November 26, 2024 • 36 mins
Hour 4 of the November 26 ,2024 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay features..
- ABC News on immigration and farming
- Mailbag: Internet fertilizes stupidity
- Canada assistance in dying
- Dating Now Requires Political Affiliation
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the
George Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Armstrong and Getty and he Armstrong and Getty strong Man.
Welcome to a replay of the Armstrong and Getty Show.
(00:38):
We're off all week long. We give a lot of thanks,
we eat a lot, we watch a lot of football.
We'll come back refreshed. But I hope you enjoyed this stuff.
It's gonna be really good, some delicious leftovers if you will.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
The flavors have made friends overnight in the French Plus
drop by Armstrong at getty dot com, download podcasts, or
grab an ang t shirt.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Earl corn You's Central Valley is, without question, one of
the most vital agricultural regions in America, producing seventeen billion
dollars worth of crops twenty five percent of the nation's
food supply, and to help grow and harvest those crops,
many farmers here rely on undocumented workers. The Department of
(01:18):
Agriculture estimates that about half of the hired crop workers
do not.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Have legal status.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
That is estimated to be more than three hundred and
thirty thousand workers in the Central Valley.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Alone, three hundred thousand workers in the Central Valley alone.
That if you followed what recent poling says, sixty percent
of America wants would all be booted out of the country.
And that would be obviously, if he did that all
at once, would be quite the wrecking of the whole
agricultural system. Doesn't mean it's not a good idea, though,
(01:54):
because you got to have a system of some sort
for having workers. It's the job of Congress to come
up with and be implied and follow through. I don't
know if they're going to or not, but Joe and
I have been talking about illegal immigration in farm workers
for geez, twenty five years or whatever being on the air,
(02:18):
and this very part of the a California in the
country that they're talking about on ABC this week, And
we used to talk about it all the time when
we were only on in the Sacramento area. People had
always talk do you want tomatoes to be five dollars? Well,
then you know it's kind of pick the lettuce, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
It was always the conversation, and our answer was always
somebody or nobody or a machine, Well, let's hear from
a couple of farmers in the Central Valley and their
theories on why you need to have illegals picking.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Here's more from ABC this week. We can't afford a
labor shortage.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Back during Obama, we had a labor shortage and there
were a time where we actually lost some crop.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I think people will look at say, but wait a minute,
they're Americans who are unemployed.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Why can't you just hire them.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
They don't want to come out here and work in
this in this extreme conditions one hundred plus degree temperatures,
dust hard work.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
What if you paid them more, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (03:16):
You know, we pay some of the highest wages for
farm workers in the nation right here in California, and
they won't come out.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And just so before we have that conversation, here's a
different farmer, same question, same topic there. I don't care
what you pay them. I don't care if we pay
them twenty six dollars an hour, that ain't going to happen.
They're not going to get up at four or five
in the morning, drive to the field and pick fruit.
So and that question was, why why don't you just
(03:46):
hire Americans? They won't do it. I don't care what
you pay them. They're not going to get up that
time of day and come out and do that job.
So I don't understand why that isn't a hold on pause,
let's have a conversation about that sort of revelation On
ABC this week, they just move on to em They
see Americans won't do this work, so it makes sense
(04:08):
to have illegal brown people do it. What what How
do you craft a society like that? How about why
would people who are unemployed or underemployed take the option
of not doing a job even if it paid really well? Right? Right?
How could they do that? How does that work? How
(04:30):
does that fin How are they paying the rent? How
are they eating?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Can you imagine if you went to family counseling and
and you said, my children refuse to do their chores,
and the counselor said, well, let's talk about how you
can hire someone to do your children's right. No, that's
not the right question, right, Yeah, Oh that's funny.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But we've been we've been talking about this very topic
for decades now. How have we just accepted that people
born in this country shouldn't have to do work that's
not i don't know, glamorous or kind of hard. Or
it's outside or whatever. The reason is people don't want
to do it. I did that kind of work when
I was in high school. Lots of us did. You
can't do it any many Americans did?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Ye?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But is everybody okay with that? Creating a welfare state
so lavish that people can choose not to do jobs
that they don't find like something they want to do,
even even if it pays twenty nine dollars an hour
and one more amusing irony, This is amusing me for many,
many years.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Is the more quote unquote progressive you are, the more
in favor of white.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
People, won't do this work. Let's bring in some of
those brown people.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I mean, that's the further left yard, the more you're
a hardcore open up the borders and let an in person,
which I think is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
There's also the unspoken, unstated realization that if millions of
people come here and do those jobs they're getting by,
they must be able to live somewhere and have a
car and eat and you know, do all the things
you want to do with a job right by definition.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, it's just it's it boils down to a couple
of very very simple principles. Number one is the purpose
of getting the reins of government is to be able
to distribute money from the treasury. Doesn't matter what the
system is. They vary in how they do that, but
that's the point. And in our system you've got to
get a little support.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
From a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Kim Jong Oun just needs a hell of a lot
of support from a fairly small group of people. But
in a democracy, you need a little support from a
hell of a lot of people. How do you do
that by handing out money? Government benefits you know, three
and a half dozen different social programs that make sure
nobody's going to starve. And so the second very broad
and easy to understand principle is people go for their
(06:50):
best alternative. They will do their best option. And for
Americans working in a field in the heat, in the dust,
bent over is not nearly their best option. For some
Guatemalan it is.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I just I don't understand how we got to where
we're okay with that or think that that's a workable
plan going forward that doesn't end up with like I've
been taking in a lot of French Revolution stuff over
the weekend. You know that sort of society falling apart.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I believe the French Revolution is your Roman Empire, although
you are quite interested in the Roman Empire as well.
It is so the answer of how we get there
is because nobody asks the question, the moral question there,
the one that we keep harping on is it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Part of the conversation at all. No, it wasn't. ABC
this week did a long segment on this topic and
not a word of Does it seem a little weird
to have a society where you've declared certain jobs off
limits for your citizens, Like, no, that's too grungy a
job even at twenty nine dollars an hour you just
(08:01):
don't want to have to do. I mean, would you
do that with your own kids. I'll keep supporting you,
you know, until you're thirty or a past rather than
you go do that job. What? Yeah, who would live
their lives like that?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Democracy's end when they realize they can vote themselves money
from the treasury. Can you imagine running on the platform
I'm going to get you off of your couch and
into the field.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Good luck? What at right? We're a soft, decadent country.
That's just that's it we really are, Which is what
France was when they fell apart, not to get back
to the revolution, but and then here they wrapped up
the conversation with this portion.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Deporting undocumented workers in California is complicated.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The state enacted a measure.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
In twenty seventeen that prevents state resources from being used
for federal immigration enforcement. And while that law varies by
city and county, California is the sanctuary city capital of America,
with dozens of cities and counties protecting undocumented residents from
a rest based solely on their immigration status.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So that's a problem. I mean, it all fits together
as part of a puzzle. I hate the whole thing.
But if you're going to accept I'm not, but apparently
we have accepted that our American born people shouldn't have
to do those jobs. Well, then you're gonna have to
have illegals here. And then if you're going to have
(09:35):
illegals here, you can't have them being deported. So you
got to be a sanctuary county. I mean, it all
fits together, or you.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Just admit all of the above and you design a
temporary worker program, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
What Congress should do. Also, not a part of the
conversation where they said, well, if you want it to
be this way, and apparently people do well, then Congress
needs to sit down and come up with a very
complex system for workers or making these people citizens or
whatever it is you're gonna do. But you got to
come up with a plan. The all the arguments I
(10:11):
seem to see on the Sunday talk shows, nobody was
offering anything other than continuing to just randomly let people
come in buy the millions, come and go, buy the millions,
not know who they are. Martha Radditt's even admitted to
whoever was pushing back on this story, there are six
hundred thousand known criminals, not the crime of being illegal,
(10:33):
but like other crimes from Mexico or Venezuela, six hundred
thousand criminals in the United States right now. We don't
know where they are. What kind of who does that? Yeah? Yeah,
that's nuts. Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's self destructive, it's it's horrible because we won't get
to the root questions and the final annoying reality I'd
like to trot out there. This is why I don't
get many invitations to dinner parties. Oh you invited, mister
annoying reality. Oh good is the Left raises money from
(11:11):
soft heads, in my opinion, with their no human being
is illegal, bill bridges not walls, nonsense. And the right
raises money on boot them all out, seal the borders,
and to say we're going to craft a guest worker
program that's going to let one point one million people
in temporarily, we'll keep tracking them, blah blah blah, we're
(11:32):
gonna streamline the course.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
That's just you can't raise money on that. It's too complicated.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
The devil is in the details, and there's always plenty
to anger, you know, virtually everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
In the discussion. So I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I don't mean to be discouraging, but as long as
small money donations rule politics, it's going to be hard
to work out stuff like this.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I'm just appalled by the idea. I've always cringed when
anybody says those are jobs of America won't do. That
makes me cringe. You cannot be a strong, functioning, successful
society if you've decided certain jobs are off limits to
your citizens. That's sickening as a notion.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Well, that's how empires fall back to Rome. Or if
you'd prefer I assume with your French Revolution passion. You'd
like to say, see guillotines all over America cutting off
the heads of the disloyal or immigrants.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
I don't know what you're crazy world.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, or Jack your Joe podcasts and our hot links
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Here's your freedom loving quote of the day. It's an
absolute classic.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Frank Sanatlong you said, it's probably a little long, but
what the heck, we always have time for it. It's
from Lord Woodhousily, also known as Alexander Fraser Tyler, from
back in the seventeen hundreds. The democracy cannot exist as
a permanent form of government. Can only exist until the
voters discover they can vote themselves largest from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
(13:13):
candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with
the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy,
always followed by a dictatorship.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Then he goes into a bit of history.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
These nations have progressed through the sequence from bondage to
spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage
to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness,
from selfishness to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence
back into bondage.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
So where are we right now? Somewhere between apathy and dependence. Uh, yes, yeah,
I would say so.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, we've certainly progressed past selfishness to apathy.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, apathy to dependence. I think you nailed it. Yep.
Baby boomers were the selfish and removed into the apathy.
Now we're headed into the dependence. Yep, there you go.
That sounds right accurate. I think that's absolutely right. And
I was thinking about this last night when I went
to bed for some reason, about how there's a shelf
life to these things and it just is, always has been,
probably always will be, and it's suppressing, really freaking depressing,
(14:13):
unless you consider the following. This is your cheery you up. Note.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
During every one of those stages, smart people, energetic people.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Well I'm not very energetic, so let's.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Just go as smart, smart, and semi energetic people have
found ways to craft happy, productive lives.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It just gets a little tougher.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Well, yeah, what in the words of the old bluesman,
What is you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right? I understand if you're gonna focus on you and yours,
but kind of like the whole thing to last for
a while. I wanted a pony for Christmas? All right?
Wake up, grow up mail bag?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Jeez drove us a nope mail bag at Armstrong and
geddy dot com when convenient. I I had a screed yesterday.
I unleashed a screed about how the Internet fertilizes stupidity.
I never would have thought of it again as long
as I lived, except several emailers have brought it up.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
That is pretty good. I forgot it a horedy myself.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah, Rich says Joe's book about in the Internet fertilizing stupidity. Well,
he says, true, but it's not fertilizing women, hence the
low birth rates. That could be an angle on my book. Rich,
I'll give you full credit, thanks, Bud.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
The Internet fertilizes stupidity might be your best quote ever.
And I forgot I said it anyway.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Mark and Stanton writes gents regarding the MSNBC Reporter and
the other media chuckleheads, describing our Marjorie Taylor Green as
the most conservative Republican in the House.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Whatever, which is an absurd description.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I think a better description was inadvertently coined earlier in
the show by Joe. You might say, Marjorie Taylor Green
is a grand standing moron quote fertilizing stupidity in her caucus.
Judging by the Republican caucus actions lately, this is producing
a bumper crop of dysfunction and asininity.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
The sun is a mighty powerful eat mark instant.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Well, and one of the reasons I love that is
a sign off by the way mark. One of the
reasons I hate the so much is portraying a variety
of things as conservative, is that it comes from the
liberal media.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
They want conservative to have a stench to it. But
there's nothing conservative about Marjorie Taylor Green or Matt Gates
that that's they're not extra conservative as they're portrayed in
the media. That's not what they are.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
I would have to work for a while to come
up with a term for exactly what they are.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
More like, trumpy is not bad, well, I don't think.
I don't think you would turn to political science for
a label for them, though, correct. Oh no, no, no,
you would turn to Marshall McCloughan. Is that the name
of the guy who coined the media as the mess
and just the modern postmodern media world whipping up interest
and fervor and clicks and that sort of thing. We're
(17:06):
out of time already. I've got a lot of great
stuff here, Mike. We've got to believe a lot more
of a show to wat quick question for you, what
if you happen to miss this unbelievable radio program.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
The answer is easy, friends, Just download our podcast, Armstrong
and Getty on demand. It's the podcast version of the
broadcast show, available anytime, any day, every single podcast platform
known demand.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Download it now, Armstrong and Getty on Demand.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Armstrong, the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
So quick aside, before we get into the main thrust
of the segment. I am a very very lucky man
in that, in addition to the other aspects of our relationship,
my wife and I are are best friends. And she
was walking our dog apparently and texted me we'd surveyed
yesterday whilst walking Baxter in our neighborhood there was a
(18:04):
dead possum.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And how do you know it was not just playing
It's main I tell you what.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
It was a method actor because it had gone to
the trouble of decay, surraying itself. Okay, there was no
bodily integrity there. I don't want to get too disgusting.
But anyway, my best friend my wife just texted me
keeping me up to date. There is very little of
that possum left. The vultures must have found it, keeping
(18:34):
an eye on the DP right, just like bringing a
man up to date.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I'm thinking, how's that dead possum? I don't know. I'm
at work. I had a similar thing going with my
wife back in the day about it what we called
the j o U the jud give me a second. Okay, well,
now I got it because I remember the story. But
jugo urine, because there was a big giant jug of
urine that some truck driver apparently had dropped off in
(19:01):
a corner uh oh where you get on the interstate,
and it was there for days. I would get texting
the joh you is still there. Oh, that's so cross
it is. But truck drivers say, oh, they got needs,
and they am out there filling our stories with of goods.
It's important work.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
They needs to pull over and pee in a toilet, please,
so on a much more serious topic. Part of me
wants to. I don't know, I don't want to. I'm
looking at the clock. Yeah, we'll give it a try.
I'm a we'll take a break midway through. I am
not as hardcore, I think, as some view on the
(19:41):
right to life, and I don't mean abortion, but as
an individualist and a small libertarian, I actually think that
if you are afflicted by a terrible, terrible dread disease
and you decide no, I'm going to end my days
on Earth on my terms as opposed to the diseases terms,
I actually think you have that right.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What if you're just bored with life? Well, see that's
the problem.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
And we're talking here about Canada, which and this isn't
aside our closest allies, Canada in particular and Great Britain
are doing some crazy, crazy stuff in terms of constitutional
rights and progressive policies and stuff like that. If you
think they're like America but with funny accents, that's not
(20:28):
true anymore. Anyway, more on that another time, maybe I'll
go through a list. But I have not been staunchly
against some of the right to die discussions. But at
the same time, if you look into it in a
sober way, you realize there are many slippery slopes you
(20:49):
can go down. And indeed, Canada, which has embraced the
idea of assistant suicide. The sub headline of the Wall
Street Journal opinion piece by Nicholas Tomino, which I found
extremely compelling, is assisted suicide was sold as compassionate and
practice it has turned out to be monstrous.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
That's interesting because it's all it's all my life, and
it's always been a talk radio topic. It's always been theoretical.
But now somebody has tried at large scale and we
have some evidence of how it actually would turn out.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Yeah, and he quotes Charles Crouthammer, and that's underdone lately.
As he was a brilliant man. He was looking at
a Supreme Court case called Vaco v.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Quill.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
The court was looking at physician assisted suicide, and the
Supreme Court held unanimously that the Constitution does not create
a right to that procedure. Krauthammer wrote, quote, we are
being asked to become a society where when the tormented
soul on the ledge asks us for our help in
granting him relief, we oblige him with a push.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Lawrence Tribe, I think the tormented soul would say, my
relief is going to be not having to be alive anymore.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Well, right, But Crowdhammer is saying that we a society
should not put ourselves in the position of pushing them
or I don't know, it's difficult in a situation where
you don't need any help to come up with the
right metaphor. But anyway, Lawrence Tribe, who argued the case
for the plaintiffs, suggested that the slope would not be slippery.
(22:26):
The procedure would be granted to the patient with n
stage heart failure, not the man on the ledge. At
the same time, Tribe positive that people at the threshold
at the end of life enjoy the liberty to decide
how they die. And I would agree, sure in principle,
in principle, but Crowdhammer spotted the arguments whole. Why couldn't
(22:46):
the chronically ill who face a lifetime of agny that's
a quote from the case, or the healthy but bereft
availed themselves of the same right. Where do you draw
the line for who has that right?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
And why would the government ever draw a line about
that right? And as a discussion.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I think it's a really interesting and compelling one what
happens when someone tries it. But as Soel said, you
know a lot of recent history is replacing what works
with what sounds good, and you really have to think hard.
Is it so easy to get duped by what sounds good?
You've got to think of, all right, what will be
the second tier effects of this?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
What will be the effects of those effects?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
How will human beings actually act if we change the
world in this way? So Canada's undergone a crash course
in what the country calls medical assistance in dying, or
made they call it. It began in twenty fifteen when
the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, I don't like giving this a kind of cutesy
acronym to cover up what's going on there. That seems
like on an intentional thing right there. Yeah, I was
uncomfortable even saying it.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Yeah, But the Supreme Court and ruled in Carter versus
Canada that the law prohibiting physicians assisted dying and interfered
with the liberty and security of people with grievous and
irremediable medical conditions, and Parliament codified this decision the following year.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Do you know what this reminds me of before you
even go further to where I know you're going. Sure,
is the marijuana argument and how it happened in America.
It was always the oh so, people who have cancer
and have no appetite can't have marijuana, when the intention
of most of those people all along was to legalize
(24:34):
recreational use of marijuana. But they had the cover of
the oh so, cancer victims can't patients can't have marijuana.
That's what I wonder, what's going on here? You know?
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah, I think some of it may be premeditated. I
think a lot of it's just naives in this case.
But draw your own conclusions. Certainly, so lawmakers thought that
they were imposing limits. The Justice Minister at the time said,
and I quote, we do not wish to promote premature
death as a allusion to all medical suffering. And the
plaintiffs lead lawyer in that case said, quote, in almost
(25:06):
every case, doctors will want to keep help keep their
patients staying alive, not die. We know physicians will be
reluctant gatekeepers. But it turns out that the Supreme Court
of Quebec ruled shortly after the original law was passed
that it was unconstitutional because some of the wordings said
that an applicant's death from a quote grievous and irremediable
(25:29):
medical condition must be reasonably foreseeable. And they said, well,
that's a little vague or it just doesn't work in practice.
So Parliament amended that, opening wider the door to facilitate
a death. The new law dropped some of the safeguards,
such as the minimum ten day assessment period between request
and provision. They say it also proposed mental illness as
(25:54):
an eligible condition, the implementation of which the government delayed
for a few years. But the message for everyone else
remain the same. If you want to die, you needn't wait.
And the numbers are astounding. Assistant suicide is now at
least the fifth leading cause of death in Canada.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Wortage to thirteen thousand plus lives in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
They have fleeting cause of death. Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Keeping in mind that I don't think I'm wrong that
Canada's population is less than that of California, Right.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's about the same. Yeah, it's thirty some million. Yeah,
it's very very small country for the geographic size of it.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Now the government believed doctors wouldn't merely rubber stamp applications.
Yet in twenty twenty two, more than eighty one percent
of petitions resulted in deaths, including for a vision slash,
hearing loss, and diabetes. He documents that the percentage of
denied requests has been falling from years, from eight percent
in twenty nineteen to three and a half percent two
years ago, even as the number of applications has increased.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Maybe I'm just too much of a libertarian on this
for some people. But if if somebody goes blind and
they say, I don't want to live the rest of
my life blind, I'd rather be dead, I don't understand
the government's role in telling them they can't.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
I would agree, absolutely agree. Here's the part that really
really bothers me. I think that's a bad decision. I
think there'd be plenty of ways to find a way
to have a very rich, enjoyable life while blind, for instance,
or a number of other things. And I think your
kids would like to have you around. But I'm just
saying I don't know the government gets to step in
(27:31):
and say no, we don't think so, we think you
should keep going.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I would agree.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
I think it's a perfect case of I would argue
vehemently or compassionately against that as your solution, but I
recognize your right to do it nonetheless. But there's the
case of this gentleman, Roger Foley, who suffers from a
degenerative neurological disorder, and as his condition worsened, he resigned
(27:57):
from his job. After several years in home care in
which he says he was mistreated, he was placed in
a mental health board. He said, I became extremely suicidal.
After he shared those thoughts with staff, they began to
float the idea of euthanasia. That alarmed him, so he
began to record the conversation secretly. He later shared them
with Canadian journalists. In one, a hospital ethicist threatens mister
(28:17):
Foley with denial of insurance coverage and said they would
cost him north of fifteen hundred dollars a day to
stay in the hospital. When mister Foley protested, the ethicist retorted, Roger,
this is not my show. My piece of this was
to talk to you about if you had any interest
in assisted dying, and he didn't. Then the person tried
to argue him into it, and then what there is
(28:40):
well and then there's the and I've been hearing this
argument against it for a very very long time. Once
you open this door, there will be pressure from insurance companies.
There will be pressure from relatives who might want to
inherit your money or they might be paying the bill,
and God bless them if you are being ruined financially
(29:04):
providing end of life care to someone who is going
to die.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I don't think it makes you a monster to not well,
to not want it to happen today as opposed to
next Wednesday. If the difference is like one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Right, right, So the concern is, and it's borne out
by the Canadian experience. When you open the door to this,
the worst impulses of humanity run wild.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
That argument gets my attention definitely, because that not only
could happen, guaranteed to happen, guaranteed to happen, And then
you're in and having been a guy, so I had
cancer and was in treatment for nine months chemotherapy and radiation,
(29:54):
and I had to I at least thought about this some.
You know, jeez, if it goes wrong, what going to
be like at the end, How miserable do I want
to be? I'm miserable right now. So I didn't think
about it a lot, but I thought about it some.
But if if i'm if I'm headed down the road
(30:14):
of miser First of all, you're on so many drugs.
I couldn't even think that clearly as it was a
lot of times, let alone end of life sort of drugs.
You're in no situation to to to have presence of
mind even make a decision from a chemical standpoint, let
alone the emotions. Then you got family members who might
(30:36):
not like you, who want you to die because they're
gonna get sure would like to get that inheritance before
summer so I can get my boat. You're gonna tell
me that's not gonna happen. Of course that's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, Yeah. And there's an interesting principle. I'm sure there's
a probably a Latin word for this. It's the reason
prostitution is illegal. It's to keep it at a certain level.
There is no real intention to stomp it out, stamp
it out completely. It would take way too much time
(31:07):
and money. But if something is illegal, it's like speed limits.
Nobody expects you to actually go sixty five, but it
keeps people from going on and ten. The reality, and
I have this unfairly good authority in the United States,
is that there are plenty of doctors who, convinced of
your sincerity and sober mindedness at the end, might not
(31:33):
stand in the way of certain things happening that would
end your life, perhaps pharmaceutically, for instance, And maybe that's
the way it ought to be.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Man, this is a tough one then. So my stated
thought is the government has no business whatsoever deciding whether
or not I want to be alive or not. Zero.
But you get just the other side of that, and
you're right into the insurance stuff and everything else. Right,
Maybe the.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Best situation is it's only done when it's clearly the
right thing, and everybody keeps their mouth shut.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I personally, and this is probably easy to say when
I'm not in horrible pain end of my life, but
I personally would like to have the full human experience
of having it happened naturally. Whatever that.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
If I say, doc, I have a list of people
I'd like to take with me, how does that send?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Armstrong?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
So I was talking to a babysitter I was interviewing
yesterday and we got into this topic. This is not
anything we haven't discussed before, we haven't thought about. She
was a political science major, so we got into a
little bit of a conversation about that. I just was asking,
do you think things will ever go back to where
this isn't everybody's life all the time following politics constantly
and pendulum or continuum. That sort of stuff kind of interesting.
(32:56):
But I said, you know, you're you're young, so you
don't know this. But people didn't used to talk about
politics all the time. In fact, we almost never talked
about it. I said, you know, when I none of
my and I hadn't thought about it because she's in college.
All my friends in college, I don't have the slightest
idea what their politics were. The slightest idea never came up.
I couldn't. I couldn't tell you now, people that I
(33:19):
hung out with all the time what their politics were
old beer were our politics? And she looked at me
like I was crazy. She said, wow, I said, in girlfriends,
I'm thinking of all the girlfriends I had in college.
I don't have any idea what their politics were or
their parents. And she said that's crazy. She said, that's
the first question you ask somebody when you meet them. Now,
(33:40):
the first question. Wow, And we both couldn't believe each
other's life experience around this. I have no idea what
any of my girlfriend's political positions were because we never
discussed it. And who cares? And who cares?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
I like it when you when we spay and spend
time together and talk one thing you do.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love when you do that. But I don't care
whether you're public democrat. That's perverse.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
It's absolutely perverse, and it speaks to a couple of.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
A handful of things. They can't be good.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Well, there are books written about this stuff, but it's
the omnipresence of government in our lives, in the decay
of our other social institutions that gave our lives meaning
and a sense of belongingness.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Right, And I was thinking, okay, so that's fine if
you're a lefty, and the first question is always you
know what, who do you vote for? What's your politics?
Because you can, you know, be out and proud and
whoever the girl you're talking to, I'm thinking about myself
as a guy. The girl you're talking to is almost
the same as you guaranteed. But what if you're not,
(34:43):
you either have to lie or not date anybody or
have any friends. I guess that is correct, Yes, absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, wow, you know to that end, we don't have
much time, but I can squeeze this. In recent polling
shows the married men are fifty nine to thirty nine
Republican fifty nine to thirty nine. Married women are fifty
six to forty two. Republican. Unmarried men are fifty two
(35:11):
to forty five. Republican unmarried women are sixty eight thirty one.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Democrat.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
The Democratic Party has become the party of unmarried women,
and to some extent, either low T males or those
who are just so desperate to have a woman that
they pretend to be Democrats. I don't know, but that's shocking.
So Taylor Swift's endorsement, for instance, how could that be
(35:40):
a surprise to anyone that's like her entire constituency.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Oh and it's worth also mentioning.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
The New York Post had an interesting piece the other
day pointing that over the last eight years, especially the
last eight years, women have become much much more left
wing than they were. It's not just that they're left,
they're way more left.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Armstrong and getty
And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the
George Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Armstrong and Getty and he Armstrong and Getty strong Man.
Welcome to a replay of the Armstrong and Getty Show.
(00:38):
We're off all week long. We give a lot of thanks,
we eat a lot, we watch a lot of football.
We'll come back refreshed. But I hope you enjoyed this stuff.
It's gonna be really good, some delicious leftovers if you will.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
The flavors have made friends overnight in the French Plus
drop by Armstrong at getty dot com, download podcasts, or
grab an ang t shirt.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
Earl corn You's Central Valley is, without question, one of
the most vital agricultural regions in America, producing seventeen billion
dollars worth of crops twenty five percent of the nation's
food supply, and to help grow and harvest those crops,
many farmers here rely on undocumented workers. The Department of
(01:18):
Agriculture estimates that about half of the hired crop workers
do not.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Have legal status.
Speaker 5 (01:25):
That is estimated to be more than three hundred and
thirty thousand workers in the Central Valley.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Alone, three hundred thousand workers in the Central Valley alone.
That if you followed what recent poling says, sixty percent
of America wants would all be booted out of the country.
And that would be obviously, if he did that all
at once, would be quite the wrecking of the whole
agricultural system. Doesn't mean it's not a good idea, though,
(01:54):
because you got to have a system of some sort
for having workers. It's the job of Congress to come
up with and be implied and follow through. I don't
know if they're going to or not, but Joe and
I have been talking about illegal immigration in farm workers
for geez, twenty five years or whatever being on the air,
(02:18):
and this very part of the a California in the
country that they're talking about on ABC this week, And
we used to talk about it all the time when
we were only on in the Sacramento area. People had
always talk do you want tomatoes to be five dollars? Well,
then you know it's kind of pick the lettuce, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
It was always the conversation, and our answer was always
somebody or nobody or a machine, Well, let's hear from
a couple of farmers in the Central Valley and their
theories on why you need to have illegals picking.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Here's more from ABC this week. We can't afford a
labor shortage.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
Back during Obama, we had a labor shortage and there
were a time where we actually lost some crop.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I think people will look at say, but wait a minute,
they're Americans who are unemployed.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Why can't you just hire them.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
They don't want to come out here and work in
this in this extreme conditions one hundred plus degree temperatures,
dust hard work.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
What if you paid them more, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (03:16):
You know, we pay some of the highest wages for
farm workers in the nation right here in California, and
they won't come out.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And just so before we have that conversation, here's a
different farmer, same question, same topic there. I don't care
what you pay them. I don't care if we pay
them twenty six dollars an hour, that ain't going to happen.
They're not going to get up at four or five
in the morning, drive to the field and pick fruit.
So and that question was, why why don't you just
(03:46):
hire Americans? They won't do it. I don't care what
you pay them. They're not going to get up that
time of day and come out and do that job.
So I don't understand why that isn't a hold on pause,
let's have a conversation about that sort of revelation On
ABC this week, they just move on to em They
see Americans won't do this work, so it makes sense
(04:08):
to have illegal brown people do it. What what How
do you craft a society like that? How about why
would people who are unemployed or underemployed take the option
of not doing a job even if it paid really well? Right? Right?
How could they do that? How does that work? How
(04:30):
does that fin How are they paying the rent? How
are they eating?
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Can you imagine if you went to family counseling and
and you said, my children refuse to do their chores,
and the counselor said, well, let's talk about how you
can hire someone to do your children's right. No, that's
not the right question, right, Yeah, Oh that's funny.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But we've been we've been talking about this very topic
for decades now. How have we just accepted that people
born in this country shouldn't have to do work that's
not i don't know, glamorous or kind of hard. Or
it's outside or whatever. The reason is people don't want
to do it. I did that kind of work when
I was in high school. Lots of us did. You
can't do it any many Americans did?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Ye?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
But is everybody okay with that? Creating a welfare state
so lavish that people can choose not to do jobs
that they don't find like something they want to do,
even even if it pays twenty nine dollars an hour
and one more amusing irony, This is amusing me for many,
many years.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Is the more quote unquote progressive you are, the more
in favor of white.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
People, won't do this work. Let's bring in some of
those brown people.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
I mean, that's the further left yard, the more you're
a hardcore open up the borders and let an in person,
which I think is hilarious.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
There's also the unspoken, unstated realization that if millions of
people come here and do those jobs they're getting by,
they must be able to live somewhere and have a
car and eat and you know, do all the things
you want to do with a job right by definition.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Yeah, it's just it's it boils down to a couple
of very very simple principles. Number one is the purpose
of getting the reins of government is to be able
to distribute money from the treasury. Doesn't matter what the
system is. They vary in how they do that, but
that's the point. And in our system you've got to
get a little support.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
From a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Kim Jong Oun just needs a hell of a lot
of support from a fairly small group of people. But
in a democracy, you need a little support from a
hell of a lot of people. How do you do
that by handing out money? Government benefits you know, three
and a half dozen different social programs that make sure
nobody's going to starve. And so the second very broad
and easy to understand principle is people go for their
(06:50):
best alternative. They will do their best option. And for
Americans working in a field in the heat, in the dust,
bent over is not nearly their best option. For some
Guatemalan it is.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
I just I don't understand how we got to where
we're okay with that or think that that's a workable
plan going forward that doesn't end up with like I've
been taking in a lot of French Revolution stuff over
the weekend. You know that sort of society falling apart.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
I believe the French Revolution is your Roman Empire, although
you are quite interested in the Roman Empire as well.
It is so the answer of how we get there
is because nobody asks the question, the moral question there,
the one that we keep harping on is it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Part of the conversation at all. No, it wasn't. ABC
this week did a long segment on this topic and
not a word of Does it seem a little weird
to have a society where you've declared certain jobs off
limits for your citizens, Like, no, that's too grungy a
job even at twenty nine dollars an hour you just
(08:01):
don't want to have to do. I mean, would you
do that with your own kids. I'll keep supporting you,
you know, until you're thirty or a past rather than
you go do that job. What? Yeah, who would live
their lives like that?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Democracy's end when they realize they can vote themselves money
from the treasury. Can you imagine running on the platform
I'm going to get you off of your couch and
into the field.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Good luck? What at right? We're a soft, decadent country.
That's just that's it we really are, Which is what
France was when they fell apart, not to get back
to the revolution, but and then here they wrapped up
the conversation with this portion.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Deporting undocumented workers in California is complicated.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The state enacted a measure.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
In twenty seventeen that prevents state resources from being used
for federal immigration enforcement. And while that law varies by
city and county, California is the sanctuary city capital of America,
with dozens of cities and counties protecting undocumented residents from
a rest based solely on their immigration status.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So that's a problem. I mean, it all fits together
as part of a puzzle. I hate the whole thing.
But if you're going to accept I'm not, but apparently
we have accepted that our American born people shouldn't have
to do those jobs. Well, then you're gonna have to
have illegals here. And then if you're going to have
(09:35):
illegals here, you can't have them being deported. So you
got to be a sanctuary county. I mean, it all
fits together, or you.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Just admit all of the above and you design a
temporary worker program, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
What Congress should do. Also, not a part of the
conversation where they said, well, if you want it to
be this way, and apparently people do well, then Congress
needs to sit down and come up with a very
complex system for workers or making these people citizens or
whatever it is you're gonna do. But you got to
come up with a plan. The all the arguments I
(10:11):
seem to see on the Sunday talk shows, nobody was
offering anything other than continuing to just randomly let people
come in buy the millions, come and go, buy the millions,
not know who they are. Martha Radditt's even admitted to
whoever was pushing back on this story, there are six
hundred thousand known criminals, not the crime of being illegal,
(10:33):
but like other crimes from Mexico or Venezuela, six hundred
thousand criminals in the United States right now. We don't
know where they are. What kind of who does that? Yeah? Yeah,
that's nuts. Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
It's self destructive, it's it's horrible because we won't get
to the root questions and the final annoying reality I'd
like to trot out there. This is why I don't
get many invitations to dinner parties. Oh you invited, mister
annoying reality. Oh good is the Left raises money from
(11:11):
soft heads, in my opinion, with their no human being
is illegal, bill bridges not walls, nonsense. And the right
raises money on boot them all out, seal the borders,
and to say we're going to craft a guest worker
program that's going to let one point one million people
in temporarily, we'll keep tracking them, blah blah blah, we're
(11:32):
gonna streamline the course.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
That's just you can't raise money on that. It's too complicated.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
The devil is in the details, and there's always plenty
to anger, you know, virtually everybody.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
In the discussion. So I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I don't mean to be discouraging, but as long as
small money donations rule politics, it's going to be hard
to work out stuff like this.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I'm just appalled by the idea. I've always cringed when
anybody says those are jobs of America won't do. That
makes me cringe. You cannot be a strong, functioning, successful
society if you've decided certain jobs are off limits to
your citizens. That's sickening as a notion.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Well, that's how empires fall back to Rome. Or if
you'd prefer I assume with your French Revolution passion. You'd
like to say, see guillotines all over America cutting off
the heads of the disloyal or immigrants.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
I don't know what you're crazy world.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, or Jack your Joe podcasts and our hot links
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Here's your freedom loving quote of the day. It's an
absolute classic.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Frank Sanatlong you said, it's probably a little long, but
what the heck, we always have time for it. It's
from Lord Woodhousily, also known as Alexander Fraser Tyler, from
back in the seventeen hundreds. The democracy cannot exist as
a permanent form of government. Can only exist until the
voters discover they can vote themselves largest from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
(13:13):
candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with
the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy,
always followed by a dictatorship.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Then he goes into a bit of history.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
These nations have progressed through the sequence from bondage to
spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage
to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness,
from selfishness to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence
back into bondage.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
So where are we right now? Somewhere between apathy and dependence. Uh, yes, yeah,
I would say so.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
Yeah, we've certainly progressed past selfishness to apathy.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, apathy to dependence. I think you nailed it. Yep.
Baby boomers were the selfish and removed into the apathy.
Now we're headed into the dependence. Yep, there you go.
That sounds right accurate. I think that's absolutely right. And
I was thinking about this last night when I went
to bed for some reason, about how there's a shelf
life to these things and it just is, always has been,
probably always will be, and it's suppressing, really freaking depressing,
(14:13):
unless you consider the following. This is your cheery you up. Note.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
During every one of those stages, smart people, energetic people.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Well I'm not very energetic, so let's.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
Just go as smart, smart, and semi energetic people have
found ways to craft happy, productive lives.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It just gets a little tougher.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Well, yeah, what in the words of the old bluesman,
What is you gonna do?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Right? I understand if you're gonna focus on you and yours,
but kind of like the whole thing to last for
a while. I wanted a pony for Christmas? All right?
Wake up, grow up mail bag?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Jeez drove us a nope mail bag at Armstrong and
geddy dot com when convenient. I I had a screed yesterday.
I unleashed a screed about how the Internet fertilizes stupidity.
I never would have thought of it again as long
as I lived, except several emailers have brought it up.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
That is pretty good. I forgot it a horedy myself.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah, Rich says Joe's book about in the Internet fertilizing stupidity. Well,
he says, true, but it's not fertilizing women, hence the
low birth rates. That could be an angle on my book. Rich,
I'll give you full credit, thanks, Bud.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
The Internet fertilizes stupidity might be your best quote ever.
And I forgot I said it anyway.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Mark and Stanton writes gents regarding the MSNBC Reporter and
the other media chuckleheads, describing our Marjorie Taylor Green as
the most conservative Republican in the House.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Whatever, which is an absurd description.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I think a better description was inadvertently coined earlier in
the show by Joe. You might say, Marjorie Taylor Green
is a grand standing moron quote fertilizing stupidity in her caucus.
Judging by the Republican caucus actions lately, this is producing
a bumper crop of dysfunction and asininity.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
The sun is a mighty powerful eat mark instant.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
Well, and one of the reasons I love that is
a sign off by the way mark. One of the
reasons I hate the so much is portraying a variety
of things as conservative, is that it comes from the
liberal media.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
They want conservative to have a stench to it. But
there's nothing conservative about Marjorie Taylor Green or Matt Gates
that that's they're not extra conservative as they're portrayed in
the media. That's not what they are.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
I would have to work for a while to come
up with a term for exactly what they are.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
More like, trumpy is not bad, well, I don't think.
I don't think you would turn to political science for
a label for them, though, correct. Oh no, no, no,
you would turn to Marshall McCloughan. Is that the name
of the guy who coined the media as the mess
and just the modern postmodern media world whipping up interest
and fervor and clicks and that sort of thing. We're
(17:06):
out of time already. I've got a lot of great
stuff here, Mike. We've got to believe a lot more
of a show to wat quick question for you, what
if you happen to miss this unbelievable radio program.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
The answer is easy, friends, Just download our podcast, Armstrong
and Getty on demand. It's the podcast version of the
broadcast show, available anytime, any day, every single podcast platform
known demand.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Download it now, Armstrong and Getty on Demand.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Armstrong, the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
So quick aside, before we get into the main thrust
of the segment. I am a very very lucky man
in that, in addition to the other aspects of our relationship,
my wife and I are are best friends. And she
was walking our dog apparently and texted me we'd surveyed
yesterday whilst walking Baxter in our neighborhood there was a
(18:04):
dead possum.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And how do you know it was not just playing
It's main I tell you what.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
It was a method actor because it had gone to
the trouble of decay, surraying itself. Okay, there was no
bodily integrity there. I don't want to get too disgusting.
But anyway, my best friend my wife just texted me
keeping me up to date. There is very little of
that possum left. The vultures must have found it, keeping
(18:34):
an eye on the DP right, just like bringing a
man up to date.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
I'm thinking, how's that dead possum? I don't know. I'm
at work. I had a similar thing going with my
wife back in the day about it what we called
the j o U the jud give me a second. Okay, well,
now I got it because I remember the story. But
jugo urine, because there was a big giant jug of
urine that some truck driver apparently had dropped off in
(19:01):
a corner uh oh where you get on the interstate,
and it was there for days. I would get texting
the joh you is still there. Oh, that's so cross
it is. But truck drivers say, oh, they got needs,
and they am out there filling our stories with of goods.
It's important work.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
They needs to pull over and pee in a toilet, please,
so on a much more serious topic. Part of me
wants to. I don't know, I don't want to. I'm
looking at the clock. Yeah, we'll give it a try.
I'm a we'll take a break midway through. I am
not as hardcore, I think, as some view on the
(19:41):
right to life, and I don't mean abortion, but as
an individualist and a small libertarian, I actually think that
if you are afflicted by a terrible, terrible dread disease
and you decide no, I'm going to end my days
on Earth on my terms as opposed to the diseases terms,
I actually think you have that right.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What if you're just bored with life? Well, see that's
the problem.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
And we're talking here about Canada, which and this isn't
aside our closest allies, Canada in particular and Great Britain
are doing some crazy, crazy stuff in terms of constitutional
rights and progressive policies and stuff like that. If you
think they're like America but with funny accents, that's not
(20:28):
true anymore. Anyway, more on that another time, maybe I'll
go through a list. But I have not been staunchly
against some of the right to die discussions. But at
the same time, if you look into it in a
sober way, you realize there are many slippery slopes you
(20:49):
can go down. And indeed, Canada, which has embraced the
idea of assistant suicide. The sub headline of the Wall
Street Journal opinion piece by Nicholas Tomino, which I found
extremely compelling, is assisted suicide was sold as compassionate and
practice it has turned out to be monstrous.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
That's interesting because it's all it's all my life, and
it's always been a talk radio topic. It's always been theoretical.
But now somebody has tried at large scale and we
have some evidence of how it actually would turn out.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Yeah, and he quotes Charles Crouthammer, and that's underdone lately.
As he was a brilliant man. He was looking at
a Supreme Court case called Vaco v.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Quill.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
The court was looking at physician assisted suicide, and the
Supreme Court held unanimously that the Constitution does not create
a right to that procedure. Krauthammer wrote, quote, we are
being asked to become a society where when the tormented
soul on the ledge asks us for our help in
granting him relief, we oblige him with a push.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Lawrence Tribe, I think the tormented soul would say, my
relief is going to be not having to be alive anymore.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
Well, right, But Crowdhammer is saying that we a society
should not put ourselves in the position of pushing them
or I don't know, it's difficult in a situation where
you don't need any help to come up with the
right metaphor. But anyway, Lawrence Tribe, who argued the case
for the plaintiffs, suggested that the slope would not be slippery.
(22:26):
The procedure would be granted to the patient with n
stage heart failure, not the man on the ledge. At
the same time, Tribe positive that people at the threshold
at the end of life enjoy the liberty to decide
how they die. And I would agree, sure in principle,
in principle, but Crowdhammer spotted the arguments whole. Why couldn't
(22:46):
the chronically ill who face a lifetime of agny that's
a quote from the case, or the healthy but bereft
availed themselves of the same right. Where do you draw
the line for who has that right?
Speaker 3 (23:00):
And why would the government ever draw a line about
that right? And as a discussion.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
I think it's a really interesting and compelling one what
happens when someone tries it. But as Soel said, you
know a lot of recent history is replacing what works
with what sounds good, and you really have to think hard.
Is it so easy to get duped by what sounds good?
You've got to think of, all right, what will be
the second tier effects of this?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
What will be the effects of those effects?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
How will human beings actually act if we change the
world in this way? So Canada's undergone a crash course
in what the country calls medical assistance in dying, or
made they call it. It began in twenty fifteen when
the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yes, I don't like giving this a kind of cutesy
acronym to cover up what's going on there. That seems
like on an intentional thing right there. Yeah, I was
uncomfortable even saying it.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Yeah, But the Supreme Court and ruled in Carter versus
Canada that the law prohibiting physicians assisted dying and interfered
with the liberty and security of people with grievous and
irremediable medical conditions, and Parliament codified this decision the following year.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Do you know what this reminds me of before you
even go further to where I know you're going. Sure,
is the marijuana argument and how it happened in America.
It was always the oh so, people who have cancer
and have no appetite can't have marijuana, when the intention
of most of those people all along was to legalize
(24:34):
recreational use of marijuana. But they had the cover of
the oh so, cancer victims can't patients can't have marijuana.
That's what I wonder, what's going on here? You know?
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah, I think some of it may be premeditated. I
think a lot of it's just naives in this case.
But draw your own conclusions. Certainly, so lawmakers thought that
they were imposing limits. The Justice Minister at the time said,
and I quote, we do not wish to promote premature
death as a allusion to all medical suffering. And the
plaintiffs lead lawyer in that case said, quote, in almost
(25:06):
every case, doctors will want to keep help keep their
patients staying alive, not die. We know physicians will be
reluctant gatekeepers. But it turns out that the Supreme Court
of Quebec ruled shortly after the original law was passed
that it was unconstitutional because some of the wordings said
that an applicant's death from a quote grievous and irremediable
(25:29):
medical condition must be reasonably foreseeable. And they said, well,
that's a little vague or it just doesn't work in practice.
So Parliament amended that, opening wider the door to facilitate
a death. The new law dropped some of the safeguards,
such as the minimum ten day assessment period between request
and provision. They say it also proposed mental illness as
(25:54):
an eligible condition, the implementation of which the government delayed
for a few years. But the message for everyone else
remain the same. If you want to die, you needn't wait.
And the numbers are astounding. Assistant suicide is now at
least the fifth leading cause of death in Canada.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Wortage to thirteen thousand plus lives in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
They have fleeting cause of death. Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Keeping in mind that I don't think I'm wrong that
Canada's population is less than that of California, Right.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
It's about the same. Yeah, it's thirty some million. Yeah,
it's very very small country for the geographic size of it.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Now the government believed doctors wouldn't merely rubber stamp applications.
Yet in twenty twenty two, more than eighty one percent
of petitions resulted in deaths, including for a vision slash,
hearing loss, and diabetes. He documents that the percentage of
denied requests has been falling from years, from eight percent
in twenty nineteen to three and a half percent two
years ago, even as the number of applications has increased.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Maybe I'm just too much of a libertarian on this
for some people. But if if somebody goes blind and
they say, I don't want to live the rest of
my life blind, I'd rather be dead, I don't understand
the government's role in telling them they can't.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
I would agree, absolutely agree. Here's the part that really
really bothers me. I think that's a bad decision. I
think there'd be plenty of ways to find a way
to have a very rich, enjoyable life while blind, for instance,
or a number of other things. And I think your
kids would like to have you around. But I'm just
saying I don't know the government gets to step in
(27:31):
and say no, we don't think so, we think you
should keep going.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I would agree.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
I think it's a perfect case of I would argue
vehemently or compassionately against that as your solution, but I
recognize your right to do it nonetheless. But there's the
case of this gentleman, Roger Foley, who suffers from a
degenerative neurological disorder, and as his condition worsened, he resigned
(27:57):
from his job. After several years in home care in
which he says he was mistreated, he was placed in
a mental health board. He said, I became extremely suicidal.
After he shared those thoughts with staff, they began to
float the idea of euthanasia. That alarmed him, so he
began to record the conversation secretly. He later shared them
with Canadian journalists. In one, a hospital ethicist threatens mister
(28:17):
Foley with denial of insurance coverage and said they would
cost him north of fifteen hundred dollars a day to
stay in the hospital. When mister Foley protested, the ethicist retorted, Roger,
this is not my show. My piece of this was
to talk to you about if you had any interest
in assisted dying, and he didn't. Then the person tried
to argue him into it, and then what there is
(28:40):
well and then there's the and I've been hearing this
argument against it for a very very long time. Once
you open this door, there will be pressure from insurance companies.
There will be pressure from relatives who might want to
inherit your money or they might be paying the bill,
and God bless them if you are being ruined financially
(29:04):
providing end of life care to someone who is going
to die.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I don't think it makes you a monster to not well,
to not want it to happen today as opposed to
next Wednesday. If the difference is like one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Right, right, So the concern is, and it's borne out
by the Canadian experience. When you open the door to this,
the worst impulses of humanity run wild.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
That argument gets my attention definitely, because that not only
could happen, guaranteed to happen, guaranteed to happen, And then
you're in and having been a guy, so I had
cancer and was in treatment for nine months chemotherapy and radiation,
(29:54):
and I had to I at least thought about this some.
You know, jeez, if it goes wrong, what going to
be like at the end, How miserable do I want
to be? I'm miserable right now. So I didn't think
about it a lot, but I thought about it some.
But if if i'm if I'm headed down the road
(30:14):
of miser First of all, you're on so many drugs.
I couldn't even think that clearly as it was a
lot of times, let alone end of life sort of drugs.
You're in no situation to to to have presence of
mind even make a decision from a chemical standpoint, let
alone the emotions. Then you got family members who might
(30:36):
not like you, who want you to die because they're
gonna get sure would like to get that inheritance before
summer so I can get my boat. You're gonna tell
me that's not gonna happen. Of course that's gonna happen.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
Yeah, Yeah. And there's an interesting principle. I'm sure there's
a probably a Latin word for this. It's the reason
prostitution is illegal. It's to keep it at a certain level.
There is no real intention to stomp it out, stamp
it out completely. It would take way too much time
(31:07):
and money. But if something is illegal, it's like speed limits.
Nobody expects you to actually go sixty five, but it
keeps people from going on and ten. The reality, and
I have this unfairly good authority in the United States,
is that there are plenty of doctors who, convinced of
your sincerity and sober mindedness at the end, might not
(31:33):
stand in the way of certain things happening that would
end your life, perhaps pharmaceutically, for instance, And maybe that's
the way it ought to be.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Man, this is a tough one then. So my stated
thought is the government has no business whatsoever deciding whether
or not I want to be alive or not. Zero.
But you get just the other side of that, and
you're right into the insurance stuff and everything else. Right,
Maybe the.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Best situation is it's only done when it's clearly the
right thing, and everybody keeps their mouth shut.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I personally, and this is probably easy to say when
I'm not in horrible pain end of my life, but
I personally would like to have the full human experience
of having it happened naturally. Whatever that.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
If I say, doc, I have a list of people
I'd like to take with me, how does that send?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Armstrong?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
So I was talking to a babysitter I was interviewing
yesterday and we got into this topic. This is not
anything we haven't discussed before, we haven't thought about. She
was a political science major, so we got into a
little bit of a conversation about that. I just was asking,
do you think things will ever go back to where
this isn't everybody's life all the time following politics constantly
and pendulum or continuum. That sort of stuff kind of interesting.
(32:56):
But I said, you know, you're you're young, so you
don't know this. But people didn't used to talk about
politics all the time. In fact, we almost never talked
about it. I said, you know, when I none of
my and I hadn't thought about it because she's in college.
All my friends in college, I don't have the slightest
idea what their politics were. The slightest idea never came up.
I couldn't. I couldn't tell you now, people that I
(33:19):
hung out with all the time what their politics were
old beer were our politics? And she looked at me
like I was crazy. She said, wow, I said, in girlfriends,
I'm thinking of all the girlfriends I had in college.
I don't have any idea what their politics were or
their parents. And she said that's crazy. She said, that's
the first question you ask somebody when you meet them. Now,
(33:40):
the first question. Wow, And we both couldn't believe each
other's life experience around this. I have no idea what
any of my girlfriend's political positions were because we never
discussed it. And who cares? And who cares?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
I like it when you when we spay and spend
time together and talk one thing you do.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I love when you do that. But I don't care
whether you're public democrat. That's perverse.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
It's absolutely perverse, and it speaks to a couple of.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
A handful of things. They can't be good.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
Well, there are books written about this stuff, but it's
the omnipresence of government in our lives, in the decay
of our other social institutions that gave our lives meaning
and a sense of belongingness.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Right, And I was thinking, okay, so that's fine if
you're a lefty, and the first question is always you
know what, who do you vote for? What's your politics?
Because you can, you know, be out and proud and
whoever the girl you're talking to, I'm thinking about myself
as a guy. The girl you're talking to is almost
the same as you guaranteed. But what if you're not,
(34:43):
you either have to lie or not date anybody or
have any friends. I guess that is correct, Yes, absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, wow, you know to that end, we don't have
much time, but I can squeeze this. In recent polling
shows the married men are fifty nine to thirty nine
Republican fifty nine to thirty nine. Married women are fifty
six to forty two. Republican. Unmarried men are fifty two
(35:11):
to forty five. Republican unmarried women are sixty eight thirty one.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Democrat.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
The Democratic Party has become the party of unmarried women,
and to some extent, either low T males or those
who are just so desperate to have a woman that
they pretend to be Democrats. I don't know, but that's shocking.
So Taylor Swift's endorsement, for instance, how could that be
(35:40):
a surprise to anyone that's like her entire constituency.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Oh and it's worth also mentioning.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
The New York Post had an interesting piece the other
day pointing that over the last eight years, especially the
last eight years, women have become much much more left
wing than they were. It's not just that they're left,
they're way more left.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Armstrong and getty
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