November 23, 2025 • 55 mins
Another week of last minute schedule changes, flight delays, lost iPads, misplaced laptops, and other mishaps delayed the recording of this week's episode, but finally on Saturday night we were able to sit down for an especially fast-paced episode to close out the week that comes with competing Star Trek metaphors, reflectioning and debating briefly about which was the weirdest news story of the week—the latest Epstein file revelations, MTG departing the House, the Mamdani-Trump Oval Office Summit—the greatest clash since Yalta, or the most bizarre meeting of Capitalist and Communist since Franklin Roosevelt dined alone—before we finally settle down to out main topic of the week: the launch of what will be a regular feature here on the 3WHH between now and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next July 4.
For this first installment, we ponder the strange case of historian Gordon Wood, considered the pre-eminent historian of the American Founding, who was in the news last week for a speech he delivered in Washington DC for the American Enterprise Institute. Steve was present to hear the speech; John took in the published version, and Lucretia let out a mighty harumph. Wood's main thesis at the beginning of his illustrious career was that the American Founding should be understood as part of the "civic republican" tradition, rather than a Lockean-Jeffersonian natural rights revolution. It made him the left's favorite historian for a time, a point Steve made in a critical article about Wood 20 years ago, "The Liberal Republicanism of Gordon Wood."
Naturally—do I really need to say "naturally"? you know what's coming next—John stepped up to defend Wood's civic republican thesis. Lucretia thought she could sit this one out, but ChatGPT provided us with a debate between Lucretia and Wood, with "Wood" getting off some good zingers like "Lucretia, the Founding wasn’t a live-action performance of Natural Right: The Musical," and "Of course they were serious—serious about the collapse of deference, the emergence of democratic culture, and all the other things that give Straussians spontaneous nosebleeds." Lucretia responded in kind: "You make it sound like Samuel Adams was out there organizing consciousness-raising workshops. “Hi, I’m Sam, and I’m here to talk about my feelings on monarchy…”
The episode is slightly shorter than normal as Steve had to rush off to the final performance of Steve Hackett's North American tour in Portland, Oregon, and the final performance of keyboardist Roger King, and because the philistine and cretinous Lucretia and John attempted to mock the gods of prog rock, the exit music this week is an excerpt from Hackett's most famous guitar lick. IYKYK.
For this first installment, we ponder the strange case of historian Gordon Wood, considered the pre-eminent historian of the American Founding, who was in the news last week for a speech he delivered in Washington DC for the American Enterprise Institute. Steve was present to hear the speech; John took in the published version, and Lucretia let out a mighty harumph. Wood's main thesis at the beginning of his illustrious career was that the American Founding should be understood as part of the "civic republican" tradition, rather than a Lockean-Jeffersonian natural rights revolution. It made him the left's favorite historian for a time, a point Steve made in a critical article about Wood 20 years ago, "The Liberal Republicanism of Gordon Wood."
Naturally—do I really need to say "naturally"? you know what's coming next—John stepped up to defend Wood's civic republican thesis. Lucretia thought she could sit this one out, but ChatGPT provided us with a debate between Lucretia and Wood, with "Wood" getting off some good zingers like "Lucretia, the Founding wasn’t a live-action performance of Natural Right: The Musical," and "Of course they were serious—serious about the collapse of deference, the emergence of democratic culture, and all the other things that give Straussians spontaneous nosebleeds." Lucretia responded in kind: "You make it sound like Samuel Adams was out there organizing consciousness-raising workshops. “Hi, I’m Sam, and I’m here to talk about my feelings on monarchy…”
The episode is slightly shorter than normal as Steve had to rush off to the final performance of Steve Hackett's North American tour in Portland, Oregon, and the final performance of keyboardist Roger King, and because the philistine and cretinous Lucretia and John attempted to mock the gods of prog rock, the exit music this week is an excerpt from Hackett's most famous guitar lick. IYKYK.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, the honeys, my ry,
oh whiskey.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John,
You and the international Woman of Mystery, Lucretia where.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
They lap it oppen, David, ain't you leave me on
the soul taps got a giving and.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Let that welcome everybody to the three Whiskey Happy Hour.
It's a late late in both time and late from
our usual time slot. It's Saturday night that we're recording,
with all three of us on different sides, if not
the planet, certainly the country. Steve's in the far Northwest.
(00:52):
John is home in his undisclosed location at a very
nice old church behind him, and I'm home in Arizona
in my bunker or whatever it is I have here.
So we have, and it was such a difficult thing
to get all three of us together because of our
schedules and travels and the time difference. But I insisted
(01:15):
because there's so much fun to talk about that I said,
we can have another special Thanksgiving episode, which I hope
we will. But in the meantime, all of this.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
We news we'll do a double episode. I don't mean
necessarily two hours, but I think we should do a
bonus episode next weekend for Thanksgiving. Why because all the
other podcasts take the holiday off, but we're hard workers.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, and besides that, I want to remind all of
our listeners how thankful they should be for the three
Whiskey Happy Hour, and how thankful we are that we
have listeners who listen to the three Whiskey Happy Hour.
All right, let's get going because we'll have to make
it a little bit short. Steve's got a date tonight
or something that we don't want to hear about. I
know you don't believe me, Okay, so let's start. My
(02:00):
favorite thing that happened this week. And it's almost old news,
of course, But you know, what was the vote four
hundred and something to one to release the Epstein files
in the House? Is that right, am? I correctly? And
you know Democrats have been screaming about this forever that
you know, and then the Trump administration kind of played
(02:21):
some dumb games about it for a while, but then
Trump says, yeah, go ahead and release it. I'm tired
of this being an issue. Go release it. And what
has come out about Trump a big goose egg. What's
come out about all sorts of Democrats? Oh my god.
And so you know, there's Trump again. He had to
know that there wasn't going to be anything in there
(02:43):
that was, you know, damning in any way. He had
to know that because he knows it didn't happen. There's
no evidence of it at least. But all of these
Democrats were not very clever, were they go.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Ahead, Oh, I'm going to bait John here a little bit,
just because it's fun. The Democrats strategy on this issue
reminds me of Star Trek two, the Wrath of Khan.
When Kirk yells at con like a bad marksman, you
keep missing the target. So if you go back a
few years ago, the Me Too movement was really about
(03:16):
trying to take take Trump down for his you know,
famous access Hollywood comments and you know, his behavior over
the years, so supposedly and at snaire always Democrats. You know,
it drove Al Franken out of the Senate, It killed
Charlie Rose's career, it killed Matt Loward NBC News. That's
just three out of you know, a couple dozen. You
can mention. So now the Epstein files come out, there's
nothing on Trump, but Larry Summers is ruined and finished
(03:39):
for good and and it just keeps going on and
on about all that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
You have are being subpoened.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, Jepstein was a big Democratic donor, so I.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Ninety percent of his money went to Democrats, either individually
or bundled.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Right, And how I think I think Trump's done another
ropodope here, which is, by the way, there's sensible reasons,
of course, John, if you want to mention a couple
of them, not to be releasing all these files for
you know, standard legal reasons and and all the rest. Uh.
And so you know, Trump was maybe following his attorney
general's advice, No, we shouldn't do this, it's actually a
bad idea or whatever. But now that they forced his hand,
(04:16):
he finally said, go ahead, make my day.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, Steve, you're right to go to the bedrock of
all knowledge. Star Trek.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
I appreciated, say useless analogy, but I don't think this
has anything to do with Wrath a con although we
can all agree that was the greatest of all the
Star Trek movies. Because I don't think Trump had the
same plan in mind the whole time, you know, and
Star Trek two, Kirk wants con to following into the
(04:49):
Nebula where shields won't work and detection, so rte that,
and mister Spots is, you know, Christy Alley and then early.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Volcan roll says, why would we want to go in there?
You know shields would be useless, we won't be able
to see, And mister Spock says, ghosts for the gander
because the odds will be equal. But that's because they
wanted to trick him into chasing Kirk. I don't think
(05:18):
that's what Trump was doing here. I just closing it
because he was afraid. What did we find out?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You know, he didn't files don't. I really don't. I
think these too often people give Trump too much credit
for this three D chess kind of business when he's
just responding to events. So that's one point. Second, I
don't think it's a good idea to release law enforcement
records because first of all, a lot of the stuff
(05:44):
in law enforcement files are not facts. They're gossip. In
you window, They're going to be people getting revenge, lying, cheating,
They have the worst things in them. And then lastly,
and the more often you release these things, it creates
a disincentive for people to cooperate in the future. But
(06:05):
the last point is I do think that the MAGA
universe has exaggerated the importance of the whole Epstein affair,
this idea that there's some grand conspiracy to protect child
trafficking network that benefits the rich and famous. I mean,
every time I sad something about it, you know, people
(06:26):
start emailing me saying, you don't know that there's this
huge child trafficking conspiracy amongst the world's great and famous people,
and that Epstein is just a tip of the iceberg
and it's all a cover up. And right, this is
why some of the MAGA people are angry Trump, because
they thought he was part of the cover.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Up, or that he would that he would expose the
cover up.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
At John, don't you know about the tunnels? No, I'm joking,
but I'm not really joking.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Wall.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
There's also like a Washington, DC pizza plate. I mean,
it's like, right, this is.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
On from there. QAnon has been proven to be absolutely prophetic.
But I do want to say this much that Okay,
so leave it aside. There's lots of evidence that some
of those elites like the Pedestas and so on, are
scum of the earth, vile pedophiles, et cetera. Lots of evidence.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Did you just say the Podestas our child.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Of evidence? Besides the Washington Post?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You would know this, John, Let's just be I mean,
I remember misstating which one it was several episodes ago.
But Tony Podesta, the big lobbyist. That guy was pretty
bent and some of that was reported in mainstream media.
Now it's his brother, not him. I think he's I think,
but his brother, Tony. Lucretia's right about Tony Podesta. I'll
(07:52):
just stipulate, all right.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That being said, that doesn't mean that everybody that's ever
had a position of power in Washington, d see is
a pedophile or they're drinking whatever that blood thing is,
all that stuff. Wellever, what's it called a drink?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
From? John?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
God? John, you are so so glad. But there's a point,
a serious point here. The day so I used to
follow on Twitter, on Twitter when it was still Twitter,
the US Federal Marshals had a child, uh a sex child,
(08:30):
sex trafficking recovery tax force isn't exactly what they called it.
Something better, but they would post on Twitter we rescued
one hundred and forty three children today and arrested you know,
ninety seven child pedophile traffickers and so on, And they didn't.
And I would. I would repost it and this and that,
(08:50):
because it was just one of those things that that
means a lot to me. And the day, the day
that Joe Biden became president, he shut it down. There's
no explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, yeah, I try to. I I have one that is,
I won't say it's innocence two or three things quickly,
and also school educate John a bit on the fine
points of all this. My own view is that our
opinion is that an awful lot of the child trafficking
that goes go on is really connected much more with
the drug trade and the cartails and all the rest
of that. I think that's where the big numbers are
(09:28):
that doesn't involve the Washington leads. Second thing is I
mean about QAnon, And you know, you and I talked
about this the other day offline, so to speak. I
think it may be more of a blind squirrel thing
and or I am not not time for me to
chase after this. I'm not convinced. A lot of bad
actors didn't use the q and On platform to actually
say really crazy things to just throw people off the
(09:49):
trail and stir up stuff. And that's the third point
is John, I said, you haven't heard about the tunnels.
So I met somebody who was a big qanoon devot,
not a fraidis someone I sort of ran across and
got talking to. And this person seemed like an otherwise normal,
professional adult. And this person was convinced from QAnon that
there was an underground network of nationwide tunnels where the
(10:11):
children were traffic and the principal note of it was
a mile below the Denver airport. And that's just nuts, right,
I Mean, not even Elon Musk can build that many
tunnels across the country starting a mile below the.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
People on But you just said, you just said, Okay,
So President Biden's FBI Special Task Force stopped posting data
on child So there there's some kind of conspiracy in
the government to cover up child track.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
That's not what I said.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
What what is the implication of saying that then, that
you're trying to.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
If the US marshals were successfully chasing down and I'm
not saying that it was all Washington, d C. Just
steve it what could as easily been it was international
child trafficking and so on. I'm it was the US
Marshall's task Force and they were successful, and Joe Biden
shut it down the day he got.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What I understood exactly what you're saying, le cretia. But
you're trying to imply that the government is trying to
cover something up.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well you care about that, can I guy?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Seems that seems to just be fomenting this kind of
idle conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I don't think you need to fall to a
conspiracy theory, and maybe we can move on here. Well
that's okay, but I'll make this proposition and just file
the way for later if we can, which is, remember,
these are the same people, let me put it this way,
the same people who so aggressively sympathized, not just sympathize,
but promote transgenderism, including for children, are the same people
(11:49):
who have in their midst and among their intellectual leafs,
people saying pedophilia should be legalized. We should remove the
stigma from minor attracted adult. That's the phrase that some
of these folks in academia. You is right, and so
I think that whether or not Joe Biden, he's a
weird guy and how weird.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
But just there's a big difference between that and saying
that the Justice Department or the Marshall Service, or the
Biden administration or they're just how bad they are And
I didn't think they did. I thought they did a
terrible job. Is actually trying to I don't know, cover
up or help out some kind of conspiracy or network
of child pedophilia bucks amongst the Washington powerful, And I
(12:29):
think that's irresponsible actually claims whatever whoever it is. But
do you think there's a network you're making a network
of child I didn't make it amongst powerful people, and
so the Justice Department stopped tracking it.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Doing it again, Okay, I don't want to be I
just don't.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Think we should be doing that. I can make.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Any I said a fact, and the fact is absolutely
you can check it. You don't have to believe me.
But however, go back to what I thought you might
answer from Steve, which is the legal difficulties to the
rule of law and our justice system about releasing these
kinds of you know, grand jury testimony and all those
(13:17):
other things. And I would argue because Steve used Larry
Summers as an example, and I have no respect for
that man. But he did nothing illegal, nothing illegal that
I've been able that anybody has accused him of. Am
I right? Being friends with Jeffrey Epstein is not against
the law. And he's not being accused of raping underage girls.
(13:40):
He's accused of asking Jeffrey Epstein for advice about women,
you know, and hanging out.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
It's just the association is the thing, of.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Course, but it's not illegal. And I'm okay with a
society that actually shuns those people. Okay, I'm not saying that,
but I agree that there might be a lot of
people that my show up in those files over the
years not knowing who Jeffrey Epstein was or knowing and
but he was just too much of the you know,
the social circle guy that they didn't shun him. And
(14:11):
and that's one of the difficulties that could be why
Trump said I don't want to release those files. Who
knows anyway, that's I just wanted to show that I
could actually be a voice of reason in this.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I'll just say I have some respect for Larry summers,
but not on this particular matter. Some a little bit,
But never.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Mind, I had if he hadn't resigned. But that's a
different story, right, Yes, let's move on for just a
moment along those same lines. Oh, Steve, you did want
to mention about Marjorie Taylor Green?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I don't know, yah?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Might?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I mean, there's this big shocking announcement that is going
to resign from Congress in you know, a month, and
I thought to myself, Ah, she must be in the
Epstein file somewhere. I just couldn't help it.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I guess she just wants to stick it to Trump
and the recruit at all. Who knows? Who knows? I
have a great babylon to be about her, but I'll
save it. So what do you think about Maundonnie going
to the White House and hanging out with Trump and Trump? Actually,
you know, the press really wants to play up this
(15:15):
animosity between him and Trump just doesn't go along with it.
He actually helps Mandonnie out on more than one occasion
when Mandonnie's just speechless about how to respond.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Did you watch that, John and enjoy it as much
as I did? Or are you.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Actually was a surprised that Trump was so nice to
the guy. I thought, he's yeah, I think he's deprived himself.
And you know, the people who are going to run
the midterms of this great issue during the contrast between
the Democratic Party, which just you know lefted a communist
(15:49):
to the mayor of the largest city in the country,
and he was I mean, he was calling him a
rational man. They have some of the same ideas, they
want to solve the same problem. I don't know why
he did it. I could slowly see wanting to come
out of the meeting and just being nice, but to
(16:10):
preserve the ability to attack him like a dog once
the campaign started. So that's what I think it still does.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
That's Trump. Yeah, nice, and then he can turn around
and attack like a dog. But he did say the
specific things that he agreed with mindonnion, and that was
affordability in New York City, building more houses, you know,
all of the things. He loves New York and wants
wants him to be successful. And you know, maybe it's
(16:38):
not three D chess, but it was a big surprise
to a lot of people. It'll be interesting this.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
This shouldn't surprise us. I mean, Trump is often not always,
but often very friendly, even to his enemies when they're
together in the same room in front of cameras. I mean,
I remember the first term. Uh he would say, you know, yeah,
we got a son about guns, when Pelosi and Schumer
were there, and Pelosian Schumer look at each other like,
I can't what are we hearing here? And of course
he walked that back later when you know, people who
(17:04):
know about gun law and the Second Amendment got to him.
So wait a minute, mister preth, So he kind of
does that. He's lit a Zelig like in that way.
I John thought, yeah, it's got it's probable that you mentioned,
but I thought it was kind of a stroke of
genius on two levels. One is Montdommier went and took
the meeting, and I thought, to the extend, a lot
of MAGA people were upset. I think the people on
(17:26):
Blue Sky have got to be losing there, you know what,
over it. And you know, he's gonna have problems with
his own left flank, the Democratic Socialists in New York
when he disappoints them, which he has to or will
at some point if he wants to survive at all.
And then yeah, as Lucreatius says Trump will turn around
here in six months or a year and say, boy,
this guy hadn't done anything. In fact, he's did everything
wrong because he didn't listen to me and follow a
(17:48):
sensible agenda. So and then the best part of the
whole thing was not the particular items I thought it
was when reporters said, so, mister mcdonmie, you've called Trump
a fascist, and Mondomie starts to say, yeah, I've comment
on things and Trump someone norms says, just go ahead
and say yes, it's so much easier, and trying to
explain it to these people I don't mind. So that
looks magnanimous and makes this whole thing look like the
(18:09):
joke that it is. And I thought it was. I
thought it was a stroke of political genius.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
You know, I do think that the policies that they
agree on are not necessarily going to be good for
New York. So, well, you know the one you just suggested, Steve,
I mean, build more low housing units in New York City?
Is that really gonna solved? It's not going to have
any crisis. No. The problem is that, you know, decades
and decades of progressive policies of what made New York
(18:36):
City unaffordable. I was just there the last two days.
Everything is expensive, and it's because, right they have enormous taxes,
they have rent the most outrageous forms of rent control. No,
it's hollowing out the city for the middle class. It's
the you know. The the answer is that they should
(18:56):
repeal all of these progressive policies, not say, let's think
of some more subsidized housing units that we can build,
or let's let's work together to bring the price of
groceries down by building free, state run supermarkets in the city.
That's what I worries when they say when Trump says,
I agree, you know, we agree on some of the
same policies, Trump bloods.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, it was at such a level of generality, I
don't think.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But look at this possibility to carry on what Steve said.
So when Mendanmi falls flat on his face and affordability
goes completely out the roof, out the roof, whatever the
analogy is, and.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Uh, you know, she can't do an analogy, Steve. Yet's
such a bad effect.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's why she gets so mad at me for doing it.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
So, okay, that's actually not an analogy.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
That that's actually a metaphor.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Metaphor, but I hold out for we all know, because
we all know that there is no possibility that if
Mendanni is true to his socialist principles, that he will
do anything but ruin New York. Even further, we know
that he can't. Nobody will be able to say it
was Trump's fault because Trump did X, Y and Z
(20:09):
to make sure that he wasn't successful. And then Trump
can say, look, I was in favor of affordability. But
this guy's just you know, he's a socialist. And anyway,
that's my thought why he did it, Not so much
that I can prove that he did all right, enough
about that, we'll see how that all comes down. I
have one more back this past week issue the idiot Democrats,
(20:33):
including the troll that is one of the senators. There's
the troll, and there's the poor scene cartel Son. That's
who we have representing Arizona, Mark Kelly, the troll, and
Reuben Diego, who's a fat son of the.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
You're talking about the video saying military should disobey Trump's orders.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
So Mark Kelly is a was a captain in the Navy.
Supposedly it was an astronaut who cares. I don't care,
but anyway, and he says he's just a vile human being.
Everything about him is vile. And so he comes out
and he and Alyssa Slotkin, who was I guess some
CIA scumbag, and you know, there's four other Democrats come
(21:18):
out and say that you what you have to do
is you have to resist illegal uh law, illegal orders
from the commander in chief. Basically I'm oversimplifying a little bit,
and it's just it was awful. First of all, none
of them cited one single illegal order that had been
given by Trump. It was just this, you need to
(21:38):
you need to know that. It's you have to do this.
And it just was I was in the CIA and
I was in the Navy, and you have.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
To do this right, right?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And so Trump Trump comes out and says this is sedition.
And guess what they need to be prosecuted for sedition
and if found guilty, they need to be executed.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Well, see, that was a mistake on Thrumb's part, I
think to go that far. Well wait a minute, so, well,
I mean there is I have seen people quote, I
think quite intelligently that famous line of Lincoln's about you know,
must I execute the deserter and leave untouched the agitator
who inspired the person to desert? And you know that
was Yeah, the agitators right. And on the other hand, well,
(22:26):
I think of the first of a I'll think of
it politically first of all, to lead the law to
John for a moment. The Democrats have been saying for
a while now, we need to lower the temperature. You know,
that was the thing about the first couple of weeks
after Charlie Kirks, We've got to lower the temperature. Does
this lower the temperature?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I don't think so. I think this is uh. I
think they're playing politically to their base that wants to
see more fight against Trump. And and maybe it's sort
of residuous for the old anti war character of Democrats too.
As to the legal side, I mean, I don't know.
I don't John, I don't think this is sedition. And
also there is there is a smallener speech in debay clause.
(23:04):
I'm not sure whether it would or not. But you're
looking you're looking depressed about an old John. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
No, no, so they shouldn't have made it's this classic
you know, left wing Trump dynamic. The lefties should not
have done this for the reasons Lucretia set out, and
you mentioned it's there have been no illegal orders. Right,
Trump has won in court so far when these decisions
about sending troops into the cities have gone up. Right,
(23:33):
the Ninth Circuit has upheld these orders. So they're they're
trying to tempt right soldiers to disobey legal orders by
their commanders. Right, this is what is a private supposed
to do, what is a sergeant supposed to do? It
undermines good discipline in the ranks. I mean, it really
is up to their commanders, I think, to decide whether
(23:54):
the orders are legal or not. So I agree with Lucretia.
This is a terrible thing that the people on the
left were doing. But you're right, Steve on the law.
I don't think they've committed sedition. They didn't. Everything they
said is true. Right Under the UCM, the Uniform Code
of Military Justice, a soldier has the right not to
(24:16):
carry out an illegal order. But the question is how
do they figure out what's illegal versus illegal order? When
you've got you know, hundreds of thousands of high school
people basically, who are some of the not even high
school graduates. Are they supposed to examine Jackson and Jefferson
and Lincoln and what they said about the scope of
the commander and chief power? And then I don't, and
(24:38):
I do think what they said is protected by the
First Amendment and maybe the speech and Debate Clause, although
usually that only applies when they're in their official functions
in Congress. It doesn't protect like campaign answer anything like that.
But I don't I could. I mean, there's no way
they could ever be convicted of sedition and executed. But
Trump used I think what happened, and this is part
(25:00):
that dynamic. Trump had such an exaggerated, over the top
response that it really did highlight something wrong that the
Democrats did that might otherwise have escaped extensive commentary. I
don't know, butt throw.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Something at you, John So. A few years back, when
during the Biden administration, I and a group of about
six or seven others had a meeting with the Secretary
of the Army, Christine Warmouth at the time, and it
was about what we could do to help the abysmal
recruiting numbers that the Biden administration we're seeing. And so
people had some interesting I mean it was a serious
(25:35):
we want to know what you think, blah blah blah.
Somebody said, stop the Wounded Warriors adds on TV because
that gets every mom to say, you don't let their
kid go. And of course what I said was and
it was a height of COVID. I said, I talked
to young people all the time, and they do not
want to join the army because they don't want to
take the shot. Everybody knows that young people are not
(25:56):
at risk for COVID, and it's experimental and it's possibly
dangerous to them. You know, limited information about that was
coming out at the time. And Christine Warma's smarmy, stupid
answer was it's a lawful order. Okay, dumb, Sorry, I
can't use the word I meant. That may be true,
(26:16):
It may be true that Lloyd Austin had the power
to issue a mandatory, experimental, dangerous vaccine. But what would
have happened if somebody on the Republican side had encouraged
a military wide call it a protest or you know,
(26:39):
a refusal to take the vaccine and the whole military
left would we have considered that sedition? And the reason
I bring that up as an example is that on
X every single person came out and said, don't you
you shut up, you people who made us take the vaccine?
Where were you when the vaccine was being forced on us?
(27:00):
And so on then? And so that was one of
the counter arguments to carry Kelly at all.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
But would it be a sedition for someone to say,
when your term of enlistment is up, you shouldn't re enlist.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
How about resign immediately you leave?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
If you're an office, you know, if you're an officer,
you know, if you're enlisted, you can't do that. But
you're an officer, you can.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
But if the whole army went a wall.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, but if they're acting, if they're allowed to. But
I wouldn't say how I say it. I don't think.
I don't think you could say it's an illegal order
for your superior officers to order you to take a vaccine.
You could. Instead, you're saying it's a lawful order and
that's why you should leave the military. That's not sedition.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, I asked, have you seen Lucretia what the latest
recruiting numbers are since Trump took office? Their way up?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Yes, I have, I think I got to.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I don't know if I get changed to talk about,
but you know I was in Arizona when Lucretia, Oh right,
you know I was in her I was in her
battle wagon. And you know that thing has more weapons
than your average recruit. I mean there were guns coming
out of every every storage area in that car. There
were I didn't know there were guns that could fit
(28:18):
in places that small. It was unbelievable. You found, didn't
Lucretia ship your recruiting at just ever show her off
her car?
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Are you talking about anyway? Anyway? One last thing I
want to say, The cutest thing I saw was when
Gabrielle Giffords, who is Mark Kelly's wife that he trots
out for the sympathy vote in every election. But I'll
leave that aside. And I know Gabrielle Gifford, She's a
nice person. And you know, anyway, is it horrible what
happen to her? She still has her brain, but anyway,
(28:48):
she she puts something. And my husband was a twenty
five year Navy veteran who served his country. And somebody
came back and said, yeah, Benedict Arnold was a terrific
officer who served his country, and blah, blah blah blah
blah until he wasn't, which I thought was just great.
But anyway, sorry, enough of that that I know listeners
(29:09):
have been interested in that topic. One more topic that
we don't have time to get to that I promised
we're not going to talk about it, but I promise
we'll get back to it next week because John and
I have a little difference of opinion. And that was
a really great article written by Paul Sperry. The interesting
thing about it is talking about the Russia Russia Russian
hoax and what led to it, but that it was
(29:31):
actually Trump appointees like Bolton and and Peo and Hasspell
who and Durham who allowed it to become the problem.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
With I just say that the Real Clear Investigations article
that you're referring to, John and I have actually been
involved with generating some considerable support for Real Clear Investigations.
That's a solid outfit.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
So it is. It is, And Paul's a good guy.
He's a really good guy. You can look at John. No,
we'll do this next week because it's not fair for
me to put words in John's mouth. And you guys
want to get to why I don't know because I
find him so boring.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, because who was prominent in the news this week,
that's why, And we're skinting. Yeah, but but the point
is no, no, no, just a minute, Lucretia, this show,
we've said you agreed, and now you're not letting a story.
I want to do a series on our run up
to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and one of
the big events was this week darn it with Gordon Wood,
who's whether you agree with him or not, is a
(30:29):
really prominent figure. And here we are time.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Left really the greatest intellectual historian of the founding who
is currently a loss.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Baal And died. Yeah, well Balin.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Died, McDonald died, Balen died.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Was Bailin still teaching at Harvard when you were there
and retired? Was okay, did you take a class? I
did not.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I sat in on a few, but I thought I
knew all that stuff he was talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
The funny thing was Charles Murray. You know, Charles rearrived
at Harvard in nineteen sixty two, at the height of
Balen's fame, and said I didn't take his class either,
because I thought I knew at all, and that was
a big mistake anyway.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Okay, okay, So the Three Risky Happy Hour is beginning
its celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the Declaration of Independence. We will devote some time of
every episode for the rest of this year and next
year at least a little bit talking about that, because
it is the most important, the most important event in
(31:30):
our country's history. It is not, as George Well pointed out,
the most important event in the history of mankind. Somebody
might point out that the empty two might have been
that most important, but and somebody did. But anyway, it
is for Americans the most important, and in some ways
for human beings across the board.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
But well, you you know. Jaffa said that he ranked
the Declaration of Independence alongside Moses and the Ten Commandments
coming down from Sinai.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
That's yes, in a different context though, as the most
important event anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Here was his parallel. His parallel was the Moses and
the declaration in this at Sinai was about the unity
of God and the all men are created equal, and
declaration of Independence announced the unity of the human family.
There's your parallel, anyway.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, okay, again different contexts, but we'll leave that alone.
Gordon would go ahead, guys, take it away.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Well, all right, John says he wants to defend him.
I don't only want to savagely attack him. I just
thought he was defective. But there's been a story arc
and he's changed somewhat. He won't change. Well, who changes
enough to satisfy Hugh Lucretia. But look his famous book,
Creation of the American Republic, six hundred pages or so, I think,
pretty good reading, and there's a lot in there. There's
(32:50):
a lot to criticize, just on the scholarship and the
methodology of it. The central argument was well put it
this way. He mentions the Declaration of Independence, I think,
and mostly to say it really was not relevant. Thomas
Jefferson and natural rights are just uninteresting, I don't uninteresting.
He thinks they were secondary to the centrality of what
was going on in the Revolution. He draws back to
(33:13):
the civic republican tradition, stretching back to Greece and Rome
as modified in the Renaissance and so forth. He has
a lot of company. That was Pocock and Trevor Coleborne
and Caroline Robbins and Baylan to some extent. Yeah, we
could do Baylan separately sometime if we want. I did Lucretia.
(33:35):
I remember Leonard Levy making me read A Balen's book
The Ideological Origins of the American Founding, which I thought
was pretty good, but also I see the defects in
it anyway, So the problem is, here's Bailin doing the
civic republicanism thing, and so I think it's incomplete and wrong,
although not completely wrong, but okay. And then the second
(33:56):
thing is is that, as I wrote in the Claremont
Review books, and I'll try and remember it for the
show notes, is uh, I don't well. I think Balin
was a garden variety of liberal. In fact, the other
night at his talk in Washington, he said, I voted
for Adelaie Stevenson. Can you believe it? What was I thinking?
And I thought to mention, yeah, well, Leo Strauss and
Walter Burns voted for Stevenson too, So that's really not
that much of a dima Today, of course he would
(34:19):
exactly so. But in the nineties a lot of left
wingers included a lot of law professors. For reasons that
I'll skip over now grabbed onto his work. Also Gary
Wills the decade before to say, you know, the civic
republicanism it was really meant that America was intended to
be a socialist country. That was when Communitarians was high
(34:41):
and Lucretian do you remember our late friend John Weddergreen
used to say communitarianism was just a chicken shit word
for socialism. That's a direct quote. So uh So anyway,
uh and then the speech the other night, Uh, And
I think we have a difference of opinion here Lucretian
and I and maybe you John. It was mostly about
the centrality of the decree independence. He used it as
(35:02):
a either the creedle or credo. It's not clear what
term I heard anyway, when I listened to him, there
were a creedle nation, like Chesterton said, right, or even
Margaret Thatcher about America, right, versus what some people in
the nat con world say were they don't actually say
(35:23):
we're a blood and soil nation. That's kind of a
calumny that people are trying to say, you nationalists or
you know, crypto Nazis, right, But he didn't. He seemed
to leave his civic republicanism behind and I or to
the side, and I thought that was interesting. So he's
evolved some. And last thing I'll say is in the
video that AEI produced about it, both Evolven and Bill McLay,
(35:46):
who you know sort of my favorite current historian, said Ah,
Gordon Wood's most important book was The Radicalism of the
American Revolution, which came twenty years later, right from the
first book, and there it's much more about how the
principle of equal really did transform the democratic character of
America in ways we would all I think approve. So
that's my summary of it. And I still think his
(36:08):
original that whole civic Republican tradition is it's not wholly wrong,
but it's problematic. I'll just say it that way and stop.
That was a long speech.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
You you live up to what Buckley said about jeffa.
You know, you think it's harry to disagree with you,
clar monsters, try try agreeing with you. I mean, Gordon
Wood and Bernard Balen are the historians were closest in
the history profession to you guys. All right, So I mean,
because remember where the study of history and the founding
(36:40):
was when these intellectual historians showed up in the nineteen sixties.
You're right, you know, Balen starts in the early nineteen sixties.
His great book is The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,
which comes out in the sixties. Gordon Woods book comes
out I think in nineteen sixty nine. Right, the book
about the Founding and its intellectal and the intelectrialgy is
(37:01):
really the Constitution, is what his book is really about.
And what had preceded them was this claim which the
sixteen nineteen Project has tried to rejuvenate, this Marxist claim
that the American Revolution is really about power and class, right,
and about slavery, and it's all about materialism, right, That's right.
(37:22):
That's why when we were emailing about before, I said,
you know, these are the guys who finally killed off
Charles Beard. Right now, Beard had been attacked by people
like Forrest McDonald. Came to fame by showing how the
delegates to the Philadelphia Convention voted against their material interests.
But that was still the reigning school, and in many
(37:42):
parts of history that's still the reigning school is a
sort of you know, Marxist materialism that explains everything that
people do. And so Balon would show up and they say, no,
the revolution is about ideology. You know. The point they make,
which I think was always powerful, and I always start
my classes on the Revolution and the founding about this
(38:03):
is from a materialistic point of view, it was crazy
that there was an American revolution, Right, The Polonists were
already the freest richest people maybe who had ever lived
on the planet Earth to that time. The primary, the
primary way to wealth in the old world was property
was land, and they had endless amounts of land. So
(38:25):
it produces this equality of circumstance and political freedom, and
so why would they have a revolution? It didn't make
any sense, you know, Beard was completely So that's why
Balen and would sit there and say, why would these
founders go against their material interests and have a revolution?
And so your view is, and you say this in
(38:47):
your review in the Claremont Review, is it's about natural rights,
it's about the declaration of independence. And you criticize the
Would in particular for not looking for eternal truths, right,
looking for the kinds of ideologies and arguments that are eternal. Right,
(39:07):
You're quite right, Would, and all intellectual historians really see
history as set in the context of that day, So
I would say, for some example, I don't think it's
a contradiction for Wood to say in his nineteen sixty
nine book, the revolution was about equal unleashed, this democracy
(39:29):
and the constitution. Is this conservative reaction to contain excess
of democracy. It's a conservative revolution, which I also think
is true. I mean, they make this point over and
over again that the American Revolution is different. It's a
conservative revolution. It's not a Chinese Russian revolution about wiping
everything out and make everybody equal. But I think when
(39:51):
I read woods speech, what I read him is saying
is I believe normatively it is a good thing for
the United States to be a nation formed around belief.
But I don't think he took back what he was
saying about nineteen but he wrote back in sixty nine.
I don't think he says anywhere right. But that explains
what the revolution was about. And then one last thing,
(40:12):
you're right, Steve. The book he won the Bulletzer Prize
for was the second book about the Revolution, which was
primarily about social and culture and economic history. I think
they gave him the Politzer Prize and history for that
book because they should have given it to him for
his first book, The Ideological Origins, and they didn't give
it to him. And I think that one for good
(40:35):
or ill. Steve you did write a fair critique of it.
I think our friend Gary Schmidt, you know, wrote a
you know, I think a harsher review that people have said.
But that book has been extraordinarily influential. That's the one creature.
While we're talking about him, what is the most influential
historian about the American Revolution of our time? Right? I
think him and Balin. I mean that's you may disagree
(40:56):
with them, but that's the entire field of people write
about this and be shaped by history.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
History is a discipline is fading away.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
But well yeah, but the history that they like is
the history that you like for data actually motivated by ideas,
not by That's why the way you guys are going
after him like you are, well, wait.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
A minute, by the way, if actually I think he
said that history wouldn't be going away as much if
people still taught as well as those guys did. I
mean it's a relative term. I understand, John, you a
couple of minutes ago unwittingly conceded our entire case, not
the entire case, but the most important part of it,
which was essentially Wood. In Balen, it weren't just historians,
(41:38):
but they were also historicysts in that philosophical sense. Right.
I mean you said yourself that you're sort of explaining
in the context of the time. And you know, when
Wood objected to lefties, he was saying, misusing his work
to make America too a socialist country. You say, well,
wait a minute, you can't. You were assuming we have
all these degrees of freedom that we don't have that
(41:59):
the founders have. And I'm you know, that was the
time and place kind of argument. You can say something
similar about Balen. It's a little more subtle in his work.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
It's true's you know, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Yeah, and and uh and so while he well.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
In fact, they would take pride in that they they
I believe right, Like that's it. All these historians think
you shouldn't write history with the present in mind, that
if you do do that, you are they call it.
They accuse you of being what they call presentists. Yes,
that you are allowing your present concerns to warp how
you investigate and uncover history.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
But but you're making it seem like the only alternative
is what Gordon Wood does, and that's not the only alative.
The alternative is to take seriously Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and
all those other uh whatever Jefferson says, you know, the
(42:53):
great minds. I forget the quote, and to take seriously
the idea that that the Declaration of Independent isn't some
credo that a bunch of guys in seventeen seventy six
got together and signed onto. It is, in fact a
reflection of a as Lincoln would say, a truth applicable
(43:15):
to all men at all times. And that is something
Gordon would and those people who say only the present,
you know, the historicist that neither of them approach it
the way it should be approached. And so I find
him as as as faulty as I do. Historicis that's
the problem.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Well can I do this? Is? Go go ahead?
Speaker 3 (43:37):
One? And last point is would would I Balin wouldn't
say you can't say that, or Steve can't make these arguments,
you can't. They would not say, oh, it's wrong for
you to say we should We can trace this natural
right of human equality over all these centuries or millennia,
and it's a thought shared by these different people They
(43:58):
just say you can't make them that history proves it.
You could certainly make, you know, analogies to history, but
they would say, you know, it's not the historian's job,
and you can't claim the mantle of history to win
the argument that your claims about natural rights are actually
the winning ones. That's all. That's why I think that
what they're not hostile to what you want to do.
(44:21):
But they're not. They just they're just gonna say you
can't say that my book, which is really an effort
to excavate how people thought, and a lot of times
they like to say they like to show how different
the thinking was than it was of today, even though
they might use the same words. Well, let's say, don't
want you to be able to say, oh, history proofs
I'm right, right, they want you to. That doesn't mean
(44:43):
you can't make the argument. They're just saying that history doesn't.
It is not this conclusive thing that justifies, as you said, Stephen,
your piece. It doesn't justify you know, socialism and a
vast administrative state. I mean, wo would laugh at this. Yeah, Well,
anyone should who study the founding right, Well, let.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Me make two points and propel us to an end
this way. One is Wood did write a pretty ferocious
attack on the Straussian bi Centennial the New York Review
of Books back in the eighties. This is by centennial
the constitution. We'll leave that for another times. I haven't
reread it. Second, one of the most severe and I
think impressive critiques of Wood is not from Straussians like
(45:21):
me and Gary Schmidt and Lucretia. It was by the
great pretty liberal history in John Patrick Diggins, who I
knew a little bit. He was really tough on both
Balen for that point and Wood for trying to make
this into ideology in sort of an unwitting Marxist way.
But lastly, normally i'd save this to the end, But
(45:41):
here I've got to bring Lucretian to the debate by sharing
with you today's AI generated contribution. And I asked chat
Ebt to provide us with a debate between Lucretia and
Gordon Wood, and let me just share a little of it,
and then we can go to babylon Be's and get
out Lucretia. Well, professor Wood, you're here mostly because your
presence elevates my argument simply by comparison. Let's cut to it,
(46:05):
The American Founding was about timeless natural rights and the
problem of tyrannical government. You know those things the founders
kept writing about incessantly. It's almost like they meant it,
Gordon would Oh, yes, timeless truths. I remember them well.
They were stored on parchment at Versailles, next to the
powdered wigs. Lucretia, The Founding wasn't a live action performance
of Natural Right the musical. It was a social revolution.
(46:28):
That's kind of the whole point. Lucretia a social revolution.
Please you make it sound like Samuel Adams was out
there organizing consciousness raising workshops. Hi, I'm Sam and I'm
here to talk about my feelings on monarchy. No, the
Founders cared about limited government. They were steeped in Loch
Montesquieu and maybe a few too many tankards of ale. Okay,
there's more that is kind of fun would degree of course,
(46:50):
they are serious, serious about the collapse of deference, the
emergence of democratic culture, and all the other things that
give Straussian spontaneous nosebleeds. Okay, I'll stop there. There's more,
but that's enough. But I think it's funny.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Okay, all right, I do want to mention one other
really quick topic before I moved to Babylon Bee's, because
I actually happened upon an old podcast of ours where
we discussed the whole thing about the executive power to
decide whether or not we should continue making the penny.
John I actually got into some pretty interesting theoretical discussions
(47:28):
about it, but as you probably know, I'm not going
to go into all of that. As you probably know,
the penny, the last pennies were came off the production
line this past week, and I just wanted to mention
to you guys at the last five pennies that they produced,
what are they called nuismatic whatever the name is, for
(47:50):
people that collect coins are predicting that they'll be worth
as much as nine million dollars a piece.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes the point maybe okay, by.
Speaker 4 (48:01):
Well anyway, anyway, So no more pennies. But it doesn't
affect John at all because he bays for everything with
his good looks and his Apple Watch.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So yeah, I mean, I haven't seen a penny in
years except of.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
Them, so maybe someday they'll be worth something. We'll see.
But and Steve mentioned that he had a whole bag
of the pennies that were produced in World War Two, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
It was nineteen Yeah, nineteen forty three. They made sink
pennies because they needed the copper for stuff. And I've
got a not a big bag, I've got a small
I probably got a couple hundred of them, and I
don't know if they're worth much, but they're just an oddity, right,
so yeah, they.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Might be worth one point five cents. Go sell them fast.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I'm going to send you a bunch of nickels because
you are really dismissive about nickels in that podcast. John
like the pennies better than the nickels.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Well, because who's on the nickel?
Speaker 4 (48:56):
I can finish in four minutes. So yeah, you'll be surprised.
Mandamie target this is a bad one. Be sorry, folks.
Mendonnie Mandonnie. Why does he have to have such a
stupid name. Mandonnie targets the rich with new tax on
anyone who makes more than zero sense a year. You'll
like this one, guys. Average IQ in Congress expected to
(49:19):
rise significantly after Marjorie Taylor Green designs.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, that's still going to be pretty low, but okay.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Yeah, yeah, I know a Trump two host exciting new
game show which member of Congress should I have executed? Next?
And then there's a picture of Mendonni and it says
breaking Hamas breaches White House perimeter to save time. Ice
(49:47):
begins mass arrests of everyone at soccer fields. Oh, unless
you hang out in Mexican communities. They don't get that,
and devastating blow. Newly released emails revealed Trump not well
by pedophile. Sure, that's funny. Bow's in this one. This
is for you. Steve Bose introduces new Mariah Carey canceling
(50:09):
headphones for Christmas.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Oh yeah, that is a good one, right.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
And finally said we didn't talk about this, thank god,
because she's not even worth the mention. But this is
pretty funny. Scientific algorithm determines most oppressed person in history
is Michelle Obama?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
All right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And nobody here's how you wear your hair, you dumb.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We Unlike most other conservative podcasts this week, we went
through this whole episode without mentioning Olivia Newsy once except
just now, well, but that would have keep me up
saying that she's just trying to rival Sidney Sweeney because
I do believe we should mention Sidney Sweeney.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Sidney Sweeney's like a goddess compared to the ugly woman.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Sorry, John, you better get us out of here before
drinking night, folks, Just so you know, I think again, Well,
I'm heading, Yeah, I'm heaving to get okay.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
The creature. Just don't get back in the Tesla tonight.
That's all I asked. Not because because it's tend to drive,
because because of all the five guns I saw.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
But wait, John, were you ever scared about my driving
even one second?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
No, Like I said, I was scared of the guns,
not the drive, And I was driving.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
It was funny. Lucretia had like one that was the
big one and then the small one, and she was
telling me why she likes one over the other, and
you know, I was just like, either one is going
to kill the other person.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
I think reminds me. It reminds me of those movie
scenes where you know, the hero always pulls out one
gun from here and a little one from there, and
that's the way it was.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
It was like it was like Arnold and Commando.
Speaker 4 (51:52):
Right, Okay, But I do have one last thing to say,
Steve hold On before he says it Uh. You know,
we've taught classes with John on multiple occasions and he's
always been good. But I am still hearing from students
about how incredibly impressed John was. And I actually think John,
just so you know, everyone says you need to write
that up into an article because they want to have
(52:13):
it to read. So anyway, John, I did say a
lot of it.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
What I was telling the students about was how to
think about war versus crime, and I compared I post
nine to eleven to the drug Boats. And I did
point them to this book I wrote after nine to eleven,
which none of them had ever heard of and certainly
weren't going to buy because it's twenty five, about twenty
years old. Now I get twenty five years old almost.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
But they'll litle library.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, I guess they'll do a library. So always drink
your whiskey meat, buy more books. And Steve, you already
read the AI generated he did tonight. What else?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
So all I have is I am off to see
Steve Hackett's perhaps last show ever because as well some
of his band members are well, some of his band
members are leaving the band after tonight's final And.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
I didn't realize I didn't realize airs Fly was still
Oh no, god.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
That's didn't you see Steve Hackett when we were all
together in the Long Ones.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
No, yes, we saw him there in Milan, and I've
seen him all over the place.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
But this is like last, This is not air supply,
Is this abba other? Nineteen seventy one of your other?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
You know, Steve.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
The weird bands are just named after cities for a while,
like Steve Hackett.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Steve Hackett's one of the great guitarists of all time,
and he was the second guitarist during the glory days
of Genesis in his seventies.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
And there you go.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Of course it's probab rock, right, Okay, I gotta go though,
So I got see.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
You guys on das everybody thereafter.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Yeah, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
I didn't m Ricochet join the conversation.
Well, whiskey, come and take my pain, the honeys, my ry,
oh whiskey.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Why think alone when you can drink it all in
with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John,
You and the international Woman of Mystery, Lucretia where.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
They lap it oppen, David, ain't you leave me on
the soul taps got a giving and.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Let that welcome everybody to the three Whiskey Happy Hour.
It's a late late in both time and late from
our usual time slot. It's Saturday night that we're recording,
with all three of us on different sides, if not
the planet, certainly the country. Steve's in the far Northwest.
(00:52):
John is home in his undisclosed location at a very
nice old church behind him, and I'm home in Arizona
in my bunker or whatever it is I have here.
So we have, and it was such a difficult thing
to get all three of us together because of our
schedules and travels and the time difference. But I insisted
(01:15):
because there's so much fun to talk about that I said,
we can have another special Thanksgiving episode, which I hope
we will. But in the meantime, all of this.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
We news we'll do a double episode. I don't mean
necessarily two hours, but I think we should do a
bonus episode next weekend for Thanksgiving. Why because all the
other podcasts take the holiday off, but we're hard workers.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, and besides that, I want to remind all of
our listeners how thankful they should be for the three
Whiskey Happy Hour, and how thankful we are that we
have listeners who listen to the three Whiskey Happy Hour.
All right, let's get going because we'll have to make
it a little bit short. Steve's got a date tonight
or something that we don't want to hear about. I
know you don't believe me, Okay, so let's start. My
(02:00):
favorite thing that happened this week. And it's almost old news,
of course, But you know, what was the vote four
hundred and something to one to release the Epstein files
in the House? Is that right, am? I correctly? And
you know Democrats have been screaming about this forever that
you know, and then the Trump administration kind of played
(02:21):
some dumb games about it for a while, but then
Trump says, yeah, go ahead and release it. I'm tired
of this being an issue. Go release it. And what
has come out about Trump a big goose egg. What's
come out about all sorts of Democrats? Oh my god.
And so you know, there's Trump again. He had to
know that there wasn't going to be anything in there
(02:43):
that was, you know, damning in any way. He had
to know that because he knows it didn't happen. There's
no evidence of it at least. But all of these
Democrats were not very clever, were they go.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Ahead, Oh, I'm going to bait John here a little bit,
just because it's fun. The Democrats strategy on this issue
reminds me of Star Trek two, the Wrath of Khan.
When Kirk yells at con like a bad marksman, you
keep missing the target. So if you go back a
few years ago, the Me Too movement was really about
(03:16):
trying to take take Trump down for his you know,
famous access Hollywood comments and you know, his behavior over
the years, so supposedly and at snaire always Democrats. You know,
it drove Al Franken out of the Senate, It killed
Charlie Rose's career, it killed Matt Loward NBC News. That's
just three out of you know, a couple dozen. You
can mention. So now the Epstein files come out, there's
nothing on Trump, but Larry Summers is ruined and finished
(03:39):
for good and and it just keeps going on and
on about all that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
You have are being subpoened.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, Jepstein was a big Democratic donor, so I.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Ninety percent of his money went to Democrats, either individually
or bundled.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Right, And how I think I think Trump's done another
ropodope here, which is, by the way, there's sensible reasons,
of course, John, if you want to mention a couple
of them, not to be releasing all these files for
you know, standard legal reasons and and all the rest. Uh.
And so you know, Trump was maybe following his attorney
general's advice, No, we shouldn't do this, it's actually a
bad idea or whatever. But now that they forced his hand,
(04:16):
he finally said, go ahead, make my day.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, Steve, you're right to go to the bedrock of
all knowledge. Star Trek.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
I appreciated, say useless analogy, but I don't think this
has anything to do with Wrath a con although we
can all agree that was the greatest of all the
Star Trek movies. Because I don't think Trump had the
same plan in mind the whole time, you know, and
Star Trek two, Kirk wants con to following into the
(04:49):
Nebula where shields won't work and detection, so rte that,
and mister Spots is, you know, Christy Alley and then early.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
Volcan roll says, why would we want to go in there?
You know shields would be useless, we won't be able
to see, And mister Spock says, ghosts for the gander
because the odds will be equal. But that's because they
wanted to trick him into chasing Kirk. I don't think
(05:18):
that's what Trump was doing here. I just closing it
because he was afraid. What did we find out?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You know, he didn't files don't. I really don't. I
think these too often people give Trump too much credit
for this three D chess kind of business when he's
just responding to events. So that's one point. Second, I
don't think it's a good idea to release law enforcement
records because first of all, a lot of the stuff
(05:44):
in law enforcement files are not facts. They're gossip. In
you window, They're going to be people getting revenge, lying, cheating,
They have the worst things in them. And then lastly,
and the more often you release these things, it creates
a disincentive for people to cooperate in the future. But
(06:05):
the last point is I do think that the MAGA
universe has exaggerated the importance of the whole Epstein affair,
this idea that there's some grand conspiracy to protect child
trafficking network that benefits the rich and famous. I mean,
every time I sad something about it, you know, people
(06:26):
start emailing me saying, you don't know that there's this
huge child trafficking conspiracy amongst the world's great and famous people,
and that Epstein is just a tip of the iceberg
and it's all a cover up. And right, this is
why some of the MAGA people are angry Trump, because
they thought he was part of the cover.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Up, or that he would that he would expose the
cover up.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
At John, don't you know about the tunnels? No, I'm joking,
but I'm not really joking.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
Wall.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
There's also like a Washington, DC pizza plate. I mean,
it's like, right, this is.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
On from there. QAnon has been proven to be absolutely prophetic.
But I do want to say this much that Okay,
so leave it aside. There's lots of evidence that some
of those elites like the Pedestas and so on, are
scum of the earth, vile pedophiles, et cetera. Lots of evidence.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Did you just say the Podestas our child.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Of evidence? Besides the Washington Post?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
You would know this, John, Let's just be I mean,
I remember misstating which one it was several episodes ago.
But Tony Podesta, the big lobbyist. That guy was pretty
bent and some of that was reported in mainstream media.
Now it's his brother, not him. I think he's I think,
but his brother, Tony. Lucretia's right about Tony Podesta. I'll
(07:52):
just stipulate, all right.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That being said, that doesn't mean that everybody that's ever
had a position of power in Washington, d see is
a pedophile or they're drinking whatever that blood thing is,
all that stuff. Wellever, what's it called a drink?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
From? John?
Speaker 4 (08:10):
God? John, you are so so glad. But there's a point,
a serious point here. The day so I used to
follow on Twitter, on Twitter when it was still Twitter,
the US Federal Marshals had a child, uh a sex child,
(08:30):
sex trafficking recovery tax force isn't exactly what they called it.
Something better, but they would post on Twitter we rescued
one hundred and forty three children today and arrested you know,
ninety seven child pedophile traffickers and so on, And they didn't.
And I would. I would repost it and this and that,
(08:50):
because it was just one of those things that that
means a lot to me. And the day, the day
that Joe Biden became president, he shut it down. There's
no explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, yeah, I try to. I I have one that is,
I won't say it's innocence two or three things quickly,
and also school educate John a bit on the fine
points of all this. My own view is that our
opinion is that an awful lot of the child trafficking
that goes go on is really connected much more with
the drug trade and the cartails and all the rest
of that. I think that's where the big numbers are
(09:28):
that doesn't involve the Washington leads. Second thing is I
mean about QAnon, And you know, you and I talked
about this the other day offline, so to speak. I
think it may be more of a blind squirrel thing
and or I am not not time for me to
chase after this. I'm not convinced. A lot of bad
actors didn't use the q and On platform to actually
say really crazy things to just throw people off the
(09:49):
trail and stir up stuff. And that's the third point
is John, I said, you haven't heard about the tunnels.
So I met somebody who was a big qanoon devot,
not a fraidis someone I sort of ran across and
got talking to. And this person seemed like an otherwise normal,
professional adult. And this person was convinced from QAnon that
there was an underground network of nationwide tunnels where the
(10:11):
children were traffic and the principal note of it was
a mile below the Denver airport. And that's just nuts, right,
I Mean, not even Elon Musk can build that many
tunnels across the country starting a mile below the.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
People on But you just said, you just said, Okay,
So President Biden's FBI Special Task Force stopped posting data
on child So there there's some kind of conspiracy in
the government to cover up child track.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
That's not what I said.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
What what is the implication of saying that then, that
you're trying to.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
If the US marshals were successfully chasing down and I'm
not saying that it was all Washington, d C. Just
steve it what could as easily been it was international
child trafficking and so on. I'm it was the US
Marshall's task Force and they were successful, and Joe Biden
shut it down the day he got.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
What I understood exactly what you're saying, le cretia. But
you're trying to imply that the government is trying to
cover something up.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well you care about that, can I guy?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Seems that seems to just be fomenting this kind of
idle conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I don't think you need to fall to a
conspiracy theory, and maybe we can move on here. Well
that's okay, but I'll make this proposition and just file
the way for later if we can, which is, remember,
these are the same people, let me put it this way,
the same people who so aggressively sympathized, not just sympathize,
but promote transgenderism, including for children, are the same people
(11:49):
who have in their midst and among their intellectual leafs,
people saying pedophilia should be legalized. We should remove the
stigma from minor attracted adult. That's the phrase that some
of these folks in academia. You is right, and so
I think that whether or not Joe Biden, he's a
weird guy and how weird.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
But just there's a big difference between that and saying
that the Justice Department or the Marshall Service, or the
Biden administration or they're just how bad they are And
I didn't think they did. I thought they did a
terrible job. Is actually trying to I don't know, cover
up or help out some kind of conspiracy or network
of child pedophilia bucks amongst the Washington powerful, And I
(12:29):
think that's irresponsible actually claims whatever whoever it is. But
do you think there's a network you're making a network
of child I didn't make it amongst powerful people, and
so the Justice Department stopped tracking it.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Doing it again, Okay, I don't want to be I
just don't.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Think we should be doing that. I can make.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Any I said a fact, and the fact is absolutely
you can check it. You don't have to believe me.
But however, go back to what I thought you might
answer from Steve, which is the legal difficulties to the
rule of law and our justice system about releasing these
kinds of you know, grand jury testimony and all those
(13:17):
other things. And I would argue because Steve used Larry
Summers as an example, and I have no respect for
that man. But he did nothing illegal, nothing illegal that
I've been able that anybody has accused him of. Am
I right? Being friends with Jeffrey Epstein is not against
the law. And he's not being accused of raping underage girls.
(13:40):
He's accused of asking Jeffrey Epstein for advice about women,
you know, and hanging out.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
It's just the association is the thing, of.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Course, but it's not illegal. And I'm okay with a
society that actually shuns those people. Okay, I'm not saying that,
but I agree that there might be a lot of
people that my show up in those files over the
years not knowing who Jeffrey Epstein was or knowing and
but he was just too much of the you know,
the social circle guy that they didn't shun him. And
(14:11):
and that's one of the difficulties that could be why
Trump said I don't want to release those files. Who
knows anyway, that's I just wanted to show that I
could actually be a voice of reason in this.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I'll just say I have some respect for Larry summers,
but not on this particular matter. Some a little bit,
But never.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Mind, I had if he hadn't resigned. But that's a
different story, right, Yes, let's move on for just a
moment along those same lines. Oh, Steve, you did want
to mention about Marjorie Taylor Green?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I don't know, yah?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Might?
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I mean, there's this big shocking announcement that is going
to resign from Congress in you know, a month, and
I thought to myself, Ah, she must be in the
Epstein file somewhere. I just couldn't help it.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
I guess she just wants to stick it to Trump
and the recruit at all. Who knows? Who knows? I
have a great babylon to be about her, but I'll
save it. So what do you think about Maundonnie going
to the White House and hanging out with Trump and Trump? Actually,
you know, the press really wants to play up this
(15:15):
animosity between him and Trump just doesn't go along with it.
He actually helps Mandonnie out on more than one occasion
when Mandonnie's just speechless about how to respond.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Did you watch that, John and enjoy it as much
as I did? Or are you.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Actually was a surprised that Trump was so nice to
the guy. I thought, he's yeah, I think he's deprived himself.
And you know, the people who are going to run
the midterms of this great issue during the contrast between
the Democratic Party, which just you know lefted a communist
(15:49):
to the mayor of the largest city in the country,
and he was I mean, he was calling him a
rational man. They have some of the same ideas, they
want to solve the same problem. I don't know why
he did it. I could slowly see wanting to come
out of the meeting and just being nice, but to
(16:10):
preserve the ability to attack him like a dog once
the campaign started. So that's what I think it still does.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
That's Trump. Yeah, nice, and then he can turn around
and attack like a dog. But he did say the
specific things that he agreed with mindonnion, and that was
affordability in New York City, building more houses, you know,
all of the things. He loves New York and wants
wants him to be successful. And you know, maybe it's
(16:38):
not three D chess, but it was a big surprise
to a lot of people. It'll be interesting this.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
This shouldn't surprise us. I mean, Trump is often not always,
but often very friendly, even to his enemies when they're
together in the same room in front of cameras. I mean,
I remember the first term. Uh he would say, you know, yeah,
we got a son about guns, when Pelosi and Schumer
were there, and Pelosian Schumer look at each other like,
I can't what are we hearing here? And of course
he walked that back later when you know, people who
(17:04):
know about gun law and the Second Amendment got to him.
So wait a minute, mister preth, So he kind of
does that. He's lit a Zelig like in that way.
I John thought, yeah, it's got it's probable that you mentioned,
but I thought it was kind of a stroke of
genius on two levels. One is Montdommier went and took
the meeting, and I thought, to the extend, a lot
of MAGA people were upset. I think the people on
(17:26):
Blue Sky have got to be losing there, you know what,
over it. And you know, he's gonna have problems with
his own left flank, the Democratic Socialists in New York
when he disappoints them, which he has to or will
at some point if he wants to survive at all.
And then yeah, as Lucreatius says Trump will turn around
here in six months or a year and say, boy,
this guy hadn't done anything. In fact, he's did everything
wrong because he didn't listen to me and follow a
(17:48):
sensible agenda. So and then the best part of the
whole thing was not the particular items I thought it
was when reporters said, so, mister mcdonmie, you've called Trump
a fascist, and Mondomie starts to say, yeah, I've comment
on things and Trump someone norms says, just go ahead
and say yes, it's so much easier, and trying to
explain it to these people I don't mind. So that
looks magnanimous and makes this whole thing look like the
(18:09):
joke that it is. And I thought it was. I
thought it was a stroke of political genius.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
You know, I do think that the policies that they
agree on are not necessarily going to be good for
New York. So, well, you know the one you just suggested, Steve,
I mean, build more low housing units in New York City?
Is that really gonna solved? It's not going to have
any crisis. No. The problem is that, you know, decades
and decades of progressive policies of what made New York
(18:36):
City unaffordable. I was just there the last two days.
Everything is expensive, and it's because, right they have enormous taxes,
they have rent the most outrageous forms of rent control. No,
it's hollowing out the city for the middle class. It's
the you know. The the answer is that they should
(18:56):
repeal all of these progressive policies, not say, let's think
of some more subsidized housing units that we can build,
or let's let's work together to bring the price of
groceries down by building free, state run supermarkets in the city.
That's what I worries when they say when Trump says,
I agree, you know, we agree on some of the
same policies, Trump bloods.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, it was at such a level of generality, I
don't think.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
But look at this possibility to carry on what Steve said.
So when Mendanmi falls flat on his face and affordability
goes completely out the roof, out the roof, whatever the
analogy is, and.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Uh, you know, she can't do an analogy, Steve. Yet's
such a bad effect.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
That's why she gets so mad at me for doing it.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
So, okay, that's actually not an analogy.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
That that's actually a metaphor.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Metaphor, but I hold out for we all know, because
we all know that there is no possibility that if
Mendanni is true to his socialist principles, that he will
do anything but ruin New York. Even further, we know
that he can't. Nobody will be able to say it
was Trump's fault because Trump did X, Y and Z
(20:09):
to make sure that he wasn't successful. And then Trump
can say, look, I was in favor of affordability. But
this guy's just you know, he's a socialist. And anyway,
that's my thought why he did it, Not so much
that I can prove that he did all right, enough
about that, we'll see how that all comes down. I
have one more back this past week issue the idiot Democrats,
(20:33):
including the troll that is one of the senators. There's
the troll, and there's the poor scene cartel Son. That's
who we have representing Arizona, Mark Kelly, the troll, and
Reuben Diego, who's a fat son of the.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
You're talking about the video saying military should disobey Trump's orders.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
So Mark Kelly is a was a captain in the Navy.
Supposedly it was an astronaut who cares. I don't care,
but anyway, and he says he's just a vile human being.
Everything about him is vile. And so he comes out
and he and Alyssa Slotkin, who was I guess some
CIA scumbag, and you know, there's four other Democrats come
(21:18):
out and say that you what you have to do
is you have to resist illegal uh law, illegal orders
from the commander in chief. Basically I'm oversimplifying a little bit,
and it's just it was awful. First of all, none
of them cited one single illegal order that had been
given by Trump. It was just this, you need to
(21:38):
you need to know that. It's you have to do this.
And it just was I was in the CIA and
I was in the Navy, and you have.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
To do this right, right?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And so Trump Trump comes out and says this is sedition.
And guess what they need to be prosecuted for sedition
and if found guilty, they need to be executed.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Well, see, that was a mistake on Thrumb's part, I
think to go that far. Well wait a minute, so, well,
I mean there is I have seen people quote, I
think quite intelligently that famous line of Lincoln's about you know,
must I execute the deserter and leave untouched the agitator
who inspired the person to desert? And you know that
was Yeah, the agitators right. And on the other hand, well,
(22:26):
I think of the first of a I'll think of
it politically first of all, to lead the law to
John for a moment. The Democrats have been saying for
a while now, we need to lower the temperature. You know,
that was the thing about the first couple of weeks
after Charlie Kirks, We've got to lower the temperature. Does
this lower the temperature?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I don't think so. I think this is uh. I
think they're playing politically to their base that wants to
see more fight against Trump. And and maybe it's sort
of residuous for the old anti war character of Democrats too.
As to the legal side, I mean, I don't know.
I don't John, I don't think this is sedition. And
also there is there is a smallener speech in debay clause.
(23:04):
I'm not sure whether it would or not. But you're
looking you're looking depressed about an old John. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
No, no, so they shouldn't have made it's this classic
you know, left wing Trump dynamic. The lefties should not
have done this for the reasons Lucretia set out, and
you mentioned it's there have been no illegal orders. Right,
Trump has won in court so far when these decisions
about sending troops into the cities have gone up. Right,
(23:33):
the Ninth Circuit has upheld these orders. So they're they're
trying to tempt right soldiers to disobey legal orders by
their commanders. Right, this is what is a private supposed
to do, what is a sergeant supposed to do? It
undermines good discipline in the ranks. I mean, it really
is up to their commanders, I think, to decide whether
(23:54):
the orders are legal or not. So I agree with Lucretia.
This is a terrible thing that the people on the
left were doing. But you're right, Steve on the law.
I don't think they've committed sedition. They didn't. Everything they
said is true. Right Under the UCM, the Uniform Code
of Military Justice, a soldier has the right not to
(24:16):
carry out an illegal order. But the question is how
do they figure out what's illegal versus illegal order? When
you've got you know, hundreds of thousands of high school
people basically, who are some of the not even high
school graduates. Are they supposed to examine Jackson and Jefferson
and Lincoln and what they said about the scope of
the commander and chief power? And then I don't, and
(24:38):
I do think what they said is protected by the
First Amendment and maybe the speech and Debate Clause, although
usually that only applies when they're in their official functions
in Congress. It doesn't protect like campaign answer anything like that.
But I don't I could. I mean, there's no way
they could ever be convicted of sedition and executed. But
Trump used I think what happened, and this is part
(25:00):
that dynamic. Trump had such an exaggerated, over the top
response that it really did highlight something wrong that the
Democrats did that might otherwise have escaped extensive commentary. I
don't know, butt throw.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Something at you, John So. A few years back, when
during the Biden administration, I and a group of about
six or seven others had a meeting with the Secretary
of the Army, Christine Warmouth at the time, and it
was about what we could do to help the abysmal
recruiting numbers that the Biden administration we're seeing. And so
people had some interesting I mean it was a serious
(25:35):
we want to know what you think, blah blah blah.
Somebody said, stop the Wounded Warriors adds on TV because
that gets every mom to say, you don't let their
kid go. And of course what I said was and
it was a height of COVID. I said, I talked
to young people all the time, and they do not
want to join the army because they don't want to
take the shot. Everybody knows that young people are not
(25:56):
at risk for COVID, and it's experimental and it's possibly
dangerous to them. You know, limited information about that was
coming out at the time. And Christine Warma's smarmy, stupid
answer was it's a lawful order. Okay, dumb, Sorry, I
can't use the word I meant. That may be true,
(26:16):
It may be true that Lloyd Austin had the power
to issue a mandatory, experimental, dangerous vaccine. But what would
have happened if somebody on the Republican side had encouraged
a military wide call it a protest or you know,
(26:39):
a refusal to take the vaccine and the whole military
left would we have considered that sedition? And the reason
I bring that up as an example is that on
X every single person came out and said, don't you
you shut up, you people who made us take the vaccine?
Where were you when the vaccine was being forced on us?
(27:00):
And so on then? And so that was one of
the counter arguments to carry Kelly at all.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
But would it be a sedition for someone to say,
when your term of enlistment is up, you shouldn't re enlist.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
How about resign immediately you leave?
Speaker 3 (27:16):
If you're an office, you know, if you're an officer,
you know, if you're enlisted, you can't do that. But
you're an officer, you can.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
But if the whole army went a wall.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, but if they're acting, if they're allowed to. But
I wouldn't say how I say it. I don't think.
I don't think you could say it's an illegal order
for your superior officers to order you to take a vaccine.
You could. Instead, you're saying it's a lawful order and
that's why you should leave the military. That's not sedition.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah, I asked, have you seen Lucretia what the latest
recruiting numbers are since Trump took office? Their way up?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
Yes, I have, I think I got to.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I don't know if I get changed to talk about,
but you know I was in Arizona when Lucretia, Oh right,
you know I was in her I was in her
battle wagon. And you know that thing has more weapons
than your average recruit. I mean there were guns coming
out of every every storage area in that car. There
were I didn't know there were guns that could fit
(28:18):
in places that small. It was unbelievable. You found, didn't
Lucretia ship your recruiting at just ever show her off
her car?
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Are you talking about anyway? Anyway? One last thing I
want to say, The cutest thing I saw was when
Gabrielle Giffords, who is Mark Kelly's wife that he trots
out for the sympathy vote in every election. But I'll
leave that aside. And I know Gabrielle Gifford, She's a
nice person. And you know, anyway, is it horrible what
happen to her? She still has her brain, but anyway,
(28:48):
she she puts something. And my husband was a twenty
five year Navy veteran who served his country. And somebody
came back and said, yeah, Benedict Arnold was a terrific
officer who served his country, and blah, blah blah blah
blah until he wasn't, which I thought was just great.
But anyway, sorry, enough of that that I know listeners
(29:09):
have been interested in that topic. One more topic that
we don't have time to get to that I promised
we're not going to talk about it, but I promise
we'll get back to it next week because John and
I have a little difference of opinion. And that was
a really great article written by Paul Sperry. The interesting
thing about it is talking about the Russia Russia Russian
hoax and what led to it, but that it was
(29:31):
actually Trump appointees like Bolton and and Peo and Hasspell
who and Durham who allowed it to become the problem.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
With I just say that the Real Clear Investigations article
that you're referring to, John and I have actually been
involved with generating some considerable support for Real Clear Investigations.
That's a solid outfit.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
So it is. It is, And Paul's a good guy.
He's a really good guy. You can look at John. No,
we'll do this next week because it's not fair for
me to put words in John's mouth. And you guys
want to get to why I don't know because I
find him so boring.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, because who was prominent in the news this week,
that's why, And we're skinting. Yeah, but but the point
is no, no, no, just a minute, Lucretia, this show,
we've said you agreed, and now you're not letting a story.
I want to do a series on our run up
to the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and one of
the big events was this week darn it with Gordon Wood,
who's whether you agree with him or not, is a
(30:29):
really prominent figure. And here we are time.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Left really the greatest intellectual historian of the founding who
is currently a loss.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Baal And died. Yeah, well Balin.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Died, McDonald died, Balen died.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Was Bailin still teaching at Harvard when you were there
and retired? Was okay, did you take a class? I
did not.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
I sat in on a few, but I thought I
knew all that stuff he was talking about.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
The funny thing was Charles Murray. You know, Charles rearrived
at Harvard in nineteen sixty two, at the height of
Balen's fame, and said I didn't take his class either,
because I thought I knew at all, and that was
a big mistake anyway.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Okay, okay, So the Three Risky Happy Hour is beginning
its celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
the Declaration of Independence. We will devote some time of
every episode for the rest of this year and next
year at least a little bit talking about that, because
it is the most important, the most important event in
(31:30):
our country's history. It is not, as George Well pointed out,
the most important event in the history of mankind. Somebody
might point out that the empty two might have been
that most important, but and somebody did. But anyway, it
is for Americans the most important, and in some ways
for human beings across the board.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
But well, you you know. Jaffa said that he ranked
the Declaration of Independence alongside Moses and the Ten Commandments
coming down from Sinai.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
That's yes, in a different context though, as the most
important event anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Here was his parallel. His parallel was the Moses and
the declaration in this at Sinai was about the unity
of God and the all men are created equal, and
declaration of Independence announced the unity of the human family.
There's your parallel, anyway.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, okay, again different contexts, but we'll leave that alone.
Gordon would go ahead, guys, take it away.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Well, all right, John says he wants to defend him.
I don't only want to savagely attack him. I just
thought he was defective. But there's been a story arc
and he's changed somewhat. He won't change. Well, who changes
enough to satisfy Hugh Lucretia. But look his famous book,
Creation of the American Republic, six hundred pages or so, I think,
pretty good reading, and there's a lot in there. There's
(32:50):
a lot to criticize, just on the scholarship and the
methodology of it. The central argument was well put it
this way. He mentions the Declaration of Independence, I think,
and mostly to say it really was not relevant. Thomas
Jefferson and natural rights are just uninteresting, I don't uninteresting.
He thinks they were secondary to the centrality of what
was going on in the Revolution. He draws back to
(33:13):
the civic republican tradition, stretching back to Greece and Rome
as modified in the Renaissance and so forth. He has
a lot of company. That was Pocock and Trevor Coleborne
and Caroline Robbins and Baylan to some extent. Yeah, we
could do Baylan separately sometime if we want. I did Lucretia.
(33:35):
I remember Leonard Levy making me read A Balen's book
The Ideological Origins of the American Founding, which I thought
was pretty good, but also I see the defects in
it anyway, So the problem is, here's Bailin doing the
civic republicanism thing, and so I think it's incomplete and wrong,
although not completely wrong, but okay. And then the second
(33:56):
thing is is that, as I wrote in the Claremont
Review books, and I'll try and remember it for the
show notes, is uh, I don't well. I think Balin
was a garden variety of liberal. In fact, the other
night at his talk in Washington, he said, I voted
for Adelaie Stevenson. Can you believe it? What was I thinking?
And I thought to mention, yeah, well, Leo Strauss and
Walter Burns voted for Stevenson too, So that's really not
that much of a dima Today, of course he would
(34:19):
exactly so. But in the nineties a lot of left
wingers included a lot of law professors. For reasons that
I'll skip over now grabbed onto his work. Also Gary
Wills the decade before to say, you know, the civic
republicanism it was really meant that America was intended to
be a socialist country. That was when Communitarians was high
(34:41):
and Lucretian do you remember our late friend John Weddergreen
used to say communitarianism was just a chicken shit word
for socialism. That's a direct quote. So uh So anyway,
uh and then the speech the other night, Uh, And
I think we have a difference of opinion here Lucretian
and I and maybe you John. It was mostly about
the centrality of the decree independence. He used it as
(35:02):
a either the creedle or credo. It's not clear what
term I heard anyway, when I listened to him, there
were a creedle nation, like Chesterton said, right, or even
Margaret Thatcher about America, right, versus what some people in
the nat con world say were they don't actually say
(35:23):
we're a blood and soil nation. That's kind of a
calumny that people are trying to say, you nationalists or
you know, crypto Nazis, right, But he didn't. He seemed
to leave his civic republicanism behind and I or to
the side, and I thought that was interesting. So he's
evolved some. And last thing I'll say is in the
video that AEI produced about it, both Evolven and Bill McLay,
(35:46):
who you know sort of my favorite current historian, said Ah,
Gordon Wood's most important book was The Radicalism of the
American Revolution, which came twenty years later, right from the
first book, and there it's much more about how the
principle of equal really did transform the democratic character of
America in ways we would all I think approve. So
that's my summary of it. And I still think his
(36:08):
original that whole civic Republican tradition is it's not wholly wrong,
but it's problematic. I'll just say it that way and stop.
That was a long speech.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
You you live up to what Buckley said about jeffa.
You know, you think it's harry to disagree with you,
clar monsters, try try agreeing with you. I mean, Gordon
Wood and Bernard Balen are the historians were closest in
the history profession to you guys. All right, So I mean,
because remember where the study of history and the founding
(36:40):
was when these intellectual historians showed up in the nineteen sixties.
You're right, you know, Balen starts in the early nineteen sixties.
His great book is The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,
which comes out in the sixties. Gordon Woods book comes
out I think in nineteen sixty nine. Right, the book
about the Founding and its intellectal and the intelectrialgy is
(37:01):
really the Constitution, is what his book is really about.
And what had preceded them was this claim which the
sixteen nineteen Project has tried to rejuvenate, this Marxist claim
that the American Revolution is really about power and class, right,
and about slavery, and it's all about materialism, right, That's right.
(37:22):
That's why when we were emailing about before, I said,
you know, these are the guys who finally killed off
Charles Beard. Right now, Beard had been attacked by people
like Forrest McDonald. Came to fame by showing how the
delegates to the Philadelphia Convention voted against their material interests.
But that was still the reigning school, and in many
(37:42):
parts of history that's still the reigning school is a
sort of you know, Marxist materialism that explains everything that
people do. And so Balon would show up and they say, no,
the revolution is about ideology. You know. The point they make,
which I think was always powerful, and I always start
my classes on the Revolution and the founding about this
(38:03):
is from a materialistic point of view, it was crazy
that there was an American revolution, Right, The Polonists were
already the freest richest people maybe who had ever lived
on the planet Earth to that time. The primary, the
primary way to wealth in the old world was property
was land, and they had endless amounts of land. So
(38:25):
it produces this equality of circumstance and political freedom, and
so why would they have a revolution? It didn't make
any sense, you know, Beard was completely So that's why
Balen and would sit there and say, why would these
founders go against their material interests and have a revolution?
And so your view is, and you say this in
(38:47):
your review in the Claremont Review, is it's about natural rights,
it's about the declaration of independence. And you criticize the
Would in particular for not looking for eternal truths, right,
looking for the kinds of ideologies and arguments that are eternal. Right,
(39:07):
You're quite right, Would, and all intellectual historians really see
history as set in the context of that day, So
I would say, for some example, I don't think it's
a contradiction for Wood to say in his nineteen sixty
nine book, the revolution was about equal unleashed, this democracy
(39:29):
and the constitution. Is this conservative reaction to contain excess
of democracy. It's a conservative revolution, which I also think
is true. I mean, they make this point over and
over again that the American Revolution is different. It's a
conservative revolution. It's not a Chinese Russian revolution about wiping
everything out and make everybody equal. But I think when
(39:51):
I read woods speech, what I read him is saying
is I believe normatively it is a good thing for
the United States to be a nation formed around belief.
But I don't think he took back what he was
saying about nineteen but he wrote back in sixty nine.
I don't think he says anywhere right. But that explains
what the revolution was about. And then one last thing,
(40:12):
you're right, Steve. The book he won the Bulletzer Prize
for was the second book about the Revolution, which was
primarily about social and culture and economic history. I think
they gave him the Politzer Prize and history for that
book because they should have given it to him for
his first book, The Ideological Origins, and they didn't give
it to him. And I think that one for good
(40:35):
or ill. Steve you did write a fair critique of it.
I think our friend Gary Schmidt, you know, wrote a
you know, I think a harsher review that people have said.
But that book has been extraordinarily influential. That's the one creature.
While we're talking about him, what is the most influential
historian about the American Revolution of our time? Right? I
think him and Balin. I mean that's you may disagree
(40:56):
with them, but that's the entire field of people write
about this and be shaped by history.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
History is a discipline is fading away.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
But well yeah, but the history that they like is
the history that you like for data actually motivated by ideas,
not by That's why the way you guys are going
after him like you are, well, wait.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
A minute, by the way, if actually I think he
said that history wouldn't be going away as much if
people still taught as well as those guys did. I
mean it's a relative term. I understand, John, you a
couple of minutes ago unwittingly conceded our entire case, not
the entire case, but the most important part of it,
which was essentially Wood. In Balen, it weren't just historians,
(41:38):
but they were also historicysts in that philosophical sense. Right.
I mean you said yourself that you're sort of explaining
in the context of the time. And you know, when
Wood objected to lefties, he was saying, misusing his work
to make America too a socialist country. You say, well,
wait a minute, you can't. You were assuming we have
all these degrees of freedom that we don't have that
(41:59):
the founders have. And I'm you know, that was the
time and place kind of argument. You can say something
similar about Balen. It's a little more subtle in his work.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
It's true's you know, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Yeah, and and uh and so while he well.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
In fact, they would take pride in that they they
I believe right, Like that's it. All these historians think
you shouldn't write history with the present in mind, that
if you do do that, you are they call it.
They accuse you of being what they call presentists. Yes,
that you are allowing your present concerns to warp how
you investigate and uncover history.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
But but you're making it seem like the only alternative
is what Gordon Wood does, and that's not the only alative.
The alternative is to take seriously Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, and
all those other uh whatever Jefferson says, you know, the
(42:53):
great minds. I forget the quote, and to take seriously
the idea that that the Declaration of Independent isn't some
credo that a bunch of guys in seventeen seventy six
got together and signed onto. It is, in fact a
reflection of a as Lincoln would say, a truth applicable
(43:15):
to all men at all times. And that is something
Gordon would and those people who say only the present,
you know, the historicist that neither of them approach it
the way it should be approached. And so I find
him as as as faulty as I do. Historicis that's
the problem.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Well can I do this? Is? Go go ahead?
Speaker 3 (43:37):
One? And last point is would would I Balin wouldn't
say you can't say that, or Steve can't make these arguments,
you can't. They would not say, oh, it's wrong for
you to say we should We can trace this natural
right of human equality over all these centuries or millennia,
and it's a thought shared by these different people They
(43:58):
just say you can't make them that history proves it.
You could certainly make, you know, analogies to history, but
they would say, you know, it's not the historian's job,
and you can't claim the mantle of history to win
the argument that your claims about natural rights are actually
the winning ones. That's all. That's why I think that
what they're not hostile to what you want to do.
(44:21):
But they're not. They just they're just gonna say you
can't say that my book, which is really an effort
to excavate how people thought, and a lot of times
they like to say they like to show how different
the thinking was than it was of today, even though
they might use the same words. Well, let's say, don't
want you to be able to say, oh, history proofs
I'm right, right, they want you to. That doesn't mean
(44:43):
you can't make the argument. They're just saying that history doesn't.
It is not this conclusive thing that justifies, as you said, Stephen,
your piece. It doesn't justify you know, socialism and a
vast administrative state. I mean, wo would laugh at this. Yeah, Well,
anyone should who study the founding right, Well, let.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Me make two points and propel us to an end
this way. One is Wood did write a pretty ferocious
attack on the Straussian bi Centennial the New York Review
of Books back in the eighties. This is by centennial
the constitution. We'll leave that for another times. I haven't
reread it. Second, one of the most severe and I
think impressive critiques of Wood is not from Straussians like
(45:21):
me and Gary Schmidt and Lucretia. It was by the
great pretty liberal history in John Patrick Diggins, who I
knew a little bit. He was really tough on both
Balen for that point and Wood for trying to make
this into ideology in sort of an unwitting Marxist way.
But lastly, normally i'd save this to the end, But
(45:41):
here I've got to bring Lucretian to the debate by sharing
with you today's AI generated contribution. And I asked chat
Ebt to provide us with a debate between Lucretia and
Gordon Wood, and let me just share a little of it,
and then we can go to babylon Be's and get
out Lucretia. Well, professor Wood, you're here mostly because your
presence elevates my argument simply by comparison. Let's cut to it,
(46:05):
The American Founding was about timeless natural rights and the
problem of tyrannical government. You know those things the founders
kept writing about incessantly. It's almost like they meant it,
Gordon would Oh, yes, timeless truths. I remember them well.
They were stored on parchment at Versailles, next to the
powdered wigs. Lucretia, The Founding wasn't a live action performance
of Natural Right the musical. It was a social revolution.
(46:28):
That's kind of the whole point. Lucretia a social revolution.
Please you make it sound like Samuel Adams was out
there organizing consciousness raising workshops. Hi, I'm Sam and I'm
here to talk about my feelings on monarchy. No, the
Founders cared about limited government. They were steeped in Loch
Montesquieu and maybe a few too many tankards of ale. Okay,
there's more that is kind of fun would degree of course,
(46:50):
they are serious, serious about the collapse of deference, the
emergence of democratic culture, and all the other things that
give Straussian spontaneous nosebleeds. Okay, I'll stop there. There's more,
but that's enough. But I think it's funny.
Speaker 4 (47:04):
Okay, all right, I do want to mention one other
really quick topic before I moved to Babylon Bee's, because
I actually happened upon an old podcast of ours where
we discussed the whole thing about the executive power to
decide whether or not we should continue making the penny.
John I actually got into some pretty interesting theoretical discussions
(47:28):
about it, but as you probably know, I'm not going
to go into all of that. As you probably know,
the penny, the last pennies were came off the production
line this past week, and I just wanted to mention
to you guys at the last five pennies that they produced,
what are they called nuismatic whatever the name is, for
(47:50):
people that collect coins are predicting that they'll be worth
as much as nine million dollars a piece.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
Yes the point maybe okay, by.
Speaker 4 (48:01):
Well anyway, anyway, So no more pennies. But it doesn't
affect John at all because he bays for everything with
his good looks and his Apple Watch.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
So yeah, I mean, I haven't seen a penny in
years except of.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
Them, so maybe someday they'll be worth something. We'll see.
But and Steve mentioned that he had a whole bag
of the pennies that were produced in World War Two, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
It was nineteen Yeah, nineteen forty three. They made sink
pennies because they needed the copper for stuff. And I've
got a not a big bag, I've got a small
I probably got a couple hundred of them, and I
don't know if they're worth much, but they're just an oddity, right,
so yeah, they.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Might be worth one point five cents. Go sell them fast.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I'm going to send you a bunch of nickels because
you are really dismissive about nickels in that podcast. John
like the pennies better than the nickels.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Well, because who's on the nickel?
Speaker 4 (48:56):
I can finish in four minutes. So yeah, you'll be surprised.
Mandamie target this is a bad one. Be sorry, folks.
Mendonnie Mandonnie. Why does he have to have such a
stupid name. Mandonnie targets the rich with new tax on
anyone who makes more than zero sense a year. You'll
like this one, guys. Average IQ in Congress expected to
(49:19):
rise significantly after Marjorie Taylor Green designs.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, that's still going to be pretty low, but okay.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
Yeah, yeah, I know a Trump two host exciting new
game show which member of Congress should I have executed? Next?
And then there's a picture of Mendonni and it says
breaking Hamas breaches White House perimeter to save time. Ice
(49:47):
begins mass arrests of everyone at soccer fields. Oh, unless
you hang out in Mexican communities. They don't get that,
and devastating blow. Newly released emails revealed Trump not well
by pedophile. Sure, that's funny. Bow's in this one. This
is for you. Steve Bose introduces new Mariah Carey canceling
(50:09):
headphones for Christmas.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Oh yeah, that is a good one, right.
Speaker 4 (50:12):
And finally said we didn't talk about this, thank god,
because she's not even worth the mention. But this is
pretty funny. Scientific algorithm determines most oppressed person in history
is Michelle Obama?
Speaker 2 (50:26):
All right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And nobody here's how you wear your hair, you dumb.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
We Unlike most other conservative podcasts this week, we went
through this whole episode without mentioning Olivia Newsy once except
just now, well, but that would have keep me up
saying that she's just trying to rival Sidney Sweeney because
I do believe we should mention Sidney Sweeney.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
Sidney Sweeney's like a goddess compared to the ugly woman.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Sorry, John, you better get us out of here before
drinking night, folks, Just so you know, I think again, Well,
I'm heading, Yeah, I'm heaving to get okay.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
The creature. Just don't get back in the Tesla tonight.
That's all I asked. Not because because it's tend to drive,
because because of all the five guns I saw.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
But wait, John, were you ever scared about my driving
even one second?
Speaker 3 (51:19):
No, Like I said, I was scared of the guns,
not the drive, And I was driving.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
It was funny. Lucretia had like one that was the
big one and then the small one, and she was
telling me why she likes one over the other, and
you know, I was just like, either one is going
to kill the other person.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
I think reminds me. It reminds me of those movie
scenes where you know, the hero always pulls out one
gun from here and a little one from there, and
that's the way it was.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
It was like it was like Arnold and Commando.
Speaker 4 (51:52):
Right, Okay, But I do have one last thing to say,
Steve hold On before he says it Uh. You know,
we've taught classes with John on multiple occasions and he's
always been good. But I am still hearing from students
about how incredibly impressed John was. And I actually think John,
just so you know, everyone says you need to write
that up into an article because they want to have
(52:13):
it to read. So anyway, John, I did say a
lot of it.
Speaker 3 (52:17):
What I was telling the students about was how to
think about war versus crime, and I compared I post
nine to eleven to the drug Boats. And I did
point them to this book I wrote after nine to eleven,
which none of them had ever heard of and certainly
weren't going to buy because it's twenty five, about twenty
years old. Now I get twenty five years old almost.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
But they'll litle library.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, I guess they'll do a library. So always drink
your whiskey meat, buy more books. And Steve, you already
read the AI generated he did tonight. What else?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
So all I have is I am off to see
Steve Hackett's perhaps last show ever because as well some
of his band members are well, some of his band
members are leaving the band after tonight's final And.
Speaker 3 (52:58):
I didn't realize I didn't realize airs Fly was still
Oh no, god.
Speaker 4 (53:03):
That's didn't you see Steve Hackett when we were all
together in the Long Ones.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
No, yes, we saw him there in Milan, and I've
seen him all over the place.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
But this is like last, This is not air supply,
Is this abba other? Nineteen seventy one of your other?
Speaker 2 (53:22):
You know, Steve.
Speaker 3 (53:24):
The weird bands are just named after cities for a while,
like Steve Hackett.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Steve Hackett's one of the great guitarists of all time,
and he was the second guitarist during the glory days
of Genesis in his seventies.
Speaker 3 (53:35):
And there you go.
Speaker 2 (53:37):
Of course it's probab rock, right, Okay, I gotta go though,
So I got see.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
You guys on das everybody thereafter.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
Yeah, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
I didn't m Ricochet join the conversation.
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