, and that's exactly
(36:27):
what we're talking about, so we're very much on the
same page. There's also the point about show rooms, because
most people still would prefer to buy a mattress in person.
You're going to spend a third year life on it,
right ideally, so so what you would what you would
be looking for is an in person try out. You
(36:51):
want to go in and lay down on it. There's
a great key and Peel sketch about this too, but
it's not appropriate for work, and then and then you
would after after that. I don't think this happens to
a ton of people, but after that, some folks might
be embarrassed. You might be like, I went and laid
down on a dozen different things in your store, I
(37:11):
have to buy at least one. That's dude. I have
that feeling every time I go into a physical store.
I've been walking around here for like twenty minutes. I
gotta buy something anything again, right, sir? Do you need
do you need to pull something from the shelf. So
I'll just take the gum. Just give me the gum.
Give me the gum. I am on the complete opposite,
(37:35):
and I'll go into a mattress store and just lay
down on mattress with zero intention of buying anything, just
to catch a quick little, you know, chill time when
I'm at the mall. But I wanted to point out
really quickly. I went to the mattress from his website,
and they do offer the same exact stuff that the
Caspers and Purples and Lisas of the world offer, free
shipping direct door to door um or including hauling away
(37:57):
of your old mattress. They also offer a one hundred
and twenty nights sleep trial, which is a big factor
of Casper and a lot of those other companies. So
you can send it back if you're not satisfied. Um.
And they you know, they have like in house financing
and all of that, and of course they carry multiple brands. UM.
So it's interesting. I can see your point bent about
(38:18):
for some people, it is still important to be able
to kick the tires on the thing. People don't like
buying things sight unseen. And the the last point to
make there is really if you want to if you
want to have that vicarious living experience. I've never been
kicked out of an Ikea and I have fake lived
in those before. Uh, just in New York and lived
(38:44):
to one. You know the do you know the second
biggest furniture retail company in the world Rooms to Go. No,
what is it? It's the company that owns Mattress firm. No,
it's called Steinoff. I've never even heard of. That is
the European uh, South African. I think it was German.
(39:06):
Then the company moved to South Africa. I'm not exactly
sure who the whole background, but they purchased it for
they purchased Mattress firm for two point four billion. They're
not like a store there's they're a holding company, but
it's number two to Ikea, at least according to some
(39:27):
reporting from w b R as today on I wonder well,
bridget we are on the case. Uh. I just received
a text from the deep State at our an s
A intern uh, saying just thin ice but with a
heart emoji. So I don't didn't too much trouble. I
(39:48):
think we just need to pause, I have a word
from our sponsor and return with a different story before
the mattress octopus gets us. Don't look up the name,
Marcus juiced. Al Right, we are back, and we're going
(40:08):
to jump to an email we got from I'm going
to use your name Robert here it goes, go ahead
and use my name. My n s A agent probably
knew I would send this before I did. I did, Robert,
So you and your n s A agent, there you go.
That's your name, Robert, he says. I won't mention anyone
else's name, though I know several ex military that when
(40:32):
they came back from deployment have complained about PC's that's
private contractors and how they don't have to play by
the same rules because they were there as private protection
contractors and not as a country's armed forces. Some of them,
after serving their time, have decided to get out instead
of re instead of re upping going back, but then
(40:53):
got a job as a PC and went right back
to where they had just left. So I guess leaving
their military service then going back to the same place
they were as a private military contractor. UM the ones
I've asked why basically said that now they will finally
get to shoot the bad guys and do the stuff
they could not do as a soldier, and the pay
(41:16):
is much better, much much better. He says, So, how
does this apply to me? When serving as a member
of the U. S Armed forces? They have strict rules
of engagement that prohibit them from being the aggressor or
keep them from protecting the citizens living around them if
they themselves are not threatened. It's very frustrating and even
more frustrating if a PC a contractor can shoot a
(41:40):
known bad guy without it being an act of war.
I think most who see this and are frustrated that
they can't do anything about it are motivated to become
private contractors themselves so they can go and do what
they couldn't do themselves. To me, it's scary because it
floods the market with hired guns. Oh A, Robert, thank
(42:02):
you so much for writing in and for telling us
about your experience on this show. We've talked about private
military contractors before a bit briefly, I think on in
the audio side. We've got several videos you can go
check out if you wish to kind of get a
basis of knowledge around this topic um or you know,
maybe you have some experience yourself. Our coverage prior to
(42:24):
this has largely been on that line that Robert is
describing to you here between what's the difference between a
military officer or you know, a soldier in a military
and then a private contractor who is working on behalf
of that military and what rules apply to these two
different people, and what like in practice, what does that
(42:47):
look like? And some of the best examples that we've
gotten before in the past and looking at this came
from the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
The most recent war in Iraq. I don't know if
everyone remembers this, but back in the day, there was
a massacre that occurred in a rock at the hands
(43:07):
of some Blackwater employees, private military contractors who were there
in Iraq, and it was a you know, when the
reporting came out about it, it was very harrowing. It
was an awful thing that occurred. And originally Ben helped
me with this, but it originally when the story broke,
it felt as though these men weren't going to be
(43:31):
tried or they were they weren't going to be getting
in trouble initially, and I think that's why there was
such an outcry for it, because there were there were
these civilians in I Rock that got massacred by private
military contractors, and it seemed like there wasn't gonna be
any justice to talk about the Nisour Square massacres seven Blackwater,
(43:52):
and that was just initially what occurred. Um gosh, I'm
I'm having a hard time even alling back to this time.
Was that two thousand seven? Okay, so that was right
before Stuff they Don't Want You to Know became a
video series and you know, we were still looking at
this stuff and talking about it, uh in the first
(44:14):
several years of this show. But it it was a
rough thing to even think about that the United States
was sending over members of the military that were mercenaries.
That's I mean that you can think about it that way.
These private military contractors are mercenaries, human beings with guns
that have a mission to do a certain thing depending
(44:36):
on what they're told to do for pay. Yeah. Um.
And the reason why I think this is it's important
to address right now is because something happened about a
month ago that applies to those specific Blackwater employees or
former Blackwater employees who have been in jail for a
long time, quite quite a time. They were pardoned um
(44:59):
by the outgoing pre sennant Donald Trump. Now, the reason
why this is news is because it was seventeen innocent
civilian citizens who were gunned down in two thousand and
seven and then for for the you know, the top official,
the leader of the country that represented the killers to
(45:19):
say you are pardoned. Uh, it feels like a massive blow,
it does. And just just to be completely clear, they
were tried and found guilty in like in a civilian court,
right that that is correct, so you know they would
not have had the same protections. I guess you could
call it as actual members of the military who would
(45:40):
be tried internally or court martialed or what have you.
You know, based on whatever metric the Army uses to
decide whether something is a war crime or just collateral damage.
So this really blurs that line, doesn't it. It does,
It does, And you know we're not We're not gonna
sit here and tell you it's an easy situation to
(46:02):
deal with threats when you're operating in the field somewhere,
no matter who you are, if your military or private contractor,
it's not easy to assess dangers that are around you. Um.
And it's not always a black and white situation when
you know you have to fire your weapon or you
decide to fire your weapon. But in this particular circumstance,
(46:25):
I think I think it's a little easier to see
that there were unnecessary deaths that occurred here. Um. And
you know, again, it's easy for me to say sitting
here behind a microphone as a guy who's never been
in combat, but but good god it it's tough anyway.
We don't have to get stuck on on the pardons thing,
(46:46):
which is worth your time if you want to look
that up. What I do just want to continue talking
about is the future of private military contractors. Other instances
that have occurred where contractors have done something that they
shouldn't have done and either gotten away with it or
you know, we just don't know about yet. I think
it would be worth it for everyone listening right now
(47:08):
and for for us personally to look into that stuff further.
And Uh, and we would love to hear from you
if you're listening out there and you have experience, Matt,
What what was it that led this to be such
a big news story? Obviously it was reported, so there
was there were a journalist present, something happened, and and
(47:28):
to your point, I feel like stuff like this could
happen in a vacuum. Uh, and we'd never hear about it.
But what about this particular case caused it to be
such a you know, create such a public outcry. I
feel I feel like such a dunce here, Ben, Was
it not? Was it not leaked as part of a
wiki leaks thing? I feel like that's how I remember
learning about it. Um. I know it's not the Iraq
(47:51):
war tapes. Um. I'm just having a hard time recalling
because so so many things were so many things we're
coming out from wiki leaks around that time, Uh, you know,
around two thousand or maybe it's two thousand nine, but
it was just I remember watching the footage, the video
footage of some of it and reading the stories um
(48:14):
when we when we made those videos been and it
just well we we know that The New York Times
reported on this in two thousand seven, and there were
guards who witnessed the incident who also Blackwater guys, who
said that they felt the shootings were unjustified. And then
(48:37):
journalists began digging around and seeing some increasingly troubling things
about oversight, about the number of incidents where in Blackwater, uh,
Blackwater employees were firing first regardless of circumstance. That one
of the reasons this was such a big deal these
pardons on December is because is the people who got
(49:02):
pardoned had been sentenced to One of them have been
sentenced to life in prison. The other three have been
sentenced to thirty years in prison each, and that was
in twenty fifteen, because they went to trial in and
this was a this was a long legal saga, so
(49:23):
they served about five years, if you want to call
it that a little more than five years. And this
was seen as a profound insult to the family members
of the victims as well as rocky citizens in general,
where as you can imagine, the US has not the
best reputation. Uh. It also brings up and I think
(49:45):
this is what are this, this is what you're talking about, Robert.
It brings up some of these even larger questions about
the role of private contractors or if you want to
call them mercenaries, uh, in what what their role is
in a state military or state level armed forces armed
service Because you know, I don't know if you guys
(50:07):
remember what's called the rent a coup scandal. I do not.
That is that this is the accusation of you can
read a great thing by the Brookings Institution on this,
uh called outsourcing war. And this actually this happened before,
uh the before the events that we're talking about with Blackwater.
(50:28):
The idea was that the private military industry would give
several things plausible deniability, right, so you can say it
wasn't necessarily our country attacking you. Uh. It would also
blur the lines between civilians and soldiers, which you know
terrorism does that too, right. Uh. And then it also
(50:52):
had a profit motive. It can make a lot of
money for some people, not for everybody, but it can
make a lot of money for people and the at
least going to Brookings, the private military industry, it's very
much a thing emerged at the start of the nine nineties.
But I would be very careful with that. You could
say maybe the modern private military industry emerged at the
(51:14):
start of the nineteen nineties, but the history of war
is lousy with mercenaries, like it's a real it's a
real thing. And also, just to be completely fair, when
we say mercenaries, we're talking about people who are an
active hot combat right direct conflicts. A private contractor or
private military contractor is not always that. They could be
(51:38):
someone who's tasked with repairing vehicles, right, Uh, they could
be someone who's tasked with driving a truck somewhere in
a foreign country. There's not not all of these people
are like x X special forces or something like that.
It's very important to make that distinction. How of Burton
(52:00):
and all the people who are in a Rock and
Afghanistan building basis or or people who have decided to
take I don't know, it's tough because you could argue
there's something similar with the revolving door in the defense industry. Right,
you put your time in, you get to a high
enough level in Uncle Sam's organization, and then you just
(52:26):
on the strength of your connections joining a private organization.
So now you've got to you know, you've got to
sell all these new missiles. So you've got to sell
this new uh, this, this new helicopter armament or module.
So you are the person who knows Senator Farfignugen right,
because you work together. You're in the army. So people
(52:49):
will pay you easily half a million dollars just because
you know that guy, and you can call him and say,
you know, what's really kick ass this new stuff we
have for apaches. UM find is always good with the
Apache stuff. I noticed that. Well, I just want to
I think it's important for us to say, like, when
we're talking about this private public practice, not everybody involved
(53:12):
as a soldier. And I think it's also UM is
still troubling from from like the halls of Washington all
the way out to the most remote locale you could imagine.
This is troubling because it can make it can make
a double standard, you know what I mean. And then
what happens in negotiations when two countries or two groups
(53:34):
are trying to reach a piece of cord of some
sort and they say, okay, look, you need to answer
for this war crime that was committed. What happens when
the negotiators like, well, that technically wasn't us. We paid them,
but it wasn't us. Yeah, what happens when it's not
(53:55):
a private military contractor anymore and it's an alphabet boss Sston.
I was about to say, Boston market Boston Dynamics, Boston Marketing,
that's their main stream of income, I think, right. But
like if Boston Dynamics creation one of these robots that
(54:17):
is armed at some point in the future and carrying
out missions the same way a private contractor would, and
it malfunctions or does something incorrect, who gets blamed? Then
that's what our future is gonna look like. I think
it's worth us talking about this more, and we should. Well,
I wanted to ask a quick question of of both
of you guys, what are your thoughts in general on
(54:40):
the institution of the presidential pardon. I know that's a
big question, but I've always it's always like kind of
skis me out a little bit. It's like, did you
break the law? Were you convicted? Then that should stand
Like it feels like, I know, maybe it's harder to
swallow when it's something that feels unjust like this, And
there are certainly people that perhaps wrongfully convicted or a
(55:01):
pardon makes sense. This one did not feel that way.
But in general, it seems like an awful lot of
power for one person to just unequivocally wield with no oversight.
It's kind of weird because it ends up being your
personal perspective in the perspective of the president, right, that's
really the only thing that comes into it. I wish
(55:22):
it was more limited. I wish it was fewer pardons
could be given out. You know a hard number. I
don't if there is, I don't know it, but I've
never I've never seen anyone say whoa, whoa, will slow
down on the pardoning. Mr President. Yeah, there's no explicit
hard number. The biggest limiting factor is that you can
(55:43):
grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the US, accepting
cases of impeachment. I remember, impeachment can apply to uh
can apply to like a member of the judicial branch
as well, So that's that's what you cannot touch with
this uh UM. It was controversial from the time it's
(56:04):
from from the time of its inception. You know, people
like George Mason said this, I think it was Mason
had this quote where he was he was basically saying, look, Pardons,
makes sense if every president is as good as George Washington.
And let's be honest, my dudes, not all the presidents
(56:25):
that come after him are going to be as good
as this guy. We kind of locked out, and everybody's like, now,
come on, man, we're doing a we're doing a country thing.
It's gonna be great. We're starting We're doing a start
a country bit. So yeah, Pardons. Well, and even then,
like imagine in the Revolutionary War, if you're gonna pardon
someone who was working for the country, who was you know,
(56:48):
would be considered a patriot by many, but maybe that
person killed, you know, fifteen people in an effort to
to create that country and fight for the formation of
the United States, some people are gonna think that person
should stay in jail forever, do whatever, you know, remain
I'm just completely made up. I'm just saying, like you're
(57:10):
gonna have you're gonna have differing viewpoints. The it's the
freedom fighter terrorist thing, right. Well, Also, I don't want
to derail us here. But with the idea of a pardon,
you'll you'll hear it being portrayed as a mechanism for
combating corruption for a flawed judicial process, because remember the
(57:33):
primary threats of the primary potential for corruption in the
judicial branch is the fact that judges are often appointed
rather than elected. And you know, if you get ring
Raith status and you're one of the supremes, then you're
in there for life or until you cry uncle, uncle Sam.
(57:54):
I guess. So there is this it's meant to and
I think it's well intention and it's meant to be.
It's meant to give the executive branch the ability to
directly combat corruption in some other way, you know. Uh,
And it plays a huge role, or like clemency as
(58:15):
while plays a huge role when we talk about capital punishment,
which the US has just historically not done a great
job with, right And you can't you can go back
after you've killed an innocent person and admit that you
killed an innocent person, but they're still dead, you know.
So there's a lot writing on this, but pardons are
(58:36):
I think, still going to be controversial for a long time,
regardless of the administration agreed, and hey, we're gonna end here.
Thank you so much for writing in Robert, and and
thank you so much, bridget Uh. If you are if
you are affiliated, by the way, in any shape, form
(58:57):
or fashion with a mattress store, give us the scoop,
you know what I mean, You could contact us. You
can contact us directly. Uh. We we can't wait to
hear from you. And if you're a mattress sponsor, hey,
we're we're looking for him, so come come our way.
And as as we said earlier, of course, if you
(59:18):
are a former member of q and on or you
are currently you currently believe that there is still some
sand to some of this stuff, even if not all
of it, then we'd love to hear from you as well.
You can find us in the usual social media spots.
We are conspiracy stuff and conspiracy stuff show on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
You can also find us on our Facebook group. Here's
(59:40):
where it gets crazy, that's right. If you don't want
to use social media, hey check it out. Pick that
thing up that you're on TikTok on all day and
give us a call. We are one eight three three
st d w y t K. You can leave us
a message you will hear Ben, you will know exactly
what to do, and we'll listen for three minutes. I
(01:00:02):
am putting out a call to you, though I do
have one request. We have been getting in so many voicemails.
Please do your absolute best to leave one message, and
don't don't send us like four in a row or
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so many and we are filling up faster than we
(01:00:23):
can hear them. So uh, please do call us. Just
call us one time and make it succinct, and we
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to do that, there is a good old fashioned way
to contact us through that email. We are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
(01:00:59):
to know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Knowled. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It is time for our listener
mail segment of the week, and we have some doozies
(00:50):
for you. We've actually, we've been getting so much voicemail
recently that we before we got started today, we talked
a little bit about how we're going to tackle uh.
Were still uh, we're we're working on We're working on
the nevil list. We're checking it twice today. We've got
some amazing rabbit hole emails. And as we've been doing
(01:13):
with some of these segments in the past, uh, what
one of us picked something a little bit lighter, as
a bit of a breaker, a palate cleanser because the
other stuff is so heavy. Uh. We have people who
find themselves struggling with the belief system currently known as
Q and on. We have people asking questions about what
(01:37):
happens when you leave the US military but you're still
not retirement age and you have what Liam Neeson would
call a certain set of skills. And then we have
a another question that I think I don't know about
you guys, but it's been bugging me personally for a
number of years. Uh, it's about mattresses. But but new spoilers,
(01:59):
those spoilers. I do think these are three incredibly important topics.
Maybe the mattress one is not as important, but just
we're gonna do it anyway. Just roll with it, this
this thing that's happening right now. No, you have found
a wonderful email that pertains to something on everybody's mind recently,
(02:22):
Q and on. And I think both Matt and I
have had some personal experience with some of this stuff. Yeah,
as have I. I I think I think it's something that's
touched a lot of people, and it's so unexpected because
I think when we all first heard about this, it
just seemed like the fringe eest of the fringe, you know.
It really did not strike me personally anyway as something
that would take hold and get mainstream so much. But
(02:44):
as we learned from our fantastic discussion with Jake Hanrahan
about his amazing podcast Q Clearance, that goes into a
lot of this. It is I think a combination of
almost like a perfect storm of circumstances lead to Q
and On being so mainstream. Uh. First and foremost being
the way it was handled by the Trump administration and
(03:07):
not condemning it um, but also what led it to
even pick up the kind of critical mass that it did.
I think a lot a lot of it had to
do with people being really isolated and looking for answers
and literally being stuck in their homes because of of
COVID and quarantine and and it really does give you
kind of some pretty fascinating rabbit holes to go down
(03:27):
until you kind of look at it all from a
distance a bit more of a remove and realize that
a lot of stuff that goes into it just makes
absolutely no sense just on a functional just on like
a you know, consistency level, but also the notion that
you know, democrats are part of a elite cabal of
of pedophiles and murderers and cannibals. Uh, It's just you know,
(03:51):
it requires some pretty serious suspension of disbelief. So the
email that we got was from Valerie. He says, Hey, guys,
my husband and I to coverage your show last year
and have been completely hooked ever since. I was browsing
Reddit uh tonight and came across an a m A
thread from an x q and on believer. I was
fascinated by the thread and the discussion about the psychology
(04:13):
and tactics of cults. Because let's make no mistake, Um,
while you can't necessarily point to a leader, I mean
maybe this Q figure you could consider to be the leader,
but not in the same way traditional cults have a
single human being that is the figurehead at the four
of the movement. Um. You know, Q and On is
a basically decentralized Internet based cult. Uh. So Valerie goes
(04:36):
on to say, I thought I'd passed along the thread.
It would be super awesome if you got the redditor
on the show to talk about his experience. If not,
maybe just an episode or segment about x Q and honors.
I'm sure there are some folks talking about it. Boy,
are there ever? And yeah, this Reddit thread is it
actually was locked because of a lot of you know,
(04:57):
divisive chatter on it, and some of abuse of folks
that were you know, coming in here and kind of
hijacking the threat, etcetera, as you know the internet is
want to do. But um, I think the most interesting
thing to me about this was the recommendations this person,
having been on the inside, made for folks who are
trying to reach people, loved ones perhaps that have been
(05:20):
kind of sucked into this, uh, this situation. UM. I
think an initial reaction for some would be kind of
throwing your hands up and being really angry and disappointed
that someone that you know would would be taken in
by this. But oftentimes that kind of behavior and that
kind of you know, judgment just causes people to double
(05:40):
down more. And I think we've got some stories, you know,
from personal experiences of that very thing. Um. But this
is one of the most I think interesting takeaways from
the from the A m A uh realize you likely
can't argue your queue out of their beliefs. This is
the hardest thing to admit. Cults, harmful religions and ct
(06:00):
S been a a CT stand for I've been seeing
all over this post conspiracy theory or for c N
space T is another abbreviation. This is common to I think,
as we mentioned an earlier thing, a common way to
uh get people committed to a cult like belief is
to have exclusivity and terminology. You're absolutely right. You can
(06:23):
also stand for theorists. Yes, for sure. Thank you for clarifying. So, cults,
harmful religions, and ct s are all inclusive belief systems.
Often they provide us them narrative of the world with
good guys, bad guys, sheeple and enlightened. Uh. They provide
a sort of moral framework. Uh. They provide meaning, community belonging,
(06:44):
ego boosting, and answers to sometimes good questions. They are
a sort of mega belief that rests on multiple separate pillars. Thus,
no one single pillar falling is enough to topple it.
It's a fabulous point. Attacking a ct S belief head
on will be met with excuses and rationalizations, but likely
not honest introspection. I think we've seen this time and
(07:07):
time again with with cults throughout history. Uh. Try out
this is a really great point here made by the poster.
Try out street epistemology and learn about critical thinking, cult behavior,
and the psychology behind these things. I mentioned Peter Bogojin.
He has a neat, non threatening way of exploring and
unpacking people's beliefs. I have no idea how successful they
(07:29):
would be with ct s QUES, but the concept seems
promising to me. The bite cult model b I T.
Stories of people who left Westboro, Baptist Scientology, Mormonism, etcetera.
Might shed light on the sorts of factors that result
in people escaping harmful ideologies. Realize that cult stuff like
Q is a sort of mind virus. They have been programmed,
(07:51):
and deep programming is not easy. Rick Alan Ross seems
like a good source of info on this stuff, though
I don't have a lot of experience with him. Uh
some really good you know reading materials here, advice coming
from someone who was inside of this kind of belief
system and was able to escape it mentally. And I mean,
is this is a mental thing entirely. It's interesting. You're
(08:13):
not like going to a place, You're not living in
a compound, but the compound is like all of the Internet,
you know, and and and it's it's it's probably the
easiest most low level by in of a cult is
just having to log on and and click on things
on the internet as opposed to having to show up
perhaps do rituals, you know, live among your fellow cult members. Um,
(08:37):
but this, you know, I'd love to hear Ben and
Matt your your thoughts on this and and any stories
of individuals that you've come across you maybe are are
still in this or have have have kind of found
their way through it. I'll just have a quick story here.
The other day I was being a dad and hanging
(08:57):
with other dads at the park with our children and
met a new person named Rich. I will just call
him Rich for this. He runs in Atlanta bitcoin meet
up and it's fascinating dude into cryptocurrency, very intelligent and
doing very well for himself. And he was describing some
(09:19):
of at some of these meetups, there would every once
in a while be a person who would describe themselves
as you know, a Q and on believer or a
QUE And he just had a particular interaction with this
person where it seemed as though he was just attempting
to not bring him out of the Q thing, but
(09:39):
you know, just talk with him rationally about it. And
he was having difficulty with this person using thought terminating cliche.
It's something we've mentioned before a lot on the show.
And one thing that this post mentions at the bottom
down it's an edit down to the bottom of this
Reddit thread where he's saying that you know, colts use
these and he uses the phrase thought to eminating cliches,
(10:01):
and the one that Q and On uses is quote
trust the Plan, which is very similar to a lot
of religions phrase that you would use. Um, the Lord
works in mysterious way. Is this kind of thing where
it's just like, don't worry, it's gonna you know, you
don't have to understand everything. It's it's you know, there's
a there's reason behind all of this. I love this
(10:21):
one from Mormonism mat that I've never heard before. Doubt
your doubt. Yeah, that's I mean, that's a good one. Um.
The only reason why I bring up rich is that,
you know, the people that meet up with him in
these things are a lot of times a bit quiet,
so a lot of times keep to themselves, but are
also doing very well financially. And it's interesting to me that, um,
(10:46):
just how we as humans can operate and you know,
have such varying beliefs and why widely different beliefs but
also still be very successful, also still be very um. Yeah,
the whole point they're in springing up this interaction that
I had is that this person that I just met
said he had just met this new person and he
(11:08):
identified that immediately. And to me, the group of people
that he meets up with are all interested in cryptocurrency
and specifically in trading and watching you know, the trends
and buying and selling in the markets, and you have
to be intelligent to understand how those markets work and
to be successful within them. And it doesn't matter how
(11:33):
quote educated you are or intelligent you are. This kind
of thinking can sweep up at anybody, especially when it's uh,
when it creates a feedback loop of irrepressible self validation.
It's such a pet peeve of mine when people conflate
intelligence with some sort of immunity to UH. Two fallacies.
(11:58):
I mean, don't forget a ton of people who graduated Harvard.
We're racist when they came in, and they were racist
when they left. That is that is also a logical fallacy.
I would say, what makes Q and on and easy
buying comparatively is um not just not just the cult
like practices which we outlined in earlier video, but also
(12:20):
the a R gamification aspect of it. We've had a
lot of game designers come in and say like, well,
this is how I would have hooked people, this is
how I would make kind of a slot machine of
the mind that's always paying off a little bit and
a little bit and a little bit and getting you
into sunk cost on a deeper mode of level. And then,
(12:43):
of course, I think anybody outside of this when reading
the Q and On lore, which you can call it
lawre now, um, I think I can't be the only
person who read this and thought, whoa big failed screenwriter
energy here bub It did also turn out by the
A that one major Q and On influencer was identified
(13:06):
just what January as a writer, a failed screenwriter named
Robert Cornero Jr. Or if I want I need to
be more fair and aspiring screenwriter, it's it's uncol to
call it failed. But but with this in mind, um,
I would just like to read I want to be
(13:26):
careful for anonymity. I would like to read some statements
I found from people who doubled down post election on
Q and on. Uh let's see leading up to Q
and on and to keep this person. Uh, I mean
to keep this person as anonymous as possible. Going to
read this and get you guys reaction. Did you see
(13:47):
all the executive orders Trump put out today on January eighteenth.
He's not fighting for a job. President Trump has invested
everything in you and me. He's not going to concede
in two days. Do you hear me. He's allowed this
to play out because he's protecting us as an incredible leader.
He's not about to quit on us. He's a genius,
a master chess player. This is all according to plan.
(14:08):
God bless America, and that's the plan. Uh. The same
person after the election, UM went a little bit nuts, saying, see,
it's all part of the plan. Don't lose your faith.
Don't believe everything you see in here today. It's all
in motion behind the scenes. He won't let us down.
It might take some time. The best is yet to come.
(14:29):
God Spread, God Spread JFK Jr. I think that might
be a type of but as you guys know, JFK Jr.
Is a is a big figure in in the lore here. Um.
I love the point, No, I love love love the
point that Um, this poster makes on Reddit. Uh, it
(14:49):
is tempting to try to bully people to change their beliefs.
It's tempting to yell at them because really what you're
doing is just sort of mentally pleasuring yourself by making
yourself feel like you're even more righteous and validated. You're
not helping that person. And I would argue that most
people who are yelling at somebody let's to try and
(15:10):
get them to change their beliefs, aren't really trying to
change their beliefs. They're just trying to yell at someone. Street.
Epistemology is a cool name. It's also a Socratic method.
Listen to someone, hear them out, phrase things as questions
you know um, and and participate in active listening because
God knows, we are surrounded by thought terminating cliches every
(15:34):
single moment of the day. No one is any better
in that regard, I think. I think another really valuable
takeaway from this Reddit post is the idea of taking
care of yourself as well. When when you're trying to
not rescue somebody but make somebody see the light like
you have, there have to be boundaries that you set
for yourself, whether it's a family member, a loved one
(15:56):
or just a friend. Um, because this stuff is toxic.
And if you keep putting yourself out there time and
time again and the person keeps, you know, pushing the
stuff on you and not respecting those boundaries, there comes
a point where you do have to just say, Okay,
well I tried, I did my best, and it's not
your responsibility to save everybody. Uh. They say this person says,
(16:18):
love them, be there for them, but set boundaries. If
nothing above works, you need to protect yourself and manage
the potential damage and fall out on the relationship. Luckily,
I didn't hurt my family much because they mostly ignored
my rants and ramblings. If it's taking a toll on you,
you may need to make it clear that you just
can't engage with them about this anymore. And you know,
(16:38):
I'm gonna be completely candid. Uh. You know, my mother
isn't a Q and non person, but there are certain
things that she believes that I've had to draw a
line in the sand and just say I respectfully ask
that we not discuss this because I just it's it's
difficult for me to engage. Uh. And that's on me
(16:59):
on like like reading this, it almost makes me feel
like that was a cop out on my part because
I have taken the attack more of getting upset and
and and not treating her like with you know, it's
so easy to just, you know, condemn somebody for their beliefs,
as opposed to trying to hear them out and not
hear them out like, oh I, I maybe you can
(17:21):
convince me, because at least at least thinking that to me,
some of these these things are just lines in the sand.
Uh so often, but um, there are some other tactics
that I think are important. Explore their doubts. The poster says,
maybe there's something that your Q doesn't understand or doesn't
make sense. What is it? Asking questions is not the
same as confronting, and if done well, might have a
(17:43):
chance to crack some of their ideas or find out
if there are any conspiracies they don't believe. I hated
flat earthers and lizard folk while fully convinced we were
being visited by aliens and Democrats were eating babies. Maybe
if I had been encouraged to explore that discrepancy, I
would have flexed my atrophied critical thinking muscle, because again,
(18:04):
a big part about those thought terrainning cliches is to
shut down critical thinking. Sure, yeah, and the and the
the dilemma about that is that thought terminating cliches are
to a degree necessary for the type of abbreviated, dense
communication that we use in the current era. We don't
(18:25):
have a lot of deep learning, and frankly, there's often
not time for deep conversations in most people's lives. But
it can go too far. Just like you know, carrots
are great for you, but you can eat too many carrots,
which is not not my best analogy, but we sell
more time to have a good one. Uh. The issue
(18:46):
on the table is one of sunk cost fallacy. It's
also one of I would say pitchforking, because you have
to remember when people are confronted. This goes back into
our earlier episode on why you can't win an argument online.
When people are confronted and what they feel is a
(19:08):
belligerent way about something they believe or a hold to
be true, neurochemical research shows that they will double down.
The part of your brain sometimes called the reptilian brain
that has the anger and of ad stuff and the
killer be killed things. That is activity spikes there when
(19:28):
people are confronted, especially if they feel confronted, and it
doesn't matter whether or not there are facts involved in
that case, because then, um. The one of the reasons
people climber read this threat, but one of the reasons
people can sometimes fall into demonstrable untrue conspiracy theories is
(19:51):
because if there is a seed of truth to it,
it feels like critical thinking. It feels very much the same,
and to our brain sometimes the way that your brain
cannot recognize the difference between fake laughter and real laughter.
To our brain, this process of synthesis and analysis feels
(20:12):
the same whether we're looking at something that is actually
true or is just something we believe to be true. Uh.
In this case, it's a little different though, because they
did they did have foreign assistance, like the Q and
On movement had foreign dis info assistance, but maybe not
as much as people would like to think. A lot
(20:33):
of the seeds for this were home grown. And we're there,
you know what I mean. The car parts were already
there at one point or another. Someone was bound to
build the actual car and drive it. Uh. I don't know. See,
I I see some EXQ stuff happening, but I also
see this evolving over time, maybe maybe just something different.
(20:55):
The the beautiful insidious thing about trust the plan is
that the plan always changes, right, Like the predictions have
been wrong on the Q clock. Uh, the predictions have
been wrong regarding policy. Uh. The most recent I think,
(21:16):
perhaps the most shrill arguments leading up to the election
were incorrect in that they also cited things that just
don't happen in government. It's not as if the US
government has had for more than two centuries some kind
of secret plan for secret you know, legal mechanism that
(21:37):
they just never happened to use, you know what I mean.
It just it doesn't bear up to scrutiny. But that
doesn't mean the person who believes that should be anathema.
You know, it's not. It's not worth it's not worth
losing a real relationship with a loved one. If there
(21:59):
is a vie double alternative, which is hearing them out,
you know, listening more than we speak and asking well
intentioned questions, no gotcha questions. I just feel like, Okay, well,
what do you think about blah blah blah? Well who
do you think Q is? Well, Um, that's interesting. Why
do you think that that kind of stuff. You know,
Socrates had it right, I think that's very good man.
(22:21):
Scredit method all day. You know, it's not easy to
live with a conspiracy realist or a conspiracy theorist. Just
ask my wife, and uh, you know it's it's sorry,
so any and all loved ones out there, but hopefully, hopefully,
hopefully it's a mixture of good and bad, because that's
(22:44):
what we you know, this is the line that we
explore on the show, right, That's that's why this show exists,
that line between what is real and what is not
and how do we navigate that and let's do it together.
So I just want to say thank you so much
for writing in. Oh and last point to um, it's
pretty clear that I believe that Noel, Matt and I
(23:07):
do not subscribe two and have not subscribed to the
set of beliefs or allegations or claims to made by
Q and on. But if you do, in particular, then
please don't be afraid to write in. You know, I
want to hear you out. I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna instantly say you know, that's hogwash. I'm gonna listen
to what people are saying and the thing is that
(23:29):
I we did not find any of those predictions that
came true, and we got dunked on pretty hard by
some some listeners who very much did believe in Q
and On and very much did think we were giving
it short shrift. But we did our due diligence, I
would say, and we just we couldn't find anything anything
provable about it. But the important part of this sort
(23:53):
of reasoning is to put the truth over the opinion
or the comfort level. So don't be afraid and don't
feel like weirded out. No one's gonna no one's gonna
mock you or just send you some kind of egregious meme.
We want to hear from you. Although I am a
fan of an egregious meme, I'm not gonna lie. But
absolutely so, whether or not you've you know, you've found
(24:15):
your way in it, or you're in the thick of it, uh,
send us your stories. Uh. And I completely I'm on
board with you, Ben. I mean, I do not subscribe
to any of this, and I think a lot of
it is pretty toxic and dangerous. But I am absolutely
uh here with an open mind to have a conversation
about it with anyone, well said, And with that, thanks
(24:37):
again to our listener. We're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back with something completely different,
something that may also be conspiracy. Okay, I can't do
the Eddie Murphy thing and start laughing at jokes before
I make them. Anyway, sponsors, and we are back. We
(25:01):
received a wonderful email from Bridget. G Uh here's what
you said. Bridget. Bridget said, Hi, guys, I love your podcast.
It's interesting and entertaining. They call me a paranoid Cliff
Claven ha ha, all in fun. I have this curiosity
that has got me wondering for some time now. I
(25:21):
don't know if this is common in other states, but
in Minnesota we have so so many RV dealers, acres
of them, and hundreds of mattress stores. I did a
quick search on the r vs and there was eight
four seven in my little hometown alone. The mattress stores
are endless, so what the heck? Most people buy maybe
(25:44):
three mattresses in their adult life, and then r vs.
Who's buying all of these? The math doesn't add up.
Are these legit businesses or fronts for something? Money laundering?
Some kind of corporate tax fraud. Can you guys help
me out? Can you kill my curiosity? Thanks Bridget, Well,
thank you bridget First off, no, we're never going to
(26:06):
kill your curiosity. Our show depends upon people having curiosity,
so we can't We can't help you there, but we
can try to answer at least a couple of these questions.
Because it turns out that Matt Noel and I, along
with along with Mission Control and several of our colleagues,
we have we've talked about the weird thing with mattress
(26:29):
stores often sometimes sometimes over a few drinks, I'll admit,
because we're baffled just down the street from our hallowed studios.
Conspiracy HQ. We just decided to call it. Apparently in Atlanta, Georgia,
there are the meme is true. On the streets. There
(26:51):
are two mattress firms directly across from one another on
a street called Moorland. And these uh, these match as
firms are not different in any way other than their
physical location. Yeah, other than one's easier to get to
going in one direction, the other is easier to get
to going in the other direction. Demand is that high? Yeah?
I mean, what is going on? Maybe there's like, maybe
(27:15):
there's a subterranean passage linking them and it's all just
the same mattress store the way that uh, quaking Aspen
appears to be a bunch of different trees, but it's
one gigantic organism. Maybe all mattress firms are quaking Aspen style.
I don't really. These mattresses are stuffed with all manner
of illicit products, right right, right, Maybe there's some maybe
(27:38):
there's some code, you know what I mean, like you
ask for the footless mattress, like I'll have the hands
free mattress from the back. Uh, I don't understand. Uh, yes,
so this is so this is an interesting question. There
are a couple of ways to tackle it. R VS.
I'll be kind of a separate thing. But the mattresses.
(28:01):
First off, I was so clueless on this. I think
I may have mentioned it on the show before. I
drove past multiple mattress firms for years and years and years,
and it wasn't until a couple of years back that
I realized it's supposed to be some sort of pun.
I thought it just meant mattress organization, you know, like
(28:22):
I mean, you know, technically you want your mattress to
have just the rights amount of sync, just the right
amount of bounce, not too firm, not too soft. You
know what I mean? That goldilocks out is what you want.
It's up there with the time that I realized the
primary ingredient in traditional soy sauces, you know soy uh So. Look,
(28:45):
even if you overthink things, you're gonna miss some stuff.
So with this, there are a couple of answers. There
are a couple of possibilities. One you probably the most boring,
the most mundane, is at a store like a matress
store doesn't actually have to sell that many mattresses to
make their rent and some profit every month, right like you,
(29:08):
a mattress isn't particularly cheap unless you buy a used
one off Craigslist. It's true. It depends on how many
employees you have, you know, you know, another cost like
electricity and all these other things. Because I can imagine
it is true, you sell a couple of mattresses, you're
good to have a couple of people work in the store.
I went into one not long ago and there was
a single employee in there, and I actually made a
(29:32):
purchase in a mattress firm, you guys, So I'm I'm
maybe contributing to this whole problem. It was just a
bad frame, but still it was like to or something,
so it wasn't a cheap buy. Well, it's especially with
you know, obviously in the podcast business. We're we Will
you know, worked very closely with Casper and Purple and
(29:54):
all of these like online you know, way Farrell Cindy
a mattress, you can get the bargain Basement one off
of Amazon. Uh and and living in a society of
increasingly kind of issues going into brick and mortar show rooms,
you know, because we don't want to like talk to humans.
I guess, um, it's very interesting that these things are
still around. And I guess to to your point band
(30:14):
of the fact they can be kind of skeleton crude,
I still don't quite get it because they have to
pay commissions, you know as well. I mean that's the
only way that folks that sell them probably make money. Right,
it's a commission based thing if you're actually working in
a showroom. I imagine maybe if we break it down
by month, right, let's say, just picking numbers out of
the air, Let's say a store pays ten k a
(30:36):
month in rent. That's pretty high right in most parts
of the world. Uh. So let's say their margin profit
is like fifty and they're selling mattresses, uh for a
grand very expensive mattresses. Then I'm doing this just to
make very easy math. If you sell one mattress per
(30:59):
day in twenty days, you've made rent, and the rest
of those ten days that's all profit. That's that's everything
else you need, right, I guess you would say rent.
Let's say that's rent and utilities uh and insurance, operating costs, whatever.
So it could be possible that it's just very easy
to make money off of a mattress store, or it
(31:22):
was because to your point and all the rise of
online mattress ordering. Um, you know, it's probably probably a
huge disruptor for this. So that's like the that's like
the borrying, mundane answer, and it's probably true in many
situations the math might just work out. But again, there
are problems there. There there are problems, and then before
(31:46):
we get to those, just want to say one last
thing in support of this business model. You could argue
too that having a showroom is so rare these days
that it's almost like having advertising It's almost like having
like a very expensive billboard that you and walk into.
You know, because you can still order k order of
mattress firm stuff through a website as well, or they
(32:06):
exclusively work out of showrooms. I'm not familiar with the
workings of the firm. I know you can call them
and they'll have it ready for you when you pick
it up. We also have to point out that the conspiracy,
the conspiratorial aspect, the idea that there was money laundering
involved a lot of times when someone is trying to
(32:27):
launder money, people will have store fronts that are just
operations to clean dirty money. But often those are gonna
be things where a lot of cash transactions occur, like
casinos or car washes as breaking bad presented or parking lot. Yeah,
that's a great example. It's gonna say very very high
(32:48):
volume laundromat, but they would have to be washing a
lot of underwear or mattress sheets, yes, okay, to keep
things thematic. So this if somebody is laundry money through
a mattress store, it may not be their best choice
except for one thing. There is one real conspiracy that
(33:11):
happened in the world of mattress manufacturing. And it is this.
Mattresses used to be much more expensive to manufacture. The
margin on a mattress used to be lower, slimmer, smaller.
As the cost of manufacturing mattresses went down, Blame it
(33:34):
on outsourcing, blame it on better production methods, etcetera, the
retail price stayed approximately the same. So that margin get
biggers on Cameron cases YouTube, so that margin goes from
like a teeny bit here to a much higher proportion.
They're still not as large a margin as say a
(33:55):
pizza joint or popcorn at the movie theater, but now
you're making money that feels like hidden money. So now
maybe if you wanted to, if we wanted to launder
money through a mattress store, which is of course the
original dream the four of us have before we started podcast, uh,
then what you would do is this, you would start
(34:18):
cooking the books, not necessarily on the customer facing end,
you would start cooking the books internally on your internal cost.
And so now instead of paying uh, I don't know,
two hundred bucks cost for a mattress that you sell
for like eight hundred bucks, you say that you're buying
(34:40):
it for six hundred bucks and that your mark up
it is only two d dollars, and then now you
have an opportunity. There's something there at freeze. They kind
of backwards, but you can you can cease the gist here, right,
especially for the supplier you say you're selling at six hundred,
but you're really selling it two hundred. Then you get
(35:00):
he gets a wiggle route, right, he got some latitude.
You can make the big work in your direction. So
that that's a real thing that happened. But as far
as why there's so many, the primary argument against it
being a common money laundering scheme is just that there
are so many. Well, yeah, did you see what they did?
(35:20):
That this was a market strategy apparently that that mattress
firm started doing where they were buying up smaller chains.
As they would buy those up, they would end up
having a mattress firm right next to a mattress firm,
because mattress firm previously would move into territory where there
was already a local chain trying to sell mattresses and
(35:41):
put it across the street to be like, what's up
mattress firms here? How are you doing? What are you
gonna do? What are you gonna do sorry, little chain,
and then they buy that little chain, and now there
are two mattress firms looking at each other across Monroe
or which one is it? Morland? And you know that
this article has some interesting exerpts from a discussion on Reddit.
(36:04):
What what conspiracy theory buy into and why um and
other people from other parts of the country are pointing
out the exact same thing I remember seeing. This is
a quote. I remember seeing four mattress firms all on
each corner of an intersection once there is no way
there is such a demand for mattresses. Uh. And then
there's an edit. A few people seem confused. I'm talking
about multiple of the same mattress store, and that's exactly
(36:27):
what we're talking about, so we're very much on the
same page. There's also the point about show rooms, because
most people still would prefer to buy a mattress in person.
You're going to spend a third year life on it,
right ideally, so so what you would what you would
be looking for is an in person try out. You
(36:51):
want to go in and lay down on it. There's
a great key and Peel sketch about this too, but
it's not appropriate for work, and then and then you
would after after that. I don't think this happens to
a ton of people, but after that, some folks might
be embarrassed. You might be like, I went and laid
down on a dozen different things in your store, I
(37:11):
have to buy at least one. That's dude. I have
that feeling every time I go into a physical store.
I've been walking around here for like twenty minutes. I
gotta buy something anything again, right, sir? Do you need
do you need to pull something from the shelf. So
I'll just take the gum. Just give me the gum.
Give me the gum. I am on the complete opposite,
(37:35):
and I'll go into a mattress store and just lay
down on mattress with zero intention of buying anything, just
to catch a quick little, you know, chill time when
I'm at the mall. But I wanted to point out
really quickly. I went to the mattress from his website,
and they do offer the same exact stuff that the
Caspers and Purples and Lisas of the world offer, free
shipping direct door to door um or including hauling away
(37:57):
of your old mattress. They also offer a one hundred
and twenty nights sleep trial, which is a big factor
of Casper and a lot of those other companies. So
you can send it back if you're not satisfied. Um.
And they you know, they have like in house financing
and all of that, and of course they carry multiple brands. UM.
So it's interesting. I can see your point bent about
(38:18):
for some people, it is still important to be able
to kick the tires on the thing. People don't like
buying things sight unseen. And the the last point to
make there is really if you want to if you
want to have that vicarious living experience. I've never been
kicked out of an Ikea and I have fake lived
in those before. Uh, just in New York and lived
(38:44):
to one. You know the do you know the second
biggest furniture retail company in the world Rooms to Go. No,
what is it? It's the company that owns Mattress firm. No,
it's called Steinoff. I've never even heard of. That is
the European uh, South African. I think it was German.
(39:06):
Then the company moved to South Africa. I'm not exactly
sure who the whole background, but they purchased it for
they purchased Mattress firm for two point four billion. They're
not like a store there's they're a holding company, but
it's number two to Ikea, at least according to some
(39:27):
reporting from w b R as today on I wonder well,
bridget we are on the case. Uh. I just received
a text from the deep State at our an s
A intern uh, saying just thin ice but with a
heart emoji. So I don't didn't too much trouble. I
(39:48):
think we just need to pause, I have a word
from our sponsor and return with a different story before
the mattress octopus gets us. Don't look up the name,
Marcus juiced. Al Right, we are back, and we're going
(40:08):
to jump to an email we got from I'm going
to use your name Robert here it goes, go ahead
and use my name. My n s A agent probably
knew I would send this before I did. I did, Robert,
So you and your n s A agent, there you go.
That's your name, Robert, he says. I won't mention anyone
else's name, though I know several ex military that when
(40:32):
they came back from deployment have complained about PC's that's
private contractors and how they don't have to play by
the same rules because they were there as private protection
contractors and not as a country's armed forces. Some of them,
after serving their time, have decided to get out instead
of re instead of re upping going back, but then
(40:53):
got a job as a PC and went right back
to where they had just left. So I guess leaving
their military service then going back to the same place
they were as a private military contractor. UM the ones
I've asked why basically said that now they will finally
get to shoot the bad guys and do the stuff
they could not do as a soldier, and the pay
(41:16):
is much better, much much better. He says, So, how
does this apply to me? When serving as a member
of the U. S Armed forces? They have strict rules
of engagement that prohibit them from being the aggressor or
keep them from protecting the citizens living around them if
they themselves are not threatened. It's very frustrating and even
more frustrating if a PC a contractor can shoot a
(41:40):
known bad guy without it being an act of war.
I think most who see this and are frustrated that
they can't do anything about it are motivated to become
private contractors themselves so they can go and do what
they couldn't do themselves. To me, it's scary because it
floods the market with hired guns. Oh A, Robert, thank
(42:02):
you so much for writing in and for telling us
about your experience on this show. We've talked about private
military contractors before a bit briefly, I think on in
the audio side. We've got several videos you can go
check out if you wish to kind of get a
basis of knowledge around this topic um or you know,
maybe you have some experience yourself. Our coverage prior to
(42:24):
this has largely been on that line that Robert is
describing to you here between what's the difference between a
military officer or you know, a soldier in a military
and then a private contractor who is working on behalf
of that military and what rules apply to these two
different people, and what like in practice, what does that
(42:47):
look like? And some of the best examples that we've
gotten before in the past and looking at this came
from the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq.
The most recent war in Iraq. I don't know if
everyone remembers this, but back in the day, there was
a massacre that occurred in a rock at the hands
(43:07):
of some Blackwater employees, private military contractors who were there
in Iraq, and it was a you know, when the
reporting came out about it, it was very harrowing. It
was an awful thing that occurred. And originally Ben helped
me with this, but it originally when the story broke,
it felt as though these men weren't going to be
(43:31):
tried or they were they weren't going to be getting
in trouble initially, and I think that's why there was
such an outcry for it, because there were there were
these civilians in I Rock that got massacred by private
military contractors, and it seemed like there wasn't gonna be
any justice to talk about the Nisour Square massacres seven Blackwater,
(43:52):
and that was just initially what occurred. Um gosh, I'm
I'm having a hard time even alling back to this time.
Was that two thousand seven? Okay, so that was right
before Stuff they Don't Want You to Know became a
video series and you know, we were still looking at
this stuff and talking about it, uh in the first
(44:14):
several years of this show. But it it was a
rough thing to even think about that the United States
was sending over members of the military that were mercenaries.
That's I mean that you can think about it that way.
These private military contractors are mercenaries, human beings with guns
that have a mission to do a certain thing depending
(44:36):
on what they're told to do for pay. Yeah. Um.
And the reason why I think this is it's important
to address right now is because something happened about a
month ago that applies to those specific Blackwater employees or
former Blackwater employees who have been in jail for a
long time, quite quite a time. They were pardoned um
(44:59):
by the outgoing pre sennant Donald Trump. Now, the reason
why this is news is because it was seventeen innocent
civilian citizens who were gunned down in two thousand and
seven and then for for the you know, the top official,
the leader of the country that represented the killers to
(45:19):
say you are pardoned. Uh, it feels like a massive blow,
it does. And just just to be completely clear, they
were tried and found guilty in like in a civilian court,
right that that is correct, so you know they would
not have had the same protections. I guess you could
call it as actual members of the military who would
(45:40):
be tried internally or court martialed or what have you.
You know, based on whatever metric the Army uses to
decide whether something is a war crime or just collateral damage.
So this really blurs that line, doesn't it. It does,
It does, And you know we're not We're not gonna
sit here and tell you it's an easy situation to
(46:02):
deal with threats when you're operating in the field somewhere,
no matter who you are, if your military or private contractor,
it's not easy to assess dangers that are around you. Um.
And it's not always a black and white situation when
you know you have to fire your weapon or you
decide to fire your weapon. But in this particular circumstance,
(46:25):
I think I think it's a little easier to see
that there were unnecessary deaths that occurred here. Um. And
you know, again, it's easy for me to say sitting
here behind a microphone as a guy who's never been
in combat, but but good god it it's tough anyway.
We don't have to get stuck on on the pardons thing,
(46:46):
which is worth your time if you want to look
that up. What I do just want to continue talking
about is the future of private military contractors. Other instances
that have occurred where contractors have done something that they
shouldn't have done and either gotten away with it or
you know, we just don't know about yet. I think
it would be worth it for everyone listening right now
(47:08):
and for for us personally to look into that stuff further.
And Uh, and we would love to hear from you
if you're listening out there and you have experience, Matt,
What what was it that led this to be such
a big news story? Obviously it was reported, so there
was there were a journalist present, something happened, and and
(47:28):
to your point, I feel like stuff like this could
happen in a vacuum. Uh, and we'd never hear about it.
But what about this particular case caused it to be
such a you know, create such a public outcry. I
feel I feel like such a dunce here, Ben, Was
it not? Was it not leaked as part of a
wiki leaks thing? I feel like that's how I remember
learning about it. Um. I know it's not the Iraq
(47:51):
war tapes. Um. I'm just having a hard time recalling
because so so many things were so many things we're
coming out from wiki leaks around that time, Uh, you know,
around two thousand or maybe it's two thousand nine, but
it was just I remember watching the footage, the video
footage of some of it and reading the stories um
(48:14):
when we when we made those videos been and it
just well we we know that The New York Times
reported on this in two thousand seven, and there were
guards who witnessed the incident who also Blackwater guys, who
said that they felt the shootings were unjustified. And then
(48:37):
journalists began digging around and seeing some increasingly troubling things
about oversight, about the number of incidents where in Blackwater, uh,
Blackwater employees were firing first regardless of circumstance. That one
of the reasons this was such a big deal these
pardons on December is because is the people who got
(49:02):
pardoned had been sentenced to One of them have been
sentenced to life in prison. The other three have been
sentenced to thirty years in prison each, and that was
in twenty fifteen, because they went to trial in and
this was a this was a long legal saga, so
(49:23):
they served about five years, if you want to call
it that a little more than five years. And this
was seen as a profound insult to the family members
of the victims as well as rocky citizens in general,
where as you can imagine, the US has not the
best reputation. Uh. It also brings up and I think
(49:45):
this is what are this, this is what you're talking about, Robert.
It brings up some of these even larger questions about
the role of private contractors or if you want to
call them mercenaries, uh, in what what their role is
in a state military or state level armed forces armed
service Because you know, I don't know if you guys
(50:07):
remember what's called the rent a coup scandal. I do not.
That is that this is the accusation of you can
read a great thing by the Brookings Institution on this,
uh called outsourcing war. And this actually this happened before,
uh the before the events that we're talking about with Blackwater.
(50:28):
The idea was that the private military industry would give
several things plausible deniability, right, so you can say it
wasn't necessarily our country attacking you. Uh. It would also
blur the lines between civilians and soldiers, which you know
terrorism does that too, right. Uh. And then it also
(50:52):
had a profit motive. It can make a lot of
money for some people, not for everybody, but it can
make a lot of money for people and the at
least going to Brookings, the private military industry, it's very
much a thing emerged at the start of the nine nineties.
But I would be very careful with that. You could
say maybe the modern private military industry emerged at the
(51:14):
start of the nineteen nineties, but the history of war
is lousy with mercenaries, like it's a real it's a
real thing. And also, just to be completely fair, when
we say mercenaries, we're talking about people who are an
active hot combat right direct conflicts. A private contractor or
private military contractor is not always that. They could be
(51:38):
someone who's tasked with repairing vehicles, right, Uh, they could
be someone who's tasked with driving a truck somewhere in
a foreign country. There's not not all of these people
are like x X special forces or something like that.
It's very important to make that distinction. How of Burton
(52:00):
and all the people who are in a Rock and
Afghanistan building basis or or people who have decided to
take I don't know, it's tough because you could argue
there's something similar with the revolving door in the defense industry. Right,
you put your time in, you get to a high
enough level in Uncle Sam's organization, and then you just
(52:26):
on the strength of your connections joining a private organization.
So now you've got to you know, you've got to
sell all these new missiles. So you've got to sell
this new uh, this, this new helicopter armament or module.
So you are the person who knows Senator Farfignugen right,
because you work together. You're in the army. So people
(52:49):
will pay you easily half a million dollars just because
you know that guy, and you can call him and say,
you know, what's really kick ass this new stuff we
have for apaches. UM find is always good with the
Apache stuff. I noticed that. Well, I just want to
I think it's important for us to say, like, when
we're talking about this private public practice, not everybody involved
(53:12):
as a soldier. And I think it's also UM is
still troubling from from like the halls of Washington all
the way out to the most remote locale you could imagine.
This is troubling because it can make it can make
a double standard, you know what I mean. And then
what happens in negotiations when two countries or two groups
(53:34):
are trying to reach a piece of cord of some
sort and they say, okay, look, you need to answer
for this war crime that was committed. What happens when
the negotiators like, well, that technically wasn't us. We paid them,
but it wasn't us. Yeah, what happens when it's not
(53:55):
a private military contractor anymore and it's an alphabet boss Sston.
I was about to say, Boston market Boston Dynamics, Boston Marketing,
that's their main stream of income, I think, right. But
like if Boston Dynamics creation one of these robots that
(54:17):
is armed at some point in the future and carrying
out missions the same way a private contractor would, and
it malfunctions or does something incorrect, who gets blamed? Then
that's what our future is gonna look like. I think
it's worth us talking about this more, and we should. Well,
I wanted to ask a quick question of of both
of you guys, what are your thoughts in general on
(54:40):
the institution of the presidential pardon. I know that's a
big question, but I've always it's always like kind of
skis me out a little bit. It's like, did you
break the law? Were you convicted? Then that should stand
Like it feels like, I know, maybe it's harder to
swallow when it's something that feels unjust like this, And
there are certainly people that perhaps wrongfully convicted or a
(55:01):
pardon makes sense. This one did not feel that way.
But in general, it seems like an awful lot of
power for one person to just unequivocally wield with no oversight.
It's kind of weird because it ends up being your
personal perspective in the perspective of the president, right, that's
really the only thing that comes into it. I wish
(55:22):
it was more limited. I wish it was fewer pardons
could be given out. You know a hard number. I
don't if there is, I don't know it, but I've
never I've never seen anyone say whoa, whoa, will slow
down on the pardoning. Mr President. Yeah, there's no explicit
hard number. The biggest limiting factor is that you can
(55:43):
grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the US, accepting
cases of impeachment. I remember, impeachment can apply to uh
can apply to like a member of the judicial branch
as well, So that's that's what you cannot touch with
this uh UM. It was controversial from the time it's
(56:04):
from from the time of its inception. You know, people
like George Mason said this, I think it was Mason
had this quote where he was he was basically saying, look, Pardons,
makes sense if every president is as good as George Washington.
And let's be honest, my dudes, not all the presidents
(56:25):
that come after him are going to be as good
as this guy. We kind of locked out, and everybody's like, now,
come on, man, we're doing a we're doing a country thing.
It's gonna be great. We're starting We're doing a start
a country bit. So yeah, Pardons. Well, and even then,
like imagine in the Revolutionary War, if you're gonna pardon
someone who was working for the country, who was you know,
(56:48):
would be considered a patriot by many, but maybe that
person killed, you know, fifteen people in an effort to
to create that country and fight for the formation of
the United States, some people are gonna think that person
should stay in jail forever, do whatever, you know, remain
I'm just completely made up. I'm just saying, like you're
(57:10):
gonna have you're gonna have differing viewpoints. The it's the
freedom fighter terrorist thing, right. Well, Also, I don't want
to derail us here. But with the idea of a pardon,
you'll you'll hear it being portrayed as a mechanism for
combating corruption for a flawed judicial process, because remember the
(57:33):
primary threats of the primary potential for corruption in the
judicial branch is the fact that judges are often appointed
rather than elected. And you know, if you get ring
Raith status and you're one of the supremes, then you're
in there for life or until you cry uncle, uncle Sam.
(57:54):
I guess. So there is this it's meant to and
I think it's well intention and it's meant to be.
It's meant to give the executive branch the ability to
directly combat corruption in some other way, you know. Uh,
And it plays a huge role, or like clemency as
(58:15):
while plays a huge role when we talk about capital punishment,
which the US has just historically not done a great
job with, right And you can't you can go back
after you've killed an innocent person and admit that you
killed an innocent person, but they're still dead, you know.
So there's a lot writing on this, but pardons are
(58:36):
I think, still going to be controversial for a long time,
regardless of the administration agreed, and hey, we're gonna end here.
Thank you so much for writing in Robert, and and
thank you so much, bridget Uh. If you are if
you are affiliated, by the way, in any shape, form
(58:57):
or fashion with a mattress store, give us the scoop,
you know what I mean, You could contact us. You
can contact us directly. Uh. We we can't wait to
hear from you. And if you're a mattress sponsor, hey,
we're we're looking for him, so come come our way.
And as as we said earlier, of course, if you
(59:18):
are a former member of q and on or you
are currently you currently believe that there is still some
sand to some of this stuff, even if not all
of it, then we'd love to hear from you as well.
You can find us in the usual social media spots.
We are conspiracy stuff and conspiracy stuff show on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
You can also find us on our Facebook group. Here's
(59:40):
where it gets crazy, that's right. If you don't want
to use social media, hey check it out. Pick that
thing up that you're on TikTok on all day and
give us a call. We are one eight three three
st d w y t K. You can leave us
a message you will hear Ben, you will know exactly
what to do, and we'll listen for three minutes. I
(01:00:02):
am putting out a call to you, though I do
have one request. We have been getting in so many voicemails.
Please do your absolute best to leave one message, and
don't don't send us like four in a row or
five in a row. Our voicemailbox literally can only hold
so many and we are filling up faster than we
(01:00:23):
can hear them. So uh, please do call us. Just
call us one time and make it succinct, and we
would appreciate you very much. And if you don't want
to do that, there is a good old fashioned way
to contact us through that email. We are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
(01:00:59):
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