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January 14, 2025 • 34 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bible.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Most of us non drug addicts don't get an FF.
These people get dirty needles, reuse needles whatever they're on
the road. This is ridiculous, all the tax dollars that
were blowing on this crap.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Let me address that in a slightly different way. Uh.
Goober number seventy one eighty three wrote that, Mike, you
have hit the real problem. We don't have a spending problem.
We have a mission problem. I would describe it slightly differently.
I would say that we have a government metastatic cancer problem.

(00:42):
We have a government program problem. The tax continues. Government's
scope is too large and therefore too expensive. Solving the
mission problem would solve the spending problem. I know I'm
preaching to the choir. You're not preaching to the choir.
And what you say, mister talkback about you don't really care.

(01:06):
It's true on a how would I describe this on
a On a macro level, I don't care either. Now

(01:27):
on a micro level, I might care because about the individual.
I might care about an individual who has a drug habit,
a drug problem needs needles. I might care on an
individual basis, but on at a macro level, at a
large scale problem I don't care, And in fact, I

(01:49):
know that for whatever reason, whatever circumstances, they have made
that choice to go down that path. They've been led
down that path, so they've made their choice. Why is
it serious question? Why do we naturally assume that it

(02:11):
is the role of government government, and by government, I
mean those entities that forcibly take part of your income,
your earnings, your wages, your wealth and then redistribute that
to what I believe is a non inherently governmental issue.

(02:35):
Remember we talked earlier, and I pardon me if I
forget if it was on a Saturday program or if
it was yesterday. I just don't remember. As I say,
I do these programs and I'm always moving forward every
year on an annual basis, So it may not have

(02:57):
been who knows when it was. We would have to
go through for the Office of Management and Budget and
identify those things that we did that were inherently governmental programs. So,
for example, within homeland security, take something as simple as

(03:17):
the Secret Service. The Secret Service is an inherently governmental program. Now,
I suppose you could make an argument that you could
have presidents be required to provide their own security, but
we don't believe in that. We think that it is
the government's responsibility to provide security to presidents, vice presidents,

(03:41):
cabinet officials, and visiting dignitaries. So that's an inherently governmental program. Now.
I know there are private firefighters, such as insurance companies
have private firefighting teams. I use one the end of
slows location when the fire team close to our house

(04:02):
several years ago. But firefighting, generally speaking, is an inherently
governmental function. Sewer we learned from when we finally figured
out what was causing all the diseases in London. Oh,
it's the lack of a sewer system. So in London
we start building sewer systems. The provision of water is

(04:29):
an inherently governmental function. Law enforcement and inherently governmental function.
Tell me how we got to well, I know how,
but I want you to think about how how do
we get to the idea that affordable housing, for example,
is an inherently governmental function. I do not believe that

(04:50):
it is. I don't believe that housing at all is
a governmental function, nor do I believe that clothing is
an inherently governmental function, or the that food is an
inherently governmental function. I just don't think it's the responsibility
of government to provide a roof over my head, food

(05:10):
for me to eat, clothes to wear, or for that
matter of transportation. But there are many people in in
terms of political science, that believe that you can expand
power and control in their little party, if it's the
Democrats or it's the Marxist or whatever you want to

(05:31):
call them, that they can expand their control. And they also,
you know, the concept of a bleeding heart is a
real thing. There are many people who do not want
to contribute. They don't want to have to write It's
so fascinating to me. They are not willing to write

(05:53):
a check. But let's take someone who believes that homelessness
is an inherent the governmental function. Why do you think
they believe that, Well, one, because they feel sorry for them.
But they themselves don't want to pick up their checkbook
or their credit card, or they don't want to pick
up their venmo. They don't want to do anything to

(06:14):
take any money out of their wealth, out of their earnings,
to give to a private organization that helps people find
homes or provides homes or shelters to poor people or
homeless people. For whatever reason. So they, as I've said
throughout my career, we have abdicated our compassion to the government,

(06:38):
and therefore all of this compassion becomes government programs. And
really a government program cannot be compassionate. It just inherently
cannot be that way. It's fundamentally designed to not be compassionate.
So then you've got this idea that government as opposed

(07:01):
to the private sector, which can do it so much
more efficiently, so much more effectively. Think about who's providing
housing to those victims of Hurricane Helen in western North Carolina.
Who's been most effective at doing that? The private sector
is right now. But for some reason, we have decided,
and this was one of the struggles that I had

(07:23):
in being the undersecretary, was Okay, I'm required by law
to provide housing to disaster victims who have been displaced
from their homes, So I do what's required by the law.
At the same time that I question why am I
doing this? Well, I'm doing it because it's required by law.

(07:43):
But why do we get to the point where we
think that it's the government's responsibility to come in and
provide that housing. So when we start shifting our compassion
to the government that results in a government program, and
that government program grows beyond anybody's wildest imagination to the

(08:04):
point that we're actually doing needle exchanges. How is that
an inherently governmental program? Someone on their own, and maybe
sometimes even forcibly, had become drug addicts, is it the response?
Is it an inherently governmental program to save their life,

(08:24):
to somehow you know, cure them of their addiction, or
to get really down to the nitty gritty to make
certain that they don't catch, you know, some sort of
hepatitis by using a dirty needle and therefore getting diseased
and die from that dirty needle. I don't think this
inherently governmental program. Take social Security for example, social Security

(08:48):
FDR decides that, oh, we need to provide some sort
of retirement program. Why we now accept and many people
believe that social Security. In fact, for many people, social
Security is their retirement program. That's what they have because
they have not been willing and they have they've grown

(09:10):
up in an era where that was, oh, that was
FDR doing that for me because I didn't want to
take the money out voluntarily out of my earnings and
put it into a retiredment I went to call the
retirement planning some of the Rockies and go through their
trademark Summer Retirement Guide process so I could start building

(09:33):
at the age of eighteen or when I first started
earning a paycheck, so I can start building a retirement plan.
I just wanted the government to force re take that out.
So all I saw was my net income, and I
didn't even look at what all the deductions were because
I knew I was going to be taken care of.
We've created an entire dependency class that's not just poor people,

(09:54):
but middle class too, And now to have those discussions,
people will hear or listen later or be told what
I said and think that I'm a total a hole
for believing that it is not the function of government
to provide clean needles to a drawda addict that's homeless

(10:18):
over here on the corner of Grant and Alameda. Well,
why is that my responsibility? It's it's why is that
the government's responsibility? And there are for example, I'll 'llgue
my personal situation, Tam and I have to look at
what we pay in taxes every year, which I believe

(10:40):
is an exorbitant amount of taxes. Now I try to
plan so that I don't get a gigantic refund, because
that's money that I can use during the year from
my everyday expenses. But we have to limit. We don't
have to, but we choose to limit how much we

(11:01):
provide to nonprofit or charitable organizations, churches, nonprofits, whatever it
might be, because well, I know for a fact that a
lot of the stuff that those are doing is also
be my tax dollars are being used to pay for
the same programs that some other nonprofit or charitable organization

(11:26):
might be. So why should I you know, I'm trying
to calculate instead of just picking a number out of
my butt, instead of giving two thousand dollars a year
or twenty thousand dollars a year, whatever your figure might be,
give less because the government's already doing some of that stuff,

(11:46):
and that's what's my taxes are going to. I think
it's a rational decision to make. But having that conversation now,
when we've been brainwashed, we've been we've become accustomed to,

(12:07):
we have become reliant upon government to do all of
these things. Then when we say, wait, why why are
we doing it now? You're a cold hearted bastard, a
hole that doesn't care about those people. No, I did
I ever say that I don't care about those people.
I think I said on a macro level, I don't,

(12:31):
but on a micro level, human to human, I actually
do care about those people. So now you have to
decide how do we how do we escape this trap
that we've put ourselves in, And that goes back to
this text message, and that is that we have a
mission program, a mission problem, and the problem is that

(12:55):
we have decided that we're going to have government do
all of these things that are not inherently governmental to
the point, and we've done it for so long, so widespread,
so in depth, whatever way you want to measure it,
that we now believe that that's something that government ought
to be doing. Why stop and ask yourself truly why,

(13:17):
Because I can make if you want to go down
this path, I'll go down the path that if it
is response, if we are responsible for affordable housing for
people that can't afford the kind of house that I
live in, then why should I. In fact, this is

(13:37):
where government control comes in, and this is where they
try to do things by telling you all these requirements
you're going to have to have to build a house.
If I were to go build a new house right now,
with my existing circumstances, I would build a much smaller home.
I would purchase a much smaller home. Why because it's

(13:59):
just me and Tammer and the dogs. We don't have
any kids, we don't have a lot of visitors. We
frankly don't like visitors. We don't you know. We want
a room, a dining room where we can entertain people
and have dinner with family or friends. But by the way,
we really don't need much space. I need a little
studio office space, and we need uh, we need one bedroom,

(14:23):
might have an extra bedroom for when somebody comes to visit,
but we don't need three or four bedrooms. We don't
need a full basement. We don't need all of this stuff.
But those are my choices. But I don't think the
government or should let me. Let me put it a
different way. I no longer need that, But I'm in

(14:47):
that position where I don't want to move out because
I don't want to put my money into an overpriced,
smaller place and run the risk of losing the equity
in a market estate market that I think is backcrap,
crazy right now? So why why not have the government
give me affordable housing? Why not? Why why not let

(15:09):
me sell my home? Now, I'm not gonna tell you
how much money I wouldn't make, but setting that aside, UH,
make myself homeless and then cry for affordable housing. Why
not other people do it? Other people get affordable housing.
Why should I not make myself poor so that I
can get a roof over my head that's paid for

(15:32):
by the taxpayers, or at least subsidized by the taxpayers.
So I spend less of my disposable or less of
my income on housing. What about transportation? Now? The reason
I don't. I don't think transportation at all is an
inherently governmental function. But somehow we come up with the

(15:52):
idea that light rail and bus service and everything else
is an inherently governmental fund. Why why when we throw
out the old solide I walked to school up here.
Both ways you can find an old, beat up car
that's just reliable enough to get you to and from work.

(16:13):
So why should I subsidize the people that are on
the light rail right now? Because you are subsidizing them
because you are. The fares that they collect are not
near enough to pay for the cost of maintaining that system.
What about groceries, So we provide groceries now to people

(16:35):
that can't afford groceries. Well, why not everybody. Let's just
nationalize everything. Let's just nationalize everything and just you know,
let's just all work for the government. Well, that's the
logical conclusion. Healthcare is turning into the same thing. Healthcare

(16:56):
is turning into a gigantic government program. Why why has
it got responsible for healthcare? Why should we even be
involved in healthcare? M Yeah, that's the libertarian streaking me.
We've allowed too much mission cree about what government's really
supposed to be doing. And now when you say that

(17:18):
we shouldn't be doing that, people think you're an ogre.
People think that you're that you don't care. I care deeply, Like.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
It sounds to me like that big potential for unlmited
needle exchange sites is an addiction encouragement.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Absolutely. One quick footnote, and then I want to go
back to our previous conversation. The confirmation hearing for Pete
Heggsath Hegsath to be the next Secretary of Defense is
just beginning, and later in the program, if there's any fireworks.
We'll bring you those fireworks. But I want to go

(17:58):
back to this idea about compassion being abdicated to the government.
I don't know, probably every four or five years I
bring out this story, and I want to do it
again today because I think it's pertinent right now to
have this hit for you to hear the story. And

(18:18):
this was published in the Orange County Register out in
California sixteen years ago. I've been telling this story for
sixteen years. And during the break, as I skimmed through
it again, I thought to myself, Holy crap. The language
from sixteen years ago is so much more contemporaneous today

(18:47):
than it was when this was originally authored sixteen years ago.
And the title is it's time to nationalize grocery stores.
So when I say, let's just national lies everything, sixteen
years ago, the Wrange County Registered carried an article that,

(19:08):
tongue in cheek, argued for the nationalization the grocery stores.
So I'm going to walk through it again, but this
time for those of you heard it again and for
those of you are hearing it for the first time,
I want you to pay particular attention to some of
the choice words that were selected sixteen years ago that

(19:33):
in light of our current political dialogue, is probably more
even more appropriate today than it was then. So almost
a decade and a half ago they used these words,
and sixteen years later, I'm looking at these words going

(19:53):
holy crapola. This sounds like Kamala Harris or Joe Biden
or Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi or Hatem Jeffries or any
of the other Democrats, or any of the other Progress's
Marxists making the same argument, but using their own, their
current language. It's truly fascinating. The story goes like this.

(20:17):
One of the great scandals of our age is the
fact that and thinking, I'm sorry to interrupt my own self,
to interrupt my own self, to interrupt myself, But think
of this also in light of the current conversation going
on about our food. Ready, one of the great scandals

(20:39):
of our age is the fact that America spends more
on food than any other nation. Many political leaders are
now calling for urgent reform to bring spending on food
under control. While food spending is rapidly increasing and many
Americans are overweight, insert the word o beasts. There are

(21:01):
some Americans that don't have enough food to eat Now.
Despite all this high spending, the United Nations reports that,
according to surveys they send to government officials around the world,
the quality of US food is ranked very low. In fact,
you might say our food's poisoning us right in terms
of our current conversation. Officials in France report that their

(21:24):
food is the best in the world. More insulting is
the higher ranking that British experts give their food. Really
Bangers and Match I Gonda Like Bangers and Match. Leaders
in Congress, they write. Leaders in Congress now point to
what they see as the root of the problem, corporate

(21:46):
greed in the form of grocery stores and restaurants operating
on a for profit basis. They promised to replace all
or all private grocery stores with a national system of
government commissaries, which will operate far more efficiently without the

(22:06):
administrative overhead required to make a profit. As it will
take some time to organize the national network of commissaries, initially,
groceries will be available only at offices of the Department
of Motor Vehicles and the US Postal Service, which will
provide the models for developing a government commissary system. Let

(22:28):
me pause for a moment. Now, if you are an
individual who believes that, oh yeah, we've got really crappy food,
and these corporations are greedy, they're making too much money.
They're making billions of dollars, and there are people in
this country that can't afford it. This is all making

(22:51):
perfect sense to you. It continues. Congress and the administration
say they will achieve further efficiencies. Don't life will achieve
further efficiencies by prohibiting all advertising of food and food products.
Consumers will find shopping much easier if personal preference is

(23:13):
eliminated in favor of just whatever food's government makes available.
And then to better control costs, the government will invest
billions in new electronic food purchasing records. Everything you eat
will be reported to the government, which will analyze the
data to eliminate wasteful or unhealthy eating. All new food

(23:39):
must be must be approved by a new comparative Calorie
and Taste Administration, which, for example, will eliminate most of
the unnecessary brands of the data chips. And as everyone knows,
we have far too many brands of beer. You see,
food is surely right because it's necessary for survival. Therefore,

(24:03):
all groceries available in government commissaries will be free of charge.
This will be financed by an increase of fifteen percent
in income taxes, except for those making over eighty thousand
dollars a year, whose taxes will be increased by seventy
five percent. Because the food supply is not unlimited, a

(24:27):
fixed amount of ration coupons will be distributed to ensure
that each consumer can obtain an equal amount of food.
See its equity, its equity. This is wonderful, It just
fits perfectly today. All private restaurants are going to be closed,

(24:48):
and limited cafeterias will be operated as government commissaries. Now,
Congressional liberals point two the school lunch program as a
model and the proven result demonstrated by several generations of
well nourished, trim and fit students. Because those school lunch

(25:09):
programs are so nutritious. Of course, we veterans also remember
all of the great military child So far, conservative leaders
are at a loss after hearing these proposals. Some of
the more courageous conservatives are responding with proposals for mandatory
food purchasing. All citizens, including those who go to bed

(25:31):
hungry every night, will be required to purchase membership in
new food management organizations fmos to further control costs. The
purchase of certain cuts of meat and imported gourmet foods
could require an FMO's advanced approval. Across the political spectrum,
there is a developing consensus that the only appropriate response

(25:55):
to the fact that some consumers cannot afford groceries is
to impose a single, government controlled food system on all citizens.
Everyone agrees that this is sure to provide the same
consistently high performance as public education. Reportedly, the clincher for

(26:15):
those proposing grocery nationalization was stated recently by the White
House quote, the great thing about these proposals is that
if we can somehow get this to work for groceries,
were going to play this. Apply the same idea to healthcare.
See it makes perfect sense, doesn't I Mean it's everyone

(26:37):
needs food, and not all food is distributed equally. And
some people are in those evil like King Soupers Kroger
that they're making billions of dollars and all that advertising,
all those flyers you can get in the mail for
the coupons. As I've said, you walk down the bottled

(26:59):
water aisle, Well, it's just absurd. You could spend. You
could spend I don't know, thirty minutes to an hour
trying to decide which brand of bottle water is the best.
And so in terms of equity, because that's what everything's
about now, equity, let's just nationalize grocery stores. Now, I

(27:22):
can take this same concept and apply it to the
automobile industry. I could apply it to the airline industry.
I could apply it to you know, the industry that
I'm involved in. We got way too many talk shows
and they're all way too conservative. There's not enough liberal

(27:43):
talk shows, so we need more liberal talk shows. This
is how something that you think is absurd over time. Oh,
there's always objections. Initially there will alway be you know,
a holes like me that would fight this tooth and nail,

(28:04):
and then I would get beaten by the overwhelming majority
of people who would look at people that are hungry,
they don't get to have they don't get to have
Kobe beef, that don't get to have some really good
Thai food that you know, you know, some people go
to a really nice Mexican place as opposed to Taco Bell.

(28:25):
Some of us goes to, say the Venice restaurant is
opposed to ordering from pizza hut. So I think we
need to distribute this food equitably, and it will become
an inherently governmental function because everybody needs to eat. And
over time then you'll have the government providing all of

(28:46):
this food and suddenly everybody just accepts it and nobody objects.
And then let's say, let's say this gets adopted today
and twenty years from now, I come on air and
I bitch about the fact that how do we get
to the point that somehow we believe that groceries are
something that everybody ought to be provided for by the government,

(29:07):
and we're taxing ourselves for this. But I don't want
to eat that. I want to choose what I want
to eat. Well, Michael Brown, you're an a hole. There
are people out there that can't afford to eat what
you can afford to eat. So we need to be equitable.
So everybody gets the same amount of calories that they're
needed for sustaining life, for doing whatever. And in fact,
we might even have different calorie requirements depending upon the

(29:30):
work that you do, and then we might have equitable
breaks that we actually take on time.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Sometimes if grocery stores did get nationalized.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Do you think they bring back the hand baskets. I'm
just asking for a friend. Yes, they would bring back
the hand baskets because you would be or there might be,
you know, a search charge on your income tax form
to pay for the new hand baskets. And then of
course they would be electronically controlled. They'd have some sort
of GPS device on them that if indeed you because

(30:02):
the dragon and I would never do it, if indeed
you took one of those hand baskets with you, then
the Internal Food Commission could come and find you and
seize the basket back. And that's a whole new government
program right there, full employment program. Now let's stop and
think about the language that was used in that article,

(30:26):
because the language is the language that the left uses
to convince you. In fact, I surmise that many conservatives,
if this wasn't so absurd on its face, would argue that, yeah,
I mean, because there are people in this country. Look
at the SNAP program. So there are people in this country.
In fact, there are people in this country illegally who

(30:49):
come here that we provide them food. Now ask yourself,
in setting aside all emotion about it, ask yourself, Why
do we as taxpayers owe them? As taxpayers? Why do
I owe anybody that comes to this country illegally a
single hot dog, a single bag of potato chips, or

(31:12):
anything healthy or nutritious. I don't now. I might believe
that as a Christian, that I might have some moral
obligation to help them, But then I make that choice
by contributing to a nonprofit that helps feed those people.
Now that presents a moral dilemma because if I believe

(31:34):
that and I give money to help them feed those people,
then what am I doing. I'm encouraging more people to
come here illegally. So what's the government doing the government,
by providing all of these services, is engaged in a
moral conflict while pretending that they want to control immigration,

(31:56):
allow unfettered and encourage unfettered immigration, by giving people who
have nothing everything they need in order to sustain their life.
And then how many probably even within the within In fact,
I know within this audience because I just got two
text messages from people who are having a very difficult
time financially right now. Why should they and they're working,

(32:22):
why should they subsidize that or this? We're spending too
much money on food, and the quality of our food
is not very good, and some people eat better than
other people. Equity that everything in here you could take
and apply to almost anything and make a case that

(32:46):
the government ought to do it. And the problem is
if you are, whether you realize it or not, if
you are a Marxist at heart, because you're a bleeding
heart liberal and you want the government to take care
of all this stuff, then you are a useful idiot
that Karl Marx identified that you could then utilize to

(33:10):
get this kind of control. It's happening in healthcare, it's
happening in transportation, it's happening everywhere. It's the demise of
a complex society. And it's because useful idiots want government
to do everything, and people never stop and think what

(33:32):
is and what should the government really inherently be doing.
We could probably eliminate half the things that happen, and
people would figure out a way to survive. Yeah,
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