July 10, 2026 • 36 mins
Hour Three of A&G features...
- Our guest, Congressman Tom McClintock, on DOGE, immigration & America!
- Iran wants to continues talks???...
- Our guest, Tim the Lawyer Sandefur, share more of his thoughts on the Founding Fathers...
- A complete exploitation of a phrase.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong Show, Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Armstrong and Getty, and he.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We've been talking to Tom McLintock for twenty five years
something like that on The Armstrong and Getty Show, going
way back to when we were all much younger, and
he was a just a California Assemblyman and then eventually
making it into the Congress of the United States of America,
currently representing the fifth District of California. He's the chair
of the Immigration Subcommittee. Tom McClintock, welcome back to The
(00:44):
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well, thanks for having me back. And you realize it's
been closer to thirty years.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Now, Jack, Really, man.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I hate doing that math, but there it is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I know. The waytime moves when you get older is shocking.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Very Goldwater Junior once told me that life was like
a roll of toilet paper. The closer you got to
the end, the faster it goes.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's certainly true. I'm gonna give you a little warning
that you can work on in your subconscious before we
do these other topics, because it was driving me crazy
over the fourth July two hundred and fifteth anniversary, some
of the stuff flying around on social media and on
cable news of people that hate this country and think it's,
you know, a force for evil because you're so good
(01:28):
at your up with the United States and why we're
a good country. Stuff. I'm going to hit you with
that before we let you go today. But starting here, DOGE,
I guess officially wrapped up Elon Musk and other's efforts
to try to rain in government spending and waste and
all that sort of stuff. Is How successful were they?
(01:50):
Why was it so hard for them to do anything
about government waste? We've had stories exploding just in the
last couple of weeks in the California Post and other
places about the amount of waste of federal dollars in California.
Where are we on that story?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, well, again, that's largely because of the work that
DOGE did turning over rocks and shining the light on
on the bureaucracy and watching the bureaucraft's scurry for cover.
It was always slated to expire on July fourth of
twenty twenty six. It was never considered to be a
permanent agency you know, Musk thought that they could eliminate
a trillion dollars in waste. And it's possible when when
(02:29):
you look at the Medicaid, hospice, daycare, student Aid, DEI
and other frauds that are now being fully investigated by
the Department of Justice. I think using the ballpark, they
documented savings about two hundred and fifteen billion dollars. That's
nothing to sneeze now, it is not seventeen hundred dollars
per household, but the work they did is now being
(02:50):
carried on by the Department of Justice and all the
other agencies. And just to give you one example, mement
Oz told us recently that when Biden entered office, there
were just eighty fraud investigators in the entire Medicaid program.
That's nearly a trillion dollar.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Wow, that is incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It gets worse. Biden's HHS secretary, one Hobby or Bicero,
who's now waiting to be anointed governor of California. When
he came in, he cut that number to just eight. Well, Oz's.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Just gotta go. We gotta spend a little time on this.
There were eight people overseeing the spending of how much
money to make sure there was no fraud out.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Not overseeing investigating fraud. Eight fraud investigators.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's amazing eighty but now.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That's being amped up to about twelve hundred, and they're
currently estimating that for every dollar that they're spending on
fraud detection, they're producing about twenty two dollars in savings.
And by the way, guess who's heading up that effort
at CMS doje's former acting director, Amy Gleason, So Dodge
is leading off is living on through these agencies.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's amazing. And conservatives know this and also know that
the only way to keep government from wasting money is
to not give it to them in the first place.
It's really your only hope. But it's amazing how freely
governments at all levels are willing to waste taxpayers money.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, well, that's bureaucratic behavior. It's in the system itself.
And as you said that the founders had it right.
The best way to deal with it is to provide
for limited government and to a trust of the people
with the judgment over how to run their own lives,
rather than having the government try to run their lives
(04:45):
for them. I mean, you know, I've been in this
business a long time. And you know, these these leftists
who think they're so good at running their own lives
that they're also entitled to run everybody else's. You get
to know them, you realize they're not very good at
running their own lives either.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Is often the case. Yeah, and you know, when the
story exploded in Minnesota with the waste, a lot of
people knew and it turned out to be true. California
was saying, you know, hold my EBT card. It turned
out California is going to be once we uncover all this,
and federal taxpayers should be angry all across the country
(05:21):
about this spending.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Oh sure, because if there it's their money, and it's
it's disappearing into this gigantic kleptocracy. And and for no,
there's no excuse for it. You know, California's state auditor
looked at all of these fraudulent hospice programs. They actually
produced a map of this huge concentration of hospice agencies
(05:47):
in the Los Angeles. Took that to Governor Newsom and
nothing happened. Same story with the whistleblowers in Minnesota. I
took it to Tim Walks. He did absolutely nothing. Now
I will say in defensive the hospice providers in Los
Angeles not a single hospice patient died, So they're that good.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Fantastic switching topics because I know you have a limited time.
Twenty first Century Road to Housing Act, Affordability is the
word that's on everybody's lips. It seems to be in
both parties. What is the twenty first Century Road to
Housing Act and how could that help people?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, I don't think it's going to help people. In
fact that Wall Street Journals had done several editorials against it,
pointing out that all of the additional of BUAUGA. You
see that they're creating all the additional regulations that actually
uning to cost drive up the cost of housing. The
most popular feature of it is that it prohibits corporations
from buying homes and then renting them out. Well, that's
(06:51):
about one percent of the market. And it will slightly
reduce the price of housing. But at the same time,
it will slightly increase the price of rentals because you're
reading reducing the supply of rentals, increasing supply of housing,
decreasing supply of rentals. That doesn't accomplish anything. Look, if
you want to know everything there is about what's wrong
with housing prices and how Reagan was right. Government's not
(07:14):
the solution of these problems. Government is the problem. But
one statistic tells you a lot. There were more housing
permits granted in Dallas and Houston last year and were
granted in the entire state of California combined. The median
price of a home in Texas is three hundred and
sixty thousand dollars. In California it's nine hundred and ten
(07:36):
thousand dollars. We've done it to ourselves by imposing expensive
mandates on construction, limiting the permits to be issued, charging
exorbitant fees when they do issue permits, restricting the land
that's available for housing, flooding the market with subsidies. And
by the way, the demand pressure of adding ten million
(07:57):
illegal aliens to the market during the Biden years didn't
help either.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Since you brought up illegal aliens and illegal immigration, where
are we on sanctuary cities, because I know you're on
the Immigration subcommitte or the chair, Actually, where's the whole
sanctuary city story.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, we've got a bill that will preempt sanctuary jurisdictions
and allow the local sheriffs who desperately want many of
them desperately want to cooperate with ICE, but are forbidden
by state law. We preempt those state laws allow them
to enter into direct agreements with ICE for enforcement. And
(08:39):
it also allows the Angel families to sue ICE jurisdictions
who recklessly released criminal aliens rather than turning them over
to ICE for deportation. I mean, people have to understand,
these sanctuary laws do not This is not general immigration enforcement.
They're specifically aimed at protecting criminal illegal aliens from being deported.
(09:02):
So instead of turning over prisoners in their custody to
ICE for deportation, these sanctuary jurisdictions instead release them back
into our communities. And you know, you've heard of the
countless tragedies that resulted last year sanctuary jurisdictions in the
United States refused to honor seventeen thousand, eight hundred and
(09:22):
sixty four ICE detainer requests. Wow, and a quarter of
the releases. By the way, we're in California now, these
were criminals in custody from federal law requires me deported. Instead,
the sanctuaries released them back into our community.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's unconscionable. I don't know how you sleep at night.
That's the weird thing about ideology that I don't quite
get that you can like trump your common sense where
you think you know what. I believe in diversity, so
I'm gonna let criminals back on the street. I just
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, we just had a peer before our committee of
the mother of Sheridan Gormer. She's the eighteen year old
college student in Chicago. She went out for a night
to look at the northern lights with her friends. She
was a shot in the back of the head by
an illegal alien who had been arrested in Chicago. Should
(10:17):
have been turned over to Ice, instead was released back
in the community. That's the reason she's dead. Her mother
came to testify. It was heartbreaking testimony, but the ranking
Democrat on our committee told her to her face, and
by the way, there are probably a dozen other angel
families in the audience, told her to her face that
we had better things to do than another hearing on
(10:38):
the sanctuary policies that killed her daughter.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's just It's like I said, I don't know how
some of these people sleep at night. I don't know.
I don't know how they justify this to themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, we had another hearing. The mother, Stephanie Mencher was there.
She was a young lady stabbed to death by an
ill legal alien that Fairfax County had in custody for
other crimes. Had an ICE detainer a request to turn
over the Ice instead released this murderer back into the
community where he murdered Stephanie Minterer. The woke sheriff who
(11:16):
had released her said that, well, they just didn't have
money in their budget to cooperate with ICE. And I said,
all you had to do was make a phone call
tell Ice you had this guy in your custody, so
they come pick him up. They've got an eighty two
million dollar budget, but she couldn't spare a dime to
call ICE to pick up this dangerous criminal. She released
(11:39):
him back onto the streets, and Stephanie Minner is dead
as a result. I mean, these stories keep piling up,
and they're going to pile up until we deal with
these sanctuary jurisdictions.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah. Making the transition to final topic here, I'm starting
to believe that there is something like to this idea
of a woke mind virus that fits in with Marxism
or something where it just it's like a mental disease.
Speaking of which, I was following the national debate over
the last weekend two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day,
(12:15):
all the great stuff that I was coming across with
our history and our founding and why America is an
exceptional country. Then you had the pushback from some people
in the crowd, whether it's may Or Mamdani in New
York or others floating around on Twitter or whatever, on
how the world would be better without the United States
and we're a force for evil inness and that, And
you're one of my favorite amateur historians when it comes
(12:38):
to the founding and what's good about America. Hit us
with a little spiel of why America is an exceptional
country and good for the world.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, what we're facing is is a fundamental question between
two anathetical principles. It simply can't exist freedom and socialism.
We had that problem before more than one hundred years ago,
when the question freedom or slavery, And if you think
about it, slavery and socialism spring from exactly the same
rotten principle that Lincoln described as the same spirit that
(13:09):
says you work and toil and make bread and I
will eat it. So you hear from people like Tim Walsh, well,
one man's socialism is another man's neighborliness. And you hear
well capitalism that's just dog eat dogs, selfishness, looking out
for yourself. Socialism is sharing and caring. They have that
completely backwards. The only possible way to succeed in a
free capitalist society is that you have to figure out
(13:33):
what somebody else needs and how to get it for
them better than they can get it for themselves. It
might be mowing their lawn, it might be doing brain
surgery on their child, but you have to help somebody else.
Socialism is taking what one person has earned by helping
another and giving it to somebody who has it. It's true,
if I take a dollar from Peter and give it
to Paul, Paul's got an extra dollar. It's been Paul's
(13:55):
better off. We've now hurt Peter to the same degree
what Milton Friedman wore. You can't say government's going to
help one person without the same bread saying is going
to hurt somebody else. But what you've really done is
you rob both Peter and Paul of a dollar's worth
of incentive to help each other. Paul no longer needs
to help Peter. He already has his dollar. Peter no
(14:17):
longer has to help Paul because he doesn't profit from
it anymore. And the glue that holds the civilization together
breaks apart. And the other thing is you need tons
of course in a social assystem, because you have to
compel people to act against their own interest. In judgment,
capitalism requires no force because people make their own decisions.
(14:39):
So that's the great question that we're facing, and that's
the question. It's going to be resolved, I think over
the next several elections.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've heard that story before and I love it from you.
The Peter pay and Paul thing. I wish you could
get into every school, and you have everybody here that
at least once before they graduate high school. He's from
the fifth District of California. He's their youngers spend Tom McLintock,
thanks for your time today.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Tom My Pleasure, Jack, thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
For having me well. And that stuff about the force
required to make socialism work, that's where you end up
with the millions dead. But anyway, we'll be plenty of
talking about that plenty over the next you know, days, weeks, years,
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(15:48):
makes any dog food better. A new Tom would be
good on the whole. What's good with America versus socialism?
Et cetera? Again, you can graduate high school and never
hear a spiel at all about why socialism is bad
and capitalism is good, even though that's the system we have.
Stunning Okay, a lot more on the way, stay here.
(16:16):
In my mind, Tim Sandifer is America's foremost proponent proponent. Uh,
somebody in favor of let me say that because I
can't get out more than two syllable words his book
Proclaiming Liberty about the Declaration of Independence, and Tim Sandffer
got to give a speech about it the other day,
standing next to the actual declaration of Independence, which he
(16:37):
said was one of the favorite things he's ever done
in his life. We'll talk to him about that, among
other things coming up in a little bit, A few things,
kind of a breaking news thing. Trump just redeclared that
the ceasefire with Iran is officially over. He also said
that Iran has asked to continue talks and has agreed
(16:59):
to the talks. How those two things square. I have
no idea whatsoever, but this news breaking fits in with
that a little bit. The Secret Service has up to
the protection around jd. Vance and his home, which I
assume fits in with the Wall Street Journal story today
(17:22):
of new threats from Iran on Trump's life, some sort
of specific plot to kill Trump from the Ranians, and
they're up in the protection on JD. Vance. I have
no idea what the Iranians are up to. It makes
no sense to me. They had such a good deal going.
The money spicket got turned back on they were dragging
(17:44):
their feet on the nuclear talks and nobody was complaining
about it. Why did they fire on those ships? I'll
tell you why. I think. I think because Trump was
right when he said they're crazy efforts. They're crazy efforts,
like why would you want? Do you think you're going
to get what you want by assassinating Trump? That would
be insane. But they're insane people, and it's tough to
(18:05):
deal with crazy people. Wow. Oh, Katie, Katie the Newslady
with her new baby, tried to join a mom's group
on Facebook. What happened will shock you. We'll get to
that in the next half hour. Also stick around if
you miss a segment at the podcast Armstrong and Getty
on demand Armstrong and Getty. So I mentioned earlier that
(18:26):
I feel like it's an advantage. I've reached the age
now that if I have a problem, people help me
willingly because they think, look, that poor old man is
confused or lost or something, and they helped me. One
of the downsides of getting older. I now have to
deal with my eyebrows on a near daily basis. I
had never thought about my eyebrows and my entire life.
They needed no care or attention my entire life, and
(18:48):
now it's a near daily struggle to keep them under control.
Aging who knew. So I think if you're going to
read one book ever about the Declaration of Independence, it
ought to be Proclaiming Liberty by our friend Tim Sanderfer
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. And
(19:09):
Tim joins the show. I'm about to say something, Tim, welcome,
thanks for coming on again.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I saw your tweet about what you said of all
the cool things you've got to do in your life,
you did maybe the coolest thing ever the other day.
What was it?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I got to speak about my book at an event
at the National Archives in Washington, d C. Which, of
course is the same building where the Declaration of Independence
itself is on display. We had there's an event there
for school teachers that the Cato Institute organizes where it
helps teach them some of the things that they might
go on to teach their students.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And so we did a presentation about the book and
then went.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Upstairs and had dinner right there in front of the
Declaration of Independence itself.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It was really great.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
That is cool. I rewatched, so I got on a
big founding kick, like lots of people did, especially people
who love the country did, over the last weeks and months,
and it continues. But I watched the first seven episodes
of the John Adams series where they get into the
debating the declaration and then the voting for it. Man,
I've seen that two or three times, and it's powerful
(20:10):
each time. I really feel like it gets high school
teachers often do such a bad job of telling this
story and taking all the fun out of it. These
guys who had rich, most of them were rich and comfortable,
and they signed onto something where they were gonna be
hung if they lost. They were gonna be hung, no question.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
They're and they're facing down the most powerful empire on
the planet at the time, the largest imperial government since
the days of ancient Rome. And here they go and
they they say, we are no longer part of you,
and we're willing to fight to the death for our freedom.
It's a dramatic story, and it ought to be told dramatically.
And you're right, that HBO series is easily the best
(20:52):
movie ever made about the American Revolution.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, so the you know, I guess we already got
to the sixteen nineteen project. I didn't mean to get
there that fast. But the idea that these founders, you know,
it was all about coming up with a way to
keep the black man down and perpetually enslaved. Was why
I risked. The fact that I'm a rich farmer with
a great life and I'm going to get hung if
i don't pull one of the maybe the greatest upset
(21:16):
in history by defeating the Brits, I'm going to be hung.
But it's you know, it's worth it to make sure
black people are slaves.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Now, it's absurd. This idea that the Revolution was fought
to somehow preserve slavery is insane. The founding fathers are
amazingly candid about the fact that they knew that slavery
was inconsistent with their principles and that they would have
to do something about it. And I don't know that
there's any precedent for that in world history where you
have this revolutionary revolutionary cadre that says we're going to
(21:44):
break with the mother country on the principles of liberty
and equality, and we know that we are currently violating
those principles in a practice that is the foundation stone
of our very economy, and it goes further, Jefferson says,
just a few years later, he wrote, I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just and
his justice cannot sleep forever. There is no attribute of
(22:06):
a just God who could side with whites in a
race war. And so here he's saying, we deserve to
be slaughtered in a race war because of the crime
of slavery. Who else has been so candid about the
basis of their entire economy. Now what they knew that
they couldn't abolish slavery overnight. That would take a great
(22:26):
deal of work in order to avoid, you know, indiscriminate
mask slaughter. And so of course they didn't abolish slavery immediately,
but they did something that was incredibly important by proclaiming
equality and liberty at the centerpiece of the new nation,
and thus, as Abraham Lincoln later said, putting slavery on
the course of ultimate extinction.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So I got sucked into the whole America is an
exceptional nation or not thing there for about forty eight hours,
and it was really making me angry with the Mayor
of New York City pushing back on the idea that
we're exceptional, and a number of other jackasses who are
offended by the idea that this is an exceptional notion
(23:11):
our country. Can you give a little pro exceptional?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Oh, of course America is exceptional.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
America is exceptional insofar as it pledges itself to realizing
the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And of course
those principles, of course, those are just words on paper.
It's up to you and me to put them into
actual practice and make them part of our nation's life.
And of course we have done terrible things that in
the past that have violated those principles, obviously, as has
(23:39):
every other nation in the world. What sets us apart
is our recognition that those things are unjust and ought
to be cured, and the amazing, amazing progress we have
made to abolishing those things and curing ourselves of those things.
You know, there's a line Martin Luther King once said,
we ain't what we ought to be. We ain't what
(24:01):
we want to be, we ain't what we gonna be,
but thank god, we ain't what we was.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's pretty good. You're a lawyer and a founding expert,
and all the things that people have been listening to
you over the years. No, you are, You're not a psychologist.
But I'm starting to think that there's some sort of
mental illness that hasn't been named yet that needs to
be in the DSM around this need to exaggerate the
(24:27):
flaws and downplay the good stuff about America. It's weird.
I've been using the analogy of on your fiftieth winning anniversary,
when everybody gets together and you're having cake with the friends,
you just keep talking about the four bad things your
husband of fifty years did over the years. Yeah, rather
than look at the totality of the marriage that you've
(24:48):
stayed in because it's good. There's gotta be some sort
of mental illness there.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I think it's a form of resentment. It's a form
of soul destroying. Resentment goes much deeper than envy, and
it's a hatred of the good for being good. It's
a hatred of good things just for the fact that
they even try to aspire to look upward. I'm often
reminded there's a play called Chantaclair. It's a one hundred years
(25:16):
old and it's a cute little play about a rooster
who thinks that his crowing causes the sun to rise,
which is amusing, but it's also in a deeper level,
it's about idealism because what happens in the play is
the other barnyard animals conspire to deprive him of his
belief by dropping a flower pot over him so that
when the sun rises, he's unable to crow, and then
and that'll prove that his ideals are nonsense. And in
(25:39):
the end, when he's confronted by this, he has this
wonderful line where he says, I knew that my crowing
caused the sun to rise because the forces of darkness
rejoiced at my silence.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And that's what people like that are.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
They ridicule and condemn the forces of light because they
can't really come to believe that there's something in them
that resents that goodness and.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Thinks it's a virtue.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
They think they're being virtuous by hating the accomplishments of
the past.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That's what's so annoying about it.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
And and it's and I think it has to do
with a sort of dis a need for discontent that
I think is generated by resentment.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, Like I said, I think there's some sort of
mental illness there that's going to be in the DSM
at some point because it's.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It's also very liberating.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
It's also liberating if you think that all of the
injustices in the world are created are social constructs. If
everything is social constructs, there's no real truth to things
like equality and liberty.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Everything's just a social construct.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
That feels really liberating because that means you can remake
the world tomorrow and you know, everything can be men,
men can be women, and the poor can be rich,
and everything can if we just believe strong them.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
That feels really liberating.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
But what you're doing is you're liberating yourself from the world,
from the reality, and then you have only the freedom
of the man who has suffered a shipwreck and finds
himself alone in a lifeboat at sea.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
That's the kind of freedom you've accomplished.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
That way back to the Declaration of Independence on which
you are an expert in your book Proclaiming Liberty could
not be better. Thinking about the John Adams series and
the scene where John Adams is reading what Jefferson wrote
for the first time and he is like, wow, so
you're not just writing a piece here on why we
(27:29):
need to get away from England and declare independence. You're
claiming a whole new thing here, that we have rights
given to us by God or nature or how we
want to put it, that exist. This is a new thing, Tom.
So that was a pretty revolutionary idea, right.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yes, And that's my favorite scene in the whole movie.
It's just marvelous and it's so beautifully acted and everything,
and I love how Jefferson responds by just saying, Wow,
that's what I believe. Yeah, right, but yeah, and then
it really is a radical dog And that's why we
care some much, because you know, every society has had
revolutions and over and over again, and most of them
are forgotten in obscure books of history about some revolution
(28:09):
on some Greek island a thousand years ago, or the
revolution they had last week in South America and the
week before that, and the week before that and the
week before that.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And they get nowhere and they accomplish nothing.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
What makes the American revolutions so fascinating two hundred and
fifty years later is because these principles of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness really are true, and really
are self evident, and really do matter.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
And of course because it's up to us to make
them a reality.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
There are some anomalies of history that I know you're
an atheist, so you can't credit it to God. I
don't know. It's just amazing that these things happen. Like
I was reading on a sideline about art, I was
reading this last night. At the same time in Florence,
in fifteen oh four town of fifty thousand people, you
(28:59):
had Leonardo working on the Mona Lisa, you had Michelangelo
working on the David, you had Machiavelli writing things. You
had Rafael painting in a town of fifty thousand people.
I mean it just how does that possibly happen? Same
sort of situation with the founding in these quite small towns.
How did you end up with the talent of Jefferson Adams,
(29:22):
George Washington Madison, and a whole bunch of other lesson
names that should be better known at the same time.
It's just stunning.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
It is, and part of it is the Enlightenment era.
That's the term that historians use for this period in
the mid seventeenth to late eighteenth century time when reason
and science and rational philosophy became prioritized to such a
point that philosophers and statesmen were willing to overthrow even
a practice like slavery in order to accomplish justice and
(29:52):
to defend their positions. So rationally, it's really really remarkable.
I'd like to think that Phoenix twenty twenty six is
the same.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
There you go. I was surprised to hear I don't
remember what podcast. I was listening to a book or
something like that. Just when we had you on last time,
you were giving me a reality check about you know,
we've had a lot of periods in our country going
back to the very founding, where there was a tremendous
amount of polarization and people thought that the other side
was out to destroy the country. So this isn't no,
(30:24):
but man, some of the dealing, like in George Washington's
first term, where people were hiding this information or lying
about this or that. I mean, it happened very quickly,
So that's just part of the deal, I guess.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You know, there's this tendency of every movement to go
from a point where everybody volunteers because they believe in
the cause and they're willing to go the extra mile
for it and everything because it's an emergency and it's
kind of temporary, and so everybody's all yoking together, and
then it transitions into a more stable position where people
(31:00):
have to make a living for themselves and provide for
their families and have a regular job and things, and
they've become a little less interested in the cause and
a little more self interested. And that transition is often
the point where revolutions fail and people end up having
their heads chopped off. And America was very, very fortunate
that it was at that position that we created the
Constitution and implemented the rule of law, which is really
(31:22):
the most important principle at the declaration, I mean, at
the revolutionary stage, is the idea that the Americans don't
owe their allegiance to any individual. We owe our allegiance
to the law, and all our liberty is liberty under
the law as a disembodied abstraction. That's what's really unique
and why we were spared a lot of what things
(31:44):
like the French Revolution devolved into.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I know, Jefferson's your famous founding father, and that would
be for his ideas, but again, reading and listening to podcasts,
it's hard to imagine that this would have worked without
George Washington just because everybody respected him so much. If
you didn't have one singular person that everybody was willing
to listen to, yeah, we'd have been doomed.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
And and who was willing to step back from which
is just amazing.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
It's it is incredible.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
And by the way, have you seen the new Young
Washington movie?
Speaker 5 (32:18):
No?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Oh, yeah, it just came out.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
It's about his early career when he's a soldier in
this during the French and Indian War, and.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It's it's really I thought it was pretty good. It
you know, it's rough moments.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Oh, it's a cool show because what they show is
they show one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
And was impressed by how dramatically they demonstrate how how
badly he screwed up, and then it shows how he
learned from that and became a better leader as a result.
And it's that kind of personality, you know, in some sense,
the self made man made America and that's why that's why.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
We are a different society than these other places.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Good stuff, as always, Tim The lawyer Sanda for vice
president for Legal Affairs of Gold Institute, in his book
is proclaiming liberty and it is worth owning and reading.
Thanks for your time again, Tim, Thank you so much.
You bet Yeah, that John Adams series. If you don't
want to watch the whole thing and you're just interested
in the declaration stuff, episode two, just just watch episode
(33:15):
two on HBO Max. It's fantastic. Okay, we got more
to come staring.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Hey, we could send a humanoid into that same situation
and accomplish the same things. Hastas negotiation, reach the door,
go inside of the house, do all the talking and recording.
I can program it to do whatever I want to do.
(33:42):
Hit buttons. As you saw, I started fighting and started dancing.
It talks any emotion that I wanted to do. I
can program it to do.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Sheriff Unveil's humanoid robot for hostaging negotiation purposes, I can
program it to do anything I want to do, start dancing.
Is that going to help in the hostage negotiation? At
some point? Do the running man see if that makes
him give up the hostages? Yeah? I can definitely believe
that that's a future. Though I don't know about the
(34:13):
robot actually doing the negotiating, but certainly going in there
and maybe you talk to it through a microphone.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Or so.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Anyway, So we're just talking about the founding of this
great country, and I was talking about the John Adams
series on HBO Max based on the book by David McCullough.
And one of the things McCullough did a good job
of is making Abigail Adams, john adams wife, front and
center in the whole story. She is definitely she should
(34:42):
be considered one of the founding fathers, if you're okay
with that term. She played such a role in John
adams decision making and support so that he could do
what he did. And it's really really interesting. A political
marriage not as good as John Adams and Abigail Adams.
Christine Nome and her husband Brian, and this sad news.
(35:05):
Christine Nome, the ex director of DHS, is divorcing her
husband Brian after the cross dressing bombshell. Some people are
seeing this as a tit for tat move. That was
Michael's joke, which I thought was very very funny. You
know what's funny about the term tit for tat, because
obviously the joke is, you know, her husband those giant bazoombas,
(35:30):
he's some sort of weird cross dresser online thingy. You
can say tit for tat as long as you got
the for tat at the end of it. You can't
say the first part of it without the for tat,
or I get in all kinds of trouble, like I
could get sued or lose my job. I can say
tit for tat, but I as long as I say
for tat, even though he had enormous tit for tats
(35:53):
right there on display with one of them pointing that
way and one of them pointing that way. We're gonna
talk to Katie Green, our newsperson who is a new
mom coming up an hour four. She tried to get
on Facebook on a mom's group and what the mom's
group thing said is hilarious around the whole woke issue,
just ridiculous. Also got clips of the week. If you
(36:15):
miss anything from hour four, get the podcast Armstrong and
Getty on demand. Subscribing you'll get lots of it. Armstrong
and Getty on Demand Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong Show, Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Armstrong and Getty, and he.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
We've been talking to Tom McLintock for twenty five years
something like that on The Armstrong and Getty Show, going
way back to when we were all much younger, and
he was a just a California Assemblyman and then eventually
making it into the Congress of the United States of America,
currently representing the fifth District of California. He's the chair
of the Immigration Subcommittee. Tom McClintock, welcome back to The
(00:44):
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Well, thanks for having me back. And you realize it's
been closer to thirty years.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Now, Jack, Really, man.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I hate doing that math, but there it is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I know. The waytime moves when you get older is shocking.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Very Goldwater Junior once told me that life was like
a roll of toilet paper. The closer you got to
the end, the faster it goes.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's certainly true. I'm gonna give you a little warning
that you can work on in your subconscious before we
do these other topics, because it was driving me crazy
over the fourth July two hundred and fifteth anniversary, some
of the stuff flying around on social media and on
cable news of people that hate this country and think it's,
you know, a force for evil because you're so good
(01:28):
at your up with the United States and why we're
a good country. Stuff. I'm going to hit you with
that before we let you go today. But starting here, DOGE,
I guess officially wrapped up Elon Musk and other's efforts
to try to rain in government spending and waste and
all that sort of stuff. Is How successful were they?
(01:50):
Why was it so hard for them to do anything
about government waste? We've had stories exploding just in the
last couple of weeks in the California Post and other
places about the amount of waste of federal dollars in California.
Where are we on that story?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Well, well, again, that's largely because of the work that
DOGE did turning over rocks and shining the light on
on the bureaucracy and watching the bureaucraft's scurry for cover.
It was always slated to expire on July fourth of
twenty twenty six. It was never considered to be a
permanent agency you know, Musk thought that they could eliminate
a trillion dollars in waste. And it's possible when when
(02:29):
you look at the Medicaid, hospice, daycare, student Aid, DEI
and other frauds that are now being fully investigated by
the Department of Justice. I think using the ballpark, they
documented savings about two hundred and fifteen billion dollars. That's
nothing to sneeze now, it is not seventeen hundred dollars
per household, but the work they did is now being
(02:50):
carried on by the Department of Justice and all the
other agencies. And just to give you one example, mement
Oz told us recently that when Biden entered office, there
were just eighty fraud investigators in the entire Medicaid program.
That's nearly a trillion dollar.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Wow, that is incredible.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
It gets worse. Biden's HHS secretary, one Hobby or Bicero,
who's now waiting to be anointed governor of California. When
he came in, he cut that number to just eight. Well, Oz's.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Just gotta go. We gotta spend a little time on this.
There were eight people overseeing the spending of how much
money to make sure there was no fraud out.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Not overseeing investigating fraud. Eight fraud investigators.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's amazing eighty but now.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
That's being amped up to about twelve hundred, and they're
currently estimating that for every dollar that they're spending on
fraud detection, they're producing about twenty two dollars in savings.
And by the way, guess who's heading up that effort
at CMS doje's former acting director, Amy Gleason, So Dodge
is leading off is living on through these agencies.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
It's amazing. And conservatives know this and also know that
the only way to keep government from wasting money is
to not give it to them in the first place.
It's really your only hope. But it's amazing how freely
governments at all levels are willing to waste taxpayers money.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, well, that's bureaucratic behavior. It's in the system itself.
And as you said that the founders had it right.
The best way to deal with it is to provide
for limited government and to a trust of the people
with the judgment over how to run their own lives,
rather than having the government try to run their lives
(04:45):
for them. I mean, you know, I've been in this
business a long time. And you know, these these leftists
who think they're so good at running their own lives
that they're also entitled to run everybody else's. You get
to know them, you realize they're not very good at
running their own lives either.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Is often the case. Yeah, and you know, when the
story exploded in Minnesota with the waste, a lot of
people knew and it turned out to be true. California
was saying, you know, hold my EBT card. It turned
out California is going to be once we uncover all this,
and federal taxpayers should be angry all across the country
(05:21):
about this spending.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Oh sure, because if there it's their money, and it's
it's disappearing into this gigantic kleptocracy. And and for no,
there's no excuse for it. You know, California's state auditor
looked at all of these fraudulent hospice programs. They actually
produced a map of this huge concentration of hospice agencies
(05:47):
in the Los Angeles. Took that to Governor Newsom and
nothing happened. Same story with the whistleblowers in Minnesota. I
took it to Tim Walks. He did absolutely nothing. Now
I will say in defensive the hospice providers in Los
Angeles not a single hospice patient died, So they're that good.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Fantastic switching topics because I know you have a limited time.
Twenty first Century Road to Housing Act, Affordability is the
word that's on everybody's lips. It seems to be in
both parties. What is the twenty first Century Road to
Housing Act and how could that help people?
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Well, I don't think it's going to help people. In
fact that Wall Street Journals had done several editorials against it,
pointing out that all of the additional of BUAUGA. You
see that they're creating all the additional regulations that actually
uning to cost drive up the cost of housing. The
most popular feature of it is that it prohibits corporations
from buying homes and then renting them out. Well, that's
(06:51):
about one percent of the market. And it will slightly
reduce the price of housing. But at the same time,
it will slightly increase the price of rentals because you're
reading reducing the supply of rentals, increasing supply of housing,
decreasing supply of rentals. That doesn't accomplish anything. Look, if
you want to know everything there is about what's wrong
with housing prices and how Reagan was right. Government's not
(07:14):
the solution of these problems. Government is the problem. But
one statistic tells you a lot. There were more housing
permits granted in Dallas and Houston last year and were
granted in the entire state of California combined. The median
price of a home in Texas is three hundred and
sixty thousand dollars. In California it's nine hundred and ten
(07:36):
thousand dollars. We've done it to ourselves by imposing expensive
mandates on construction, limiting the permits to be issued, charging
exorbitant fees when they do issue permits, restricting the land
that's available for housing, flooding the market with subsidies. And
by the way, the demand pressure of adding ten million
(07:57):
illegal aliens to the market during the Biden years didn't
help either.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Since you brought up illegal aliens and illegal immigration, where
are we on sanctuary cities, because I know you're on
the Immigration subcommitte or the chair, Actually, where's the whole
sanctuary city story.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well, we've got a bill that will preempt sanctuary jurisdictions
and allow the local sheriffs who desperately want many of
them desperately want to cooperate with ICE, but are forbidden
by state law. We preempt those state laws allow them
to enter into direct agreements with ICE for enforcement. And
(08:39):
it also allows the Angel families to sue ICE jurisdictions
who recklessly released criminal aliens rather than turning them over
to ICE for deportation. I mean, people have to understand,
these sanctuary laws do not This is not general immigration enforcement.
They're specifically aimed at protecting criminal illegal aliens from being deported.
(09:02):
So instead of turning over prisoners in their custody to
ICE for deportation, these sanctuary jurisdictions instead release them back
into our communities. And you know, you've heard of the
countless tragedies that resulted last year sanctuary jurisdictions in the
United States refused to honor seventeen thousand, eight hundred and
(09:22):
sixty four ICE detainer requests. Wow, and a quarter of
the releases. By the way, we're in California now, these
were criminals in custody from federal law requires me deported. Instead,
the sanctuaries released them back into our community.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That's unconscionable. I don't know how you sleep at night.
That's the weird thing about ideology that I don't quite
get that you can like trump your common sense where
you think you know what. I believe in diversity, so
I'm gonna let criminals back on the street. I just
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well, we just had a peer before our committee of
the mother of Sheridan Gormer. She's the eighteen year old
college student in Chicago. She went out for a night
to look at the northern lights with her friends. She
was a shot in the back of the head by
an illegal alien who had been arrested in Chicago. Should
(10:17):
have been turned over to Ice, instead was released back
in the community. That's the reason she's dead. Her mother
came to testify. It was heartbreaking testimony, but the ranking
Democrat on our committee told her to her face, and
by the way, there are probably a dozen other angel
families in the audience, told her to her face that
we had better things to do than another hearing on
(10:38):
the sanctuary policies that killed her daughter.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's just It's like I said, I don't know how
some of these people sleep at night. I don't know.
I don't know how they justify this to themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Well, we had another hearing. The mother, Stephanie Mencher was there.
She was a young lady stabbed to death by an
ill legal alien that Fairfax County had in custody for
other crimes. Had an ICE detainer a request to turn
over the Ice instead released this murderer back into the
community where he murdered Stephanie Minterer. The woke sheriff who
(11:16):
had released her said that, well, they just didn't have
money in their budget to cooperate with ICE. And I said,
all you had to do was make a phone call
tell Ice you had this guy in your custody, so
they come pick him up. They've got an eighty two
million dollar budget, but she couldn't spare a dime to
call ICE to pick up this dangerous criminal. She released
(11:39):
him back onto the streets, and Stephanie Minner is dead
as a result. I mean, these stories keep piling up,
and they're going to pile up until we deal with
these sanctuary jurisdictions.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah. Making the transition to final topic here, I'm starting
to believe that there is something like to this idea
of a woke mind virus that fits in with Marxism
or something where it just it's like a mental disease.
Speaking of which, I was following the national debate over
the last weekend two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day,
(12:15):
all the great stuff that I was coming across with
our history and our founding and why America is an
exceptional country. Then you had the pushback from some people
in the crowd, whether it's may Or Mamdani in New
York or others floating around on Twitter or whatever, on
how the world would be better without the United States
and we're a force for evil inness and that, And
you're one of my favorite amateur historians when it comes
(12:38):
to the founding and what's good about America. Hit us
with a little spiel of why America is an exceptional
country and good for the world.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, what we're facing is is a fundamental question between
two anathetical principles. It simply can't exist freedom and socialism.
We had that problem before more than one hundred years ago,
when the question freedom or slavery, And if you think
about it, slavery and socialism spring from exactly the same
rotten principle that Lincoln described as the same spirit that
(13:09):
says you work and toil and make bread and I
will eat it. So you hear from people like Tim Walsh, well,
one man's socialism is another man's neighborliness. And you hear
well capitalism that's just dog eat dogs, selfishness, looking out
for yourself. Socialism is sharing and caring. They have that
completely backwards. The only possible way to succeed in a
free capitalist society is that you have to figure out
(13:33):
what somebody else needs and how to get it for
them better than they can get it for themselves. It
might be mowing their lawn, it might be doing brain
surgery on their child, but you have to help somebody else.
Socialism is taking what one person has earned by helping
another and giving it to somebody who has it. It's true,
if I take a dollar from Peter and give it
to Paul, Paul's got an extra dollar. It's been Paul's
(13:55):
better off. We've now hurt Peter to the same degree
what Milton Friedman wore. You can't say government's going to
help one person without the same bread saying is going
to hurt somebody else. But what you've really done is
you rob both Peter and Paul of a dollar's worth
of incentive to help each other. Paul no longer needs
to help Peter. He already has his dollar. Peter no
(14:17):
longer has to help Paul because he doesn't profit from
it anymore. And the glue that holds the civilization together
breaks apart. And the other thing is you need tons
of course in a social assystem, because you have to
compel people to act against their own interest. In judgment,
capitalism requires no force because people make their own decisions.
(14:39):
So that's the great question that we're facing, and that's
the question. It's going to be resolved, I think over
the next several elections.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I've heard that story before and I love it from you.
The Peter pay and Paul thing. I wish you could
get into every school, and you have everybody here that
at least once before they graduate high school. He's from
the fifth District of California. He's their youngers spend Tom McLintock,
thanks for your time today.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Tom My Pleasure, Jack, thanks.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
For having me well. And that stuff about the force
required to make socialism work, that's where you end up
with the millions dead. But anyway, we'll be plenty of
talking about that plenty over the next you know, days, weeks, years,
and centuries. Probably you want to tell you about rough Greens,
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(15:48):
makes any dog food better. A new Tom would be
good on the whole. What's good with America versus socialism?
Et cetera? Again, you can graduate high school and never
hear a spiel at all about why socialism is bad
and capitalism is good, even though that's the system we have.
Stunning Okay, a lot more on the way, stay here.
(16:16):
In my mind, Tim Sandifer is America's foremost proponent proponent. Uh,
somebody in favor of let me say that because I
can't get out more than two syllable words his book
Proclaiming Liberty about the Declaration of Independence, and Tim Sandffer
got to give a speech about it the other day,
standing next to the actual declaration of Independence, which he
(16:37):
said was one of the favorite things he's ever done
in his life. We'll talk to him about that, among
other things coming up in a little bit, A few things,
kind of a breaking news thing. Trump just redeclared that
the ceasefire with Iran is officially over. He also said
that Iran has asked to continue talks and has agreed
(16:59):
to the talks. How those two things square. I have
no idea whatsoever, but this news breaking fits in with
that a little bit. The Secret Service has up to
the protection around jd. Vance and his home, which I
assume fits in with the Wall Street Journal story today
(17:22):
of new threats from Iran on Trump's life, some sort
of specific plot to kill Trump from the Ranians, and
they're up in the protection on JD. Vance. I have
no idea what the Iranians are up to. It makes
no sense to me. They had such a good deal going.
The money spicket got turned back on they were dragging
(17:44):
their feet on the nuclear talks and nobody was complaining
about it. Why did they fire on those ships? I'll
tell you why. I think. I think because Trump was
right when he said they're crazy efforts. They're crazy efforts,
like why would you want? Do you think you're going
to get what you want by assassinating Trump? That would
be insane. But they're insane people, and it's tough to
(18:05):
deal with crazy people. Wow. Oh, Katie, Katie the Newslady
with her new baby, tried to join a mom's group
on Facebook. What happened will shock you. We'll get to
that in the next half hour. Also stick around if
you miss a segment at the podcast Armstrong and Getty
on demand Armstrong and Getty. So I mentioned earlier that
(18:26):
I feel like it's an advantage. I've reached the age
now that if I have a problem, people help me
willingly because they think, look, that poor old man is
confused or lost or something, and they helped me. One
of the downsides of getting older. I now have to
deal with my eyebrows on a near daily basis. I
had never thought about my eyebrows and my entire life.
They needed no care or attention my entire life, and
(18:48):
now it's a near daily struggle to keep them under control.
Aging who knew. So I think if you're going to
read one book ever about the Declaration of Independence, it
ought to be Proclaiming Liberty by our friend Tim Sanderfer
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence. And
(19:09):
Tim joins the show. I'm about to say something, Tim, welcome,
thanks for coming on again.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I saw your tweet about what you said of all
the cool things you've got to do in your life,
you did maybe the coolest thing ever the other day.
What was it?
Speaker 4 (19:22):
I got to speak about my book at an event
at the National Archives in Washington, d C. Which, of
course is the same building where the Declaration of Independence
itself is on display. We had there's an event there
for school teachers that the Cato Institute organizes where it
helps teach them some of the things that they might
go on to teach their students.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
And so we did a presentation about the book and
then went.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Upstairs and had dinner right there in front of the
Declaration of Independence itself.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
It was really great.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
That is cool. I rewatched, so I got on a
big founding kick, like lots of people did, especially people
who love the country did, over the last weeks and months,
and it continues. But I watched the first seven episodes
of the John Adams series where they get into the
debating the declaration and then the voting for it. Man,
I've seen that two or three times, and it's powerful
(20:10):
each time. I really feel like it gets high school
teachers often do such a bad job of telling this
story and taking all the fun out of it. These
guys who had rich, most of them were rich and comfortable,
and they signed onto something where they were gonna be
hung if they lost. They were gonna be hung, no question.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
They're and they're facing down the most powerful empire on
the planet at the time, the largest imperial government since
the days of ancient Rome. And here they go and
they they say, we are no longer part of you,
and we're willing to fight to the death for our freedom.
It's a dramatic story, and it ought to be told dramatically.
And you're right, that HBO series is easily the best
(20:52):
movie ever made about the American Revolution.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, so the you know, I guess we already got
to the sixteen nineteen project. I didn't mean to get
there that fast. But the idea that these founders, you know,
it was all about coming up with a way to
keep the black man down and perpetually enslaved. Was why
I risked. The fact that I'm a rich farmer with
a great life and I'm going to get hung if
i don't pull one of the maybe the greatest upset
(21:16):
in history by defeating the Brits, I'm going to be hung.
But it's you know, it's worth it to make sure
black people are slaves.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Now, it's absurd. This idea that the Revolution was fought
to somehow preserve slavery is insane. The founding fathers are
amazingly candid about the fact that they knew that slavery
was inconsistent with their principles and that they would have
to do something about it. And I don't know that
there's any precedent for that in world history where you
have this revolutionary revolutionary cadre that says we're going to
(21:44):
break with the mother country on the principles of liberty
and equality, and we know that we are currently violating
those principles in a practice that is the foundation stone
of our very economy, and it goes further, Jefferson says,
just a few years later, he wrote, I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just and
his justice cannot sleep forever. There is no attribute of
(22:06):
a just God who could side with whites in a
race war. And so here he's saying, we deserve to
be slaughtered in a race war because of the crime
of slavery. Who else has been so candid about the
basis of their entire economy. Now what they knew that
they couldn't abolish slavery overnight. That would take a great
(22:26):
deal of work in order to avoid, you know, indiscriminate
mask slaughter. And so of course they didn't abolish slavery immediately,
but they did something that was incredibly important by proclaiming
equality and liberty at the centerpiece of the new nation,
and thus, as Abraham Lincoln later said, putting slavery on
the course of ultimate extinction.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So I got sucked into the whole America is an
exceptional nation or not thing there for about forty eight hours,
and it was really making me angry with the Mayor
of New York City pushing back on the idea that
we're exceptional, and a number of other jackasses who are
offended by the idea that this is an exceptional notion
(23:11):
our country. Can you give a little pro exceptional?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Oh, of course America is exceptional.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
America is exceptional insofar as it pledges itself to realizing
the principles of the Declaration of Independence. And of course
those principles, of course, those are just words on paper.
It's up to you and me to put them into
actual practice and make them part of our nation's life.
And of course we have done terrible things that in
the past that have violated those principles, obviously, as has
(23:39):
every other nation in the world. What sets us apart
is our recognition that those things are unjust and ought
to be cured, and the amazing, amazing progress we have
made to abolishing those things and curing ourselves of those things.
You know, there's a line Martin Luther King once said,
we ain't what we ought to be. We ain't what
(24:01):
we want to be, we ain't what we gonna be,
but thank god, we ain't what we was.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's pretty good. You're a lawyer and a founding expert,
and all the things that people have been listening to
you over the years. No, you are, You're not a psychologist.
But I'm starting to think that there's some sort of
mental illness that hasn't been named yet that needs to
be in the DSM around this need to exaggerate the
(24:27):
flaws and downplay the good stuff about America. It's weird.
I've been using the analogy of on your fiftieth winning anniversary,
when everybody gets together and you're having cake with the friends,
you just keep talking about the four bad things your
husband of fifty years did over the years. Yeah, rather
than look at the totality of the marriage that you've
(24:48):
stayed in because it's good. There's gotta be some sort
of mental illness there.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I think it's a form of resentment. It's a form
of soul destroying. Resentment goes much deeper than envy, and
it's a hatred of the good for being good. It's
a hatred of good things just for the fact that
they even try to aspire to look upward. I'm often
reminded there's a play called Chantaclair. It's a one hundred years
(25:16):
old and it's a cute little play about a rooster
who thinks that his crowing causes the sun to rise,
which is amusing, but it's also in a deeper level,
it's about idealism because what happens in the play is
the other barnyard animals conspire to deprive him of his
belief by dropping a flower pot over him so that
when the sun rises, he's unable to crow, and then
and that'll prove that his ideals are nonsense. And in
(25:39):
the end, when he's confronted by this, he has this
wonderful line where he says, I knew that my crowing
caused the sun to rise because the forces of darkness
rejoiced at my silence.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
And that's what people like that are.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
They ridicule and condemn the forces of light because they
can't really come to believe that there's something in them
that resents that goodness and.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Thinks it's a virtue.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
They think they're being virtuous by hating the accomplishments of
the past.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That's what's so annoying about it.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
And and it's and I think it has to do
with a sort of dis a need for discontent that
I think is generated by resentment.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, Like I said, I think there's some sort of
mental illness there that's going to be in the DSM
at some point because it's.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It's also very liberating.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
It's also liberating if you think that all of the
injustices in the world are created are social constructs. If
everything is social constructs, there's no real truth to things
like equality and liberty.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Everything's just a social construct.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
That feels really liberating because that means you can remake
the world tomorrow and you know, everything can be men,
men can be women, and the poor can be rich,
and everything can if we just believe strong them.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
That feels really liberating.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
But what you're doing is you're liberating yourself from the world,
from the reality, and then you have only the freedom
of the man who has suffered a shipwreck and finds
himself alone in a lifeboat at sea.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
That's the kind of freedom you've accomplished.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
That way back to the Declaration of Independence on which
you are an expert in your book Proclaiming Liberty could
not be better. Thinking about the John Adams series and
the scene where John Adams is reading what Jefferson wrote
for the first time and he is like, wow, so
you're not just writing a piece here on why we
(27:29):
need to get away from England and declare independence. You're
claiming a whole new thing here, that we have rights
given to us by God or nature or how we
want to put it, that exist. This is a new thing, Tom.
So that was a pretty revolutionary idea, right.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yes, And that's my favorite scene in the whole movie.
It's just marvelous and it's so beautifully acted and everything,
and I love how Jefferson responds by just saying, Wow,
that's what I believe. Yeah, right, but yeah, and then
it really is a radical dog And that's why we
care some much, because you know, every society has had
revolutions and over and over again, and most of them
are forgotten in obscure books of history about some revolution
(28:09):
on some Greek island a thousand years ago, or the
revolution they had last week in South America and the
week before that, and the week before that and the
week before that.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
And they get nowhere and they accomplish nothing.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
What makes the American revolutions so fascinating two hundred and
fifty years later is because these principles of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness really are true, and really
are self evident, and really do matter.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
And of course because it's up to us to make
them a reality.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
There are some anomalies of history that I know you're
an atheist, so you can't credit it to God. I
don't know. It's just amazing that these things happen. Like
I was reading on a sideline about art, I was
reading this last night. At the same time in Florence,
in fifteen oh four town of fifty thousand people, you
(28:59):
had Leonardo working on the Mona Lisa, you had Michelangelo
working on the David, you had Machiavelli writing things. You
had Rafael painting in a town of fifty thousand people.
I mean it just how does that possibly happen? Same
sort of situation with the founding in these quite small towns.
How did you end up with the talent of Jefferson Adams,
(29:22):
George Washington Madison, and a whole bunch of other lesson
names that should be better known at the same time.
It's just stunning.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
It is, and part of it is the Enlightenment era.
That's the term that historians use for this period in
the mid seventeenth to late eighteenth century time when reason
and science and rational philosophy became prioritized to such a
point that philosophers and statesmen were willing to overthrow even
a practice like slavery in order to accomplish justice and
(29:52):
to defend their positions. So rationally, it's really really remarkable.
I'd like to think that Phoenix twenty twenty six is
the same.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
There you go. I was surprised to hear I don't
remember what podcast. I was listening to a book or
something like that. Just when we had you on last time,
you were giving me a reality check about you know,
we've had a lot of periods in our country going
back to the very founding, where there was a tremendous
amount of polarization and people thought that the other side
was out to destroy the country. So this isn't no,
(30:24):
but man, some of the dealing, like in George Washington's
first term, where people were hiding this information or lying
about this or that. I mean, it happened very quickly,
So that's just part of the deal, I guess.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You know, there's this tendency of every movement to go
from a point where everybody volunteers because they believe in
the cause and they're willing to go the extra mile
for it and everything because it's an emergency and it's
kind of temporary, and so everybody's all yoking together, and
then it transitions into a more stable position where people
(31:00):
have to make a living for themselves and provide for
their families and have a regular job and things, and
they've become a little less interested in the cause and
a little more self interested. And that transition is often
the point where revolutions fail and people end up having
their heads chopped off. And America was very, very fortunate
that it was at that position that we created the
Constitution and implemented the rule of law, which is really
(31:22):
the most important principle at the declaration, I mean, at
the revolutionary stage, is the idea that the Americans don't
owe their allegiance to any individual. We owe our allegiance
to the law, and all our liberty is liberty under
the law as a disembodied abstraction. That's what's really unique
and why we were spared a lot of what things
(31:44):
like the French Revolution devolved into.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I know, Jefferson's your famous founding father, and that would
be for his ideas, but again, reading and listening to podcasts,
it's hard to imagine that this would have worked without
George Washington just because everybody respected him so much. If
you didn't have one singular person that everybody was willing
to listen to, yeah, we'd have been doomed.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
And and who was willing to step back from which
is just amazing.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
It's it is incredible.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
And by the way, have you seen the new Young
Washington movie?
Speaker 5 (32:18):
No?
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Oh, yeah, it just came out.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
It's about his early career when he's a soldier in
this during the French and Indian War, and.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
It's it's really I thought it was pretty good. It
you know, it's rough moments.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
Oh, it's a cool show because what they show is
they show one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
And was impressed by how dramatically they demonstrate how how
badly he screwed up, and then it shows how he
learned from that and became a better leader as a result.
And it's that kind of personality, you know, in some sense,
the self made man made America and that's why that's why.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
We are a different society than these other places.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Good stuff, as always, Tim The lawyer Sanda for vice
president for Legal Affairs of Gold Institute, in his book
is proclaiming liberty and it is worth owning and reading.
Thanks for your time again, Tim, Thank you so much.
You bet Yeah, that John Adams series. If you don't
want to watch the whole thing and you're just interested
in the declaration stuff, episode two, just just watch episode
(33:15):
two on HBO Max. It's fantastic. Okay, we got more
to come staring.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Hey, we could send a humanoid into that same situation
and accomplish the same things. Hastas negotiation, reach the door,
go inside of the house, do all the talking and recording.
I can program it to do whatever I want to do.
(33:42):
Hit buttons. As you saw, I started fighting and started dancing.
It talks any emotion that I wanted to do. I
can program it to do.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Sheriff Unveil's humanoid robot for hostaging negotiation purposes, I can
program it to do anything I want to do, start dancing.
Is that going to help in the hostage negotiation? At
some point? Do the running man see if that makes
him give up the hostages? Yeah? I can definitely believe
that that's a future. Though I don't know about the
(34:13):
robot actually doing the negotiating, but certainly going in there
and maybe you talk to it through a microphone.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
Or so.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Anyway, So we're just talking about the founding of this
great country, and I was talking about the John Adams
series on HBO Max based on the book by David McCullough.
And one of the things McCullough did a good job
of is making Abigail Adams, john adams wife, front and
center in the whole story. She is definitely she should
(34:42):
be considered one of the founding fathers, if you're okay
with that term. She played such a role in John
adams decision making and support so that he could do
what he did. And it's really really interesting. A political
marriage not as good as John Adams and Abigail Adams.
Christine Nome and her husband Brian, and this sad news.
(35:05):
Christine Nome, the ex director of DHS, is divorcing her
husband Brian after the cross dressing bombshell. Some people are
seeing this as a tit for tat move. That was
Michael's joke, which I thought was very very funny. You
know what's funny about the term tit for tat, because
obviously the joke is, you know, her husband those giant bazoombas,
(35:30):
he's some sort of weird cross dresser online thingy. You
can say tit for tat as long as you got
the for tat at the end of it. You can't
say the first part of it without the for tat,
or I get in all kinds of trouble, like I
could get sued or lose my job. I can say
tit for tat, but I as long as I say
for tat, even though he had enormous tit for tats
(35:53):
right there on display with one of them pointing that
way and one of them pointing that way. We're gonna
talk to Katie Green, our newsperson who is a new
mom coming up an hour four. She tried to get
on Facebook on a mom's group and what the mom's
group thing said is hilarious around the whole woke issue,
just ridiculous. Also got clips of the week. If you
(36:15):
miss anything from hour four, get the podcast Armstrong and
Getty on demand. Subscribing you'll get lots of it. Armstrong
and Getty on Demand Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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