Listener Mail: The "Most Dangerous Man" and the Looming Threat of Trigger Laws

Like many inventors, Thomas Midgeley Jr. was certainly driven -- but he seemed driven to constantly create increasingly dangerous, deadly substances. As more and more Americans become concerned about various Supreme Court rulings being overturned, people across the country are trying to figure out just what happens when a trigger law goes into effect. All this and more in this week's listener mail.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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. Our colleague Nol is currently on
an adventure, but we'll be returning soon. They call me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
Controlled Decond. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this the stuff they don't want you
to know. It is one of our favorite times of

(00:47):
the week. Fellow conspiracy realists, it is time for us
to hear from you and share your stories with your
fellow listeners. Now, we spend a lot of time, Matt
and I going through various social media platforms, going through

(01:07):
various other forms of correspondence. We check the voicemails, We
read every email we get, and our only regret, which
will be a longstanding regret, is that we can't do
a single episode with everyone all at once, because that
would be hundreds of thousands of amazing pieces of correspondence.

(01:32):
And honestly, Matt, I I feel like Mission Control would
kill us. Yeah, hopefully not. Paul, Please don't do that
on a traceable way. He's a very clever man, you
know what I mean, Like I just accidents happened. Yeah,
but uh, oh my god, you know where to look

(01:57):
if something happens to us? Oh boy if yeah? So
uh so, Matt, because we are exploring today some some
pretty strange stuff. I'm wondering, particularly if you feel there
are some shades of car stuff in today's UH in

(02:18):
this week's listener mail segment, because it's uh something you
found very interesting from uh from people who called one
eight three three st d w y T k Uh.
We were talking about this briefly off air, and you said, Okay,
look man, this guy might be familiar to you, but

(02:41):
I have I have not heard this voicemail yet. Okay, okay,
you haven't heard the voicemail. But you're you're going to
be aware of the topic. I know you are. This
is a message that we received from someone named Fauzy,
So why don't we jump right into it her conspiracy
pros in the Three Awesome Super Producers Conspiracy Fazi reporting

(03:04):
a topic that I think you all should hopefully cover
in an episode of partial episode The Man that's been
called one man environmental disaster. Thomas Midgeley Jr. The scientists
who has played a major role developing leaded gasolene and

(03:26):
some of the first choral floral carbons, better known in
the United States by brand name free On. Both products
were later brand banned from a common use due to
harmful impact on human health any environment. He was granted
a more than a hundred patents over the course of

(03:49):
his career, and he's been called as one man environmental disaster.
That was all taken from the Wikipedia. I find the
fact that he's created two of the most dangerous environmental
hazards of our lifetime fascinating. These are problems that the
world is still recovering from and you know, like ghosts

(04:09):
are going to haunt us for quite a while. Um,
thank you and uh you were You have permission to
use my name, and I want to thank you all.
I've been a fan of your show for a year
and a half and I've been listening to you guys
as I work and it's been helping pass the time.
And thank you very much. Have a great day. Oh boy,

(04:31):
conspiracy fausey coming in with something that I didn't know about.
But Ben, I I heard your reaction. Well, what what's
your What is your initial reaction to that message from
Fozzy other than loudly exclaiming, oh yeah, yeah, this is
this is funny because Matt Fozzy fellow conspiracy realist before

(04:52):
the end or eternal pause of Car Stuff, this was
on my list as an ap episode for that show.
And you know this, Matt Um. We are big, big
fans of our good friend friend of the show recurring guests,
Scott Benjamin himself. Scott has always had a deep and

(05:18):
abiding interest in two things, cars and crime. Those are
like his two things. And I, uh, you know, uh,
I think you and I both hold Scott and such
highest team. He's an awesome dude. And I don't say
it lately. I mean that's why illegal street racing is

(05:41):
the most exciting thing you could ever talk about with
Scott Benjaman illegal street racing because it's both cars and crime,
uh and moudying the vehicles. Just that's the whole thing. Yeah,
mind boggling. And we also did there's a lot of
true crime in the Car Stuff catalog, which is pretty deep.

(06:01):
One I always love to recommend is the Saga of
the Dale car. If you like conspiratorial stuff, I would
also recommend checking out the story of Tucker and what
happened to the Tucker Automobile Company. This is one that
we did not, as far as I can recall, have
an episode on, but I had done a lot of

(06:23):
digging on it. And the way that I got to
it met and and Fossey is that I was going
through this phase. You probably remember a number of years ago, man,
where I um, I started getting irritated by what I
saw as unnecessary signs just all all around people's everyday life,

(06:44):
like drug free school zone implies that there is somewhere
at some school a zone that is for drugs, or
you know, in particular, the idea of unleaded gasoline. Gasoline
the vast majority will not have lead. There are some
old engines that need lead additives, right, but in this country,

(07:10):
pretty much any gas pump you go to is going
to say unleaded gasoline. And at this point they might
as well say something like there is no kryptonite in
this gasoline, just just to be clear, in case you
were wondering, Uh, well, let's yes, let's get into that.
Let's let's jump fully into this Okay, so we're talking

(07:33):
about a scientist, a very intelligent engineer, an inventor. We're
talking about Thomas midge Lee. That is m. I. D. G. L.
E Y Jr. It's very important because there is a
senior who was also an inventor, I believe in an engineer.
But this is the junior. And this person is born

(07:54):
in the eight hundreds of things eighteen eighty nine and
went to Cornell University and got a degree in engineering
and started working for some of the big names in
automobiles in the early nineteen hundreds. And there was a
problem with vehicles around that time. And Ben, I know,

(08:15):
I know, you got someone this the problem with these
vehicles because of these internal combustion engines that they had,
where they're all these little explosions occurring moving the pistons
up and down. Vehicles often had this and knocking that
would occur. The engine itself would kind of knock around. Um,
it was clunky. It's like an old clunker, you might say.
And everybody had to deal with it. And and the

(08:38):
automobile industry was looking for a solution. And old Tommy
Midgley Jr. Came along and said, well, I'm gonna try
a bunch of things, including putting iodine into the fuel mixture,
putting other chemicals, like basically going down the periodic table,
like what if we had this one or did that one?
And uh, he found a solution and it was lead.

(09:00):
That is why there is now unleaded on What did
she say, n adamantean casoline right, non kryptoonite, no adamantium.
That is big oils promised to you. Yeah, you nailed it, Matt,
you nailed it. Engine knocking was a a crazy and
a real thing at this point. I think in time,

(09:25):
uh Midgeley Jr. Started working for GM around early called nineteen.
I think uh he he was trying to figure out
what the solution was. He knew the problem was due
to the way that gasoline burns right and the cylinders

(09:48):
of your garden variety internal combustion engine. But he wasn't
he wasn't sure how to like punch it up to
get get it to be a little bit less KNOCKI
to be a bit less of a clunker, as he said,
And as you pointed out, as Fazzy points out, this

(10:09):
guy found what he thought was a solution which was
leaded gasoline, and GM was going in the gas game
at that time with a proprietary additive. It wasn't just
straight up lead, right, it was something called ethel lead compound. Well, yeah,

(10:32):
because they could they could patent that, right, they could
trade work that. Then they can sell it because you
know lead itself, it's not just lead from GM. You know,
it's not something you could sell and make a huge
profit on. But if you patent it, you put it
into a thing that goes into your gas tank. Now
there's some money for you. And you know GM is

(10:55):
all corporations profit driven, So they figured out how to
do that. Uh. Well, and I guess we can. I mean,
just for the case of this conversation, we can just
say what happened to the lead. We took it out,
we put some we humans and smart engineers like Mitchelly
put other things in there. Uh. It is now ethanol, correct.

(11:17):
So you'll see at the gas pump, largely, at least
within the United States. I know for sure, a certain
percentage of ethanol will be in that gasoline you're adding
to your vehicle, and it's serving the same purpose. Yeah.
You you might have seen it called flex fueled before. Uh,
the story of ethanol itself is the story of a

(11:39):
another I guess we could call it a conspiracy, the
story of big corn. Right. Uh and ak the reason
corn syrup is in so many things that Americans consume. Uh,
you know, you got so much corn. You gotta find
a way to do something with right, the profits must

(12:01):
Expand we're going to pause for a word from our sponsors.
Will be right back, and we're back. The thing about
Midgley for our purposes here is this. Uh. It's not

(12:22):
as if he were just a brilliant mind unaware of
the consequences. Uh. This guy was operating in a world
where the dangers of lead exposure were already very well known.

(12:43):
You might not have maybe thought of it if you
were someone just popping around your model T or whatever.
But if you were a chemist, it is I'll say it.
It's not even virtually certain. It's absolutely certain you would
know this stuff was poisoness. And not from my understanding,

(13:03):
Midgeley Jr. Kind Of had a rep for working with
known poisonous substances. Oh yeah, Oh, he certainly had. He
had a penchant for it, and he himself got lead
poisoning due to his work with lead. Uh. This it's true.
He knew that seven people died from lead poisoning when

(13:24):
they were creating the substances, you know, while his work
on on fuel additives. It was it was a known thing.
He took a I think it's described one of these
articles I think from famous scientists dot Org. Uh. There
are several amazing articles if you look up Midgeley. He
talks about how he took a quote long vacation while
suffering from the effects of lead poisoning. But lead isn't

(13:48):
the only thing, as was stated by Fozzy, that Midgeley
had a hand in when he comes to you know,
lead in our environment. There's this other thing CFCs, also
known as floro floral carbons. Uh. He also invented a
little thing that we call free on again automobile related

(14:09):
in this case, helps your vehicles interior and other parts
stay cold, which is a much appreciated thing in the summers,
especially here in Atlanta. Uh, that having a cool car.
I mean not necessarily the CFCs, but theoretically an amazing
invention that helped everyone until it was in the environment

(14:33):
for long enough that we realized, oh, this is bad, right, Yeah,
and this has also led to not word play here,
it has led to the death of many dogs. Right,
it's led to the death of children. Uh, it's led

(14:54):
to a lot of I would say, unintended long term consequences. Nicely.
By the way, well, do you remember that thing called
the ozone layer, Remember that thing we used to hear
about as kids. Yeah, back in the day, back in
the day, we should we should check on the ozo layer,

(15:15):
don't you think. Let's just see how how it's doing.
It's kind of like looking up somebody on Facebook at
this point. Ozone depletion. It's a real thing. Uh. The
let's talk about the plural fluoral carbons though, I think
that's where we're going with this, right, Yeah, it is
been proven in the decades since CFCs were a thing

(15:40):
and Frean was invented that they were. They were used
so much by humans, much like lead gasoline. It was
just the new thing. These are the new things that work.
We're going to use them. So everybody picked it up. Well,
CFCs tend to do this little thing like creating massive
holes in the ozone layer, which is one of our

(16:00):
best ways to protect ourselves, you know, all life on
planet Earth from radiation. From the sun. It's no, boy, no,
And this this is a thing that tends to occur,
and we keep seeing history repeat itself where a brand new,
large usually chemical invention, or you know, something that is patentable, patentable,

(16:21):
something that can go out there in a free market
and it ends up just causing major detrimental effects on
the environment largely, which then affects humans. Agreed, man, And
the the issue goes back to what's called the tragedy
of the commons. If you can make short term micro

(16:42):
economic gains for something, then why should you be on
the hook for the macro level problems posed by this? Right?
That's it's it's a conversation that goes back to the
industrial era and the shadow or the specter of the

(17:02):
consequences of large scale fossil fuel use. Uh. We know
that these problems are fixable, but they require a kind
of coordination that the human species simply has no precedent
for being capable of. I want to point out, Matt,

(17:23):
there's this fascinating article by Susan Fortain on interesting engineering
Thomas Medley Jr. The man who harmed the world the most, Right.
I think that goes to what you were talking about here. Uh.
In this article, there's a quote from Thomas Midgeley when

(17:44):
he is talking to a fellow named Charles Kettering in
nine three. This is after he's recovering from lead poisoning.
And you you heard about this part right, Like he uh,
he wanted to demonstrate that gas with lead in it
was safe by huffing it. This is a true story.

(18:05):
Huffed it for sixty seconds and he's so he's laid
up recovery and he says on this phone call, quote,
can you imagine how much money are I going to
make with this? Am I going to make two d
million dollars? Maybe even more? I am kind of free
taking some artistic license with the accent of course. No.

(18:28):
I yeah, I saw that, and I was like, there's
no way he said that, because it just seems so
evil scientists kind of thing. But it's not evil scientists.
It's it's a very straightforward capitalist. Uh. So he that's
not the only experiment he did with one of his
own inventions. By the way, he also after inventing free

(18:50):
on at this convention in nineteen thirty I think it
was two years after he invented the stuff. He uh,
inhaled a whole bunch of free on, and there's a
lit candle, and he blew out all the free on
to blow out the candle, just to show everybody that
he's fine. After inhaling the free on and the candle
went out, it did not burst into flames, so the

(19:11):
substance is not flammable. So we're all good. Um, and
and I guess we thought we were right. These CFC
is a little different because it seems like it wasn't
as much of a known thing at the time. But
correct me if I'm wrong in saying that anybody listening
who knows more about this, because this is just us

(19:32):
dipping our toes into this gentleman and his inventions. He
really was a pioneer. You know. It's cf seemed fine
at the time, right, So I can't, I can't, but
but you're absolutely you know. Interesting thing about this guy,
Uh he did die as a result of his inventions,

(19:58):
but maybe not, maybe not the way some people are thinking.
Later in his life, just before he passed, he was
suffering from polio and he could not move very well.
So he invented this series of pulleys and things that
are attached to his body that he could move and
I guess you would say ambulate himself. And apparently he

(20:21):
was discovered strangled via the mechanism itself, like stuff got
wrapped around his neck in a bad way and he passed,
and experts were certain this was an accidental death, but
I think they were I think it's an interesting note.

(20:42):
It's also for as you all knew, Matt and I
are pretty big fans of the bibliographies on Wikipedia and
also the obscure weird articles. So Fozzy, as you were mentioning,
you cited with Cokipedia article on Midgley Jr. I hope

(21:03):
that you if you haven't checked it out, check out
another wiki link that is, I believe in the In
the bio on Midgley, it's quote list of inventors killed
by their own inventions, and uh, it's yeah, it's a
real thing, and it's it's a yeah, it's exactly as

(21:30):
sad and poetic as as you might you might assume
from initially hearing that. But so, Matt, what did this
like when you heard about this? When you know, it's
very difficult to trace the origin of many inventions, many innovations, right,
because people are often standing on the shoulder of giants.

(21:52):
There's a lot of parallel thinking. Uh, there are a
lot of incremental improvements made to something. It's pretty rare,
honestly to find a single person who did a single thing.
And yes, nidge lynde Lye made free once. So how

(22:14):
what stands out to you about this story? Do you
think there's anything we can apply to the present day?
Like why did this called you? Oh? It really calls
to me just thinking about how especially in lead additives
to gasoline, how much the scientific community that is working

(22:35):
that section of the scientific community that is working for
a private corporation, Because you know, he's not the only
scientists an engineer who's working for GM. He's a part
of a large group who are doing that. How all
of those people will decide. You know, I'm employed, I
have my own personal life and and everything. I see

(22:55):
a solution here, a possible solution. I understand as a scientists,
and you know, having an understanding of chemistry and how
certain substances interact with the body and the environment, that
this is going to be damaging to both humans and
other animals and the environment, but it's going to help
me in my career it's going to help the company

(23:18):
find success and profits. So I'm going to choose to
do this. Um, I think that choice is happening all
the time across the world right now. Maybe even somebody
who's listening to this is grappling with a problem where
there's a potential solution that you know, ticks all the boxes,
including the one where it's harmful to humans and the environment.

(23:40):
And I'm just hoping somebody listening to this will contemplate
a little bit further before they, you know, announce their findings. Uh,
because rest assured, what what, No matter what you think
as the individual or the team that's discovered something like that,
the corporation will probably just because it has its own
wants and need, will want to move forward with that thing,

(24:02):
no matter how dangerous. Absolutely, I think that is a
salient point. And I agree with everything that you mentioned.
And if you are a fellow conspiracy realist listening to
this now, and uh, your corporate overlords have told you
that the percentage of I don't know, like puffins or

(24:24):
marine animals that might be lost is acceptable for Q two,
I don't know if you should listen to them. The
puffin loss is acceptable sir, we'll we'll revisit in autumn. Yeah,
all right, Well, thank you so much, Fossy for for
sending that message to us, and hopefully we can work

(24:46):
this in later. I kind of want to do a
whole episode on those inventors that killed themselves with their inventions.
That's pretty interesting. All right, We'll be right back afterwards
from our sponsor. And we have returned with UH with

(25:07):
a response to our earlier conversation about the looming overturn
of Roe versus Wade, which, for any non US listeners,
if you're not aware, roe versus Wade is the Supreme
Court ruling that allows allows people who can give birth

(25:28):
autonomy over their own bodies in that regard, that's probably
the best way to put it. And we were I think,
um Matt, I think both of us were immensely grateful
for all the insightful comments we received, all the correspondence.
A lot of our fellow listeners wrote in from the
field of medicine. We had philosophers writing in, professors, we

(25:51):
had people writing in with their own experiences, and in
some cases, UH many of these people had requested UH anonymity, right,
which we do our best to provide and from those
we arrived at a conversation with our fellow conspiracy realist, Will,

(26:14):
Will has given us permission to use their name, and
he sent us the following email. We'd like to share
it with you and then and then discuss a little
bit more about the un maybe just like lead poisoning,
the long term consequences of of legislation. Will says, Greetings,

(26:39):
I recently listened to your strange news segment about the
lead Supreme Court decision on overturning Roe v. Wade and
about the potential appeal of oberg Fell versus Hodges, which
would overturned gay marriage. Will says, as a gay man
that has been married for the last seven years and
together for a total of twenty two years, this makes

(27:00):
me feel very scared and very alone, since I have
no one in the court that truly represents my voice,
since this Supreme Court case kind of went under the radar,
at least for me. It's a very sneaky way to
attack human rights. It is almost and Will says q
conspiracy noise slash music here if January six was a

(27:21):
red herring, Yeah, there we go, and this was the
true coup or could it be since they couldn't take
away one right on that day I e. Election that
the far right is slowly stripping away the rights of
those who have been traditionally seen as opposing them for
whatever reason. But besides the conspiracy theory, another aspect that

(27:41):
is troubling are these things called trigger laws from various states.
Thirteen states have laws that will automatically ban abortion upon
the official ruling of the Supreme Court. Now not this
is as a little bit of a longer letter, I
suggest that we double dragon this. You want to hop
on the latter half jumping in here. A few states

(28:04):
already have these laws in place that would overturn gay
marriage as well, Mississippi being one and Texas laying the
groundwork as well. Like I said, I'm afraid of the
future for myself and my partner. But what is scarier
is these trigger laws, which have a double meaning, one
action causing another action, but also because they can literally

(28:25):
kill human rights and even humans. I had never heard
of them until recently, and I would love a deeper
dive into them. Are they legal? I e? How can
you pass an anti law law and have of it
in writing. That's a good question of What are some
landmark laws that we did not know were trigger laws?
What can the average shmoke like me do to help

(28:48):
get them overturned or invalidated? These are good questions, will,
and clearly you know to be transparent, Clearly, UH, will
you do not subscribe to the political ideology of what
would be called the right in in the US. UH.
And the thing about this is that you don't have

(29:10):
to subscribe to any consistent or defined political ideology to
understand that trigger laws are an issue, and they will
be an issue for quite some time. A trigger law
is kind of um, you know, like if you're ever

(29:33):
on a road trip you called dibbs right on a seat.
You know, it's like shotgun trier laws, kind of calling
dibbs on something You're you're preparing for a another event
to take place at which point, kind of like Russia's

(29:54):
dead hand system, you'll have an automated process, or as
automated as possible to ensure that what you want to
pass comes to pass. In the US right now, specifically
with the case of Roe v. Wade, there are thirteen
states that have the so called trigger laws, specifically pertaining

(30:19):
to abortion and pertaining to UH making abortion illegal to
banning it. And the idea is that as soon as
the ring graces of the Supreme Court say ha ha
j k abortions illegal after all, then those thirteen states

(30:41):
will be able to immediately say uh L M A
O L O L for real though it's illegal and
like the because importantly, not to get too into the
legalistic wheats, but importantly, the way that the draft opinion
is written, if it, if it does come to pass,
makes the matter of people's bodily autonomy a state's rights issue,

(31:08):
So it would be up to the fifty states to
go their own way. Hashtag no Fleetwood Mac And the idea,
I know, I know, but the uh, you know what,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry to everyone. But the idea here
is older than I think a lot of people may assume,

(31:30):
because there used to be fourteen states, and there would
have been fourteen states would trigger laws specifically about this issue,
one of them being Illinois. Their law in this regard
was enacted in n and then fast forward several decades
it was repealed in twenty seventeen. So trigger laws themselves

(31:55):
are a thing that can exist in any number of
sir circumstances. It would not be surprising, for example, to
see this tactic used in something like marijuana legalization or
excuse me, cannabis legalization. Then you could just say, Okay,
if the federal law, like we won't pass our own

(32:17):
legalization policy says, in what's a random state, Arkansas? Okay,
Arkansas perfect, perfect, You are correct, sir, that is the
correct random state we were looking for. So Arkansas maybe
doesn't doesn't want to straight up say hey, we're going

(32:37):
to make marijuana legal within the state limits of Arkansas,
but we're gonna have it locked and loaded to be
legal as soon as the federal government says it's up
to you all do as thou wilt. Uh. So, what
I'm saying is trigger laws are an anticipatory thing. They're

(32:57):
not inherently minister but in this case, in this case,
they are definitely attempting to remove autonomy from people who
can give birth, and in states like Arkansas just happen
to have something open about the Arkansas trigger law that's

(33:20):
in on the books right now. Actually, um, it is
the situations where many of these trigger laws ban abortion
or are prepared to ban abortion completely, no matter the
circumstances whatsoever. Those are specifically the ones that worry me
the most because it removes all nuance from the possible

(33:42):
situations that humans find themselves in. Uh. Sorry that I
don't want to sew boxes. Just that feels so dangerous
to me. Where it is a yes, it is a
yes or no situation, it is illegal, no matter what. Right. Yeah,
well said, it is a odd brush right, And that

(34:02):
is a diplomatic way of putting it. And and and
to be clear, you know, will everybody listening, A trigger
law is it's slang. It's like the street name for
this kind of tactic. You're you're you're making a law
that is currently unenforceable but can be enforceable if just

(34:26):
a few things change. Again, it doesn't have to be sinister.
You could lock and load any number of unenforceable laws
and then just wait. And there's no statute of limitations
unless that's baked in the original language. This is of
course a hot button issue for many many people. Uh.

(34:50):
And again we can emphasize this enough. They are used
for specific political ends. But the tactic, the strategy hind
it is a political It is something that can work.
And that's that's the reason these things will be deployed.
Now will this sort of stuff happen? Uh? To to

(35:14):
answer that question, you need a little bit of a
magic eight ball or crystal ball or whatever your methods
of scrying. Maybe, But we can say that, we can
say that the Supreme Court and the process of making
laws is itself not as set in stone as it

(35:37):
may appear, nor as it may be reported. For example,
for a non uh, non abortion or non bodily autonomy
kind of legislation, legislative move you can look to Tennessee.
Tennessee has recently made camping on public land a felony.

(36:00):
And Matt, you and I talked about this a little
bit off air, I think a while back earlier was
he yesterday might have been yesterday, Man, I think it
was yesterday. I don't know. Well, yeah, the topic was,
you know, what what constitutes public land in perhaps a
city space or in a more populated town like area.

(36:26):
What what constitutes public space and what constitutes camping? What
could they be trying to control? Right? Right? People who
for one reason or another, one cavalcade of circumstance or another,
do not have a permanent address or living space. You'll

(36:48):
hear them called the homeless. You will hear them called
the unhoused things of that nature. The conspiratorial bent here
is that Tennessee has the Tennessee legislature, i should say,
has made this a felony because it will remove in

(37:09):
that state the right of those people to vote. That
might seem a little bit like a game amouse trap,
might seem a little bit Rube goldberg esque, but more
importantly for our purposes, you need to know that this
would be unconstitutional according to established earlier established case law

(37:31):
by the Supreme Court. Specifically, back in the Scotus. Supreme
Court of the US backed up a lower court ruling
in California that said, hey, if you're homeless, you can
sleep on sidewalks, public trails, public parks if there's not

(37:52):
other available alternative forms of shelter. And this comes from
the ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
It's known as the Martin v. Boise decision. And the
idea here is that Tennessee legislature, knowing there have been
some changes to the composition of the Supreme Court, can

(38:16):
now make this law, which gives the Scotus the ability
to review this law and to say m I don't
think so, essentially, which it's a clever move. Um, will
it work just like objectively ideology aside any regardless of

(38:38):
our feelings on felony convictions or public camping or socioeconomic strata. Matt,
do you think it will work? No, because it'll all
just become private camping. They'll just be camping on private
property and then they'll have to deal with it, all
you private property owners. Ha ha. No, I don't know.

(39:01):
It doesn't feel it's an odd situation to me. Mm hmmm. Um.
I am a skeptical that it will function in the
way they wanted to. Yeah. Yeah, the Unfortunately, that Fantasia
example of Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice tells us
all we need to know about unintended consequences. Again, importantly,

(39:24):
there are trigger laws for other things. There are other
ways to push for a new decision in the highest
court in the land. Uh. I don't know how many
people remember this, but back in the day when the
Affordable Care Act sometimes called Obamacare was passed, lawmakers in

(39:46):
certain states also made trigger laws in anticipation slash hope
that Scotus would knock down that plan. Uh. There was
even I heard heard tell as they would say in
to see that there was a trigger law about a
national speed limit in the early nineteen nineties. Uh, and

(40:07):
it said that it was in Texas, and it said
that once there was a repeal of a national once.
Yes it was this boy. Yeah, once there was this
law that said there needs to be a national mandatory

(40:29):
speed limit in Texas said you know, as soon as
that gets repealed, we will automate overnight the lifting of
speed limits and we will literally send out the Transportation
department to go and change all those signs across Texas,
which is a huge place, you know what I mean.

(40:51):
So yeah, so trigger laws are a real thing. Could
you call them conspiratorial? Yeah, I would argue you could. Uh.
How I think maybe one of the most important questions
Will is asking here, uh Matt, is how do you
make your voice known if you are in opposition to

(41:15):
to some sort of trigger law. Uh. The best way,
of course, is not necessarily convenient. It is to directly
message your representatives at state and federal levels and to
maybe spread the word engage in activism things of that nature. Uh.

(41:40):
You could, if you wish, you can write a letter
to the Supreme Court. I doubt they will read it.
I'm just being honest. No, I agree with you, Ben.
I think the best action is what you what you said,
interact with your state legislature. You can do that if
you think about the Capital Building and Congress and the
House of Representatives and the Senate all that that's kind

(42:04):
of a big pond, right, But your state legislature you're
gonna find. I have a feeling that it's way easier
to get into contact with somebody if you want to. Yeah,
that part is true. You may receive a form letter
response or something like that. But if you continue, if

(42:24):
you continue making your voice heard, that is, in theory,
how the system is supposed to work. And I know
the idea. I think we both know the idea. Maybe
the idea of trigger laws may itself sound triggering to
some people, right, and uh, the argument maybe for some
supporters of these laws. Simply put, they may just say, hey, ours,

(42:49):
my representatives already know my opinion, my stance on this,
and so all they're doing is representing me in this regard.
But again, I would I would warn against the dangers
of a broad brush laws should not be passed automatically.

(43:10):
That is a very lazy thing to do, even if
it seems proactive, because, as you pointed out beautifully, Matt,
there needs to be deep analysis. Words have power, language
has power, right, and they have real world consequences. Will
you are not far off and saying that, uh, certain
laws can endanger human rights for sure, and down the

(43:34):
line they can endanger human lives very much so. And
I would love to hear examples from our fellow conspiracy
realists of your experience with maybe laws that are written
to broadly, laws that are are called trigger laws, because
again it's the conversation in media now is entirely orbiting

(43:58):
the concept of trigger laws in response to abortion. But
trigger laws go deeper than that. We would love to
hear your thoughts, Oh we would, and reiterating one last time,
your legislators want to hear your thoughts too, because they
exist on votes and mostly campaign money, but votes to

(44:18):
votes as well. Uh. There's a quote from a Guardian
article where Governor I think, is it assa Asa Hutchinson?
I don't, it's a s A. I don't know how
to say it. Assa Hutchinson, governor of Arkansas, is quoted
in this article from the Guardian, and he states, Uh,

(44:39):
he's reacting to some circumstances where rape and incest, maybe
a thing that occurs and causes a young girl to
be forced to give birth, and he says, these are
heartbreaking circumstances. When we when we passed these trigger laws,
we were trying to reduce abortions. But whenever you see that,
you know, real life circumstance answers like that, the debate

(45:01):
is going to continue. And here it is the will
of the people may or may not change. That's the
important part. The will of the people may or may
not change. So if you can just show that the
will of the people is different, then those legislatures will
hopefully fall in line if they know what's good for
their votes. And if you can also engage in lobbying.

(45:26):
While while you do that, uh, your mileager bay vary,
but you will. You may be surprised how many doors
open once the hinges are greased with some cash. So, uh,
we hope that you can tell that Matt. Matt and
myself we are both at we're both alternating between optimism

(45:48):
in terms of speaking your voice as a voter in
the US and Uh, you know on the on the
other side than the deer of the whole thing, the
deep abiding cynicism of how how laws actually get made.
But again, we want to hear your thoughts. We cannot

(46:08):
wait for you to be part of this conversation. We
also would love to hear your input on other inventors who,
whether via accident or via insidious design, became very dangerous people.
We try to be easy to find online Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,

(46:33):
all the hits, all the good ones. You can also
enter our sweepstakes if you want a copy of our
upcoming book. Early comes with a poster that Matt Noel
and yours truly have signed, and uh some awesome art
for the book as well. But you might say, guys,

(46:53):
I'm not really a social media person these days, Twitter
is a blood bath and so on. We get it
out of any other show you listen to. We definitely
get the dangers of social media. But say you have
a story that you need to tell us, and you
need to more importantly tell your fellow listeners. We're just

(47:14):
a phone call away, that's right. We are one eight
three three s T d W y t K. When
you call in, give yourself a cool nickname. You've got
three minutes, say whatever you'd like, and at some point
in there let us know if we can use your
voice and message on one of these listener mail episodes.
Usually appreciated. Quick shout out. It's been Cleopatra, Shade K,

(47:38):
Jeff Mick Seven, Fate, Bright Warrior, Paul, Alex, John, Anonymous,
whoever you are, another Anonymous Jack. All of y'all have
been calling in. There's so many and I am behind.
I'm sorry to say, but moving forward. So if you
called in recently, we will be listening to very soon.

(48:01):
And if you don't quite jibe with that, if you
don't want to call on the phone and you've dialed
back sipping those social media, never fear. There is another
way you can always contact us. We read every email
we get. Don't be surprised if I write back to
you or Matt writes back to you, because sometimes the
abyss stares back. All you have to do is send

(48:23):
us a good old fashioned email where we are conspiracy
at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want

(48:48):
you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.