May 23, 2024 • 49 mins
In this episode, Tudor and the team discuss two main topics: the renaming of offenders to justice impacted individuals in Illinois and the budget cuts in Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan. They explore the implications of these decisions and the lack of accountability in the education system. The conversation touches on the importance of holding schools accountable, the role of unions, and the need for parents to be involved in their children's education. They also highlight the threat to democracy posed by the government education system and the lack of emphasis on teaching basic skills and critical thinking. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We are excited because
we have the whole gang back again. If you listened
last week, I introduced my team to you. I have Kyle, Sarah,
and Esteban here and we're just going to go over
some news of the week. I guess stories of the day,
and each of us brought one, So I'm going to
start off because I wanted to get everyone's opinion on
(00:20):
this one. Have you heard of this new bill in
Illinois where they are now going to change legally change
the name of the word offender to justice impacted individual,
So anyone who is a criminal, well now instead of
being called an offender, they will be a justice impact individual,
(00:44):
which I don't even think that's a good description of
someone like this didn't happen to them. They did this,
But this goes to this new theory of we should
be catering to criminals and where does this leave victims
when they do this? Bier than that the cost to
change all this because now everything has to be changed,
(01:04):
so it's like it reminds me of when Whitmer's administration
came into Michigan and they changed the environmental Agency to
be named Eagle and it was like the most expensive
letter had changed in the history of Michigan. Because you
change something like this, everything has to be reprinted. Someone
has to go in and change all the names. But
I just think it's ridiculous. So I wanted your opinions
on it.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Wait, so what, so what is the what's the term?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So it's now going instead of offender, it's now going
to be justice impacted individual?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How does that work for like multiple offenders? Is it
multiple justices impacted?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
But also, yeah, you've brought up the victims. The victims
are also justice impacted.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
If are justice impacted like these people are not, they
can be positive.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Justice to me is justice served. That's a positive thing.
So you're calling a criminal.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
But this past it's going to the governor and you
know that that guy's going to sign it. So this
is going to be their new law that they have
to do this.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And who do they really think they're kidding because everybody knows.
So now if you have an employer and you can't
say offender anymore, so you're using this silly term. Everybody
knows what it means. So what do they think they're
actually accomplishing?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I think that they do. They are lessening the impact
of what these people have done. And I don't understand
why this is the new thing to go out and
make people who commit crimes feel as though they are
somehow the victim and we have to change what we
call people who are the bad guy to make them
(02:43):
feel better. Why is that the case? Everyone just laughing.
I don't know what is happening, Esteban.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I mean, I'm not I'm not. I want to preface
this by saying I've never been arrested as far as
I know, and I'm not justice impact.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yea, we backcheck, we fact checked you are we very well?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I just you know, I think that it's it's it's
a headline thing, right where if I mean, people are
going to see this and they're not going to read
too deeply into it, and that's what they're hoping.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
But is this a good headline? I don't actually think
this is a good headline.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I think it's it's more advertising to dumb people,
you know, people who just don't care about it, Like
like you can you can claim that somebody is an
offender and then people will read that and they'll think, oh,
this is a bad person. And then move on with
their day. They're not going to click on the article.
They're not going to click on the you know, the
report or anything like that. You put it as what
(03:37):
is it justice impacted individual? Yeah, they're still not going
to care. But they're going to think, oh, crime is
down because I'm not seeing as many offenders.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So is that the So you think that's the reason
for this, because right now I think this is making
headlines for being kind of idiotic, and at a time
when people are very upset about crime, and they don't
think I'm maybe I'm wrong, but I think that people
are thinking there's not enough being done about crime. And
so I think that if I were, even if I
(04:07):
were a Democrat, if I read this, I would go,
come on, guys, is that what we're doing? But maybe not.
Maybe I'm just naive to how I.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Mean, it's a lot easier to do this than to
fix a crime problem in Illinois. Right this is Illinois,
so you've got Chicago. I mean that it's a lot
easier to use, you know, to use an old phrase.
I mean, you you can put lipstick on a pig,
and that's what this is. I mean, you're just painting
over the problem.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Why is this is the youngest.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yes that's a good saying, by the way, or sunglasses
on a governor what I guess? I just think it
just seems to me like they're just they're trying to
sort of paper over or to use yes to echo
what Esteban said. But at the end of the day,
(05:02):
people are this is not changing anything for people that
are the victims of crime, that are dealing with, you know,
crime in their neighborhood or in their school or wherever
it may be. It's not changing their life. And so
the government can come up with all of these silly
things and you know, make I guess, make the offenders
(05:23):
feel good or make the social justice warriors feel good,
but it ultimately is not changing anything because it's not
changing the lives of the people that are directly impacted
by the crime.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
This may take us on a long path, but is
this retroactive? If you've been an offender before, are you
going to go back and change all of those.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Records too, That's what I'm saying. I mean, I would
assume that you have to change all the records because
if some another case comes back up or that case
gets reintroduced, or do you change it then? I don't know.
But regardless, I think to what you're saying, Kyle, it
goes beyond what most people think about until it happens
(06:01):
to them, Because if you are the victim of a crime,
you're probably not thinking about this if you're not the
victim of a crime. And I think most of the
people that do this are not generally victims of crime.
But now we've seen a lot more people, like in
New York City, where we are seeing people who are
you know, comics and people who are on TV every
day that are being attacked. Once these people who have
(06:24):
some sort of prominence are being attacked and they're the
victims of a crime, how are they going to feel
when the criminal is being coddled with these names that
make you think their justice has somehow been impacted. I mean,
when I listen to that term, I think that this
person has not received justice because they've been impacted in
(06:45):
some way. It is so unfair to the victims. And
when we look at Chicago, which we know has a
high crime rate, a high murder rate in the summer,
how many of those people look at this and they
just go this kind of talk is insane, but ultimately
down Like when you look forward with this and you
see that this is going to be the new way
(07:06):
we talk about things. How belittled are victims going to
be in that city and then eventually in the whole state.
Then eventually, like what happens, does everybody just leave Illinois?
Because there's been people leaving Chicago for a long time,
and now you see I mean, in twenty twenty, we
saw them raiding businesses on the Miracle or the Michigan
(07:26):
Mile or whatever it is, and Mike, that was a
place where nobody really ever felt like there was a
crime problem. But now we see that in Michigan, or
we see that in Chicago, we see that in New York,
we see that in California. I mean, it's just crazy.
But I want to move on because I know you
have a story out of Michigan that is about our
school systems, and I think that's something that is important
(07:48):
to people who are listening what's really going on. Kyle
has historically, throughout his career kind of followed what's happening
in schools, how they're spending money, and it is really
an area where there's no accountability. So I want you
to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah. So a story we recently had at the Midwesterner
is we have not heard a lot from school districts
about budget cuts because schools, because of all the pandemic
money which led to an inflation blah blah blah, schools
have not had budget problems except for ann Arbor Public Schools,
(08:26):
and they have been going through all of this chaos
in the last few months because they realized they had
to cut twenty million dollars out of their budget. And
there's a number of reasons why that happened. Of course,
you know, all we hear about is and what we
see is teachers and staff going to board meetings and saying,
you know, we're not the problem and all of that.
(08:47):
And I think they individually are not the problem. But
what happens in a school district like ann Arbor is
it's a series of things. And it really began when
the district began to declining because it was the in
my opinion, the worst district when it came to the
pandemic in refusing to reopen, and that the superintendent at
(09:09):
the time was completely absurd, completely out of touch for
it with reality. Refused to reopen was catering to the teachers'
union to the point that it was so bad that
even Gretchen Whitmer, who was the Queen of lockdowns, was
publicly saying ann Arbor should reopen. That's how I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I think that ann Arbor is an area where people
are very loud, and so it's one of those communities
where if you're not getting what you want, you stand
up for it. And these were very involved parents, and
suddenly you had liberal Democrat parents who were saying, wait
a minute, this is not okay, I want my kid
to go back to school.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Correct and so, and it's where the University of Michigan is,
so it's a very sort of affluent area. And so
they refused to reopen. And so parents left for a
variety of reasons, working parents or parents who didn't want
their child to learn how to play the trumpet over zoom.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And then when you say parents left, they like they
took their kids and put them in private to some
other school.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Correct. They went to other school districts, charter schools, private schools,
homeschooled whatever, And so they had declining enrollment. And then
they had a clerical error because they got all of
this COVID money, like school districts got and they misbooked
it as revenue when it should not have been revenue.
So they had and that was fourteen million dollars. So
they had fourteen million dollars less than they thought they had.
(10:31):
And then they the year before they gave thirteen million
dollars in raises in a teacher's contract. And so all
of these things combined you have declining customers essentially with
increasing costs. And a business doesn't work like that. And
for all the people who say, well, government's not a business,
(10:53):
well it kind of is. And so now there's this situation.
And so the point in talking about all of this
is that where is the accountability. The accountability should be
with the school board because they are the ones that
are elected by the people to oversee all of this,
to hire the administrator to oversee the curriculum and all
of that. But where's the accountability? And so parents are
(11:17):
very fed up. And this is why, to me, this
is why parents need to organize recalls. They need to
run for the school board themselves. They need to take
these things over instead of just allowing them to happen
to them.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I see this as sort of that liberal privileged situation
where they're never going to come out in ann Arbor
and say they are angry with the school system. There's
few people I'll say it that way. There's few people
that would say that. But I find it interesting that
they took their kids out of the school system and
so the reason that is causing them financial problems. And
(11:49):
this is something that Whitmer was very adamant about during
the campaign. She wants to get people out of public schools. No,
I'm just saying that you should have an option because
if you do leave your public school system, then they
have less dollars from the state because there's not as
many kids to count and every head brings in money,
and then the state has to go, Okay, well wait
(12:11):
a minute, why are we getting less funding for our
schools right now? Why are parents choosing something else? And
to me, it's important when you have a state that
what are we now thirty eighth or forty first in education?
One of those two. I mean, when you're in the
bottom fifteen in the country for education and it just
keeps going lower. Under Gretchen Whitmer, it's gotten lower and
lower and lower. I think there's a time when parents
(12:33):
should say I'm going to invest in my kid and
if I can, I'm going to move them into some
place that works for them, to give them the best education.
And as much as you'll hear the Democrats saying now
we don't have enough money, I mean, why why aren't
we saying what the real reason is. I'm sure you
have an opinion on this, I can see in your face.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I'm going to be honest here. I was in high
school during COVID, but I went to a really weird
high school, so my class size was the entire grade
was sixty kids. We had maybe one hundred kids at
that point in the entire school because we shut down
early on and we were told originally it was going
to be a week, and then we were told a month,
and then we shifted to entirely online classes, and speaking
(13:17):
as a student at that point, it was really heartbreaking
to have to just to not know when I was
going to be able to see my friends. I think
I was. I think I was a sophomore, because I
want to say that I had my entire freshman year,
(13:37):
but I'm not sure the whole the problem is, it's
all a blur. I mean, I can't remember when I
can't really remember when I joined back in person we
started doing hybrid classes. That was really popular for schools
to do hybrid classes once or twice a week, but
it really does. It's really disheartening for students who basically
(13:58):
lost their entire high schools. And imagine being like, imagine
being in a graduating class and not being able to
see a commencement ceremony. Imagine being in sports and not
being able to I don't know anything about sports, but
imagine being not being able to compete and stuff like that.
That really sucks, and it sucks that nobody's you know,
(14:22):
nobody's been held accountable.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But this is the ultimate predicament for Democrats because they
are I mean in education specifically, they're the biggest hypocrites.
They will never come out and bash the public school.
Yet there are so many examples of fighters for the
public school that actually send their kids to private school.
I mean, if you just look in Congress or if
you look at state leaders, the majority of them are
(14:45):
sending their kids to private school while at the same
time saying they're the biggest champions for public schools.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Right now, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, So why do they do that? Not being hypocrite,
but why do they why are they champions for public schools?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Well, of course you got the unions. I mean, they
can't possibly go against what their union bosses are telling
them because they need to be funneled the money so
that they can win reelection. I mean, that's the dirty
side of this all is. I mean, do they really
care about the kids that go to the public school? No,
they don't care. They want to go out there and
say that they're for teachers, that they're for kids. The
schools want to be so bad exactly, and then when
(15:21):
a school is bad, they would rather leave those kids
in failing public schools than help them find a way out.
And they don't want to admit this, but school choice
at the end of the day benefits usually minority kids,
more than it does the white kids.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So, I mean, we've all heard the saying that in
the sixties there were administrators standing in the doorway not
letting black kids in, and today there are administrators standing
in the doorway not letting black kids out of failing schools.
And I know that's not a popular thing to hear,
but when you look at the proficiency rates in these schools.
(15:57):
I don't understand how there can be no accountability whatsoever,
because I've said a number of times you're putting kids
into twelve years or thirteen years of education that you
are genuinely robbing from them, You're robbing their childhood from
them because you can't go back and learn. You don't
have that time again to go back and relearn. So
(16:17):
how can it be that Democrats can promote this and
Republicans are just as guilty of it, I would say,
because you know, I mean in the state of Michigan,
we've had a Republican legislature for how many years up
until this year.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah, I'm basically forty not entirely, but basically.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
And yet it took I think COVID for people to
really go, well, this isn't right. And then you saw
these states, like we had Corey Gangelis on the other
day and he's like, now we suddenly have all these
states that have school choice programs. But I still think
that you have to as a parent be super involved
in your child's education. And I've said multiple times I
(16:56):
was guilty of saying, you know what the teachers know better?
I don't. I'm not going to question anything. And then
after I started seeing things, I'm like, I need to
be intimately involved in my child's education. So I don't know.
I mean, I think that there's something to be said
for constantly holding schools accountable what you used to do.
We're tracking where the money goes all of these luxurious
(17:19):
trips that these teachers go on for a convention. And
I say that with air quotes, because they're out there
for in Hawaii for six days and spend a million
dollars on all the airline tickets and hotel rooms. And
you're like, what the heck our reading proficiency rate is
eight percent? You know, like, how can this be? So
I just think it's important that there's someone tracking, and
(17:41):
that's why I appreciate what you've done in the past,
but I think it needs to be on a larger scale,
and nobody seems to want to do that well.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And not only that, but I can't I couldn't measure
it making any difference because a lot of it is
if you look at the data, over the last couple
of decades, administrate has been growing faster than teachers, and
it's you know this curriculum director, and then the assistant
(18:09):
curriculum director and the deputy curriculum director. You know all
of these people and you're not really sure what they do,
but it's growing sort of the fiefdom of the superintendent
or the.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
School board met they all we have here.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
We have over nine hundred in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Think about how crazy that is.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
I also wonder as a teacher, at what point do
you also say the unions aren't helping me because you're
looking at your superintendent get paid ten times more than
you or whatever. You know, name the person in the
front office when you're in the classroom every single day
with students. So I also this is where I'm curious.
On the teacher side of it. We always assume that
(18:46):
they're with the unions, but are they really because the
unions are not helping them.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
It's so big, though, how do you go up against
that machine? I mean, because we've known teachers that have
chosen to not be a part of the union and
then there's a lot of shame at this fully ostracized Yeah, right,
and so they have a good thing going. It's the
same way that the Democrats are. I can't think of
a nice term right now, because torona use is not
(19:12):
good brainwashing people with this idea that democracy is, that
there's this threat to democracy over Donald Trump when they literally,
i mean, we just find out in the last few
days that they authorize deadly forced to go into mar
A Lago, And it's like, where is the threat to democracy?
When have we ever seen FBI agents raid a former
(19:34):
president's house and go in there with guns blazing when
you've got the teenage son sleeping in the bedroom there.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Because Democrats are master narrative builders, yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I mean they also they authorized use of deadly force, right, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Crazy, and you hear them saying like this is normal protocol.
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast. Remember when they did this to
Roger Stone, and oh yeah, Roger Stone is like, first
of all, you could knock, you could blow him over.
(20:11):
Like Roger Stone is not a huge guy. It's not
like you're gonna need deadly force with Roger Stone. No
offense to Roger but honestly, you go in and you
take this his wife, who was not accused of any crimes,
by the way, So they go in and they hold
a gun to her face. I mean, this is how
can you say the threat to democracy as Republicans when
(20:32):
you're weaponizing the FBI to go into an elderly person's
home and carry her out. Like to his point, I
think at the time he was saying that she's deaf,
so she doesn't even hear it coming like she has.
She wakes up to FBI agents with a gun in
her face. What is happening in the United States?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I agree with all of that. To me, that you
talk about threats to democracy, to me, there's no bigger
threat to democracy than the government education system when we
keep turning kids out of government schools who one can't read,
can't do math, don't understand, don't know American history, don't
(21:12):
know that we are a constitutional republic. How many times
do we see we're a democracy or we see as
a capital D democracy when we're not, or they say
we're a constitutional democracy, which we're not. And so when
kids are coming out and they don't understand history, they
(21:32):
don't understand why we fought wars and why we defended
freedom and we liberated other countries and we did all
of those things. But then also why we have a constitution.
Why we have what's called the rule of law. Why
those things are important. So we don't have despots, and
we don't have dictators, and we don't answer to an individual,
(21:54):
but we answer to laws. Then those people, the dictators
and the despots, they can do whatever they want because
our people don't understand history and law.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
But if you think about it, the people of the
present own history, like you can create history however you want.
So if you change history, then you can change the future.
You can choose how the future goes. And so we
are currently allowing our children to be molded by people
like Randy Weingarten, who has obviously a big influence over
what happens in our schools because she said that, and
(22:25):
then she is now shaping our future. She has input
into what happens in the future based on clouding the
vision of the past. You know, if you don't tell
the truth about history, then students don't understand how dangerous
this idea of just cutting off speech, this concept of
hate speech, is not a real thing, you know, coming
(22:45):
out and saying you can't you can't say things that
offend me. Therefore we can never have a conversation because
nine times out of ten in a conversation. At some
point there's gonna be something you disagree with. Well, then
disagree and talk about it. But I feel like I'm
pointing out, Sarah and Esteban, your generation is unable to
have a conversation because it's easier to just block it
(23:06):
and walk away.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Well, and I want to go back though, because you
talk about the radical radicalization aspect of it, but we're
also just not teaching kids the basics. So if you
look at schools in Detroit where the number of students
that are illiterate, where you're going to have a literate
exact young people, and then you also have an adult
literacy problem. I mean you're just dumbing down the entire population.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That education, security, national security, right, all of these things.
I mean, if you don't have education, you cannot function
as a society because there are people who do all
different roles and no matter what your role is. And
I've heard all the babloney about dirty Jobs, and I
get that that was a very popular show, and maybe
I'm offended by that as we talk about being offended
(23:46):
because I come from a dirty job. But I think
that you can scare people away from careers that are
really good careers by belittling them. And so I want
to have that argument because if we do not, if
we only teach kids to go into art history or
gender studies. And I think that I'm not exaggerating by
that because I think there's a really popular push right
(24:08):
now to be like, be a philosopher, learn about this,
you know, instead of the trades, instead of what it
takes to actually get out of college and freeze a
family and what that means. I mean, even the Harrison
Butker conversational, like how dare he say that? But the
reality is I don't think people are talking enough about
what relationships are. And you so you have to hold
(24:32):
a career, you have to have a job, and you
have to have a job that pays the bills, and
then you should find joy in companionship and you should
have another person in your life. And then if you
want to have a family, you need to think about
what that is ahead of time. And I think people
don't even want to talk about it because they're like,
don't force me into that box. And I'm like, but
isn't that a box? Eventually one day you might be
(24:52):
in and you've never thought about it.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Well, they assume a conversation is automatically forcing you into something.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
That's and that's what I think we se with Harrison
Bucker is that people immediately were like, well, now every
woman has to have a baby. No, but I mean,
are you lying to yourself? I tested one of my girls,
and nobody's going to believe this, but I really did.
We were on the way home from school the other
day and I was just like, I just want to
see what they'd say. I was just with my mettle
daughter and I said to her, Hey, I was just curious,
(25:19):
what do you most look forward to about growing up?
And she goes, hmmm, probably having my own kids one day,
and I was like, it's totally just her own mind
of what she's thinking about. And so the idea that
he would say you're probably most looking forward to getting
married and having kids, I think that there's a lot
of truth to that, because that was what I thought
(25:40):
about as a kid, was my own kids. You know,
what would my kids be like? I mean, that's why
we used to have the Cabbage Patch kids that you
could adopt, you know, and you didn't have to name them.
And to the point where I had too many, but
and I would forget their names, and then I would think,
what if I will forget my own kids' names, which
is obviously ridiculous because I just confuse them with each other.
(26:01):
But I've never forgotten any of them. But it's like
my child mind was definitely thinking about what it would
be like to be a parent. And so the idea
that we can't even discuss that kids think that way,
that kids have to all be like, I'm so confused.
I don't I haven't decided my gender yet. How dare
you consider me as potentially being a parent one day?
It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
I mean, I think any twenty thirty year old woman
that is saying they've never thought about it, they don't
continue to think about it, is totally lying to you.
They've been I mean, clearly they've been brainwashed to think
it's a bad thing to even want that. But you
cannot tell me that you're not thinking about it. You've
just been taught to say it's a bad thing. Now
suddenly that's anti feminist and that ruins all your big plans.
(26:42):
But you're thinking about it in one way or another.
When you're by yourself, that you are thinking about that,
you just can't tell me you're not.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I mean, human nature is to want to like spread
your genes, right, you're supposed to want to. It's that you're.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
That There are kids in the car now running the seed.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
All right, sorry, Sarah, you had a story you wanted
to bring. We'll move on.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Oh we're moving on to a full new topic.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Okay, Well I wanted to talk about all of the drama.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I was like, all right, we need to live. I
want to talk about Scarlett Johansson. I am not an
AI expert or by any I don't really understand how
it works to be honest, chat GPT, all of those things.
That's part Yes, that's how they want. Again, the education
system really failed me here. But Scarlett Johansson is now
at the center of a controversy because her voice is
(27:35):
apparently being used as the new digital assistant for chat GPT.
She was asked if she would like to Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
So, she's I didn't know what it was being used for.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, so it's the New Life. She's like their version
of series for chat gptre. She was listening to it
and it's eerily sim to her own voice. Well, it
turns out the founder of open Ai, who runs chat GPT,
had reached out to Scarlett Johansson and was like, Hey,
we'd really like you to do this. Would you be
the voice of this? And she said no. Well then
(28:06):
you know, he courted her again, asked her, and just
not that long.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
After, just stole her.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yes, he stole her voice. Oh gosh, that's so Ursula,
very little Mermaid of her.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So this stole the mermaid's voice, remember hello.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
But not in the same way. She didn't steal the
mermaid's voice.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And then she did give it to No, she did, remember,
she went and she pretended to be her on the
boat and then she stole Prince Eric. I guess her
voice is a.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Little I'm going to be totally honest. Never seen the
Little Mermaid?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
What okay, this is the whole other seen. I was
going to say, you I would expect all.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Right, But like, there was there was this there was
this movie called Her, And that's what this is about.
Because there was this movie called Her where Scarlett Johansen
plays an AI basically in a computer and Joaquin Phoenix
falls in love with that computer. And my guess is
that this guy who runs cht GPT really loves that movie, mate.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I believe he actually came out and said it's his
favorite movie of all time. Don't quote me on that,
but I think that.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Makes it even creeper. Yes, what is she saying to
him at home? I mean he can make her say.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Anything, right, that's yeah, that's so.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I guess that's a question mark.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I guess my question is because I'm sort of shrugging
about this, Like, what's the big deal to me? I
would I would? Okay, wouldn't you be kind of flattered
if your voice was used now?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Because your your voice is your craft, so it would
be one thing like it would be like someone taking
your writing and playing it off as their own.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's people do that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
But are you happy because if they can monetize it?
I mean you think about all of the digital images
you can create. So if you're a photographer, are you
just toast now because someone but.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
She didn't do the work. And I'm a little playing
a devil's evocate a little bit here, But she didn't
do the work. It's not like he spent two weeks
recording all of these different things.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Probably, I mean, how do you think they trained the voice?
They probably went through all of our movies. They probably
went through all of our interviews.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And they got paid for.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But the problem is she said no, she said, I
don't want you to do this.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is the voice? Does it say, like, can people get
it to say creepy things?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Or is it just I'm sure there's a way.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, that part, I don't know. I don't understand the time.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You have seemingly safe AI image generators that are able
to produce images of Taylor Swift doing things that she
sued them over. I mean, well, then.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Where does this? I think this is the danger, right
because then suddenly you have Donald Trump saying something that
whoever wants to make him do or say something vice versa.
It's like we were told when we were looking at
what the future of political races would be that there
will be a time when they can take your candidate
and that AI will follow what that person has done
(31:02):
during the day, and then they'll get an ad with
their candidate's face saying I went shopping today too, I
did this today too. I mean, how creepy is that
the candidate's not really saying that they did it, but
you won't know.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I mean, there is a big hullabaloo about misinformation, but
we're really living in an age where you can seriously
make anybody do anything or say anything, and target that
to specific people who know who you know won't do
any more research about it, and just convince them, you know,
(31:35):
that Joe Biden killed a child and buried them in
the rose garden, right, Like, that's dark. Wow, I was
gonna say, killed a dog, But we politicians.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Already been there, that's been done.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But it's dangerous when you get to the point where
it's indistinguishable, right.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And I think it be hard to make ai of
Joe Biden because it's hard to be you know, to
have that many flubs. But in a reality, I mean
you could very easily have you know, think about what
they could have done with Hunter and his daughter Ashley,
and like she could there could be some secret recording,
or there could be some secret recording of Baron. You
(32:20):
know what, what's off limits at a certain point when
you can just create something, make someone say something. And
so I think to your point, even if it wouldn't
be offensive to Scarlett Johansson, I think it's good for
all of us that she's standing against this, because if
you let it go. Then how how many people will
(32:40):
do this and eventually where does it go? And then
is it just the norm of like Okay, well don't
be AI and AI impacted individual.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Like no, And I just want to be clear, I'm not.
I think there's a lot of danger with AI and
where that is all going. So I want to be clear.
I'm not trying to downplay that.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I just and just to just to be very clear,
this episode we didn't actually record with Kyle. That's an
AI voice.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Kyle's at home. We just decided to go without him.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Actually, I wish.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
It's going to actually create an image of themselves. I
wonder though, is this something that could turn Hollywood off
from Democrats potentially because Democrats always side with big tech.
But you look now of all of Hollywood, if their
entire career and workforce is at risk because of AI
and technology that they've just let go Bill Kiley, is
(33:39):
this like a whole new frontier of.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So not right now? I don't think so, because I
think they are so adamant that they have to hate
Trump and that's like their brand is to I mean,
look at Bill Maher even when he goes on got
filled the other night, He's like, at the end of
the day, I hate Trump. It doesn't mean that I'm
going to hate everybody who loves Trump. I just feel
like I have to. And so that to me was
very telling, because this is a mom where people have
decided this is about a personality and not about the
(34:04):
country and not about an election, which I think is
very pathetic on their side, And so I don't think
that Hollywood can be turned on that because I think
it's a weird combination of misinformation and fear or whatever
it is that has screwed with the syndrome, Yes, exactly,
but also this weird jealousy of like, how did this
(34:25):
guy go from being a what reality TV star and
billionaire to being the president of the United States. And
even though if you look back through time, that was
always his trajectory. He had talked about being president multiple years,
multiple cycles, since he was probably our age. I'm pointing
(34:46):
to the old side of the table, but he had
always really considered it. They just didn't take him seriously,
and then once he got it, it was like that,
we can't handle this. But to your point, I think
this is not the cycle, but I think eventually there's
going to be a turn. If Trump is not in
the picture, they're going to go there's something else wrong here,
(35:06):
Like they're blinded by their hatred for him, which is
so sad.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
But that's even though their livelihood potentially could be fully
at risk.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Now well, and look at how much it has really
ruined their art. Because oh, I always appreciated movies because
I really didn't know anything about the actors or actresses
because I just knew who their their parts were. And
now there are like they played their role so well
that I got like sucked into it. Now there are
people that have said such nasty things. I'm like, I
don't want to see you on a movie.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
They just have fully ai movies. You don't even have
to know they don't have.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's the fear of the Scarlet Johansons of the world though,
because then all of a sudden, if you don't have
real people.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
They can't say anything dumb for a certain faction to
get mad at. Though no, right, they don't exist, like,
all right, so you have a story. We have to
get your story in before we take too much of that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Final story of this episode is one that I was
shocked by, and I'm very excited by Have you ever
heard of the Greater Idaho Movement? Now there are thirteen
counties in eastern Oregon that have voted, I think, to
(36:14):
seceed to Idaho. And I just I read that and
I thought why, And it's because Oregon's full of drugs mainly,
but I think.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That I thought it was because of the potatoes. Well,
everyone loves potatoes. My kids are obsessed with fries, all right.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Sorry, No, I mean, I don't really understand why they
would do this rather than try to improve organ but
I think that it's really interesting that a big I
mean you look at the map, A big portion of
Idaho wants to get out. What are you of Oregon?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Sorry, Oregon's going to Idaho.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Oregon's going to Idaho.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But it's because the the I mean, think about it.
It's like Michigan. Most of Michigan is conservative, but you
have a lot of power in the votes in Detroit.
So does the whole state want to be Detroit or
does the whole state want to be indiana Ish.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's why the up should be its own state.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
We're not getting ready to stop us, I know, but.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
No, I'm saying we lost them. I think they already
have that idea, I know. But I think one of
the things that this story.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Will they join their own state?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
They would, yeah, they'd make their own state, or they
join Canada. That's their only two options. And I don't
think they really.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I know, so then we could be like North
Michigan and South Michigan.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
We already have that.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
No, but I'm not what would your state be called?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Oh, their state probably would be the Upper Peninsula. I
feel like we have all the creative juices down here
under the bridge. They have all the trees and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
No, I think they have the more. They're more creative
than us.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Really, but don't you think we can an improvement?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
But but there's the fishing. I mean they're just like
is active?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Then is fishing really creative? Though?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Have you fished? You fish? Right?
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Oh, fishing, don't you work your creative mind?
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Though?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
When you are in.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Solitude, that's true.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
So you go out fishing, you go out in nature.
I feel like that's where, like so many of the
great writers and artists I.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Loved, the people that we met up in the Upper
Peninsula were some of the most passionate, and I think
that's because they are very connected to the area that
they live in in a much more in a much
deeper way than we are. I think that they're very
they're very passionate about their careers. They're very passionate. And
(38:41):
I'm not saying that people in the Lower Peninsula are not,
but it's just it. You have a harsh winter, it's
a different kind of lifestyle, and there's not as much
population center. There's not as big a population centers in
the UP or the yeah, in the UP. But I think,
I don't know, I think it would be devastating for
us to lose the UP.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I think that we we should, we should really discuss
this further because think about the greater scheme of things,
I'm gonna I'm gonna come out full. I think the
UP should be its own state now. I think I
think they should. You know what, I'm tired of having
to do this with my hands. When I'm showing people
all of Michigan, I just want I just want the mitten.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You're the only state that can even use that, so
you just.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah, exactly find out where you were born. I think
that at the end of the day, what I was
trying to get at with the Idaho story.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
He's like to bring it back.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Is that and this connects to the education system. I
have no clue where Idaho is on a map. I
thought Idaho was like south of Illinois.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
I don't Yes, this does go back to the education system.
We see what you lost in the COVID years.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next
on a Tutor Dixon podcast. I find it fascinating because,
like I said, you have Portland that is such a
big part of the voting base there, and if you
look at that Portland again, put that wacko mayor back
(40:14):
into office. And so I think that's the frustration with
communities like that, and I see that here and I
think that's why they have become louder activists. But sometimes
those loud activists also can turn the other side off,
so you have a bigger clash because once you've driven
people to one side and then you drive the other
people to the other side, you end up with this situation,
(40:36):
which is unique. But how many other places are going
to have this happen? If you have this many counties
that are like, Okay, we're done with the liberal politics,
We're done with the massive crime, and here Idaho has
a much better family situation. We want to seceed and
go to Idaho. I mean, it is unheard of, and
yet I don't actually have a problem with them wanting
(40:59):
to do that, because what do you do when no
one will address homelessness. When issues like drug use, crime
and homelessness bring in more money and create more government
and there's reward for having them there, you end up
struggling even more to fight that government because it becomes
massive based on the problems that are there, and those
(41:21):
problems help them grow even more and create more power
against the people.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Is Oregon like fighting to keep them? That's the other
part of this, because I would think, and this is
maybe the wonky side of this, that's a lot of
money and tax space that's going to go to your
neighboring state.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
The counties that have voted are mostly agricultural counties, so
there's farm it's kind of very I don't want to
say it's empty, it's but.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
They could be the producers of your state.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yea, it's less populated the governor as far as I know,
and I did like ten minutes of research on this,
A full time public school education, I think that the
governor said basically, they are angry, and I think that's
what that movement is about. And I think that's pretty
(42:10):
close to her actual quote. That's what she said. So
I don't think they're really trying that hard I to
keep them there.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
No, welland they probably don't think it's a serious thing.
But I also think this goes to how we treat
agriculture in this country, whereas people don't understand and we
talked about education security earlier, and food security is a
real concern that we don't talk about enough, and we
don't consider the fact that I mean, even when we
see that our local chicken farmer had to get rid
(42:38):
of a million chickens because of bird flu, there's no
discussion as to how that will impact prices. This is
going to actually do. What will the government come into
try to help to get these agricultural sites back on track?
And how are we helping farmers? You know, we've seen
that African American farmers have not received the kind of
help that white farmers have. But then they flip flopped
that and instead of making this is what I love
(42:59):
about DEI, instead of making it equal, then they took
away from one and gave to the other, whereas before
it was the other direction. So why can't we just
look at farming without color and say we need to
make sure that our farmers are secure, because there is
nothing scarier than meaning the situation China is in, which
is why they want world domination, because the fact is
(43:21):
they can't feed their people. And if we continue to
take our farmland and put solar panels on it instead
of farm we will have a food security issue and
that is going to be catastrophic. I agree. All right,
you're very quiet right now, Kyle.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
I'm just in awe.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
That's brilliant you all right.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
On that note, suck up. That was not a sec
up backhand and not even a compliment. All right. If
you had seen his space, you would have known. I mean,
do you not consider food security indusue in this country?
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yes? And I think also the quote that Esteban gave
it indicates just a contempt for not just agriculture, but
for you know, rural Americans and people who want to
live in a rural setting. And there's just and we
see there's places like that in Michigan and Illinois and
(44:23):
you know, every state.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Basically it's like when they call it flyover country and
that's all rest to them. In reality, it's much more
than that.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Well, and we are so spoiled as a culture that
we just go to the grocery store and get our
food and we've never considered where it comes from or
whether or not it's going to be there. And so
much of our food is processed, and we're just like, oh,
we're just going to get a bag of chips and
have you know, hot dogs for dinner, And we don't
think about what happens when there's no grain. And you know,
all we heard about when Ukraine was invaded was it's
(44:53):
the bread bowl of Europe. We're never going to have
any more grain. This is going to be a huge problem.
But I it's not a conversation in the United States,
you know, as long as we continue to push our
farmers off their land and our farmers are struggling and
so we have we have very few conversations about that
because I think that people are arrogant enough to be like,
there's not you know, farming is such a small population, okay,
(45:16):
but that's who's serving all of you. And that was like,
that was my argument in the foundry world. We are
making the parts that create tractors, that create John Deere,
that create caterpillar that build the country and farm the country.
And when you shut down all of those all of
those entities, when you start at the beginning of those
(45:37):
suppliers and you start to shut that down and say, Okay,
that's dirty and ugly and we don't want it, and
we don't want to take all this land and cause
climate change because of farming. We'd rather put these solar
panels on it. Suddenly you are in real danger of
not being able to support your country. And if you
can't support your country, you are in dire straits because
(45:59):
then you're having to go to other countries and you
are no longer the most powerful. That is why China
is where it is today, because they cannot support their
own country. And so as you watch, China has moved
into South America. We have stepped away, we have stepped
away from Central America. We're like, oh, it's too dangerous,
it's filled with crime. Well, guess what once China takes over,
eventually they will have all of that land, they will
(46:21):
have power, and then they will bring their communist dictatorship
ways to those countries, and if you steal a loaf
of bread, you'll get your hand chopped off, or you'll
be hung in the streets, and there's nothing anybody can
do about it because we stepped away and we didn't
continue to hold our position as the world's superpower. And
all of these people that say America First is bad
(46:44):
and America first is good, I don't think there's a
full understanding of what America first is. And that is
not just America only, that is not just whatever is
within our borders. America has to be the strongest, and
so I don't know if there's some confusion over what
America First means, and I do believe that there is
on both sides. But I think it's incredibly important that
(47:04):
we continued to have this conversation about what America needs
to be on the world stage, how America needs to
step in some of these places that China is going
into Right now, we're all talking about China coming into Michigan,
China coming into the United States. What about where China
is that we're not looking, we're not watching where they
are walking, where they're stepping in and they're taking over
(47:26):
businesses and they're taking over land, and it's very dangerous
for us.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I thought Kamala went to Central America to figure things out.
She was gonna take care of that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, she's the bizarre of whatever the border problem that
was what she did here. She was laughing about it.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
She's taking care of it. It's good.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Root causes, that's right, root causes.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
All right, Well, I think that's enough for today, but
we will be back. Well, you guys, like I said,
email us, tell us if you're enjoying this. We love
sharing the story of the day with you. I think
we have great perspectives because we have three different generations here,
and I love that about this group because it gives
us kind of an understanding of where everybody is. You know,
(48:10):
from the public school system, how do you think about things?
I think we all went to public school, didn't we.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, and I'm the only one that doesn't know where
Idaho is.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
No, Idaho is a very unique shape, and I would
hope that if you saw a map, you would be
able to point it out. Most states are all right, Well,
we will have a map on the wall next time.
I will tell you that. The next thing on geography
class for my middle daughter is the United States, so
we will have to study with her because her teacher
(48:42):
is very hard. Anyway, for everyone listening, thank you so
much for listening to the Tutor Dixon podcast for this
episode and others. Go to Tutor dixonpodcast dot com and
you can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
and make sure you join us next time on the
Tutor Dickson Podcast. Have a blast day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We are excited because
we have the whole gang back again. If you listened
last week, I introduced my team to you. I have Kyle, Sarah,
and Esteban here and we're just going to go over
some news of the week. I guess stories of the day,
and each of us brought one, So I'm going to
start off because I wanted to get everyone's opinion on
(00:20):
this one. Have you heard of this new bill in
Illinois where they are now going to change legally change
the name of the word offender to justice impacted individual,
So anyone who is a criminal, well now instead of
being called an offender, they will be a justice impact individual,
(00:44):
which I don't even think that's a good description of
someone like this didn't happen to them. They did this,
But this goes to this new theory of we should
be catering to criminals and where does this leave victims
when they do this? Bier than that the cost to
change all this because now everything has to be changed,
(01:04):
so it's like it reminds me of when Whitmer's administration
came into Michigan and they changed the environmental Agency to
be named Eagle and it was like the most expensive
letter had changed in the history of Michigan. Because you
change something like this, everything has to be reprinted. Someone
has to go in and change all the names. But
I just think it's ridiculous. So I wanted your opinions
on it.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Wait, so what, so what is the what's the term?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
So it's now going instead of offender, it's now going
to be justice impacted individual?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How does that work for like multiple offenders? Is it
multiple justices impacted?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
But also, yeah, you've brought up the victims. The victims
are also justice impacted.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
If are justice impacted like these people are not, they
can be positive.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Justice to me is justice served. That's a positive thing.
So you're calling a criminal.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
But this past it's going to the governor and you
know that that guy's going to sign it. So this
is going to be their new law that they have
to do this.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
And who do they really think they're kidding because everybody knows.
So now if you have an employer and you can't
say offender anymore, so you're using this silly term. Everybody
knows what it means. So what do they think they're
actually accomplishing?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
I think that they do. They are lessening the impact
of what these people have done. And I don't understand
why this is the new thing to go out and
make people who commit crimes feel as though they are
somehow the victim and we have to change what we
call people who are the bad guy to make them
(02:43):
feel better. Why is that the case? Everyone just laughing.
I don't know what is happening, Esteban.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I mean, I'm not I'm not. I want to preface
this by saying I've never been arrested as far as
I know, and I'm not justice impact.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yea, we backcheck, we fact checked you are we very well?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I just you know, I think that it's it's it's
a headline thing, right where if I mean, people are
going to see this and they're not going to read
too deeply into it, and that's what they're hoping.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
But is this a good headline? I don't actually think
this is a good headline.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I think it's it's more advertising to dumb people,
you know, people who just don't care about it, Like
like you can you can claim that somebody is an
offender and then people will read that and they'll think, oh,
this is a bad person. And then move on with
their day. They're not going to click on the article.
They're not going to click on the you know, the
report or anything like that. You put it as what
(03:37):
is it justice impacted individual? Yeah, they're still not going
to care. But they're going to think, oh, crime is
down because I'm not seeing as many offenders.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So is that the So you think that's the reason
for this, because right now I think this is making
headlines for being kind of idiotic, and at a time
when people are very upset about crime, and they don't
think I'm maybe I'm wrong, but I think that people
are thinking there's not enough being done about crime. And
so I think that if I were, even if I
(04:07):
were a Democrat, if I read this, I would go,
come on, guys, is that what we're doing? But maybe not.
Maybe I'm just naive to how I.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Mean, it's a lot easier to do this than to
fix a crime problem in Illinois. Right this is Illinois,
so you've got Chicago. I mean that it's a lot
easier to use, you know, to use an old phrase.
I mean, you you can put lipstick on a pig,
and that's what this is. I mean, you're just painting
over the problem.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Why is this is the youngest.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yes that's a good saying, by the way, or sunglasses
on a governor what I guess? I just think it
just seems to me like they're just they're trying to
sort of paper over or to use yes to echo
what Esteban said. But at the end of the day,
(05:02):
people are this is not changing anything for people that
are the victims of crime, that are dealing with, you know,
crime in their neighborhood or in their school or wherever
it may be. It's not changing their life. And so
the government can come up with all of these silly
things and you know, make I guess, make the offenders
(05:23):
feel good or make the social justice warriors feel good,
but it ultimately is not changing anything because it's not
changing the lives of the people that are directly impacted
by the crime.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
This may take us on a long path, but is
this retroactive? If you've been an offender before, are you
going to go back and change all of those.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Records too, That's what I'm saying. I mean, I would
assume that you have to change all the records because
if some another case comes back up or that case
gets reintroduced, or do you change it then? I don't know.
But regardless, I think to what you're saying, Kyle, it
goes beyond what most people think about until it happens
(06:01):
to them, Because if you are the victim of a crime,
you're probably not thinking about this if you're not the
victim of a crime. And I think most of the
people that do this are not generally victims of crime.
But now we've seen a lot more people, like in
New York City, where we are seeing people who are
you know, comics and people who are on TV every
day that are being attacked. Once these people who have
(06:24):
some sort of prominence are being attacked and they're the
victims of a crime, how are they going to feel
when the criminal is being coddled with these names that
make you think their justice has somehow been impacted. I mean,
when I listen to that term, I think that this
person has not received justice because they've been impacted in
(06:45):
some way. It is so unfair to the victims. And
when we look at Chicago, which we know has a
high crime rate, a high murder rate in the summer,
how many of those people look at this and they
just go this kind of talk is insane, but ultimately
down Like when you look forward with this and you
see that this is going to be the new way
(07:06):
we talk about things. How belittled are victims going to
be in that city and then eventually in the whole state.
Then eventually, like what happens, does everybody just leave Illinois?
Because there's been people leaving Chicago for a long time,
and now you see I mean, in twenty twenty, we
saw them raiding businesses on the Miracle or the Michigan
(07:26):
Mile or whatever it is, and Mike, that was a
place where nobody really ever felt like there was a
crime problem. But now we see that in Michigan, or
we see that in Chicago, we see that in New York,
we see that in California. I mean, it's just crazy.
But I want to move on because I know you
have a story out of Michigan that is about our
school systems, and I think that's something that is important
(07:48):
to people who are listening what's really going on. Kyle
has historically, throughout his career kind of followed what's happening
in schools, how they're spending money, and it is really
an area where there's no accountability. So I want you
to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah. So a story we recently had at the Midwesterner
is we have not heard a lot from school districts
about budget cuts because schools, because of all the pandemic
money which led to an inflation blah blah blah, schools
have not had budget problems except for ann Arbor Public Schools,
(08:26):
and they have been going through all of this chaos
in the last few months because they realized they had
to cut twenty million dollars out of their budget. And
there's a number of reasons why that happened. Of course,
you know, all we hear about is and what we
see is teachers and staff going to board meetings and saying,
you know, we're not the problem and all of that.
(08:47):
And I think they individually are not the problem. But
what happens in a school district like ann Arbor is
it's a series of things. And it really began when
the district began to declining because it was the in
my opinion, the worst district when it came to the
pandemic in refusing to reopen, and that the superintendent at
(09:09):
the time was completely absurd, completely out of touch for
it with reality. Refused to reopen was catering to the teachers'
union to the point that it was so bad that
even Gretchen Whitmer, who was the Queen of lockdowns, was
publicly saying ann Arbor should reopen. That's how I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I think that ann Arbor is an area where people
are very loud, and so it's one of those communities
where if you're not getting what you want, you stand
up for it. And these were very involved parents, and
suddenly you had liberal Democrat parents who were saying, wait
a minute, this is not okay, I want my kid
to go back to school.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Correct and so, and it's where the University of Michigan is,
so it's a very sort of affluent area. And so
they refused to reopen. And so parents left for a
variety of reasons, working parents or parents who didn't want
their child to learn how to play the trumpet over zoom.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And then when you say parents left, they like they
took their kids and put them in private to some
other school.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Correct. They went to other school districts, charter schools, private schools,
homeschooled whatever, And so they had declining enrollment. And then
they had a clerical error because they got all of
this COVID money, like school districts got and they misbooked
it as revenue when it should not have been revenue.
So they had and that was fourteen million dollars. So
they had fourteen million dollars less than they thought they had.
(10:31):
And then they the year before they gave thirteen million
dollars in raises in a teacher's contract. And so all
of these things combined you have declining customers essentially with
increasing costs. And a business doesn't work like that. And
for all the people who say, well, government's not a business,
(10:53):
well it kind of is. And so now there's this situation.
And so the point in talking about all of this
is that where is the accountability. The accountability should be
with the school board because they are the ones that
are elected by the people to oversee all of this,
to hire the administrator to oversee the curriculum and all
of that. But where's the accountability? And so parents are
(11:17):
very fed up. And this is why, to me, this
is why parents need to organize recalls. They need to
run for the school board themselves. They need to take
these things over instead of just allowing them to happen
to them.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I see this as sort of that liberal privileged situation
where they're never going to come out in ann Arbor
and say they are angry with the school system. There's
few people I'll say it that way. There's few people
that would say that. But I find it interesting that
they took their kids out of the school system and
so the reason that is causing them financial problems. And
(11:49):
this is something that Whitmer was very adamant about during
the campaign. She wants to get people out of public schools. No,
I'm just saying that you should have an option because
if you do leave your public school system, then they
have less dollars from the state because there's not as
many kids to count and every head brings in money,
and then the state has to go, Okay, well wait
(12:11):
a minute, why are we getting less funding for our
schools right now? Why are parents choosing something else? And
to me, it's important when you have a state that
what are we now thirty eighth or forty first in education?
One of those two. I mean, when you're in the
bottom fifteen in the country for education and it just
keeps going lower. Under Gretchen Whitmer, it's gotten lower and
lower and lower. I think there's a time when parents
(12:33):
should say I'm going to invest in my kid and
if I can, I'm going to move them into some
place that works for them, to give them the best education.
And as much as you'll hear the Democrats saying now
we don't have enough money, I mean, why why aren't
we saying what the real reason is. I'm sure you
have an opinion on this, I can see in your face.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I'm going to be honest here. I was in high
school during COVID, but I went to a really weird
high school, so my class size was the entire grade
was sixty kids. We had maybe one hundred kids at
that point in the entire school because we shut down
early on and we were told originally it was going
to be a week, and then we were told a month,
and then we shifted to entirely online classes, and speaking
(13:17):
as a student at that point, it was really heartbreaking
to have to just to not know when I was
going to be able to see my friends. I think
I was. I think I was a sophomore, because I
want to say that I had my entire freshman year,
(13:37):
but I'm not sure the whole the problem is, it's
all a blur. I mean, I can't remember when I
can't really remember when I joined back in person we
started doing hybrid classes. That was really popular for schools
to do hybrid classes once or twice a week, but
it really does. It's really disheartening for students who basically
(13:58):
lost their entire high schools. And imagine being like, imagine
being in a graduating class and not being able to
see a commencement ceremony. Imagine being in sports and not
being able to I don't know anything about sports, but
imagine being not being able to compete and stuff like that.
That really sucks, and it sucks that nobody's you know,
(14:22):
nobody's been held accountable.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
But this is the ultimate predicament for Democrats because they
are I mean in education specifically, they're the biggest hypocrites.
They will never come out and bash the public school.
Yet there are so many examples of fighters for the
public school that actually send their kids to private school.
I mean, if you just look in Congress or if
you look at state leaders, the majority of them are
(14:45):
sending their kids to private school while at the same
time saying they're the biggest champions for public schools.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Right now, that's a good point.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, So why do they do that? Not being hypocrite,
but why do they why are they champions for public schools?
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Well, of course you got the unions. I mean, they
can't possibly go against what their union bosses are telling
them because they need to be funneled the money so
that they can win reelection. I mean, that's the dirty
side of this all is. I mean, do they really
care about the kids that go to the public school? No,
they don't care. They want to go out there and
say that they're for teachers, that they're for kids. The
schools want to be so bad exactly, and then when
(15:21):
a school is bad, they would rather leave those kids
in failing public schools than help them find a way out.
And they don't want to admit this, but school choice
at the end of the day benefits usually minority kids,
more than it does the white kids.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So, I mean, we've all heard the saying that in
the sixties there were administrators standing in the doorway not
letting black kids in, and today there are administrators standing
in the doorway not letting black kids out of failing schools.
And I know that's not a popular thing to hear,
but when you look at the proficiency rates in these schools.
(15:57):
I don't understand how there can be no accountability whatsoever,
because I've said a number of times you're putting kids
into twelve years or thirteen years of education that you
are genuinely robbing from them, You're robbing their childhood from
them because you can't go back and learn. You don't
have that time again to go back and relearn. So
(16:17):
how can it be that Democrats can promote this and
Republicans are just as guilty of it, I would say,
because you know, I mean in the state of Michigan,
we've had a Republican legislature for how many years up
until this year.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah, I'm basically forty not entirely, but basically.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
And yet it took I think COVID for people to
really go, well, this isn't right. And then you saw
these states, like we had Corey Gangelis on the other
day and he's like, now we suddenly have all these
states that have school choice programs. But I still think
that you have to as a parent be super involved
in your child's education. And I've said multiple times I
(16:56):
was guilty of saying, you know what the teachers know better?
I don't. I'm not going to question anything. And then
after I started seeing things, I'm like, I need to
be intimately involved in my child's education. So I don't know.
I mean, I think that there's something to be said
for constantly holding schools accountable what you used to do.
We're tracking where the money goes all of these luxurious
(17:19):
trips that these teachers go on for a convention. And
I say that with air quotes, because they're out there
for in Hawaii for six days and spend a million
dollars on all the airline tickets and hotel rooms. And
you're like, what the heck our reading proficiency rate is
eight percent? You know, like, how can this be? So
I just think it's important that there's someone tracking, and
(17:41):
that's why I appreciate what you've done in the past,
but I think it needs to be on a larger scale,
and nobody seems to want to do that well.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And not only that, but I can't I couldn't measure
it making any difference because a lot of it is
if you look at the data, over the last couple
of decades, administrate has been growing faster than teachers, and
it's you know this curriculum director, and then the assistant
(18:09):
curriculum director and the deputy curriculum director. You know all
of these people and you're not really sure what they do,
but it's growing sort of the fiefdom of the superintendent
or the.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
School board met they all we have here.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
We have over nine hundred in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Think about how crazy that is.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
I also wonder as a teacher, at what point do
you also say the unions aren't helping me because you're
looking at your superintendent get paid ten times more than
you or whatever. You know, name the person in the
front office when you're in the classroom every single day
with students. So I also this is where I'm curious.
On the teacher side of it. We always assume that
(18:46):
they're with the unions, but are they really because the
unions are not helping them.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
It's so big, though, how do you go up against
that machine? I mean, because we've known teachers that have
chosen to not be a part of the union and
then there's a lot of shame at this fully ostracized Yeah, right,
and so they have a good thing going. It's the
same way that the Democrats are. I can't think of
a nice term right now, because torona use is not
(19:12):
good brainwashing people with this idea that democracy is, that
there's this threat to democracy over Donald Trump when they literally,
i mean, we just find out in the last few
days that they authorize deadly forced to go into mar
A Lago, And it's like, where is the threat to democracy?
When have we ever seen FBI agents raid a former
(19:34):
president's house and go in there with guns blazing when
you've got the teenage son sleeping in the bedroom there.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Because Democrats are master narrative builders, yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I mean they also they authorized use of deadly force, right, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Crazy, and you hear them saying like this is normal protocol.
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon podcast. Remember when they did this to
Roger Stone, and oh yeah, Roger Stone is like, first
of all, you could knock, you could blow him over.
(20:11):
Like Roger Stone is not a huge guy. It's not
like you're gonna need deadly force with Roger Stone. No
offense to Roger but honestly, you go in and you
take this his wife, who was not accused of any crimes,
by the way, So they go in and they hold
a gun to her face. I mean, this is how
can you say the threat to democracy as Republicans when
(20:32):
you're weaponizing the FBI to go into an elderly person's
home and carry her out. Like to his point, I
think at the time he was saying that she's deaf,
so she doesn't even hear it coming like she has.
She wakes up to FBI agents with a gun in
her face. What is happening in the United States?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
I agree with all of that. To me, that you
talk about threats to democracy, to me, there's no bigger
threat to democracy than the government education system when we
keep turning kids out of government schools who one can't read,
can't do math, don't understand, don't know American history, don't
(21:12):
know that we are a constitutional republic. How many times
do we see we're a democracy or we see as
a capital D democracy when we're not, or they say
we're a constitutional democracy, which we're not. And so when
kids are coming out and they don't understand history, they
(21:32):
don't understand why we fought wars and why we defended
freedom and we liberated other countries and we did all
of those things. But then also why we have a constitution.
Why we have what's called the rule of law. Why
those things are important. So we don't have despots, and
we don't have dictators, and we don't answer to an individual,
(21:54):
but we answer to laws. Then those people, the dictators
and the despots, they can do whatever they want because
our people don't understand history and law.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
But if you think about it, the people of the
present own history, like you can create history however you want.
So if you change history, then you can change the future.
You can choose how the future goes. And so we
are currently allowing our children to be molded by people
like Randy Weingarten, who has obviously a big influence over
what happens in our schools because she said that, and
(22:25):
then she is now shaping our future. She has input
into what happens in the future based on clouding the
vision of the past. You know, if you don't tell
the truth about history, then students don't understand how dangerous
this idea of just cutting off speech, this concept of
hate speech, is not a real thing, you know, coming
(22:45):
out and saying you can't you can't say things that
offend me. Therefore we can never have a conversation because
nine times out of ten in a conversation. At some
point there's gonna be something you disagree with. Well, then
disagree and talk about it. But I feel like I'm
pointing out, Sarah and Esteban, your generation is unable to
have a conversation because it's easier to just block it
(23:06):
and walk away.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Well, and I want to go back though, because you
talk about the radical radicalization aspect of it, but we're
also just not teaching kids the basics. So if you
look at schools in Detroit where the number of students
that are illiterate, where you're going to have a literate
exact young people, and then you also have an adult
literacy problem. I mean you're just dumbing down the entire population.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
That education, security, national security, right, all of these things.
I mean, if you don't have education, you cannot function
as a society because there are people who do all
different roles and no matter what your role is. And
I've heard all the babloney about dirty Jobs, and I
get that that was a very popular show, and maybe
I'm offended by that as we talk about being offended
(23:46):
because I come from a dirty job. But I think
that you can scare people away from careers that are
really good careers by belittling them. And so I want
to have that argument because if we do not, if
we only teach kids to go into art history or
gender studies. And I think that I'm not exaggerating by
that because I think there's a really popular push right
(24:08):
now to be like, be a philosopher, learn about this,
you know, instead of the trades, instead of what it
takes to actually get out of college and freeze a
family and what that means. I mean, even the Harrison
Butker conversational, like how dare he say that? But the
reality is I don't think people are talking enough about
what relationships are. And you so you have to hold
(24:32):
a career, you have to have a job, and you
have to have a job that pays the bills, and
then you should find joy in companionship and you should
have another person in your life. And then if you
want to have a family, you need to think about
what that is ahead of time. And I think people
don't even want to talk about it because they're like,
don't force me into that box. And I'm like, but
isn't that a box? Eventually one day you might be
(24:52):
in and you've never thought about it.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Well, they assume a conversation is automatically forcing you into something.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
That's and that's what I think we se with Harrison
Bucker is that people immediately were like, well, now every
woman has to have a baby. No, but I mean,
are you lying to yourself? I tested one of my girls,
and nobody's going to believe this, but I really did.
We were on the way home from school the other
day and I was just like, I just want to
see what they'd say. I was just with my mettle
daughter and I said to her, Hey, I was just curious,
(25:19):
what do you most look forward to about growing up?
And she goes, hmmm, probably having my own kids one day,
and I was like, it's totally just her own mind
of what she's thinking about. And so the idea that
he would say you're probably most looking forward to getting
married and having kids, I think that there's a lot
of truth to that, because that was what I thought
(25:40):
about as a kid, was my own kids. You know,
what would my kids be like? I mean, that's why
we used to have the Cabbage Patch kids that you
could adopt, you know, and you didn't have to name them.
And to the point where I had too many, but
and I would forget their names, and then I would think,
what if I will forget my own kids' names, which
is obviously ridiculous because I just confuse them with each other.
(26:01):
But I've never forgotten any of them. But it's like
my child mind was definitely thinking about what it would
be like to be a parent. And so the idea
that we can't even discuss that kids think that way,
that kids have to all be like, I'm so confused.
I don't I haven't decided my gender yet. How dare
you consider me as potentially being a parent one day?
It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
I mean, I think any twenty thirty year old woman
that is saying they've never thought about it, they don't
continue to think about it, is totally lying to you.
They've been I mean, clearly they've been brainwashed to think
it's a bad thing to even want that. But you
cannot tell me that you're not thinking about it. You've
just been taught to say it's a bad thing. Now
suddenly that's anti feminist and that ruins all your big plans.
(26:42):
But you're thinking about it in one way or another.
When you're by yourself, that you are thinking about that,
you just can't tell me you're not.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
I mean, human nature is to want to like spread
your genes, right, you're supposed to want to. It's that you're.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
That There are kids in the car now running the seed.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
All right, sorry, Sarah, you had a story you wanted
to bring. We'll move on.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Oh we're moving on to a full new topic.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, why not?
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Okay, Well I wanted to talk about all of the drama.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I was like, all right, we need to live. I
want to talk about Scarlett Johansson. I am not an
AI expert or by any I don't really understand how
it works to be honest, chat GPT, all of those things.
That's part Yes, that's how they want. Again, the education
system really failed me here. But Scarlett Johansson is now
at the center of a controversy because her voice is
(27:35):
apparently being used as the new digital assistant for chat GPT.
She was asked if she would like to Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
So, she's I didn't know what it was being used for.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, so it's the New Life. She's like their version
of series for chat gptre. She was listening to it
and it's eerily sim to her own voice. Well, it
turns out the founder of open Ai, who runs chat GPT,
had reached out to Scarlett Johansson and was like, Hey,
we'd really like you to do this. Would you be
the voice of this? And she said no. Well then
(28:06):
you know, he courted her again, asked her, and just
not that long.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
After, just stole her.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yes, he stole her voice. Oh gosh, that's so Ursula,
very little Mermaid of her.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So this stole the mermaid's voice, remember hello.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
But not in the same way. She didn't steal the
mermaid's voice.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
And then she did give it to No, she did, remember,
she went and she pretended to be her on the
boat and then she stole Prince Eric. I guess her
voice is a.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Little I'm going to be totally honest. Never seen the
Little Mermaid?
Speaker 1 (28:35):
What okay, this is the whole other seen. I was
going to say, you I would expect all.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Right, But like, there was there was this there was
this movie called Her, And that's what this is about.
Because there was this movie called Her where Scarlett Johansen
plays an AI basically in a computer and Joaquin Phoenix
falls in love with that computer. And my guess is
that this guy who runs cht GPT really loves that movie, mate.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
I believe he actually came out and said it's his
favorite movie of all time. Don't quote me on that,
but I think that.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Makes it even creeper. Yes, what is she saying to
him at home? I mean he can make her say.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Anything, right, that's yeah, that's so.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I guess that's a question mark.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I guess my question is because I'm sort of shrugging
about this, Like, what's the big deal to me? I
would I would? Okay, wouldn't you be kind of flattered
if your voice was used now?
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Because your your voice is your craft, so it would
be one thing like it would be like someone taking
your writing and playing it off as their own.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
It's people do that.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
But are you happy because if they can monetize it?
I mean you think about all of the digital images
you can create. So if you're a photographer, are you
just toast now because someone but.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
She didn't do the work. And I'm a little playing
a devil's evocate a little bit here, But she didn't
do the work. It's not like he spent two weeks
recording all of these different things.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Probably, I mean, how do you think they trained the voice?
They probably went through all of our movies. They probably
went through all of our interviews.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And they got paid for.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
But the problem is she said no, she said, I
don't want you to do this.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Is the voice? Does it say, like, can people get
it to say creepy things?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Or is it just I'm sure there's a way.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, that part, I don't know. I don't understand the time.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
You have seemingly safe AI image generators that are able
to produce images of Taylor Swift doing things that she
sued them over. I mean, well, then.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Where does this? I think this is the danger, right
because then suddenly you have Donald Trump saying something that
whoever wants to make him do or say something vice versa.
It's like we were told when we were looking at
what the future of political races would be that there
will be a time when they can take your candidate
and that AI will follow what that person has done
(31:02):
during the day, and then they'll get an ad with
their candidate's face saying I went shopping today too, I
did this today too. I mean, how creepy is that
the candidate's not really saying that they did it, but
you won't know.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I mean, there is a big hullabaloo about misinformation, but
we're really living in an age where you can seriously
make anybody do anything or say anything, and target that
to specific people who know who you know won't do
any more research about it, and just convince them, you know,
(31:35):
that Joe Biden killed a child and buried them in
the rose garden, right, Like, that's dark. Wow, I was
gonna say, killed a dog, But we politicians.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Already been there, that's been done.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But it's dangerous when you get to the point where
it's indistinguishable, right.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And I think it be hard to make ai of
Joe Biden because it's hard to be you know, to
have that many flubs. But in a reality, I mean
you could very easily have you know, think about what
they could have done with Hunter and his daughter Ashley,
and like she could there could be some secret recording,
or there could be some secret recording of Baron. You
(32:20):
know what, what's off limits at a certain point when
you can just create something, make someone say something. And
so I think to your point, even if it wouldn't
be offensive to Scarlett Johansson, I think it's good for
all of us that she's standing against this, because if
you let it go. Then how how many people will
(32:40):
do this and eventually where does it go? And then
is it just the norm of like Okay, well don't
be AI and AI impacted individual.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Like no, And I just want to be clear, I'm not.
I think there's a lot of danger with AI and
where that is all going. So I want to be clear.
I'm not trying to downplay that.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I just and just to just to be very clear,
this episode we didn't actually record with Kyle. That's an
AI voice.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Kyle's at home. We just decided to go without him.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Actually, I wish.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
It's going to actually create an image of themselves. I
wonder though, is this something that could turn Hollywood off
from Democrats potentially because Democrats always side with big tech.
But you look now of all of Hollywood, if their
entire career and workforce is at risk because of AI
and technology that they've just let go Bill Kiley, is
(33:39):
this like a whole new frontier of.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
So not right now? I don't think so, because I
think they are so adamant that they have to hate
Trump and that's like their brand is to I mean,
look at Bill Maher even when he goes on got
filled the other night, He's like, at the end of
the day, I hate Trump. It doesn't mean that I'm
going to hate everybody who loves Trump. I just feel
like I have to. And so that to me was
very telling, because this is a mom where people have
decided this is about a personality and not about the
(34:04):
country and not about an election, which I think is
very pathetic on their side, And so I don't think
that Hollywood can be turned on that because I think
it's a weird combination of misinformation and fear or whatever
it is that has screwed with the syndrome, Yes, exactly,
but also this weird jealousy of like, how did this
(34:25):
guy go from being a what reality TV star and
billionaire to being the president of the United States. And
even though if you look back through time, that was
always his trajectory. He had talked about being president multiple years,
multiple cycles, since he was probably our age. I'm pointing
(34:46):
to the old side of the table, but he had
always really considered it. They just didn't take him seriously,
and then once he got it, it was like that,
we can't handle this. But to your point, I think
this is not the cycle, but I think eventually there's
going to be a turn. If Trump is not in
the picture, they're going to go there's something else wrong here,
(35:06):
Like they're blinded by their hatred for him, which is
so sad.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
But that's even though their livelihood potentially could be fully
at risk.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Now well, and look at how much it has really
ruined their art. Because oh, I always appreciated movies because
I really didn't know anything about the actors or actresses
because I just knew who their their parts were. And
now there are like they played their role so well
that I got like sucked into it. Now there are
people that have said such nasty things. I'm like, I
don't want to see you on a movie.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
They just have fully ai movies. You don't even have
to know they don't have.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
That's the fear of the Scarlet Johansons of the world though,
because then all of a sudden, if you don't have
real people.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
They can't say anything dumb for a certain faction to
get mad at. Though no, right, they don't exist, like,
all right, so you have a story. We have to
get your story in before we take too much of that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Final story of this episode is one that I was
shocked by, and I'm very excited by Have you ever
heard of the Greater Idaho Movement? Now there are thirteen
counties in eastern Oregon that have voted, I think, to
(36:14):
seceed to Idaho. And I just I read that and
I thought why, And it's because Oregon's full of drugs mainly,
but I think.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That I thought it was because of the potatoes. Well,
everyone loves potatoes. My kids are obsessed with fries, all right.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Sorry, No, I mean, I don't really understand why they
would do this rather than try to improve organ but
I think that it's really interesting that a big I
mean you look at the map, A big portion of
Idaho wants to get out. What are you of Oregon?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Sorry, Oregon's going to Idaho.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Oregon's going to Idaho.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
But it's because the the I mean, think about it.
It's like Michigan. Most of Michigan is conservative, but you
have a lot of power in the votes in Detroit.
So does the whole state want to be Detroit or
does the whole state want to be indiana Ish.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's why the up should be its own state.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
We're not getting ready to stop us, I know, but.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
No, I'm saying we lost them. I think they already
have that idea, I know. But I think one of
the things that this story.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Will they join their own state?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
They would, yeah, they'd make their own state, or they
join Canada. That's their only two options. And I don't
think they really.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I know, so then we could be like North
Michigan and South Michigan.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
We already have that.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
No, but I'm not what would your state be called?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Oh, their state probably would be the Upper Peninsula. I
feel like we have all the creative juices down here
under the bridge. They have all the trees and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
No, I think they have the more. They're more creative
than us.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Really, but don't you think we can an improvement?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
But but there's the fishing. I mean they're just like
is active?
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Then is fishing really creative? Though?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Have you fished? You fish? Right?
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Oh, fishing, don't you work your creative mind?
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Though?
Speaker 1 (38:11):
When you are in.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Solitude, that's true.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
So you go out fishing, you go out in nature.
I feel like that's where, like so many of the
great writers and artists I.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Loved, the people that we met up in the Upper
Peninsula were some of the most passionate, and I think
that's because they are very connected to the area that
they live in in a much more in a much
deeper way than we are. I think that they're very
they're very passionate about their careers. They're very passionate. And
(38:41):
I'm not saying that people in the Lower Peninsula are not,
but it's just it. You have a harsh winter, it's
a different kind of lifestyle, and there's not as much
population center. There's not as big a population centers in
the UP or the yeah, in the UP. But I think,
I don't know, I think it would be devastating for
us to lose the UP.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I think that we we should, we should really discuss
this further because think about the greater scheme of things,
I'm gonna I'm gonna come out full. I think the
UP should be its own state now. I think I
think they should. You know what, I'm tired of having
to do this with my hands. When I'm showing people
all of Michigan, I just want I just want the mitten.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
You're the only state that can even use that, so
you just.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah, exactly find out where you were born. I think
that at the end of the day, what I was
trying to get at with the Idaho story.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
He's like to bring it back.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Is that and this connects to the education system. I
have no clue where Idaho is on a map. I
thought Idaho was like south of Illinois.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
I don't Yes, this does go back to the education system.
We see what you lost in the COVID years.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next
on a Tutor Dixon podcast. I find it fascinating because,
like I said, you have Portland that is such a
big part of the voting base there, and if you
look at that Portland again, put that wacko mayor back
(40:14):
into office. And so I think that's the frustration with
communities like that, and I see that here and I
think that's why they have become louder activists. But sometimes
those loud activists also can turn the other side off,
so you have a bigger clash because once you've driven
people to one side and then you drive the other
people to the other side, you end up with this situation,
(40:36):
which is unique. But how many other places are going
to have this happen? If you have this many counties
that are like, Okay, we're done with the liberal politics,
We're done with the massive crime, and here Idaho has
a much better family situation. We want to seceed and
go to Idaho. I mean, it is unheard of, and
yet I don't actually have a problem with them wanting
(40:59):
to do that, because what do you do when no
one will address homelessness. When issues like drug use, crime
and homelessness bring in more money and create more government
and there's reward for having them there, you end up
struggling even more to fight that government because it becomes
massive based on the problems that are there, and those
(41:21):
problems help them grow even more and create more power
against the people.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Is Oregon like fighting to keep them? That's the other
part of this, because I would think, and this is
maybe the wonky side of this, that's a lot of
money and tax space that's going to go to your
neighboring state.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
The counties that have voted are mostly agricultural counties, so
there's farm it's kind of very I don't want to
say it's empty, it's but.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
They could be the producers of your state.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Yea, it's less populated the governor as far as I know,
and I did like ten minutes of research on this,
A full time public school education, I think that the
governor said basically, they are angry, and I think that's
what that movement is about. And I think that's pretty
(42:10):
close to her actual quote. That's what she said. So
I don't think they're really trying that hard I to
keep them there.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
No, welland they probably don't think it's a serious thing.
But I also think this goes to how we treat
agriculture in this country, whereas people don't understand and we
talked about education security earlier, and food security is a
real concern that we don't talk about enough, and we
don't consider the fact that I mean, even when we
see that our local chicken farmer had to get rid
(42:38):
of a million chickens because of bird flu, there's no
discussion as to how that will impact prices. This is
going to actually do. What will the government come into
try to help to get these agricultural sites back on track?
And how are we helping farmers? You know, we've seen
that African American farmers have not received the kind of
help that white farmers have. But then they flip flopped
that and instead of making this is what I love
(42:59):
about DEI, instead of making it equal, then they took
away from one and gave to the other, whereas before
it was the other direction. So why can't we just
look at farming without color and say we need to
make sure that our farmers are secure, because there is
nothing scarier than meaning the situation China is in, which
is why they want world domination, because the fact is
(43:21):
they can't feed their people. And if we continue to
take our farmland and put solar panels on it instead
of farm we will have a food security issue and
that is going to be catastrophic. I agree. All right,
you're very quiet right now, Kyle.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
I'm just in awe.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
That's brilliant you all right.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
On that note, suck up. That was not a sec
up backhand and not even a compliment. All right. If
you had seen his space, you would have known. I mean,
do you not consider food security indusue in this country?
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yes? And I think also the quote that Esteban gave
it indicates just a contempt for not just agriculture, but
for you know, rural Americans and people who want to
live in a rural setting. And there's just and we
see there's places like that in Michigan and Illinois and
(44:23):
you know, every state.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Basically it's like when they call it flyover country and
that's all rest to them. In reality, it's much more
than that.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Well, and we are so spoiled as a culture that
we just go to the grocery store and get our
food and we've never considered where it comes from or
whether or not it's going to be there. And so
much of our food is processed, and we're just like, oh,
we're just going to get a bag of chips and
have you know, hot dogs for dinner, And we don't
think about what happens when there's no grain. And you know,
all we heard about when Ukraine was invaded was it's
(44:53):
the bread bowl of Europe. We're never going to have
any more grain. This is going to be a huge problem.
But I it's not a conversation in the United States,
you know, as long as we continue to push our
farmers off their land and our farmers are struggling and
so we have we have very few conversations about that
because I think that people are arrogant enough to be like,
there's not you know, farming is such a small population, okay,
(45:16):
but that's who's serving all of you. And that was like,
that was my argument in the foundry world. We are
making the parts that create tractors, that create John Deere,
that create caterpillar that build the country and farm the country.
And when you shut down all of those all of
those entities, when you start at the beginning of those
(45:37):
suppliers and you start to shut that down and say, Okay,
that's dirty and ugly and we don't want it, and
we don't want to take all this land and cause
climate change because of farming. We'd rather put these solar
panels on it. Suddenly you are in real danger of
not being able to support your country. And if you
can't support your country, you are in dire straits because
(45:59):
then you're having to go to other countries and you
are no longer the most powerful. That is why China
is where it is today, because they cannot support their
own country. And so as you watch, China has moved
into South America. We have stepped away, we have stepped
away from Central America. We're like, oh, it's too dangerous,
it's filled with crime. Well, guess what once China takes over,
eventually they will have all of that land, they will
(46:21):
have power, and then they will bring their communist dictatorship
ways to those countries, and if you steal a loaf
of bread, you'll get your hand chopped off, or you'll
be hung in the streets, and there's nothing anybody can
do about it because we stepped away and we didn't
continue to hold our position as the world's superpower. And
all of these people that say America First is bad
(46:44):
and America first is good, I don't think there's a
full understanding of what America first is. And that is
not just America only, that is not just whatever is
within our borders. America has to be the strongest, and
so I don't know if there's some confusion over what
America First means, and I do believe that there is
on both sides. But I think it's incredibly important that
(47:04):
we continued to have this conversation about what America needs
to be on the world stage, how America needs to
step in some of these places that China is going
into Right now, we're all talking about China coming into Michigan,
China coming into the United States. What about where China
is that we're not looking, we're not watching where they
are walking, where they're stepping in and they're taking over
(47:26):
businesses and they're taking over land, and it's very dangerous
for us.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
I thought Kamala went to Central America to figure things out.
She was gonna take care of that.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, she's the bizarre of whatever the border problem that
was what she did here. She was laughing about it.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
She's taking care of it. It's good.
Speaker 4 (47:46):
Root causes, that's right, root causes.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
All right, Well, I think that's enough for today, but
we will be back. Well, you guys, like I said,
email us, tell us if you're enjoying this. We love
sharing the story of the day with you. I think
we have great perspectives because we have three different generations here,
and I love that about this group because it gives
us kind of an understanding of where everybody is. You know,
(48:10):
from the public school system, how do you think about things?
I think we all went to public school, didn't we.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, and I'm the only one that doesn't know where
Idaho is.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
No, Idaho is a very unique shape, and I would
hope that if you saw a map, you would be
able to point it out. Most states are all right, Well,
we will have a map on the wall next time.
I will tell you that. The next thing on geography
class for my middle daughter is the United States, so
we will have to study with her because her teacher
(48:42):
is very hard. Anyway, for everyone listening, thank you so
much for listening to the Tutor Dixon podcast for this
episode and others. Go to Tutor dixonpodcast dot com and
you can subscribe right there, or head over to the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
and make sure you join us next time on the
Tutor Dickson Podcast. Have a blast day.
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