In this episode of The Karol Markowicz Show, Karol sits down with Buck Sexton to offer practical advice for conservatives considering a move later in life — from finding like-minded communities to building new friendships in your 60s. Then, Peter J. Hasson, politics editor at the Washington Free Beacon, joins to unpack Big Tech’s bias against conservatives, the challenges of raising children in the digital era, and why independent thinking and reading are more important than ever in today’s polarized culture. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcotz Show on
iHeart Radio. I'm doing another one of those advice segments
that you all seem to enjoy, and I'm joined here
by my friend Buck Sexton, co host of the Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Buck, So nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, great to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I didn't mean for this to happen, but I just
realized now, like a Brazilian soccer player, I'm just one
name on the screen.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
It's just but I am the Everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Knows who Buck is. I mean, I don't even think
you need a last name in this case.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Did people like my last advice or did I get
more and more people angry at me or disagree with me?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Mostly?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I think the friend one everybody enjoyed. I think that
that got overwhelming, you know support. It was a mixed
bag with the one where I think the woman on.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
That one myself, so I can't get mad at any Yeah,
if you want to make friends, talk to people. That's
one hundred percent good advice, real and will work. Just mean,
just talk to more people all the time. Just talking
to some people felt.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That they weren't brave enough to do that. But I
feel like, you see, this is some good tips.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
This is like public speaking, which is you have to
just do it, meaning like the only way to do
it is to push through and do it. And telling
yourself I don't like doing that is actually not an
acceptable response to the goal that you want anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Sorry, no, no, this is great.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The question that we're going to get into today also
touches on the issue of friendship, so this leads perfectly
into it. So here we go. And Buck does not
like to know the questions in advance. This is the
first time he's hearing these questions, right, all right, Hi, Carol.
I'm in my sixties and have lived in a blue
city my entire life. I never minded until the last
few years. I followed your COVID journey to Florida and
(01:49):
felt for you very much, but I didn't have kids
in school, so I didn't feel like I had to
make a change. I waited out the arrows in the
grocery store and went on with my life. The murder
of Charlie Kirk and the celebration I heard from friends
and acquaintances, I am now thinking I need to I
need to move and find people with values in common.
Do you think it's too late? You've talked about the
(02:11):
difficulty of making friends in your forties. Can I do
it in my sixties? I think this is a tough one.
What do you think, buck Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I think that the ability to embrace change and adapt
at any and all ages is something that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We should all strive for.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
That you should you want to be as adaptable as
the only thing that's consistent in life is change.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
And so if you think that there's a new phase
that you want to enter, or and you want to
try a new in this case obviously surroundings and environment
for your.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Life, I think I think I absolutely go for it.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think that it's in a lot of ways now
an easier time than ever to do a lot of
these things. Because this brings me a little bit to
my like why did I live in York so long?
It used to be that your geography defined a lot more, uh,
quite honestly, like not just your job opportunities and your
social opportunities.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But also just day to day stuff.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I think that we've now all take now I'll
take this for granted, but essentially anywhere in America that's
within an hour of a or maybe two hours of
like a reasonable size metro area. I'm not even saying like,
you know you're in La Atlanta. I'm just saying, you know,
if you're if you're within an hour or two of
a city, you can order anything you want and have
(03:34):
it to live at your house pretty much the next day.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You could.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You have more entertainment options if you have if you
have Wi Fi, I mean, if you have internet access,
you have more entertainment, more shopping, more information, more, uh,
you know, coordination with with people around you than before.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Carol.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I had a cheeseburger delivered to my house.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
By a robot a few days ago.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Wow, kid, you not a little robot that's brought me
my shake shack. And and this, by the way, it's
I had to get used to look outside. You type
in a little code, Do you tip the robot? It opens, No,
you get your tip back. So I'm oh, I'm gonna
tell you. I'm not gonna be shy about this because
I think this is another this is something that someone
(04:18):
didn't ask, but I just I believe in being a
basically like a max out tipper, meaning if twenty percent
is what you always go twenty. So many someone does
like a you know, a good a good faith job,
not even a good job, just a good faith job.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Like if I can tell they're trying, it's twenty.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
If they do anything that makes me feel like they
added a little bit to my day or they were
a little bit, you know, above and beyond night thirty.
So I believe in in if anything overtipping, and I
always have even when I had very little money.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
But not the robot, No tips for the robot, No.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Tips for the robot, but the robot reality with that
as soon it's going to be drone delivery for people.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And what does this have to do with moving?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You're more connected now, connected and all senses than ever before. Yeah,
so you're not going to be alone. It's not like
you move to a community. I mean you're gonna be
able to watch all your favorite shows, order you know,
whatever you want to buy off of the internet.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I mean, you could have a shrman.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What about the friend part? What about the making friends easier?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
To find groups, entities, individuals, you name it in your
area wherever you are, to establish you know, common I mean,
my my problem now is that there's so many and
this is I don't have time for all the friends
that I already have.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Right, you're in Miami problem. And I moved, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
You know, and I moved from New York, where I
grew up, where that was, where that was also the case.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
And I think Carry feels the same way.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And it's not because I'm so popular, it's just because
it's just so popular.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was going to say, you're so popular, like the
football team.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
But you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But you're like dating the head cheerleader. You guys are
You're a very good man.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Carry does look like the cheerleader. I got to say,
I'm a lucky man. She's doing great work. She's doing
great work. Some people are saying care doing people. The
people are saying in the gym cariber getting it done.
I would just say, yes, take take the lead. I
would say yes to this. This person wrote and sixties.
I have a whole other rant on this too.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Sixties here, Yes, now you have if you if.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You are reasonable with your reasonable with your diet, meaning
like you're not just completely eating the worst imaginable stuff
and have a million and you move, you walk, forget
about all this other stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You don't have to.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
If you're walking off and you eat well and you
get enough sleep, you're going to be healthy.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're going to like feel in love for good.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
You've got twenty five to thirty years of really being
able to, like, you know, enjoy. I mean, that's a
long time to really be able to enjoy your surroundings.
Sixty isn't what it used to be, meaning that I
think this person, you have a whole other phase of.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Enjoying your life like we think of it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I mean, you think about what people used to look
like in their forties, forty or fifty years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Even in this time, we look like teenagers now.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, I look like teenagers now.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So I mean I'm forty three, for having sakes, and
like I think I still get id'd sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I see this through the Florida bubble, and so I
think you're absolutely right. Sixty is so young. These sixty
year olds out here, seventy year old. They're riding their bicycles,
they're doing jazzer size in the pool. They're very, very active.
There's all kinds of clubs and card rooms and all
kinds of stuff for people in Florida who are retired,
(07:34):
et cetera. We don't know if this person who wrote
in is retired. I don't know what her story is,
but I assume if she's wondering if she should move,
she can work from anywhere or maybe doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You know, if it's not if it's not unthinkably onerous
for you to move financially, personally or otherwise, and you
feel like you want to move, move, Yeah, that's that's
my basic advice on this too.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think I think we're gonna have to agree on
this one. You know, I liked when we disagreed, but
I'm with you. I think that there's nothing wrong with
looking for people who share your values and to surround
yourself with those people, and to do it at any
age really, because you do have a lot of living
left to do. You don't want to be around people
who are celebrating the death of a father, of a husband,
(08:16):
of somebody who did nothing wrong, but try to connect
to the other side. So yeah, get out rective.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's a destructive energy that goes beyond Yeah. The like
I don't I don't agree with like my neighbors on
climate change, and they're kind of annoying about recycling Like
that's one feeling of I'm is related here. There's a
derangement and a and a darkness in people that has emerged.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I've seen.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I have friends of mine have said they have had
family members say things and they're having a tough time
forgetting what family members of theirs have publicly.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Generally it's Facebook posting, right, But that Facebook.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They people think that what doesn't count that you're you're
making a statement on Facebook. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
We'll treat Facebook like it a diary.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It's not a diary, or they're public you know, a statement.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I'm just gonna put whatever bile is growing in my
brain right now, I'm just going to spew it out
on this Facebook page. Like, No, that is the opposite
of what you should be doing on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But anyway, absolutely he is, Buck Sexton. Thank you so
much for joining me. Buck, send in your questions. We
will answer them in future segments. Thanks so much for
coming on the Carol Markowitz Show. Please stay tuned for
an interview with Peter J. Hassen. Hi, and welcome back
to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today
(09:37):
is Peter J. Hassen. Peter is a politics editor at
The Washington Free Weekend and the author of the book
The Manipulators Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Text War on Conservatives. Hi, Peter,
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Hey, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I've been a big fan of yours for just many,
many years, and I'm really looking forward to getting to
know you a little better. How did you get into
this thing of ours?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Well, it was honestly kind of by accident.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I grew up in a family of lawyers, a mom
where my dad was lawyer, my mom's my mom's dad
was my dad's law professor.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Wow, a lot of lawyers.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
But I I started started out writing for Campus Reform
College because I want to make loxt for money and
I liked to write, and I was kind of doing
it here we're there because I was playing college soccer
in college lacrosse, I didn't have a ton of free time.
(10:43):
Then I I actually suffered a string of concussions who
look across my sophomore year that kind of ended my
my shining three at the leven. So that kind of
cut it all short. And so I had all these yeah,
(11:06):
competitive juices that were flowing, and I needed something to change,
you know, to channel them into. So I channeled them
into kind of digging up what woke things UH were doing.
And you know, I've always been pretty good at kind
of scraping sites and finding interesting things on them, and
(11:27):
so I got really into it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
What are you studying, uh politics?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Right? I?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
I went to the University of Dallas, which is like
a small Catholic school down there. No, no, not, I
grew up in the DC area, but I went down
there for for school, and uh anyway, so I really
(12:01):
kind of threw myself into, you know, to my first
taste of uh investigative juralism, and I happened to just
be good at it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Happened to be one of those things that was like
the perfect.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Outlet for, you know, someone who needed a competitive outlet
because it was you. You'd put time in and then
you'd see the results.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And no concussions.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
That's a plus, right, Yeah, Yeah, my mom was a
lot happier about that one.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
And then so I started noticing when other outlets would
kind of blurb my articles or whatnot. I noticed that
the Daily Caller would blurb, yeah, quite a few of
my best ones and so actually my junior year of college,
I cooled emailed a Tucker Carlson who was still charge
(12:54):
of the Caller then.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Kind of a different version of Tucker I remember. I
remember that version.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Yeah, but you kind of the thing only someone who
like is a junior in college doesn't know enough to
not do these things can do. Is I just cold
emailed them and said, hey, you guys cover my articles
all the time, how did I just write them for
you instead?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
And the work that.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Started freelancing for them and kind of things took off
from there and by yeah, but by the end of
my junior year going to senior year, I was working
full time for the Caller while in school and I
would wake up and I would It was in Central Time,
so I would work from like seven am, Texas times
(13:40):
like uh eleven, and then I do class like eleven
to you know, uh four, and then I would get
back work from like four to eight. And it was
a lot of fun. But it definitely definitely take take
my grades that last year.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That kind of.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Definitely did the all something.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I love stories like that where you just like call
somebody up and it ends up working out. I don't
know if people still do that. I I feel like
I always see this gen z mock that kind of thing, like, oh,
why don't you just call up the company that you
want to work for?
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Right? Right? But it works.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I mean, it happened. Sometimes I'm encouraging my daughter to,
you know, just write a letter and see what happens.
So it made you write the manipulators? What was it
about Facebook, Google, Twitter, et cetera that made you want
to write about them?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
That was It was a lot of fun to write.
It was. This was back and I started it in
twenty nineteen, and so.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's good timing.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, things.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
I really started to take off there, and I felt
like it was an undercovered, you know, topic that nobody
was really kind of talking about, especially in the conservative world.
Is tough to kind of get source inside those companies
would kind of be from the outside, you know, kind
(15:04):
of talking about it. But I was able to get
connected with a few very helpful people inside of these
companies who were able to really kind of show me
the ins and outs, and I thought, yeah, it's a
great book. People need to hear about this. And the
timing of it probably could have been a you know,
(15:24):
on the one hand, it was great. On the on
the other hand, it was you know, it came out
like right before COVID shut the world down, and it
was a little tough to break into the news cycle.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
But it was uh.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Uh uh.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Definitely a lot of fun to write, and uh yeah,
kind of always has me. You know, it was a
lot of fun to write, but like a lot of
works that I was like, I don't want to do
that for a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, any surprises to you in there and anything that
you found that you didn't didn't expect.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
You know, I was surprised that there were you know,
there were more conservative people inside these companies. The problem
was just they were all right, they had to be
quiet and they Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Was kind of surprised about the number.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Of people who just try to keep their head down
and get through it and kind of you know, the
same way as you know in the college on college
campuses in the peak is woke, you know, you type
people who just try to get through.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It, right, I mean I definitely even when I was
in college. I mean, I'm a lot older than you,
but in the late nineties, thank you, well, in the
late nineties, you know, I find old things that I've written,
and I you know, I was totally catering to a
leftist professor. I found an article, not an article, a
(16:43):
paper I wrote like, you know how the family was
an outdated concept, like I knew what to say, you know,
I got I got an a on that paper, as
you might might not be surprised to learn. But it's
interesting because I feel like the conservatives in these companies,
do they still feel like they have to keep their
heads down? Like I get that that was especially at
(17:04):
that time. Maybe you don't know the answer to this,
but you know, in the twenty twenty years, the real
high cancel culture years, obviously they did. Do you feel
like they still need to keep a low profile?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
You know, not as much? I don't think now. I mean,
you know, I think.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I think the way that Trump's win has really kind
of shaped the culture of these companies really telling so
far as that they are, you know, they have kind
of it. They had a lot of book people that
if they still do, but primarily they were catering to
power more than anything else.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So when Aurocrafts were in office, right office, Zuckerberger loves
the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And yeah, Zuckerberg can't get enough with that free speech.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
He's always been a big free speech guy, right, Right,
We just didn't know, just.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Forgot to tell us for a long time.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Right, Which of the companies did you find to be
kind of the most malicious. Was there one that stuck
out to is being worse than the others?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:02):
I think ideologically I would say Twitter. I think Twitter
was kind of the most most timeminded, the most aggressive,
especially just in terms of you know, you know, because
it's kind of the initial public square that it drives
stories and journalists kind of something trans on Twitter, journals
(18:24):
are going to cover it. I think they kind of
took that seriously and stuff like okay, well then let's
really clamp down on this. Facebook oftentimes would be kind
of more They tried to be more opaque about it
that they wouldn't you know, ban people as much as
the would just tank the traffic and things like that,
right right, I don't know any better, they at least
(18:46):
were as opening evil. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Was there one that was maybe gave you hope or
that there was like more more of a positive experience
for the user or they're all just pretty terrible.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
I know that they're all all pretty terrible.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Yeah, I don't know, maybe LinkedIn didn't get too much.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I forget about LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it
also has its you know, I'm sure the crackdowns on speech,
but you know, yeah, what do you worry about worry about?
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
I would say the thing that kind of stays in
the back of my mind for.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
Kind of constantly is kind of just how AI is
going to change the world that my kids live in,
you know, both in terms of just you know, how
it's going to shape school culture and kids not wanting
to learn and not much kids.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
My kids are great kids.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
The would never do now, they would never right, right,
How old are your kids?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
There are three two and four weeks?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So wow four weeks congratulations.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah, we're you know, the Irish Catholic thing. It's just
as yeah, keep going like my mom such thing as
too many grandkids. But yeah, you know, obviously it's kind
of crazy to worry about what the three year old's
world is going to look like in Fife. That's what
I think about I worry about kind of, Yeah, as
(20:15):
as as much as like online on my world is
like saturated with poor now I worry about what happens
when you get these masks produced AI.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Things like that, and then also just you know, the
you know, what the job markets will be like in
white colle things like that.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, when the three year olds, I, you know, I
don't know, I want to be an artist. You're like,
we're not going to have.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Those in here designers, right, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
So I've always kind of actually I'm not pitched this
to my wife, but I've always kind of toyed with
the idea of, you know, when it's time to go
to college, maybe I just say, here's what we'll spen
on tuition, or you can go.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Yeah yeah, open the construction business.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, it's such a smart move. I mean, it's I
think about this kind of thing a lot. And I've
had people on the show, like Leel Leibowitz has said
that he's gonna completely talk his kids out of going
to college and instead encourage them to have other, you know,
kind of life learning experiences during that time. But I'm
just like, when all of the pressure is from the outside,
(21:29):
when all of their friends are going to college, they're
going to want to go too. So unless you break
the system, I don't know how we pull our individual
kids out. I think it's going to be very hard.
One time, my kids are fifteen, twelve, and nine, and
I floated to my fifteen year old maybe like two
years ago, you know, maybe instead of going to college, also,
we'll you know, give you the money we would have spent.
(21:50):
And she's like, oh, I'm going to college. So you know,
it's tough.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Yeah, yeah, And I mean that's kind of the exact
as you describe it.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Especially, I think we look at kind of the rates
for people who could go toll.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
I'm sure some of that is coelection biased, but yeah,
you want your kids to have.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
So more college graduates get married or don't.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Yeah, right, right, it's a lot easier to Yeah, as
a college graduate, especially for men. It's it's kind of
a funny. You can make a lot more money as
the HVAC guy. But yeah, but yeah, it doesn't have
the status of them.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I wonder I wonder about that, like, because it doesn't
you know, in those studies, they don't you know, they
don't ask just the people who don't have a college
degree but are making a lot of money. Like, I
don't think anybody's like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg, I wouldn't consider
him because he dropped out of college. Like, you know,
if you own Facebook, they'll give you a shot. Similarly,
I think that the HVAC guy probably does get more girls,
(22:52):
but in the poll the polling data just groups him
with people who, like, you know, work at the corner
store or that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. We're like the whole subway.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right right, They're all in the same category of didn't
graduate college. So yeah, well, if you could fix that
problem for all of our kids, you let me know,
because I will. I'm in for your for your alternate,
alternate system.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
What colleges?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, looking at so she's super driven straight A's like
that's why she was like, I'm not going to go
to college. Maybe one of these bozo brothers of mine
won't go to college, but I'm going. I don't know,
something in the South. Maybe I'm not really sure. She's
in tenth grade, she started definitely starting to think about it.
(23:40):
We have a short list of colleges she can't go to.
And that was the case even before October seventh, but
you know, since October seventh, we just we're Jewish, we
can't we can't be having her go to Columbia, but again,
Columbia was off the list even before that, so and
you know, somewhere with good free speech values would be good.
(24:01):
Those sort of hard to find.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's been interesting to me how it seems
like the uh uh sec schools are really kind of.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, very popular.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Now. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of smart kids that
could go elsewhere. I'm sure football is a big part
of that. But also I think just kind of the
culture of yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Normal saying people who you know aren't telling you that
you're using the wrong code language that they just made
up five seconds ago. And you know, I.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Don't think there's like a big two spirit community, right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
But of course all those schools are getting harder to
get into. We live in Florida, and University of Florida
has become just they called it the UF massacre last
year where kids got into Stanford but not into UF.
And it's yeah, it's getting really hard. So I don't know,
it's it's tough. You're lucky you have some time for
(25:05):
your you know, to brainwash your kids in the direction
that you want them to know. I'm running out of time,
so I have to like speed up that brainwashing. We're
going to take a quick break and be right back
on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Well, looking back on your life,
what advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
(25:25):
What does sixteen year old Peter need to know?
Speaker 4 (25:28):
You know, it's it's funny.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
I was kind of thinking about this question, and I
was thinking, what would I go back and change?
Speaker 4 (25:34):
But that I think I'm like, well, you know, we've uh,
you know, I met my wife.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
If I had studied harder ago, I mean, Dallas is
at the fantastic school. But you know, because you think
about alternative paths you could have taken.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, well I wouldn't end up here.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
And but so I think, you know, i'd probably give
two pieces of advice to my sixteen year old self,
which is just read more, which to do anyway, but.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Read more.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Actually, I'll say three pieces of advice. I'm read more
stale of Instagram. Instagram. I think it most. I mean
I use it, I still use it, but I think
it's Do.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You think it's the worst one.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Really, especially for teenagers? I think it's the most.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Just I think it. Yeah, it's kind of like an
envy app, you know, Yeah, you always see like the
best day of you know, there's someone on your feet
who is having like the best day of the year.
If you follow sixty five people you know, and so,
but I mean, you know, at least it's not.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Four chan or whatever. Then also yeah, then maybe by
bitcoin I wish I mean by bitcoin. Yeah, you have
to be.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
A giant nerd to be thinking about bitcoin and twenty eleven.
But right, I could tell myself one thing I was said, definitely.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
By a bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, I love that. Actually, you know, it's funny. I
think Instagram for me, it's the it's for again as
a grown up, not as a sixteen year old. It's
my favorite because it's just happy, Like X is just
this place of misery and just everything is just doom
and horrible and there's never like a ray of sunshine.
(27:25):
And Instagram is like, you know, the the Yeah, this
woman in her private jet showing off her ten thousand
dollars bag. I don't feel jealous of her. I'm just like, good,
you know, at least she's having a good time. And
the people that X are like, you know, just yeah,
they're absolutely misery and trying to start bites with each other.
(27:45):
Whereas like Instagram is like this happy. It's fake, but
it's happy. You know.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like that
that that's really wholesome take on it.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I like that it's optimistic.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I just X is my addiction, so it's it's the
one that I can stay away from. It's the one
like when we go on vacation. It's the app I
removed from my phone so that I can have a
good time. Like, yeah, it is the pit of sorrow.
So in Instagram comparatively, I feel like, is you know
the place of joy? Well, I've loved this conversation, Peter.
(28:22):
I think you are so awesome and I just I
love your work and just find you to be such
a great person to follow. Leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
I think the best way anybody can just make it
one quick change to prove their life is just to
carve out time to read. Kind of one thing I've
had to force myself to do is because you can
kind of.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Just scroll all day and not know you are for sure,
and then the whole day is gone.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
You haven't really you know, you used your brain much
but I think you kind of, you know, almost like
a homeschool mom to yourself, just carve out some time
that you have to sit down and read.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Yeah, I think it makes huge differences. And even just
even even if you're not.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Reading anything substantive, you're still gaining something just by forcing
yourself to have a longer attention span for a half hour.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Absolutely, and not just using your finger to write all
of Yeah. I love that he is.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Peter J.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Hassen. Get his book The Manipulators Facebook, Google, Twitter, and
Big Text War on Conservatives and check out his work
at Washington Free Begon and follow him on x. He's
really a fantastic guy.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Thank you so much, Peter, Thank you so much, Carol,
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcotz Show on
iHeart Radio. I'm doing another one of those advice segments
that you all seem to enjoy, and I'm joined here
by my friend Buck Sexton, co host of the Clay
Travis and Buck Sexton Show.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Buck, So nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, great to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I didn't mean for this to happen, but I just
realized now, like a Brazilian soccer player, I'm just one
name on the screen.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
It's just but I am the Everyone.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Knows who Buck is. I mean, I don't even think
you need a last name in this case.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Did people like my last advice or did I get
more and more people angry at me or disagree with me?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Mostly?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I think the friend one everybody enjoyed. I think that
that got overwhelming, you know support. It was a mixed
bag with the one where I think the woman on.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
That one myself, so I can't get mad at any Yeah,
if you want to make friends, talk to people. That's
one hundred percent good advice, real and will work. Just mean,
just talk to more people all the time. Just talking
to some people felt.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
That they weren't brave enough to do that. But I
feel like, you see, this is some good tips.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
This is like public speaking, which is you have to
just do it, meaning like the only way to do
it is to push through and do it. And telling
yourself I don't like doing that is actually not an
acceptable response to the goal that you want anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Sorry, no, no, this is great.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The question that we're going to get into today also
touches on the issue of friendship, so this leads perfectly
into it. So here we go. And Buck does not
like to know the questions in advance. This is the
first time he's hearing these questions, right, all right, Hi, Carol.
I'm in my sixties and have lived in a blue
city my entire life. I never minded until the last
few years. I followed your COVID journey to Florida and
(01:49):
felt for you very much, but I didn't have kids
in school, so I didn't feel like I had to
make a change. I waited out the arrows in the
grocery store and went on with my life. The murder
of Charlie Kirk and the celebration I heard from friends
and acquaintances, I am now thinking I need to I
need to move and find people with values in common.
Do you think it's too late? You've talked about the
(02:11):
difficulty of making friends in your forties. Can I do
it in my sixties? I think this is a tough one.
What do you think, buck Oh?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I think that the ability to embrace change and adapt
at any and all ages is something that.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
We should all strive for.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
That you should you want to be as adaptable as
the only thing that's consistent in life is change.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
And so if you think that there's a new phase
that you want to enter, or and you want to
try a new in this case obviously surroundings and environment
for your.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Life, I think I think I absolutely go for it.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think that it's in a lot of ways now
an easier time than ever to do a lot of
these things. Because this brings me a little bit to
my like why did I live in York so long?
It used to be that your geography defined a lot more, uh,
quite honestly, like not just your job opportunities and your
social opportunities.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But also just day to day stuff.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I think that we've now all take now I'll
take this for granted, but essentially anywhere in America that's
within an hour of a or maybe two hours of
like a reasonable size metro area. I'm not even saying like,
you know you're in La Atlanta. I'm just saying, you know,
if you're if you're within an hour or two of
a city, you can order anything you want and have
(03:34):
it to live at your house pretty much the next day.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You could.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
You have more entertainment options if you have if you
have Wi Fi, I mean, if you have internet access,
you have more entertainment, more shopping, more information, more, uh,
you know, coordination with with people around you than before.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Carol.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I had a cheeseburger delivered to my house.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
By a robot a few days ago.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Wow, kid, you not a little robot that's brought me
my shake shack. And and this, by the way, it's
I had to get used to look outside. You type
in a little code, Do you tip the robot? It opens, No,
you get your tip back. So I'm oh, I'm gonna
tell you. I'm not gonna be shy about this because
I think this is another this is something that someone
(04:18):
didn't ask, but I just I believe in being a
basically like a max out tipper, meaning if twenty percent
is what you always go twenty. So many someone does
like a you know, a good a good faith job,
not even a good job, just a good faith job.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Like if I can tell they're trying, it's twenty.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
If they do anything that makes me feel like they
added a little bit to my day or they were
a little bit, you know, above and beyond night thirty.
So I believe in in if anything overtipping, and I
always have even when I had very little money.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
But not the robot, No tips for the robot, No.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Tips for the robot, but the robot reality with that
as soon it's going to be drone delivery for people.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
And what does this have to do with moving?
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You're more connected now, connected and all senses than ever before. Yeah,
so you're not going to be alone. It's not like
you move to a community. I mean you're gonna be
able to watch all your favorite shows, order you know,
whatever you want to buy off of the internet.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I mean, you could have a shrman.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What about the friend part? What about the making friends easier?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
To find groups, entities, individuals, you name it in your
area wherever you are, to establish you know, common I mean,
my my problem now is that there's so many and
this is I don't have time for all the friends
that I already have.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Right, you're in Miami problem. And I moved, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
You know, and I moved from New York, where I
grew up, where that was, where that was also the case.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
And I think Carry feels the same way.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
And it's not because I'm so popular, it's just because
it's just so popular.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I was going to say, you're so popular, like the
football team.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
But you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
But you're like dating the head cheerleader. You guys are
You're a very good man.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Carry does look like the cheerleader. I got to say,
I'm a lucky man. She's doing great work. She's doing
great work. Some people are saying care doing people. The
people are saying in the gym cariber getting it done.
I would just say, yes, take take the lead. I
would say yes to this. This person wrote and sixties.
I have a whole other rant on this too.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Sixties here, Yes, now you have if you if.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You are reasonable with your reasonable with your diet, meaning
like you're not just completely eating the worst imaginable stuff
and have a million and you move, you walk, forget
about all this other stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
You don't have to.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
If you're walking off and you eat well and you
get enough sleep, you're going to be healthy.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
You're going to like feel in love for good.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
You've got twenty five to thirty years of really being
able to, like, you know, enjoy. I mean, that's a
long time to really be able to enjoy your surroundings.
Sixty isn't what it used to be, meaning that I
think this person, you have a whole other phase of.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Enjoying your life like we think of it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
I mean, you think about what people used to look
like in their forties, forty or fifty years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Even in this time, we look like teenagers now.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, I look like teenagers now.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So I mean I'm forty three, for having sakes, and
like I think I still get id'd sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I see this through the Florida bubble, and so I
think you're absolutely right. Sixty is so young. These sixty
year olds out here, seventy year old. They're riding their bicycles,
they're doing jazzer size in the pool. They're very, very active.
There's all kinds of clubs and card rooms and all
kinds of stuff for people in Florida who are retired,
(07:34):
et cetera. We don't know if this person who wrote
in is retired. I don't know what her story is,
but I assume if she's wondering if she should move,
she can work from anywhere or maybe doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
You know, if it's not if it's not unthinkably onerous
for you to move financially, personally or otherwise, and you
feel like you want to move, move, Yeah, that's that's
my basic advice on this too.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think I think we're gonna have to agree on
this one. You know, I liked when we disagreed, but
I'm with you. I think that there's nothing wrong with
looking for people who share your values and to surround
yourself with those people, and to do it at any
age really, because you do have a lot of living
left to do. You don't want to be around people
who are celebrating the death of a father, of a husband,
(08:16):
of somebody who did nothing wrong, but try to connect
to the other side. So yeah, get out rective.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
That's a destructive energy that goes beyond Yeah. The like
I don't I don't agree with like my neighbors on
climate change, and they're kind of annoying about recycling Like
that's one feeling of I'm is related here. There's a
derangement and a and a darkness in people that has emerged.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I've seen.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I have friends of mine have said they have had
family members say things and they're having a tough time
forgetting what family members of theirs have publicly.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Generally it's Facebook posting, right, But that Facebook.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
They people think that what doesn't count that you're you're
making a statement on Facebook. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
We'll treat Facebook like it a diary.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
It's not a diary, or they're public you know, a statement.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I'm just gonna put whatever bile is growing in my
brain right now, I'm just going to spew it out
on this Facebook page. Like, No, that is the opposite
of what you should be doing on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
But anyway, absolutely he is, Buck Sexton. Thank you so
much for joining me. Buck, send in your questions. We
will answer them in future segments. Thanks so much for
coming on the Carol Markowitz Show. Please stay tuned for
an interview with Peter J. Hassen. Hi, and welcome back
to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today
(09:37):
is Peter J. Hassen. Peter is a politics editor at
The Washington Free Weekend and the author of the book
The Manipulators Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Text War on Conservatives. Hi, Peter,
so nice to have you on.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Hey, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I've been a big fan of yours for just many,
many years, and I'm really looking forward to getting to
know you a little better. How did you get into
this thing of ours?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Well, it was honestly kind of by accident.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
I grew up in a family of lawyers, a mom
where my dad was lawyer, my mom's my mom's dad
was my dad's law professor.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Wow, a lot of lawyers.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
But I I started started out writing for Campus Reform
College because I want to make loxt for money and
I liked to write, and I was kind of doing
it here we're there because I was playing college soccer
in college lacrosse, I didn't have a ton of free time.
(10:43):
Then I I actually suffered a string of concussions who
look across my sophomore year that kind of ended my
my shining three at the leven. So that kind of
cut it all short. And so I had all these yeah,
(11:06):
competitive juices that were flowing, and I needed something to change,
you know, to channel them into. So I channeled them
into kind of digging up what woke things UH were doing.
And you know, I've always been pretty good at kind
of scraping sites and finding interesting things on them, and
(11:27):
so I got really into it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
What are you studying, uh politics?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Right? I?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (11:38):
I went to the University of Dallas, which is like
a small Catholic school down there. No, no, not, I
grew up in the DC area, but I went down
there for for school, and uh anyway, so I really
(12:01):
kind of threw myself into, you know, to my first
taste of uh investigative juralism, and I happened to just
be good at it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
Happened to be one of those things that was like
the perfect.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Outlet for, you know, someone who needed a competitive outlet
because it was you. You'd put time in and then
you'd see the results.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
And no concussions.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
That's a plus, right, Yeah, Yeah, my mom was a
lot happier about that one.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
And then so I started noticing when other outlets would
kind of blurb my articles or whatnot. I noticed that
the Daily Caller would blurb, yeah, quite a few of
my best ones and so actually my junior year of college,
I cooled emailed a Tucker Carlson who was still charge
(12:54):
of the Caller then.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Kind of a different version of Tucker I remember. I
remember that version.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Yeah, but you kind of the thing only someone who
like is a junior in college doesn't know enough to
not do these things can do. Is I just cold
emailed them and said, hey, you guys cover my articles
all the time, how did I just write them for
you instead?
Speaker 4 (13:15):
And the work that.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Started freelancing for them and kind of things took off
from there and by yeah, but by the end of
my junior year going to senior year, I was working
full time for the Caller while in school and I
would wake up and I would It was in Central Time,
so I would work from like seven am, Texas times
(13:40):
like uh eleven, and then I do class like eleven
to you know, uh four, and then I would get
back work from like four to eight. And it was
a lot of fun. But it definitely definitely take take
my grades that last year.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That kind of.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Definitely did the all something.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I love stories like that where you just like call
somebody up and it ends up working out. I don't
know if people still do that. I I feel like
I always see this gen z mock that kind of thing, like, oh,
why don't you just call up the company that you
want to work for?
Speaker 4 (14:16):
Right? Right? But it works.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I mean, it happened. Sometimes I'm encouraging my daughter to,
you know, just write a letter and see what happens.
So it made you write the manipulators? What was it
about Facebook, Google, Twitter, et cetera that made you want
to write about them?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
That was It was a lot of fun to write.
It was. This was back and I started it in
twenty nineteen, and so.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's good timing.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, things.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
I really started to take off there, and I felt
like it was an undercovered, you know, topic that nobody
was really kind of talking about, especially in the conservative world.
Is tough to kind of get source inside those companies
would kind of be from the outside, you know, kind
(15:04):
of talking about it. But I was able to get
connected with a few very helpful people inside of these
companies who were able to really kind of show me
the ins and outs, and I thought, yeah, it's a
great book. People need to hear about this. And the
timing of it probably could have been a you know,
(15:24):
on the one hand, it was great. On the on
the other hand, it was you know, it came out
like right before COVID shut the world down, and it
was a little tough to break into the news cycle.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
But it was uh.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Uh uh.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Definitely a lot of fun to write, and uh yeah,
kind of always has me. You know, it was a
lot of fun to write, but like a lot of
works that I was like, I don't want to do
that for a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, any surprises to you in there and anything that
you found that you didn't didn't expect.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
You know, I was surprised that there were you know,
there were more conservative people inside these companies. The problem
was just they were all right, they had to be
quiet and they Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Was kind of surprised about the number.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Of people who just try to keep their head down
and get through it and kind of you know, the
same way as you know in the college on college
campuses in the peak is woke, you know, you type
people who just try to get through.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
It, right, I mean I definitely even when I was
in college. I mean, I'm a lot older than you,
but in the late nineties, thank you, well, in the
late nineties, you know, I find old things that I've written,
and I you know, I was totally catering to a
leftist professor. I found an article, not an article, a
(16:43):
paper I wrote like, you know how the family was
an outdated concept, like I knew what to say, you know,
I got I got an a on that paper, as
you might might not be surprised to learn. But it's
interesting because I feel like the conservatives in these companies,
do they still feel like they have to keep their
heads down? Like I get that that was especially at
(17:04):
that time. Maybe you don't know the answer to this,
but you know, in the twenty twenty years, the real
high cancel culture years, obviously they did. Do you feel
like they still need to keep a low profile?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
You know, not as much? I don't think now. I mean,
you know, I think.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
I think the way that Trump's win has really kind
of shaped the culture of these companies really telling so
far as that they are, you know, they have kind
of it. They had a lot of book people that
if they still do, but primarily they were catering to
power more than anything else.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So when Aurocrafts were in office, right office, Zuckerberger loves
the First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And yeah, Zuckerberg can't get enough with that free speech.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
He's always been a big free speech guy, right, Right,
We just didn't know, just.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Forgot to tell us for a long time.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Right, Which of the companies did you find to be
kind of the most malicious. Was there one that stuck
out to is being worse than the others?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:02):
I think ideologically I would say Twitter. I think Twitter
was kind of the most most timeminded, the most aggressive,
especially just in terms of you know, you know, because
it's kind of the initial public square that it drives
stories and journalists kind of something trans on Twitter, journals
(18:24):
are going to cover it. I think they kind of
took that seriously and stuff like okay, well then let's
really clamp down on this. Facebook oftentimes would be kind
of more They tried to be more opaque about it
that they wouldn't you know, ban people as much as
the would just tank the traffic and things like that,
right right, I don't know any better, they at least
(18:46):
were as opening evil. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Was there one that was maybe gave you hope or
that there was like more more of a positive experience
for the user or they're all just pretty terrible.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
I know that they're all all pretty terrible.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Yeah, I don't know, maybe LinkedIn didn't get too much.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I forget about LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it
also has its you know, I'm sure the crackdowns on speech,
but you know, yeah, what do you worry about worry about?
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:19):
I would say the thing that kind of stays in
the back of my mind for.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
Kind of constantly is kind of just how AI is
going to change the world that my kids live in,
you know, both in terms of just you know, how
it's going to shape school culture and kids not wanting
to learn and not much kids.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
My kids are great kids.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
The would never do now, they would never right, right,
How old are your kids?
Speaker 4 (19:45):
There are three two and four weeks?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So wow four weeks congratulations.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah, we're you know, the Irish Catholic thing. It's just
as yeah, keep going like my mom such thing as
too many grandkids. But yeah, you know, obviously it's kind
of crazy to worry about what the three year old's
world is going to look like in Fife. That's what
I think about I worry about kind of, Yeah, as
(20:15):
as as much as like online on my world is
like saturated with poor now I worry about what happens
when you get these masks produced AI.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Things like that, and then also just you know, the
you know, what the job markets will be like in
white colle things like that.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, when the three year olds, I, you know, I
don't know, I want to be an artist. You're like,
we're not going to have.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Those in here designers, right, Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:51):
So I've always kind of actually I'm not pitched this
to my wife, but I've always kind of toyed with
the idea of, you know, when it's time to go
to college, maybe I just say, here's what we'll spen
on tuition, or you can go.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Yeah yeah, open the construction business.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, it's such a smart move. I mean, it's I
think about this kind of thing a lot. And I've
had people on the show, like Leel Leibowitz has said
that he's gonna completely talk his kids out of going
to college and instead encourage them to have other, you know,
kind of life learning experiences during that time. But I'm
just like, when all of the pressure is from the outside,
(21:29):
when all of their friends are going to college, they're
going to want to go too. So unless you break
the system, I don't know how we pull our individual
kids out. I think it's going to be very hard.
One time, my kids are fifteen, twelve, and nine, and
I floated to my fifteen year old maybe like two
years ago, you know, maybe instead of going to college, also,
we'll you know, give you the money we would have spent.
(21:50):
And she's like, oh, I'm going to college. So you know,
it's tough.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
Yeah, yeah, And I mean that's kind of the exact
as you describe it.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Especially, I think we look at kind of the rates
for people who could go toll.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
I'm sure some of that is coelection biased, but yeah,
you want your kids to have.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
So more college graduates get married or don't.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Yeah, right, right, it's a lot easier to Yeah, as
a college graduate, especially for men. It's it's kind of
a funny. You can make a lot more money as
the HVAC guy. But yeah, but yeah, it doesn't have
the status of them.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I wonder I wonder about that, like, because it doesn't
you know, in those studies, they don't you know, they
don't ask just the people who don't have a college
degree but are making a lot of money. Like, I
don't think anybody's like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg, I wouldn't consider
him because he dropped out of college. Like, you know,
if you own Facebook, they'll give you a shot. Similarly,
I think that the HVAC guy probably does get more girls,
(22:52):
but in the poll the polling data just groups him
with people who, like, you know, work at the corner
store or that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. We're like the whole subway.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right right, They're all in the same category of didn't
graduate college. So yeah, well, if you could fix that
problem for all of our kids, you let me know,
because I will. I'm in for your for your alternate,
alternate system.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
What colleges?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, looking at so she's super driven straight A's like
that's why she was like, I'm not going to go
to college. Maybe one of these bozo brothers of mine
won't go to college, but I'm going. I don't know,
something in the South. Maybe I'm not really sure. She's
in tenth grade, she started definitely starting to think about it.
(23:40):
We have a short list of colleges she can't go to.
And that was the case even before October seventh, but
you know, since October seventh, we just we're Jewish, we
can't we can't be having her go to Columbia, but again,
Columbia was off the list even before that, so and
you know, somewhere with good free speech values would be good.
(24:01):
Those sort of hard to find.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Yeah, yeah, it's been interesting to me how it seems
like the uh uh sec schools are really kind of.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, very popular.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Now. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of smart kids that
could go elsewhere. I'm sure football is a big part
of that. But also I think just kind of the
culture of yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Normal saying people who you know aren't telling you that
you're using the wrong code language that they just made
up five seconds ago. And you know, I.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Don't think there's like a big two spirit community, right.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
But of course all those schools are getting harder to
get into. We live in Florida, and University of Florida
has become just they called it the UF massacre last
year where kids got into Stanford but not into UF.
And it's yeah, it's getting really hard. So I don't know,
it's it's tough. You're lucky you have some time for
(25:05):
your you know, to brainwash your kids in the direction
that you want them to know. I'm running out of time,
so I have to like speed up that brainwashing. We're
going to take a quick break and be right back
on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Well, looking back on your life,
what advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
(25:25):
What does sixteen year old Peter need to know?
Speaker 4 (25:28):
You know, it's it's funny.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
I was kind of thinking about this question, and I
was thinking, what would I go back and change?
Speaker 4 (25:34):
But that I think I'm like, well, you know, we've uh,
you know, I met my wife.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
If I had studied harder ago, I mean, Dallas is
at the fantastic school. But you know, because you think
about alternative paths you could have taken.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, well I wouldn't end up here.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
And but so I think, you know, i'd probably give
two pieces of advice to my sixteen year old self,
which is just read more, which to do anyway, but.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Read more.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Actually, I'll say three pieces of advice. I'm read more
stale of Instagram. Instagram. I think it most. I mean
I use it, I still use it, but I think
it's Do.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
You think it's the worst one.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Really, especially for teenagers? I think it's the most.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Just I think it. Yeah, it's kind of like an
envy app, you know, Yeah, you always see like the
best day of you know, there's someone on your feet
who is having like the best day of the year.
If you follow sixty five people you know, and so,
but I mean, you know, at least it's not.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Four chan or whatever. Then also yeah, then maybe by
bitcoin I wish I mean by bitcoin. Yeah, you have
to be.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
A giant nerd to be thinking about bitcoin and twenty eleven.
But right, I could tell myself one thing I was said, definitely.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
By a bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, I love that. Actually, you know, it's funny. I
think Instagram for me, it's the it's for again as
a grown up, not as a sixteen year old. It's
my favorite because it's just happy, Like X is just
this place of misery and just everything is just doom
and horrible and there's never like a ray of sunshine.
(27:25):
And Instagram is like, you know, the the Yeah, this
woman in her private jet showing off her ten thousand
dollars bag. I don't feel jealous of her. I'm just like, good,
you know, at least she's having a good time. And
the people that X are like, you know, just yeah,
they're absolutely misery and trying to start bites with each other.
(27:45):
Whereas like Instagram is like this happy. It's fake, but
it's happy. You know.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I like that
that that's really wholesome take on it.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
I like that it's optimistic.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I just X is my addiction, so it's it's the
one that I can stay away from. It's the one
like when we go on vacation. It's the app I
removed from my phone so that I can have a
good time. Like, yeah, it is the pit of sorrow.
So in Instagram comparatively, I feel like, is you know
the place of joy? Well, I've loved this conversation, Peter.
(28:22):
I think you are so awesome and I just I
love your work and just find you to be such
a great person to follow. Leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
I think the best way anybody can just make it
one quick change to prove their life is just to
carve out time to read. Kind of one thing I've
had to force myself to do is because you can
kind of.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Just scroll all day and not know you are for sure,
and then the whole day is gone.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
You haven't really you know, you used your brain much
but I think you kind of, you know, almost like
a homeschool mom to yourself, just carve out some time
that you have to sit down and read.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
Yeah, I think it makes huge differences. And even just
even even if you're not.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
Reading anything substantive, you're still gaining something just by forcing
yourself to have a longer attention span for a half hour.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Absolutely, and not just using your finger to write all
of Yeah. I love that he is.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
Peter J.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Hassen. Get his book The Manipulators Facebook, Google, Twitter, and
Big Text War on Conservatives and check out his work
at Washington Free Begon and follow him on x. He's
really a fantastic guy.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Thank you so much, Peter, Thank you so much, Carol,
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