October 21, 2025 • 38 mins
A seven-year sentence becomes 84 days, and the country learns a lesson it won’t soon forget: when loyalty becomes currency, justice gets priced. We break down George Santos’s commutation, why it happened, and what it signals about how power is exercised and rewarded. The receipts are not in dispute—wire fraud, identity theft, donor deception—but the outcome reframes the rules of accountability. We talk through the GOP’s split response, the electoral math in Long Island swing districts, and how “political clemency” reshapes expectations for allies and adversaries alike.
From there, we pivot to a tragedy on a Charlotte light rail where a young refugee, safe from war, was killed while systems buckled and bystanders froze. It’s a painful case study in mental health failure, repeat-offender oversight, and the quiet contagion of indifference. To counter that drift, we turn to the anatomy of courage—drawing on Cornell West’s insight that courage is the enabling virtue that makes love, hope, and truth-telling possible. Examples move cultures; apathy does too. The choice between them is a daily discipline, not a slogan.
Finally, we examine assisted dying at scale: the UK’s fast-moving legislation and Canada’s expanding MAID program. The data are stark and the moral stakes high. Autonomy and compassion matter, but so do solidarity, palliative care, and how policy language lands on people who are disabled, poor, or alone. When dignity is treated as conditional—on health, cost, or utility—pressure can masquerade as choice. We argue for a society that invests in care, reduces coercion, and treats every life as non-negotiable.
If this conversation challenges you, share it with a friend, rate the show, and leave a review. Subscribe to get future episodes, and tell us: where should a humane society draw the line—and how do we hold it together?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:46):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the
Darrell McLean Show and what aweek it has be.
George Santos, yes, that GeorgeSantos, the former congressman,
the man who turned lying into anart form, the Houdini of
political fraudist walked out offederal prison after serving
less than three months of aseven-year sentence.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Why?
SPEAKER_02 (00:58):
Because Donald Trump picked up a pen and decided that
84 days was punishment enough.
Now let's pause there.
84 days.
That's about the time it takesmost of us to get comfortable in
a new job, finish a summerinternship, or pay down a credit
card bill.
For Santos, that's the sum totalof his debt to society.
Scheduled release date?
September 2031, actual releasedate, October 17, 2025.
That, my friends, is whathappens when redemption is
(01:19):
brokered not by the justicesystem, but by the grace of a
man named Trump.
Trump framed it as an act ofmercy.
He called Santos a rogue,suggested his sentence was
excessive, and claimed politicsplayed a role in the severity of
his punishment.
He even said Santos was horriblymistreated in solitary
confinement, citing the formercongressman's prison columns in
the Long Island paper.
And of course, Trump couldn'tresist adding a flourish, Good
Love George, have a great life,as if he was sending him off on
(01:40):
vacation, not springing him froma federal penitentiary.
But let's not forget what Santosdid.
He pled guilty to wire fraud,aggravated identity theft,
stealing donors' money, runningup charges on someone else's
credit card, and lying onofficial forms.
He was a one-man Ponzi schemedressed up as a congressman.
He stole millions, defrauded anelection, and humiliated his
district on Long Island.
His lies were Shakespearean andScale, Holocaust Heritage
Fiction.
(02:00):
His mother in the Twin Towers on9 slash 11 fiction, a star
volleyball player fiction.
Wall Street WhizKid lending hiscampaign hundreds of thousands
fiction.
He turned his resume into afantasy novel and conned his way
into Congress, and when he gotcaught, he doubled down until
the walls closed in.
He was expelled from the Housewith more than a hundred
Republicans joining Democrats tokick him out the first member
booted, who wasn't tied to theConfederacy or already convicted
(02:20):
of a crime.
That's how Toxic Santos became.
So what does it say that afterall that, after finally
admitting guilt, after beingsentenced to seven years, he's
been just shy of three months inprison and walks free with no
restitution to his victims.
It says loyalty to Trump mattersmore than truth, law, or
justice.
Santos wasn't commuted becausehe was innocent or repentant.
He was commuted because he was100% for Trump.
Trump said it himself, let meput it plainly in Trump's moral
(02:42):
economy, loyalty is the highestcivic virtue.
You can lie, you can steal, youcan defraud an election, but if
you stay on Team Trump, youmight just get a geet out of
girl card.
Now, not everyone in the GOP iscelebrating.
Congressman Nicola Loda fromLong Island, one of the first to
call for Santos's expulsion,blasted the commutation.
He said Santos didn't merelyleave, he stole millions,
defrauded an election, and hiscrimes warrant more than a
three-month sentence.
That's the sound of a man tryingto hold onto a seat in a swing
(03:04):
district where voters are sickof the Santos circus.
For La Loda, this is a politicalmigraine.
But on the other side, MarjorieTella Green is throwing a
parade.
She wrote, Thank you, PresidentTrump, for commuting George's
sentence.
It was the right thing to do.
She even said she spoke toSantos and that he and his
family are overjoyed.
Of course they're overjoyed, hejust dodged nearly six years and
nine months behind bars.
Green has been pushing for thissince August, sending letters,
(03:24):
lobbying Trump, amplifyingSantos's prison complaints.
And now she's got a win to showher base.
So we're watching the familiarsplit.
Suburban Republicans who wantnothing to do with Santos versus
MAGA loyalists who see him as amartyr.
The battle lines are clear.
For Long Island Republicans,this is a liability in the 2026
midterms.
For Trump's wing, it's proofthat loyalty pays.
And Santos himself, he playedhis part perfectly.
(03:44):
While in prison, he wrotecolumns describing solitary
confinement as a slow-motionform of torture.
He painted himself as thevictim, as a man broken by the
system.
And then he panned a directletter to Trump, appealing to
his ego.
You have always been a man ofsecond chances, a leader who
believes in redemption.
I ask you now, from the depthsof my heart, you couldn't script
it better.
Santos the Fabulous becameSantos the penitent and Trump
played the redeemer.
Here's the kicker.
Santos campaigned as a low andorder candidate.
(04:06):
He wanted criminals locked upand punished.
But when the system turned itscold face on him, law and order
suddenly became cruel andunjust.
Funny how that works.
So what do we have here?
We have a president who handsout clemency not on the basis of
justice, but on the basis ofloyalty.
We have a party split betweenthose who see Santos as a
liability and those who see himas a loyal soldier.
And we have the American publiconce again reminded that there
are two systems of justice, onefor the well-connected and one
(04:27):
for everyone else.
This is not just about GeorgeSantos.
It's about the precedent.
If you flatter the right man,write the right letter, cry in
the right newspaper, yoursentence can banish overnight.
Victims go unpaid, the law lookscheap, and politics becomes the
only real court that matters.
George Santos walked freebecause in Trump's world loyalty
outweighs fraud.
That's the lesson.
And that's the danger.
So buckle in.
Tonight we're gonna talk aboutwhat Santos's release means not
(04:47):
just for Long Island, not justfor the Republican Party, but
for American democracy itself.
Because if the only crime leftin politics is disloyalty, then
truth, accountability, andjustice have already been
commuted.
Now, let's rewind the tape.
To understand the madness ofGeorge Santos's release, you
have to remember how he got herein the first place.
Because George Santos wasn'tjust a liar in the ordinary
sense.
He was a liar on a biblicalscale.
He didn't stress the truth, hecreated whole new realities and
(05:09):
invited us to live in them.
Think back to 2022.
Republicans were hungry forfresh faces, especially in
districts where Democratsusually had the upper hand, and
suddenly here comes this youngBrazilian American, openly gay
man, slick, well-spoken,carrying himself like he had
Wall Street money in one pocketand family tragedy in the other.
To the casual voter, he lookedlike the future, a sign that
maybe the GOP was opening thetent just a little wider.
But every piece of his story wasrotten.
(05:29):
He claimed his grandparents fledthe Holocaust.
False.
He said his mother was in theTwin Towers on 9-11.
False.
He bragged about being avolleyball star in college.
False.
He even painted himself as asuccessful banker, so flush with
cash that he could lend hiscampaign hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
False, false, false.
This wasn't resume padding.
This wasn't fudging a line ortwo.
This was industrial gradefiction.
(05:51):
Santos turned himself into acharacter out of a political
novel and for a while it worked.
He slipped into Congress on atide of make-believe.
The truth unraveled quickly,reporters dug in.
Colleagues grew suspicious, andvoters, especially on Long
Island, realized they'd sent afraudster to Washington.
Not a charming exaggerator.
And the party which should havevetted him let it slide because
(06:12):
he could deliver a seat.
That was the real fraud, thewillingness to let lies ride so
long as they produced a win.
Santos's lies weren't just hisown.
They reflected a culture wherewinning mattered more than
truth.
And when the reckoning came, itwas brutal.
He didn't just become anothercrooked politician, he became
the punchline, the late-nightjoke, the walking symbol of
everything rotten in modernpolitics.
That was Act Eye of the Santossaga, the liar who built a
career out of smoke.
(06:33):
Act II begins when the liescatch up.
In 2023, the indictments hit.
Wire fraud.
Identity theft.
Unemployment scams.
Donor money siphoned off to payfor Botox, designer clothes,
even OnlyFans, a congressionalethics report so grotesque it
read like satire.
Then came the fall, expelledfrom the House with more than
100 Republicans joiningDemocrats to say enough.
(06:53):
He became the first lawmakerexpelled who hadn't sided with
the Confederacy or beenconvicted of a federal crime.
Think about that tower politicalhistory had to stretch all the
way back to the Civil War tofind a comparison.
That's how far gone Santos was.
Eventually, the show ended.
He pleaded guilty.
He admitted what everyonealready knew.
And the sentence came down 87months over seven years.
That was supposed to be the endof the Santos story.
(07:14):
But Santos is a man who knowshow to keep the spotlight.
Instead of disappearing, hestarted writing.
From his prison cell, he sentout columns to a Long Island
newspaper.
He told the world about his timein solitary confinement.
He described it as a slow-motionform of torture.
He said he was being held in thespecial housing unit because of
a death threat.
He painted himself not as afraud but as a victim of state
cruelty.
Epuis comme la pièce deresistance and direct linti
(07:35):
adabo.
A letter that read, like a sonbegging his father for mercy.
You are a man of second chances,Santos wrote.
A leader who believes inredemption.
I ask you now from the depths ofmy heart to extend that same
belief to me.
That wasn't written for thepublic.
That was written for one set ofeyes.
Santos knew exactly who he wastalking to and he knew Trump's
soft spot.
Loyalty mixed with flattery.
Here's the irony.
Santos campaigned as a Lewandorder candidate.
(07:56):
He told voters criminals neededto be punished, the system
needed to be tough.
But when he tasted thattoughness himself, when the cell
door slammed shut, he criedfoul.
Suddenly Lewand Order wascruelty.
Suddenly he wanted mercy.
This is the throw line ofAmerican politics, law and order
for you, mercy for me.
Santos became a self-styledmartyr, a man who claimed the
system was crushing him.
But let's be clear, this wasn'tabout justice.
It was about performance.
(08:17):
He wasn't writing to revealtruth, he was writing to script
his redemption arc.
And act the second closes withthe stage, set for Trump to walk
in as the savior.
Now, into Trump.
On Friday night, theannouncement came.
Trump had signed thecommutation.
Santos was walking free afterjust 84 days.
Trump explained himself the wayonly he can.
He called Santos a rogue.
He said the sentence wasexcessive.
He blamed politics.
He claimed Santos had beenhorribly mistreated in solitary
(08:41):
confinement.
And then, with the flourish of aman signing an autograph, he
wrote, Good luck, George, have agreat life.
But here's the kicker.
Trump admitted Santos lied likehell.
There was no attempt to pretendotherwise.
The reason Santos walked freewasn't innocence.
It was a rehabilitation.
It was loyalty.
Trump said it outright, Santoswas 100% for Trump.
That was enough.
This is Trump's moral economy.
Crimes can be overlooked,punishment erased, debts
(09:03):
forgiven so long as you neverbreak with him.
Loyalty is the only currency.
And uh, of course, Trumpcouldn't resist a little
whataboutism.
He dragged Senator RichardBlumenthal into the picture
saying that exaggeratingmilitary service during Vietnam
was far worse than Santos'sfraud.
That's classic Trump.
Don't defend the act, just pointto someone else and say, see,
they're worse.
The commutation also fit alarger pattern.
Trump has been handing outpardons and commutations to his
(09:23):
allies from January 6thdefendants to MAGA activists.
It's political clemency, areward system for loyalty.
And Santos just earned hismedal.
In Trump's world, he is theredeemer.
His pen is the cross.
His mercy is selective, hisforgiveness transactional.
And George Santos, the liarturned martyr, became the latest
disciple.
And that brings us to thefallout.
For Republicans on Long Island,this is a disaster.
Congressman Nick La Loda, wholed the charge to expel Santos,
(09:45):
didn't mince words.
He said Santos didn't reallyleave, he stole millions
defrauded in election, and hiscrimes warrant more than a
three-month sentence.
La Loda knows his voters and heknows they're sick of being the
punchline.
For him, Trump's commutationisn't mercy, it's poison in a
swing district.
But the MAGA wing sees itdifferently.
Marjorie Taylor Greenecelebrated like it was Christmas
morning.
She thanked Trump, praiseSantos, and said she spoke to
him personally.
She framed it as justice.
And there's the split.
(10:05):
Establishment Republicans whosee Santos as electoral
kryptonite, and MAGA Republicanswho see him as a loyal soldier
persecuted by the system.
Here's the political math.
Long Island seats are critical.
The House majority could swingon just a few of them.
Democrats are already lickingtheir chops, ready to tie every
Republican candidate to theimage of Santos walking free.
Beyond the elections, though,this cuts deeper.
The commutation tells Americathat there are two justice
(10:27):
systems, one for the connectedand one for everyone else.
Ordinary people sit in prisonfor years for smaller crimes.
Ordinary fraudsters payrestitution, but Santos, 84 days
debts are raised thanks to awell-timed letter and the right
allegiance.
That's the GOP's dilemma.
Stick with Trump, and youinherit Santos as a symbol of
what loyalty buys.
Break from Trump, and you riskbeing cast out.
It's a no-win situation.
And for the country.
(10:55):
Donald Trump signs the paper,wipes away years of punishment,
cancels hundreds of thousands inrestitution, and tells him, have
a great life.
This isn't just the story of aman avoiding justice.
It's the story of what ourpolitics rewards.
Santos rose by lying, fell bylying, and rose again by staying
loyal.
In another era, he'd beremembered as a cautionary tale.
In this one, he's rewarded withfreedom.
And the rest of us.
(11:16):
We're left staring at a systemwhere justice looks less like
blindfolded fairness and morelike a show where the star
decides who walks free.
That's not law.
That's not justice.
That's patronage.
And so I leave you with this (11:25):
if loyalty becomes the only virtue,
then America is no longer ademocracy of laws, it's a
kingdom of favors.
And once you accept that, youdon't have a republic anymore.
You have a racket.
A coda to indifference.
The scene of the absurd ArenaZerutska, a 23 Ukrainian refugee
(11:45):
escaped the inferno of war inKyiv, only to find herself
stabbed to death aboard aCharlotte Light Train on August
22nd, 2025.
The attacker, DeCarlos BrownJr., a 34-year-old with a
criminal record that reads likea catalog of warnings.
He'd served time, been diagnosedschizophrenic, yet was roaming
free, out on costless bail.
A state of rot, a refugee,someone whose concept of safety
was being dismantled by bombsand artillery was murdered in
transit, a mundane necessity ofurban life, by a man whose
(12:08):
freedom to walk that train carwas facilitated by a justice
system that treats mentalillness and repeat violence like
minor inconveniences.
You cannot stare this in theface and pretend it's just bad
luck.
This is the society that insistson second chances even after
numerous infractions, even whilethe vulnerable accumulate the
cost of moral bankruptcy.
The curious case of inactionbystanders watched.
Phones weren't raised to performCPR awareness, didn't translate
into action.
For precious minutes, the traincar became a stage for passive
(12:30):
complicity.
Only after the trauma unfoldeddid some do something.
What does it say about us thatin a world wired to broadcast
atrocities within seconds, manystill cannot be bothered to
intervene when confronted withone in real time?
The architectures of failure,mental health systems, criminal
justice, transit security, theyall buckled.
Brown's history should have beenenough to confine him to
treatment, not train cars.
The Shaw Transit Systemscontracted security,
understaffed and sidelined,didn't prevent this either.
(12:51):
In essence, a refugee fleesbombs only to be killed by the
bombs of systemic indifference.
Names become symbols, but stillflesh and blood arena wasn't a
statistic.
She was studying English,working at a pizza parlor,
wanted to become a veterinaryassistant, held a degree in art
and restoration, and survivedbombings in Kiev.
Her aspirations had been cutshort not by war but by a warped
cocktail of mental healthfailure, justice system
impotence, and public apathy.
Why this should haunt us,picture it.
(13:12):
A young woman who traded onenightmare for another because
society couldn't be botheredeither the system or the people
around her, that's uglier thanany war zone.
We wring our hands aboutrefugees, talk incessantly about
security, mental health reform,so-called community values.
Here, all those slogans diedalongside her.
If they don't spur us to actionand not the kind of feckless
tweeting that follows tragicfootage, then their words
without worth.
The guillotine of indifferenceis fitting to close with this
isn't tragedy, it's moralfailure.
(13:34):
We sanctimoniously honorfreedom, sacrifice safety, then
leave people bleeding in theaisle.
Society didn't just fail, arenait erase the category of
neighbor.
That is the real crime.
Anything less than radicalreform of both institutions and
our public conscience is morebetrayal than justice.
SPEAKER_03 (13:47):
In our blast from the intellectual past, today
we're gonna go to a questionabout courage from the Dr.
Cornell West.
Is courage Dr.
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
West, courage! What is it?
And is courage contagious?
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
Courage is the great enabling virtue that allows one
to realize other virtues likelove and hope and faith.
To have courage is to be willingto look unflinchingly at
catastrophic circumstances andmuster the will to overcome the
(14:28):
fear, never to fully erase andeliminate the fear, but overcome
the fear so that fear does nothave the last word, or so that
fear does not push one intoconformity, complacency, or
cowardice.
Now, for me, in many ways, theopposite of courage is not
simply cowardice, but it's evenworse than that.
(14:49):
It's indifference.
And indifference to evil is moreinvidious than evil itself,
precisely because indifferenceto evil is contagious.
The great Abraham JoshuaHedgehog used to make this point
in almost every text of his, andhe's absolutely right.
So that courage for me is alwaysa difficult thing to discern and
(15:13):
find.
There's always not enoughcourageous folk around.
There's too many folk that wantto fit in.
There's too many folk that wantto just go with the grain.
There's too many folk who wantto simply opt for the seductions
and temptations to become drunkwith the wine of the world and
(15:33):
intoxicated with the felicitiesof bourgeois existence.
Courage says no, I'll thinkcritically.
And I will hope.
I will never allow despair tohave the last word, but I will
recognize that he or she who hasnever despaired has never lived.
(15:57):
But never allow that despair tohave the last word.
Courage to think critically,courage to love, courage to
hope.
That for me sits at the verycenter of what the Socratic
vocation and prophetic witnessare all about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:15):
In Hope on a Type Road, Doctor, you write that one
of the most courageous momentsof American culture actually
occurred in August of 1955.
SPEAKER_01 (16:25):
Yeah, my dear brother, that's when the
precious Emma Teal was murderedby cowardly American terrorists,
was killed by conformist whitesupremacists.
And mom teal decided not only tohave the funeral on the south
side of Chicago, but to keep hiscasket open so that all the
(16:50):
world could see the underside ofAmerican democracy, so that the
gut-bucket Jim Crow Mississippiway of life that had subjected
and pushed black folk againstthe wall by means of violence
and horror could be exposed tothe world.
And when she stepped to thatleft turn, my brother looked
(17:10):
over and saw that his head wasfive times the size of his
ordinary head.
Tears flowing, her only son, hisfather fought in the U.S.
Army.
She looked out on the world andsaid, I don't have a minute to
hate.
And I'll pursue justice for therest of my life.
(17:31):
This was a moment of spiritualmaturity.
This was a moment of moralwisdom.
This was a moral of courage thatrepresented the best, not only
of black people, not only ofAmerica, it represented the best
of the human spirit.
And it's precisely that courage,to think critically, that
(17:52):
courage to love, that courage,to hope in the face of
catastrophic circumstances likethe death of the only precious
son, that constitute a part of alarger tradition of black people
that says we are terrorized, butwe refuse to engage in
counterterrorism.
(18:13):
That we are dehumanized, but werefuse to dehumanize those who
dehumanize us.
We are being pushed to thegutter, but we refuse to stay in
the moral gutter of the folk whoare trying to keep us there.
We take a higher ground.
That's Martin King, that's JohnColtrane, that's Ray Charles,
that's D.
(18:33):
Wonder, a whole host ofwitnesses that come out of the
black context.
And of course, we know that ifin fact America responded to
terrorism and the way blackpeople responded to American
terrorism, it might be a betterworld.
Or to put it another way, ifblack people responded to
(18:56):
American terrorism the way theBush administration responded to
9-11, then that'd been civilstrife because not a civil war
every generation.
And that's been our whitebrothers and sisters, when they
see Negroes, you ought to justgive us a standing elevation.
Thank you for Fergett Marshall.
(19:17):
Thank you for Duke Ellington.
Thank you for Martin Luther KingJr.
Thank you for Tony Marson.
How in the face of such terrorcan you produce such high
quality people committed to loveand justice?
Thank you for James Bowen.
How in the face of so muchhatred do you get that love
oozing out of every text in thefire next time?
That's why black people are thekey, the moral and political key
(19:41):
for the future of Americandemocracy when we are at our
best.
So I close Rob again.
Is courage contagious?
Examples are the go-card ofjudgment.
Bad examples, bad judgment.
(20:03):
Great examples, great judgment.
Courageous examples, courageousjudgments.
Courage is contagious.
It has a way of oozing from onesoul to another soul, one person
to another person, if we areinfluenced by the examples of
(20:24):
those persons who exemplify thecourage to think critically, the
courage to love, the courage tohope.
(22:24):
That's precisely why the NelsonMandelas and the Mohammed
Gandhi's and Martin Luther KingJr.
and Fannie Lou Hamers and PhilBarrickens and Abraham Joshua
Hemstell's as courageousexamples do, in fact, inspire
all of us when we're at ourbest, do in fact force us to
(22:45):
examine our own cowardice, forceus to examine our own conformity
and complacency.
So is courage contagious?
Yes, when we have examples ofpersons who we are willing to
take seriously, we are willingto be unsettled by, we are
willing to be challenged by, andhence attempt to aspire to the
(23:07):
level that they exemplify.
SPEAKER_03 (23:10):
So let me dig in for a second, because we're not just
talking about policy or laws,we're talking about what it
means to be human, what it meansto live and die in a
civilization grounded indignity, not in convenience.
Because right now, a verypowerful force is pressing on
(23:33):
the West, and it's pressing onthe West with the idea that life
is not sacred, life is optional.
That dignity depends on health,utility, purpose.
And when those fade, maybe thelogical answer is exit.
So I think I called it a fewmonths back when I said that it
(23:54):
is denying and destroying humandignity.
That's exactly the knee-jerkyou're seeing in debates over
assisted suicide, or as they nowoften call it, uh medical
assistance in dying.
If you see the acronym anywhere,it will be M A I D.
(24:16):
It's not just helpful andhelping the dying, it is
actually redefining death as aservice, and it is happening and
it's happening very fast.
Let's start in the UnitedKingdom.
There's a bill in the works, theterminally ill adults,
(24:37):
end-of-life bill in England andin Wales, which would allow
competent adults with terminalillnesses, which they say would
be less than a year to sixmonths to live, request to end
their lives with assistance.
Public opinion, actually, onthis is extremely strong.
Roughly 73% of Britonians backthe bill as it stands.
(25:02):
And that is a coming out of apoll from UGO in June 19th,
2025.
In one poll, 79% thought thatdoctors should definitely or
probably be allowed to end thelife of a person who is
terminally ill upon request.
Now that is coming out of thenatural center for social
(25:24):
research.
So here's the tension.
When the public isoverwhelmingly in favor,
legislators move quickly.
But when quickly meets life anddeath, that is where the risk of
erosion of safeguards tend toappear.
Look at the parliamentaryprocess.
(25:46):
Overstrike successors wereactually changed.
The High Court judge requirementwas dropped for a
multidisciplinary panel.
Now that shift may seemtechnical, but when you stack it
against a vulnerable population,these aren't just footnotes.
The key question here is doeslegal assisted death become the
(26:09):
symbol of compassion or thesurrogate for a failing in care?
And if we normalize it, whatstops the next step?
Now let's cross the border toCanada.
The story in Canada is not justa legislation in motion, it's
already happening.
The law actually passed in 2016.
(26:32):
Um now from there the scopeexpanded.
Chronic conditions, non-terminalillnesses, and mental health
triggers.
The slide is actually welldocumented.
And here are the hard numbers.
In 2023, about 4.7% of allCanadian deaths were via MAID.
(26:58):
That number rose about 15.8%over in 2022.
Earlier in 2022, 13,241 peopledied by MAID, a 31.2 increase uh
percent increase over 2021.
(27:19):
So stop for a second.
One in 20 people in Canada whodied chose or could have chose
assistant dying.
That is massive.
Eligibility is broadening.
You must be 18 years of age,eligible for health coverage,
(27:41):
competent, voluntary, have agrievous or irredeemable uh
medical condition, etc.
But these words, reasonablyforeseeable death, were removed
in recent expansions, making thedoor even wider.
The moral question is this whenthe state says we can help you
(28:06):
die as readily as we can helpyou live, what message gets sent
to the weak?
What message gets sent to thedisabled?
What message gets sent to thepoor?
What message gets sent to thehomeless?
What message gets sent to thesocially isolated?
In Canada, some disabilityrights groups have flagged the
(28:29):
MAAD is being used by people whofeel that they have no other
option because of lack ofsupport, because of loneliness,
because of fear of being aburden on family members,
friends, and society.
If I you and I'm riding shotgunwith you, I'd say this is not
(28:53):
just about compassion.
It's about risk.
Because when options becomedefault or expected, that's when
we're going to have to look.
That's when we're going to needto stop because that's where we
stop honoring dignity and starthonoring the disposal of human
(29:19):
beings.
So let me zoom out.
What undergurs this shift?
For much of Western history,especially the Western history
rooted in a Christian tradition,the human person has been seen
as the a Mago Dei or the imageof God.
Worth not because of strength orproductivity, but because of the
(29:42):
existence of weakness,suffering, disability, they do
not diminish anyone's value.
They call the community's virtueto action.
But when instead the measurebecomes utility cost, quality,
then you step into a verydangerous territory.
(30:03):
Once you say we'll help you dieif you want, the logic flips to
maybe you should die if you'retoo costly, too lonely, too
powerless.
Remember the 20th centuryhistory.
Programs like the Nazis EkantongT4 began with life unworthy of
(30:23):
life.
They can apply to the disabledand the mentally ill.
Now we're not saying thattoday's laws equal the
horrendous evil of theHolocaust, but the structural
logic is similar.
Redefinition of human worth.
The pressure of finances,demographics, shrieking
communities, and all of thispush assists dying from a rare
(30:49):
exception toward routine andoption.
The culture begins to whisperonce you're old or broken,
better off gone.
That's the drift we'rewitnessing.
So here is the hope.
The alternate is already alive.
And the story is not new.
(31:13):
Suffering doesn't end in death.
Not always.
But it does need meaning.
It needs company.
It needs care.
It needs witness.
The early church did not abandonthe exposed infant.
Medieval monasteries didn't turnaway the leper.
(31:34):
The Christian tradition is builton hospitals and they did that
before the governments did.
The measure of a civilization isactually on how it treats is
weakest.
So what does the Christianwitnesses say now?
We should say that life hasintrinsic value even if it's
(31:57):
messy, painful, andunproductive.
We should say suffering is real,but our response is solidarity,
not commanding that you action.
We should say community matters,medicine matters, palliative
care matters.
The answer is not always death.
(32:19):
We should say real dignity meansenabling life, not empowering
determination.
So look at what we know.
In Britain, polls show largepublic support for assisted
dying, but they also say thebills is too rushed and complex.
(32:41):
One survey found 62% said thatthe bill was too complex and
polarized and rushed through.
That tells you even amongsupporters there's concern.
Good, we need people to beconcerned.
So where does this leave us?
Back at our crossroads.
(33:02):
In Britain, legislation isadvancing.
The public is supportive.
The safeguards are beingnegotiated.
In Canada, the experiment iswell underway.
The stats show rapid growth.
In the United States, statesalready have assisted suicide
laws, Oregon and California, ifyou want to know where.
(33:24):
And more are watching theCanadian data.
If we accept this uncritically,one of two things will happen.
Either it stays a narrowexception, and maybe society
stays vigilant about age,disability, and coercion, or it
becomes normalized, deaths donefor convenience, cost, or
(33:48):
burden.
I offer the phrase destroyinghuman dignity, and I hear that
because dignity isn't just to beaffirm when life is easy.
It's most required when life isactually hard.
When choice is narrow, whenvulnerability is high, if
dignity means only strong,independent, healthy human, then
(34:13):
we already lost.
So we must ask, are we a societythat accompanies the suffering?
Or a society that expediates thesuffering or expedites the
suffering?
Are we a community that says,we'll walk with you through the
valley of the shadow of death?
(34:34):
Are we a community that says,here is your exit ramp?
So here's the bottom line.
If we want to preserve Westerncivilization in any meaningful
sense, we must guard how we dieas closely as how we live.
Because the line between them isthinner than we pretend that it
(34:55):
is.
Make no mistake, assisted dyingisn't the end of a medical
conversation.
It is the end of a moralconversation.
It says this life can be endedby design, not just by chance.
It asks under what conditions,with what safeguards, and for
(35:18):
what overarching philosophy ofhuman worth.
If you believe every human bearsdignity, not because of what
they do, but because of who theyare and because of whose they
are, then you'll resist any lawsthat treats dying as a
transaction.
(35:39):
Not because you hate the weak,but because you revere every
single life.
If you believe dignity onlyapplies when conditions are
right, then you concede value isconditional.
And once value is conditional,there is no there is no point
(36:04):
that you cannot redefine.
So let's stand together on thisone.
Let's be clear-eyed on this one.
Let's fight for a betterpalliative care, more community
support, more investment in theweak and disabled.
But let us refuse to acceptdeath as a solution rather than
(36:24):
life as the hope.
Because this hour is late.
The momentum is real, and thenext 10 to 20 years will decide
which civilization we become.
Let us not be the ones whodismantle dignity by an
avalanche while believing we'reoffering compassion.
(36:47):
Let us be the ones who held theline for every life, even when
no one else could or would.
That's the line.
The choice is ours.
See you on the next episode.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the
Darrell McLean Show and what aweek it has be.
George Santos, yes, that GeorgeSantos, the former congressman,
the man who turned lying into anart form, the Houdini of
political fraudist walked out offederal prison after serving
less than three months of aseven-year sentence.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Why?
SPEAKER_02 (00:58):
Because Donald Trump picked up a pen and decided that
84 days was punishment enough.
Now let's pause there.
84 days.
That's about the time it takesmost of us to get comfortable in
a new job, finish a summerinternship, or pay down a credit
card bill.
For Santos, that's the sum totalof his debt to society.
Scheduled release date?
September 2031, actual releasedate, October 17, 2025.
That, my friends, is whathappens when redemption is
(01:19):
brokered not by the justicesystem, but by the grace of a
man named Trump.
Trump framed it as an act ofmercy.
He called Santos a rogue,suggested his sentence was
excessive, and claimed politicsplayed a role in the severity of
his punishment.
He even said Santos was horriblymistreated in solitary
confinement, citing the formercongressman's prison columns in
the Long Island paper.
And of course, Trump couldn'tresist adding a flourish, Good
Love George, have a great life,as if he was sending him off on
(01:40):
vacation, not springing him froma federal penitentiary.
But let's not forget what Santosdid.
He pled guilty to wire fraud,aggravated identity theft,
stealing donors' money, runningup charges on someone else's
credit card, and lying onofficial forms.
He was a one-man Ponzi schemedressed up as a congressman.
He stole millions, defrauded anelection, and humiliated his
district on Long Island.
His lies were Shakespearean andScale, Holocaust Heritage
Fiction.
(02:00):
His mother in the Twin Towers on9 slash 11 fiction, a star
volleyball player fiction.
Wall Street WhizKid lending hiscampaign hundreds of thousands
fiction.
He turned his resume into afantasy novel and conned his way
into Congress, and when he gotcaught, he doubled down until
the walls closed in.
He was expelled from the Housewith more than a hundred
Republicans joining Democrats tokick him out the first member
booted, who wasn't tied to theConfederacy or already convicted
(02:20):
of a crime.
That's how Toxic Santos became.
So what does it say that afterall that, after finally
admitting guilt, after beingsentenced to seven years, he's
been just shy of three months inprison and walks free with no
restitution to his victims.
It says loyalty to Trump mattersmore than truth, law, or
justice.
Santos wasn't commuted becausehe was innocent or repentant.
He was commuted because he was100% for Trump.
Trump said it himself, let meput it plainly in Trump's moral
(02:42):
economy, loyalty is the highestcivic virtue.
You can lie, you can steal, youcan defraud an election, but if
you stay on Team Trump, youmight just get a geet out of
girl card.
Now, not everyone in the GOP iscelebrating.
Congressman Nicola Loda fromLong Island, one of the first to
call for Santos's expulsion,blasted the commutation.
He said Santos didn't merelyleave, he stole millions,
defrauded an election, and hiscrimes warrant more than a
three-month sentence.
That's the sound of a man tryingto hold onto a seat in a swing
(03:04):
district where voters are sickof the Santos circus.
For La Loda, this is a politicalmigraine.
But on the other side, MarjorieTella Green is throwing a
parade.
She wrote, Thank you, PresidentTrump, for commuting George's
sentence.
It was the right thing to do.
She even said she spoke toSantos and that he and his
family are overjoyed.
Of course they're overjoyed, hejust dodged nearly six years and
nine months behind bars.
Green has been pushing for thissince August, sending letters,
(03:24):
lobbying Trump, amplifyingSantos's prison complaints.
And now she's got a win to showher base.
So we're watching the familiarsplit.
Suburban Republicans who wantnothing to do with Santos versus
MAGA loyalists who see him as amartyr.
The battle lines are clear.
For Long Island Republicans,this is a liability in the 2026
midterms.
For Trump's wing, it's proofthat loyalty pays.
And Santos himself, he playedhis part perfectly.
(03:44):
While in prison, he wrotecolumns describing solitary
confinement as a slow-motionform of torture.
He painted himself as thevictim, as a man broken by the
system.
And then he panned a directletter to Trump, appealing to
his ego.
You have always been a man ofsecond chances, a leader who
believes in redemption.
I ask you now, from the depthsof my heart, you couldn't script
it better.
Santos the Fabulous becameSantos the penitent and Trump
played the redeemer.
Here's the kicker.
Santos campaigned as a low andorder candidate.
(04:06):
He wanted criminals locked upand punished.
But when the system turned itscold face on him, law and order
suddenly became cruel andunjust.
Funny how that works.
So what do we have here?
We have a president who handsout clemency not on the basis of
justice, but on the basis ofloyalty.
We have a party split betweenthose who see Santos as a
liability and those who see himas a loyal soldier.
And we have the American publiconce again reminded that there
are two systems of justice, onefor the well-connected and one
(04:27):
for everyone else.
This is not just about GeorgeSantos.
It's about the precedent.
If you flatter the right man,write the right letter, cry in
the right newspaper, yoursentence can banish overnight.
Victims go unpaid, the law lookscheap, and politics becomes the
only real court that matters.
George Santos walked freebecause in Trump's world loyalty
outweighs fraud.
That's the lesson.
And that's the danger.
So buckle in.
Tonight we're gonna talk aboutwhat Santos's release means not
(04:47):
just for Long Island, not justfor the Republican Party, but
for American democracy itself.
Because if the only crime leftin politics is disloyalty, then
truth, accountability, andjustice have already been
commuted.
Now, let's rewind the tape.
To understand the madness ofGeorge Santos's release, you
have to remember how he got herein the first place.
Because George Santos wasn'tjust a liar in the ordinary
sense.
He was a liar on a biblicalscale.
He didn't stress the truth, hecreated whole new realities and
(05:09):
invited us to live in them.
Think back to 2022.
Republicans were hungry forfresh faces, especially in
districts where Democratsusually had the upper hand, and
suddenly here comes this youngBrazilian American, openly gay
man, slick, well-spoken,carrying himself like he had
Wall Street money in one pocketand family tragedy in the other.
To the casual voter, he lookedlike the future, a sign that
maybe the GOP was opening thetent just a little wider.
But every piece of his story wasrotten.
(05:29):
He claimed his grandparents fledthe Holocaust.
False.
He said his mother was in theTwin Towers on 9-11.
False.
He bragged about being avolleyball star in college.
False.
He even painted himself as asuccessful banker, so flush with
cash that he could lend hiscampaign hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
False, false, false.
This wasn't resume padding.
This wasn't fudging a line ortwo.
This was industrial gradefiction.
(05:51):
Santos turned himself into acharacter out of a political
novel and for a while it worked.
He slipped into Congress on atide of make-believe.
The truth unraveled quickly,reporters dug in.
Colleagues grew suspicious, andvoters, especially on Long
Island, realized they'd sent afraudster to Washington.
Not a charming exaggerator.
And the party which should havevetted him let it slide because
(06:12):
he could deliver a seat.
That was the real fraud, thewillingness to let lies ride so
long as they produced a win.
Santos's lies weren't just hisown.
They reflected a culture wherewinning mattered more than
truth.
And when the reckoning came, itwas brutal.
He didn't just become anothercrooked politician, he became
the punchline, the late-nightjoke, the walking symbol of
everything rotten in modernpolitics.
That was Act Eye of the Santossaga, the liar who built a
career out of smoke.
(06:33):
Act II begins when the liescatch up.
In 2023, the indictments hit.
Wire fraud.
Identity theft.
Unemployment scams.
Donor money siphoned off to payfor Botox, designer clothes,
even OnlyFans, a congressionalethics report so grotesque it
read like satire.
Then came the fall, expelledfrom the House with more than
100 Republicans joiningDemocrats to say enough.
(06:53):
He became the first lawmakerexpelled who hadn't sided with
the Confederacy or beenconvicted of a federal crime.
Think about that tower politicalhistory had to stretch all the
way back to the Civil War tofind a comparison.
That's how far gone Santos was.
Eventually, the show ended.
He pleaded guilty.
He admitted what everyonealready knew.
And the sentence came down 87months over seven years.
That was supposed to be the endof the Santos story.
(07:14):
But Santos is a man who knowshow to keep the spotlight.
Instead of disappearing, hestarted writing.
From his prison cell, he sentout columns to a Long Island
newspaper.
He told the world about his timein solitary confinement.
He described it as a slow-motionform of torture.
He said he was being held in thespecial housing unit because of
a death threat.
He painted himself not as afraud but as a victim of state
cruelty.
Epuis comme la pièce deresistance and direct linti
(07:35):
adabo.
A letter that read, like a sonbegging his father for mercy.
You are a man of second chances,Santos wrote.
A leader who believes inredemption.
I ask you now from the depths ofmy heart to extend that same
belief to me.
That wasn't written for thepublic.
That was written for one set ofeyes.
Santos knew exactly who he wastalking to and he knew Trump's
soft spot.
Loyalty mixed with flattery.
Here's the irony.
Santos campaigned as a Lewandorder candidate.
(07:56):
He told voters criminals neededto be punished, the system
needed to be tough.
But when he tasted thattoughness himself, when the cell
door slammed shut, he criedfoul.
Suddenly Lewand Order wascruelty.
Suddenly he wanted mercy.
This is the throw line ofAmerican politics, law and order
for you, mercy for me.
Santos became a self-styledmartyr, a man who claimed the
system was crushing him.
But let's be clear, this wasn'tabout justice.
It was about performance.
(08:17):
He wasn't writing to revealtruth, he was writing to script
his redemption arc.
And act the second closes withthe stage, set for Trump to walk
in as the savior.
Now, into Trump.
On Friday night, theannouncement came.
Trump had signed thecommutation.
Santos was walking free afterjust 84 days.
Trump explained himself the wayonly he can.
He called Santos a rogue.
He said the sentence wasexcessive.
He blamed politics.
He claimed Santos had beenhorribly mistreated in solitary
(08:41):
confinement.
And then, with the flourish of aman signing an autograph, he
wrote, Good luck, George, have agreat life.
But here's the kicker.
Trump admitted Santos lied likehell.
There was no attempt to pretendotherwise.
The reason Santos walked freewasn't innocence.
It was a rehabilitation.
It was loyalty.
Trump said it outright, Santoswas 100% for Trump.
That was enough.
This is Trump's moral economy.
Crimes can be overlooked,punishment erased, debts
(09:03):
forgiven so long as you neverbreak with him.
Loyalty is the only currency.
And uh, of course, Trumpcouldn't resist a little
whataboutism.
He dragged Senator RichardBlumenthal into the picture
saying that exaggeratingmilitary service during Vietnam
was far worse than Santos'sfraud.
That's classic Trump.
Don't defend the act, just pointto someone else and say, see,
they're worse.
The commutation also fit alarger pattern.
Trump has been handing outpardons and commutations to his
(09:23):
allies from January 6thdefendants to MAGA activists.
It's political clemency, areward system for loyalty.
And Santos just earned hismedal.
In Trump's world, he is theredeemer.
His pen is the cross.
His mercy is selective, hisforgiveness transactional.
And George Santos, the liarturned martyr, became the latest
disciple.
And that brings us to thefallout.
For Republicans on Long Island,this is a disaster.
Congressman Nick La Loda, wholed the charge to expel Santos,
(09:45):
didn't mince words.
He said Santos didn't reallyleave, he stole millions
defrauded in election, and hiscrimes warrant more than a
three-month sentence.
La Loda knows his voters and heknows they're sick of being the
punchline.
For him, Trump's commutationisn't mercy, it's poison in a
swing district.
But the MAGA wing sees itdifferently.
Marjorie Taylor Greenecelebrated like it was Christmas
morning.
She thanked Trump, praiseSantos, and said she spoke to
him personally.
She framed it as justice.
And there's the split.
(10:05):
Establishment Republicans whosee Santos as electoral
kryptonite, and MAGA Republicanswho see him as a loyal soldier
persecuted by the system.
Here's the political math.
Long Island seats are critical.
The House majority could swingon just a few of them.
Democrats are already lickingtheir chops, ready to tie every
Republican candidate to theimage of Santos walking free.
Beyond the elections, though,this cuts deeper.
The commutation tells Americathat there are two justice
(10:27):
systems, one for the connectedand one for everyone else.
Ordinary people sit in prisonfor years for smaller crimes.
Ordinary fraudsters payrestitution, but Santos, 84 days
debts are raised thanks to awell-timed letter and the right
allegiance.
That's the GOP's dilemma.
Stick with Trump, and youinherit Santos as a symbol of
what loyalty buys.
Break from Trump, and you riskbeing cast out.
It's a no-win situation.
And for the country.
(10:55):
Donald Trump signs the paper,wipes away years of punishment,
cancels hundreds of thousands inrestitution, and tells him, have
a great life.
This isn't just the story of aman avoiding justice.
It's the story of what ourpolitics rewards.
Santos rose by lying, fell bylying, and rose again by staying
loyal.
In another era, he'd beremembered as a cautionary tale.
In this one, he's rewarded withfreedom.
And the rest of us.
(11:16):
We're left staring at a systemwhere justice looks less like
blindfolded fairness and morelike a show where the star
decides who walks free.
That's not law.
That's not justice.
That's patronage.
And so I leave you with this (11:25):
if loyalty becomes the only virtue,
then America is no longer ademocracy of laws, it's a
kingdom of favors.
And once you accept that, youdon't have a republic anymore.
You have a racket.
A coda to indifference.
The scene of the absurd ArenaZerutska, a 23 Ukrainian refugee
(11:45):
escaped the inferno of war inKyiv, only to find herself
stabbed to death aboard aCharlotte Light Train on August
22nd, 2025.
The attacker, DeCarlos BrownJr., a 34-year-old with a
criminal record that reads likea catalog of warnings.
He'd served time, been diagnosedschizophrenic, yet was roaming
free, out on costless bail.
A state of rot, a refugee,someone whose concept of safety
was being dismantled by bombsand artillery was murdered in
transit, a mundane necessity ofurban life, by a man whose
(12:08):
freedom to walk that train carwas facilitated by a justice
system that treats mentalillness and repeat violence like
minor inconveniences.
You cannot stare this in theface and pretend it's just bad
luck.
This is the society that insistson second chances even after
numerous infractions, even whilethe vulnerable accumulate the
cost of moral bankruptcy.
The curious case of inactionbystanders watched.
Phones weren't raised to performCPR awareness, didn't translate
into action.
For precious minutes, the traincar became a stage for passive
(12:30):
complicity.
Only after the trauma unfoldeddid some do something.
What does it say about us thatin a world wired to broadcast
atrocities within seconds, manystill cannot be bothered to
intervene when confronted withone in real time?
The architectures of failure,mental health systems, criminal
justice, transit security, theyall buckled.
Brown's history should have beenenough to confine him to
treatment, not train cars.
The Shaw Transit Systemscontracted security,
understaffed and sidelined,didn't prevent this either.
(12:51):
In essence, a refugee fleesbombs only to be killed by the
bombs of systemic indifference.
Names become symbols, but stillflesh and blood arena wasn't a
statistic.
She was studying English,working at a pizza parlor,
wanted to become a veterinaryassistant, held a degree in art
and restoration, and survivedbombings in Kiev.
Her aspirations had been cutshort not by war but by a warped
cocktail of mental healthfailure, justice system
impotence, and public apathy.
Why this should haunt us,picture it.
(13:12):
A young woman who traded onenightmare for another because
society couldn't be botheredeither the system or the people
around her, that's uglier thanany war zone.
We wring our hands aboutrefugees, talk incessantly about
security, mental health reform,so-called community values.
Here, all those slogans diedalongside her.
If they don't spur us to actionand not the kind of feckless
tweeting that follows tragicfootage, then their words
without worth.
The guillotine of indifferenceis fitting to close with this
isn't tragedy, it's moralfailure.
(13:34):
We sanctimoniously honorfreedom, sacrifice safety, then
leave people bleeding in theaisle.
Society didn't just fail, arenait erase the category of
neighbor.
That is the real crime.
Anything less than radicalreform of both institutions and
our public conscience is morebetrayal than justice.
SPEAKER_03 (13:47):
In our blast from the intellectual past, today
we're gonna go to a questionabout courage from the Dr.
Cornell West.
Is courage Dr.
SPEAKER_00 (13:57):
West, courage! What is it?
And is courage contagious?
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
Courage is the great enabling virtue that allows one
to realize other virtues likelove and hope and faith.
To have courage is to be willingto look unflinchingly at
catastrophic circumstances andmuster the will to overcome the
(14:28):
fear, never to fully erase andeliminate the fear, but overcome
the fear so that fear does nothave the last word, or so that
fear does not push one intoconformity, complacency, or
cowardice.
Now, for me, in many ways, theopposite of courage is not
simply cowardice, but it's evenworse than that.
(14:49):
It's indifference.
And indifference to evil is moreinvidious than evil itself,
precisely because indifferenceto evil is contagious.
The great Abraham JoshuaHedgehog used to make this point
in almost every text of his, andhe's absolutely right.
So that courage for me is alwaysa difficult thing to discern and
(15:13):
find.
There's always not enoughcourageous folk around.
There's too many folk that wantto fit in.
There's too many folk that wantto just go with the grain.
There's too many folk who wantto simply opt for the seductions
and temptations to become drunkwith the wine of the world and
(15:33):
intoxicated with the felicitiesof bourgeois existence.
Courage says no, I'll thinkcritically.
And I will hope.
I will never allow despair tohave the last word, but I will
recognize that he or she who hasnever despaired has never lived.
(15:57):
But never allow that despair tohave the last word.
Courage to think critically,courage to love, courage to
hope.
That for me sits at the verycenter of what the Socratic
vocation and prophetic witnessare all about.
SPEAKER_00 (16:15):
In Hope on a Type Road, Doctor, you write that one
of the most courageous momentsof American culture actually
occurred in August of 1955.
SPEAKER_01 (16:25):
Yeah, my dear brother, that's when the
precious Emma Teal was murderedby cowardly American terrorists,
was killed by conformist whitesupremacists.
And mom teal decided not only tohave the funeral on the south
side of Chicago, but to keep hiscasket open so that all the
(16:50):
world could see the underside ofAmerican democracy, so that the
gut-bucket Jim Crow Mississippiway of life that had subjected
and pushed black folk againstthe wall by means of violence
and horror could be exposed tothe world.
And when she stepped to thatleft turn, my brother looked
(17:10):
over and saw that his head wasfive times the size of his
ordinary head.
Tears flowing, her only son, hisfather fought in the U.S.
Army.
She looked out on the world andsaid, I don't have a minute to
hate.
And I'll pursue justice for therest of my life.
(17:31):
This was a moment of spiritualmaturity.
This was a moment of moralwisdom.
This was a moral of courage thatrepresented the best, not only
of black people, not only ofAmerica, it represented the best
of the human spirit.
And it's precisely that courage,to think critically, that
(17:52):
courage to love, that courage,to hope in the face of
catastrophic circumstances likethe death of the only precious
son, that constitute a part of alarger tradition of black people
that says we are terrorized, butwe refuse to engage in
counterterrorism.
(18:13):
That we are dehumanized, but werefuse to dehumanize those who
dehumanize us.
We are being pushed to thegutter, but we refuse to stay in
the moral gutter of the folk whoare trying to keep us there.
We take a higher ground.
That's Martin King, that's JohnColtrane, that's Ray Charles,
that's D.
(18:33):
Wonder, a whole host ofwitnesses that come out of the
black context.
And of course, we know that ifin fact America responded to
terrorism and the way blackpeople responded to American
terrorism, it might be a betterworld.
Or to put it another way, ifblack people responded to
(18:56):
American terrorism the way theBush administration responded to
9-11, then that'd been civilstrife because not a civil war
every generation.
And that's been our whitebrothers and sisters, when they
see Negroes, you ought to justgive us a standing elevation.
Thank you for Fergett Marshall.
(19:17):
Thank you for Duke Ellington.
Thank you for Martin Luther KingJr.
Thank you for Tony Marson.
How in the face of such terrorcan you produce such high
quality people committed to loveand justice?
Thank you for James Bowen.
How in the face of so muchhatred do you get that love
oozing out of every text in thefire next time?
That's why black people are thekey, the moral and political key
(19:41):
for the future of Americandemocracy when we are at our
best.
So I close Rob again.
Is courage contagious?
Examples are the go-card ofjudgment.
Bad examples, bad judgment.
(20:03):
Great examples, great judgment.
Courageous examples, courageousjudgments.
Courage is contagious.
It has a way of oozing from onesoul to another soul, one person
to another person, if we areinfluenced by the examples of
(20:24):
those persons who exemplify thecourage to think critically, the
courage to love, the courage tohope.
(22:24):
That's precisely why the NelsonMandelas and the Mohammed
Gandhi's and Martin Luther KingJr.
and Fannie Lou Hamers and PhilBarrickens and Abraham Joshua
Hemstell's as courageousexamples do, in fact, inspire
all of us when we're at ourbest, do in fact force us to
(22:45):
examine our own cowardice, forceus to examine our own conformity
and complacency.
So is courage contagious?
Yes, when we have examples ofpersons who we are willing to
take seriously, we are willingto be unsettled by, we are
willing to be challenged by, andhence attempt to aspire to the
(23:07):
level that they exemplify.
SPEAKER_03 (23:10):
So let me dig in for a second, because we're not just
talking about policy or laws,we're talking about what it
means to be human, what it meansto live and die in a
civilization grounded indignity, not in convenience.
Because right now, a verypowerful force is pressing on
(23:33):
the West, and it's pressing onthe West with the idea that life
is not sacred, life is optional.
That dignity depends on health,utility, purpose.
And when those fade, maybe thelogical answer is exit.
So I think I called it a fewmonths back when I said that it
(23:54):
is denying and destroying humandignity.
That's exactly the knee-jerkyou're seeing in debates over
assisted suicide, or as they nowoften call it, uh medical
assistance in dying.
If you see the acronym anywhere,it will be M A I D.
(24:16):
It's not just helpful andhelping the dying, it is
actually redefining death as aservice, and it is happening and
it's happening very fast.
Let's start in the UnitedKingdom.
There's a bill in the works, theterminally ill adults,
(24:37):
end-of-life bill in England andin Wales, which would allow
competent adults with terminalillnesses, which they say would
be less than a year to sixmonths to live, request to end
their lives with assistance.
Public opinion, actually, onthis is extremely strong.
Roughly 73% of Britonians backthe bill as it stands.
(25:02):
And that is a coming out of apoll from UGO in June 19th,
2025.
In one poll, 79% thought thatdoctors should definitely or
probably be allowed to end thelife of a person who is
terminally ill upon request.
Now that is coming out of thenatural center for social
(25:24):
research.
So here's the tension.
When the public isoverwhelmingly in favor,
legislators move quickly.
But when quickly meets life anddeath, that is where the risk of
erosion of safeguards tend toappear.
Look at the parliamentaryprocess.
(25:46):
Overstrike successors wereactually changed.
The High Court judge requirementwas dropped for a
multidisciplinary panel.
Now that shift may seemtechnical, but when you stack it
against a vulnerable population,these aren't just footnotes.
The key question here is doeslegal assisted death become the
(26:09):
symbol of compassion or thesurrogate for a failing in care?
And if we normalize it, whatstops the next step?
Now let's cross the border toCanada.
The story in Canada is not justa legislation in motion, it's
already happening.
The law actually passed in 2016.
(26:32):
Um now from there the scopeexpanded.
Chronic conditions, non-terminalillnesses, and mental health
triggers.
The slide is actually welldocumented.
And here are the hard numbers.
In 2023, about 4.7% of allCanadian deaths were via MAID.
(26:58):
That number rose about 15.8%over in 2022.
Earlier in 2022, 13,241 peopledied by MAID, a 31.2 increase uh
percent increase over 2021.
(27:19):
So stop for a second.
One in 20 people in Canada whodied chose or could have chose
assistant dying.
That is massive.
Eligibility is broadening.
You must be 18 years of age,eligible for health coverage,
(27:41):
competent, voluntary, have agrievous or irredeemable uh
medical condition, etc.
But these words, reasonablyforeseeable death, were removed
in recent expansions, making thedoor even wider.
The moral question is this whenthe state says we can help you
(28:06):
die as readily as we can helpyou live, what message gets sent
to the weak?
What message gets sent to thedisabled?
What message gets sent to thepoor?
What message gets sent to thehomeless?
What message gets sent to thesocially isolated?
In Canada, some disabilityrights groups have flagged the
(28:29):
MAAD is being used by people whofeel that they have no other
option because of lack ofsupport, because of loneliness,
because of fear of being aburden on family members,
friends, and society.
If I you and I'm riding shotgunwith you, I'd say this is not
(28:53):
just about compassion.
It's about risk.
Because when options becomedefault or expected, that's when
we're going to have to look.
That's when we're going to needto stop because that's where we
stop honoring dignity and starthonoring the disposal of human
(29:19):
beings.
So let me zoom out.
What undergurs this shift?
For much of Western history,especially the Western history
rooted in a Christian tradition,the human person has been seen
as the a Mago Dei or the imageof God.
Worth not because of strength orproductivity, but because of the
(29:42):
existence of weakness,suffering, disability, they do
not diminish anyone's value.
They call the community's virtueto action.
But when instead the measurebecomes utility cost, quality,
then you step into a verydangerous territory.
(30:03):
Once you say we'll help you dieif you want, the logic flips to
maybe you should die if you'retoo costly, too lonely, too
powerless.
Remember the 20th centuryhistory.
Programs like the Nazis EkantongT4 began with life unworthy of
(30:23):
life.
They can apply to the disabledand the mentally ill.
Now we're not saying thattoday's laws equal the
horrendous evil of theHolocaust, but the structural
logic is similar.
Redefinition of human worth.
The pressure of finances,demographics, shrieking
communities, and all of thispush assists dying from a rare
(30:49):
exception toward routine andoption.
The culture begins to whisperonce you're old or broken,
better off gone.
That's the drift we'rewitnessing.
So here is the hope.
The alternate is already alive.
And the story is not new.
(31:13):
Suffering doesn't end in death.
Not always.
But it does need meaning.
It needs company.
It needs care.
It needs witness.
The early church did not abandonthe exposed infant.
Medieval monasteries didn't turnaway the leper.
(31:34):
The Christian tradition is builton hospitals and they did that
before the governments did.
The measure of a civilization isactually on how it treats is
weakest.
So what does the Christianwitnesses say now?
We should say that life hasintrinsic value even if it's
(31:57):
messy, painful, andunproductive.
We should say suffering is real,but our response is solidarity,
not commanding that you action.
We should say community matters,medicine matters, palliative
care matters.
The answer is not always death.
(32:19):
We should say real dignity meansenabling life, not empowering
determination.
So look at what we know.
In Britain, polls show largepublic support for assisted
dying, but they also say thebills is too rushed and complex.
(32:41):
One survey found 62% said thatthe bill was too complex and
polarized and rushed through.
That tells you even amongsupporters there's concern.
Good, we need people to beconcerned.
So where does this leave us?
Back at our crossroads.
(33:02):
In Britain, legislation isadvancing.
The public is supportive.
The safeguards are beingnegotiated.
In Canada, the experiment iswell underway.
The stats show rapid growth.
In the United States, statesalready have assisted suicide
laws, Oregon and California, ifyou want to know where.
(33:24):
And more are watching theCanadian data.
If we accept this uncritically,one of two things will happen.
Either it stays a narrowexception, and maybe society
stays vigilant about age,disability, and coercion, or it
becomes normalized, deaths donefor convenience, cost, or
(33:48):
burden.
I offer the phrase destroyinghuman dignity, and I hear that
because dignity isn't just to beaffirm when life is easy.
It's most required when life isactually hard.
When choice is narrow, whenvulnerability is high, if
dignity means only strong,independent, healthy human, then
(34:13):
we already lost.
So we must ask, are we a societythat accompanies the suffering?
Or a society that expediates thesuffering or expedites the
suffering?
Are we a community that says,we'll walk with you through the
valley of the shadow of death?
(34:34):
Are we a community that says,here is your exit ramp?
So here's the bottom line.
If we want to preserve Westerncivilization in any meaningful
sense, we must guard how we dieas closely as how we live.
Because the line between them isthinner than we pretend that it
(34:55):
is.
Make no mistake, assisted dyingisn't the end of a medical
conversation.
It is the end of a moralconversation.
It says this life can be endedby design, not just by chance.
It asks under what conditions,with what safeguards, and for
(35:18):
what overarching philosophy ofhuman worth.
If you believe every human bearsdignity, not because of what
they do, but because of who theyare and because of whose they
are, then you'll resist any lawsthat treats dying as a
transaction.
(35:39):
Not because you hate the weak,but because you revere every
single life.
If you believe dignity onlyapplies when conditions are
right, then you concede value isconditional.
And once value is conditional,there is no there is no point
(36:04):
that you cannot redefine.
So let's stand together on thisone.
Let's be clear-eyed on this one.
Let's fight for a betterpalliative care, more community
support, more investment in theweak and disabled.
But let us refuse to acceptdeath as a solution rather than
(36:24):
life as the hope.
Because this hour is late.
The momentum is real, and thenext 10 to 20 years will decide
which civilization we become.
Let us not be the ones whodismantle dignity by an
avalanche while believing we'reoffering compassion.
(36:47):
Let us be the ones who held theline for every life, even when
no one else could or would.
That's the line.
The choice is ours.
See you on the next episode.
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